Bart narrowed his eyes, uncertain if he could trust the words. “It’s your established pattern with them. And they don’t get suspicious?”
“No,” Amos answered with certainty. He had established the pattern with the gang. Instead of staying with them before a heist, he made a point to go out and away, discussing the women he had in the area. Seeing his women and flipping skirts were his good luck charm. And he had given them enough good luck on the road. They indulged him, cheered him on. But there were no women. “They will be riding in tomorrow. I’m coming later. We stay all over the city, never together in the same place.”
“That was hardly what I expected.”
“Plans changed. They suspected a traitor in the group.”
“Not you?”
“Not even close. I’m the baddest man this side of the Mississippi.” The myth of Deadwood Dick allowed anyone to bear that mantle. The exploits of his thieving and crimes carried far and wide.
“Your work here is done.”
“Soon.”
“You need to get some rest. I can—”
“No need. I have a woman to see.”
“I warned you about the women and the job.”
“I’m leaving duty soon.”
“You never broke your duty for a skirt before.”
Amos’s jaw tightened, and he flexed his hand into and out of a fist. It was hard to keep from launching off and pummeling his handler. Otherwise, he would have hit Bart square in his face, breaking his hand and Pinkerton protocol. Tamar was more than a piece of tail, an easy tramp whose skirts he could flip for a dime and dance and without a care.
“Your response tells me she is a special thing.” Bart either took everything in or had a third sense. Amos didn’t want to know. “You have romantic intentions toward her.”
“I kindly suggest you stop talking, Bart.”
“A great many lawmen have been brought down by … ” Bart considered his words when he caught the menacing look on Amos’s face. “A woman.”
“She’s not like any other.”
Bart snorted. “They are all the same. You’ll break her heart.”
“She could break mine.”
“With what you are going to do, you’re going to hurt her.” The subtle message wrapped inside the words was Don’t go. Leave her alone. “If you love her … you will stay away from her.”
“Spoken from experience?”
Bart grunted. “You’re not a man built for love and that sentimental malarkey. I know my kind. We catch bad men. We’re lawmen.”
“I was a lawman. I’m now an outlaw. And soon—”
“You’ll be back to what you’ve always wanted. Don’t forget your responsibilities. I need you to finish this out.” Bart handed him the reins of the horse and buggy. “All the supplies your crew needs for the job. We can’t afford to miss this opportunity.”
“I want to get back to my life.”
“You will once this is done. I will never ask you to step into this role again. It costs us to do this work,” Bart said, his voice ringing with command. “Bring me those thieves and you can have your life back.”
Chapter Seven
Amos stood at the back alley of the address the General gave him. Today he was dressed proper in a suit and tie, a hat low over his eyes. He could fade into the street, moving along with the other men who worked real jobs and had dull lives.
This spot was the finest barbershop this side of the Mississippi. Newspapers—even the Advocate—talked about the glorious accommodations: the mahogany-and-plate glass doors, the sparkling white ceramic tile, and the dark green Spanish leather custom barber chairs. Everything was the finest that could be procured in the open market.
Not that Amos would be able to make those reports. He was standing outside the entrance for deliveries and colored men. At the appointed time, the back door opened, and a fair-skinned man with blue eyes opened the door and eyed him from head to toe.
“We don’t cut colored men here,” the man said. “You can go to the shop off Troost Avenue. Same quality barbers and cheaper price.”
Jim Crow laws forbade black and white men to get cut with the same blade. The barber before him couldn’t get a cut in his own chair.
“Is this your place?”
“No, the owner’s inside. Charles Henderson.”
The name rang a faint bell in his head. There was a connection to Charles and the paper. Off the top of his head, he couldn’t remember, and he couldn’t waste time deciphering the clues. He had to get additional information. “There is a man getting a shave from Charles. He sent for me.”
The man eyed him with a deep suspicion, but opened the door wider. “Wait here. I will ask.”
Minutes later, Amos heard the heavy clump of footsteps toward the back. The barber who originally came was replaced with a fair-skinned, portly, and hazel-eyed man wearing a barbering coat. This must be the owner Charles. Whoever he was, the man’s heated, venomous gaze pierced through Amos.
“Who are you to come into my place of business and demand to see an alderman?”
“I was asked to be here by a client who was getting his shave. I am following instructions.”
“You do not ask for a man of his stature.”
Amos squared up with certainty that this exchange would end with blows. “How do you know what I am?”
“Yes, he can. Sorry, Charles.” Another man with a cape and a half-shaven face walked into the room. “Let me handle this.”
“Your kind of rabble-rouser is not welcome here. You do this city and the community no justice,” Charles said before turning on his heel.
“Excuse him. It’s a pleasure to finally meet the man who is making me rich.”
Amos nodded. “Same here.” It was a pleasure to finally lay eyes on the man who was giving them orders. The confirmation that the ringleader was one of the state’s finest politicians would be noted and given to Bart soon. “Mr. Aldus Miller.”
“Let’s not use names, shall we?” The man smiled, but the touch of humor didn’t reach his cold eyes. “Here are the orders and what needs to happen.”
“And after this?”
“This is the last one for some time. People are getting suspicious. You wait to hear from me again.”
“Noted, boss.”
The man clapped him on his back and shoved him out of the door. “Make me proud and make me rich, boy.” Those were the last words he heard before the slamming of the door. Deadwood Dick received his orders for the last heist of the gang.
• • •
A dark shadow cast over her desk, and the man spoke with a bold conviction only a few snifters of brandy could give. “You must stop this,” he said, leaning over her. “Tamar, this is not good for the family.”
Tamar looked up from the stack of telegrams with determination lining her face. No one told her what to do or how to do anything with her paper. That no one included the man who charged into her office telling her to stop what she did best. Her sometimes idiotic brother-in-law was pacing the length of the small office and slapping a rolled-up edition of the Advocate against his palm.
Charles cleared his throat and repeated himself. “You must stop this cavorting with criminals.”
Tamar puffed out an exasperated sigh. “I do not gallivant, and unlike others in this conversation, I do not associate with criminals.” Well, that was a lie. She did associate with Deadwood Dick, more often than she should and not as often as her libido wanted. “Is that a new copy?” she asked, snatching the paper from him. She unfurled it and sighed. It was the latest edition. The fresh ink smudged. The copy was no good for delivery. She would have to print another one.
“You have to stop this,” Charles said, clapping his hands together and still pacing. She could see his nerves were on edge. As the best barber—colored, white, or other—in the city, he had access to the city’s leaders, all of whom hated the paper and by extension, Tamar.
“Stop what, Charles?” Tamar was a
nnoyed. Her printing was ruined. I should print again, but not tonight, she thought looking at the testy machine that huffed and puffed its last breath just as she squeezed the last edition out. Possibly she could give this paper to the good reverend across the street at Allen Chapel AME. Reverend Turner didn’t read the paper anyway; he only had the subscription to support the Freemans, one of the oldest families in the church.
Charles huffed. “These opinions are putting all of us in danger. Everyone is not as foolish as you.”
Delilah stuck her head into the room. The obvious argument drew her interest like a bear to a honeycomb; the girl enjoyed debate more than anything else in the world. “We are not foolish. Tamar is the smartest and bravest person you know. Just because you don’t have a steel backbone and corset like she does—”
“Thank you, Delilah. Get back to your studies.” Tamar cut off her sister. Nothing would benefit them by pissing off their sister’s husband. She turned back to the incensed Charles. “You know we Freeman women have a lot of spunk.”
“That spunk will kill you if you aren’t careful. The men that I know, I hear what they say about that troublesome woman. You are a thorn in the side of Kansas City for this … ” He trailed off, shaking the paper in his hands and prowling around the office.
Hyperbole and verging on a jeremiad, Tamar thought. The man fuming in her office may not know the words, but he speechified like a professional in a bully pulpit. “I am doing my job as publisher of the paper my grandfather started.”
“Our grandfather,” Delilah corrected from the other room.
Charles fussed with the damaged newspaper, rifling through the pages until he reached the middle spread. “This foolishness,” he said, pointing to the letters to the editor. “And you cannot keep giving the criminal element space to detail their operations.”
“This criminal element! What in heaven’s name are you talking about?” Tamar asked, astonishment filling her voice. “You must mean the governor, not anyone who writes for my paper.”
Charles’s nut-brown skin turned redder. He reminded Tamar of a kettle on a hot stove: if he got any madder, steam would whistle out of his ears. “You know who I mean. Criminals are using your paper to pass information back and forth. Oh, woman who knows everything, have you not seen the codes?”
“Prove it.” She slammed the paper down. “Show me that you’re not just talking crazy and wasting my time.”
Charles flipped to the lonely-hearts section and pointed to an ad. “That one. That’s what brought a dangerous man to see a fine, reputable client today.”
Tamar snickered. Only Charles thought that Aldus Miller, the local alderman that the political machine pushed onto the populace, was a well-thought-of man. “Your client is a corrupt fiend,” she muttered, reading the ad. It was an ad next to the ones she’d published for Amos and the Pinkerton agent. The content of the ad was not suspicious: Robert—Lola has a bolt of cloth for your new pants. Come to Gumbel Building *543, 10 sharp. “It appears to my intellectual mind that this Lola likes sewing and hates to wait. How do you know that it was this ad?”
“It is the address for my place of business with the right day and time.” Charles huffed. “Connect the dots. Your newspaper is rife with chaos and criminality.”
“It is my newspaper.” Tamar glanced around the office that held two desks and a printing press. Had she and the paper been used for criminal acts? She’d considered these lonely hearts ads as a moneymaker, not an opportunity for mischief. She would worry about that later. Now she needed to dispatch Charles. “I own everything in here, and I have the right to publish what I see fit. That’s what you fought for in the war.”
In a normal conversation, Charles lit up when talking about his time during the Great War with the colored infantry and protecting the Union. Tonight was not one of those times. “And you have done a great work, detailing the lives and needs of our people in this state. But you are putting everything at risk by associating with this filth, these corrupt ideas, and your radical ideals.” Charles punctuated his statement with a huff and the toss of the coiled up paper across the room. “Do you know these men who come to purchase space from you?”
Tamar flushed and busied herself with reorganizing her desk as to avoid his intent gaze. She knew a few of them, but only one made her wet with desire. She could tell Charles the truth that she was besotted with a younger man who was a thief. But that would bring too many questions. How did she know him? What was a good, honest businesswoman doing with the likes of him? Had she lost her mind?
She could hardly believe that she had known this man for the length of time it took to bat an eye. He’d inspired her very recent, very pleasant dreams.
Incredibly pleasant dreams.
Tamar crossed her arms over her chest and stood her ground. “Who put you up to this?”
Charles grimaced. “I can speak on my own.”
His motivations weren’t pure. Probably the mayor who hated her questioning of his budget and his segregationist policies. Charles had no problems before with the paper. Why now?
“The First Amendment of the United Constitution, which you so vigorously defended in the military, gives me and any other journalist freedom of speech.” Tamar stamped over to the corner and unfurled the battered copy Charles had tossed about. “I’m talking about the new election laws that are silencing our votes and are upending the gains made since Reconstruction.”
Charles snatched the copy away and vigorously read the column, his lips moving over each word. “You’re causing upheaval, speaking about things you don’t know. Women and their feeble minds can’t understand men’s things such as politics.”
Tamar lifted her eyebrows. She was well versed in the law, more than any attorney she knew in the states of Missouri or Kansas. That knowledge of the law helps when you are treated like a criminal.
“They want your neck in the loop of a noose.”
Tamar shuddered at that thought. Enough women and men of the race were caught up in a lynch mob’s ropes and fagots. “The issue had been put to bed. There’s nothing that can be done.”
“You have another letter from him in this issue.”
“And I will in the next edition.”
“He is very prolific in between his robberies and thieving.”
Tamar smirked at the accusation. “Law-abiding men have the same opportunity to write columns. I have been waiting on your words for months.”
That shut up Charles, a proud businessman who loved his craft and thought he knew things better than anyone else, but the man could not write a simple sentence to save his life. “You are my brother-in-law, and I respect and appreciate your brotherly concern.” At that Charles beamed. Men, she realized. It was so easy to butter them up with sweet and velvet-toned compliments.
“Just because you consort with that man—”
Tamar spoke over his rant. “Hardly consort. I don’t know him.” Her answer was edged in ice and warning. This discussion about Deadwood was approaching intimate territory.
Deadwood Dick, the man who made her shiver with delight and the lover she craved to have. Not that he would ever know that. Not that they would ever be that. Men like him and women such as herself didn’t share company or beds.
Yet, he made her yearn for loving, something she deserved if she was honest with her thoughts and truthful about the whispers she said in the dark. The question sparked her curiosity and burned through the safe distance she had with him.
Could I be the woman he longed for? Could he want me?
Yes, it could be her. It was her. The spinster wanted to know him carnally. Reality dashed those hopes. He was young, she was not. She was respectable, he was not. They would never meet so she could be honest with the man.
Charles snapped her back into reality. “We have night riders approaching.”
Nightriders in the South meant one thing—the Kluxers—but here in this part of the country carved up before the war, nightriders only meant peo
ple riding their horses in the depth of the evening. Kansas City, still this close to the dawn of the new century, was still a paradise for men and women on the dark side of the law. She guessed that they were probably thieves, robbers, and the lawless, especially coming through this part of town. Tamar exhaled and rolled her shoulders, her hand brushing against the weapon strapped to her waist. If they were coming for trouble, she was prepared. Her shotgun and pistol were loaded and ready.
Chapter Eight
A light glowed in the offices of the Advocate. The only spot of light on the street. Good, church-going folks were in their beds, waiting for the cock to crow at dawn to wake them up for service. The heathens were out still, causing problems or getting between the first welcoming pair of thighs that wanted them.
Tamar was neither a sinner nor a saint, just a working woman. She was burning the midnight oil, publishing her pride and joy.
A flash of pride skittered through Amos as he watched Tamar through the window still marred by a round bullet hole, diligently stacking the newspapers into piles for delivery. He knew her hands, no matter how hard she tried to keep them clean and neat, would have ink caked on her palms and she might have a smudge on her cheek. Tamar had accomplished all of this on her own, and even with her sisters and helpers, she still did everything necessary to make this paper come alive every other week.
Amos gave a quick glance around to observe this square of land. He adjusted the handkerchief over the lower half of his face. Now he was muffled up to the eyes, and no one could see who he is. Not everyone needed to know his steps and location, especially with the heist happening so soon. One false move and everything he worked for could evaporate.
He shook those thoughts from his mind. He was here for Tamar. He tied up his horse and bounded up the steps two at a time. The door was closed, but he could hear the discussion inside.
A masculine voice spoke first. “It’s too late for two single women to be out alone.” Amos frowned, wondering what man would be worried about Tamar’s safety. A pulse of possessiveness jarred him. She was not his, but he felt compelled to be concerned about her safety and whether the men in her life meant harm.
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