Bannerman the Enforcer 10

by Kirk Hamilton

  Yancey smiled. “Well, it ain’t such a bad idea at that, I guess. I’m on my way to see Walt Chisholm. I’ll join you shortly, I reckon. Where you headed?”

  “The Palace. Hear they got some new gals in from the Barbary Coast. You gonna be long?”

  “Likely not. But you go ahead. I’ll catch up with you.”

  “I’ll save you a redhead,” Cato called as he hurried across the street. He began to whistle and once or twice skipped a step with boyish enthusiasm.

  Yancey smiled and shook his head as he watched the Enforcer lose himself in the crowds. Cato’s way of expressing pleasure was something to see, thought Yancey. He sure had a way of communicating enthusiasm.

  Yancey turned and headed for a side street, looking for Chisholm’s hotel. He veered into another street and saw the building about halfway along. It was dimly lit and Yancey started towards the hotel then abruptly changed his mind. He swung into an alley. He figured he would use the hotel’s outside stairway and get to Chisholm’s room unannounced.

  It just might be better that way.

  Halfway down the alley, a gun suddenly blasted and he threw himself flat as he felt the wind of the bullet whip past his cheek. He spotted the gun flash as the assassin fired again. Then, a few feet to the left, another flash—and he knew he had at least two men trying to gun him down.

  Yancey thrust up and hurled himself headlong for the shelter of a rain butt. He felt the cask shudder as lead pierced its side. It wasn’t much good as a shield; he’d have to do something fast. He snapped a shot at one gun flash, then he rolled and flopped onto his stomach, angled the barrel of the six-gun upwards and snapped two fast shots as a bullet thudded into the cask again. There was a curse and the clatter of a falling weapon. The sounds were swiftly followed by a splintering of wood as the man hurled empty crates aside in a frantic effort to get away. Yancey went after him and spun as a rifle slug whipped past his flying boots. Yancey triggered on the run, hearing his lead smash glass somewhere deep back in the darkness. The rifleman stepped out and brought the weapon to his shoulder. Yancey dropped to one knee and quickly fired his last two shots. The man jerked back, and Yancey was already reloading as the man started to fall. He shot him again, then turned and ran after the wounded man crashing around at the far end of the alley.

  He caught a glimpse of him holding his arm as he stumbled around the end of the building. The killer was silhouetted against the light spilling into the street and Yancey beaded the staggering shape, dropped the barrel a little, and fired. The man screamed and his left leg seemed to be kicked out from under him by an invisible force. He went down hard and lay thrashing around in agony.

  Yancey raced up to him, knelt and wrenched his head around so that he could see his features. The man was a stranger. Yancey could hear folk tentatively coming down the alley and the side street as he placed the muzzle of his Colt at the man’s temple.

  “Who sent you?” he gritted.

  The man glanced at him in sullen silence. Yancey raked him across the face with the blade foresight, and drew blood. The man sucked in a sharp, gagging breath.

  “I can carve you up mighty bad, mister,” Yancey threatened.

  “All right, all right!” the man gasped. “I—don’t know who it was ...”

  Yancey placed the foresight blade against the man’s cheek again and the killer stiffened.

  “Judas! Don’t!” he breathed. “The jasper you nailed hired me to join him. But he said some—woman had paid him. That’s all I know. Honest.”

  The man began to quiver with fear and Yancey eased up the pressure. He was likely speaking the truth, he figured. Whoever it was would remain as anonymous as possible. They could have had a saloon girl handle negotiations. He stood up and saw that one of the men approaching was Marshal Tane. The lawman glanced at the wounded man and arched his eyebrows at Yancey.

  “He tried to nail me,” Yancey said simply. “Him and his pard. I got his pard dead center. This jasper claims he don’t know who put ’em up to it.”

  “You believe him?” Tane asked.

  Yancey hesitated, then glanced at the man.

  “He’s scum. No one. Likely hires his gun out for a few bucks.”

  “Yeah,” Tane said. “I’ve run across him before. Local hardcase. Think you’re right, Bannerman. He wouldn’t be told anythin’. Kinda coincidental though, that it happened when you were investigatin’ our mutual friend, eh?”

  He gestured towards the dark bulk of the hotel and Yancey nodded.

  “What I was thinking. I’ll go see him. You want me at all?”

  “Get a statement from you before you quit town,” Tane said, leaning down and hauling the wounded man to his feet. The man sobbed in agony and hopped about awkwardly on one leg. “I’ll get this hombre patched up and toss him in the cells. Some of you men get a door and carry that dead feller across to the coroner’s ... Buenas noches, Bannerman.”

  Yancey smiled faintly and nodded, replacing the spent shell in his Colt with a live one then heading towards the hotel. He went swiftly up the outside stairs and through the door at the top into the dimly lit passage. He walked slowly along it with one hand on his gun butt and stopped outside the door of room nine. It was the number Chisholm had given him.

  He rapped on the door then stepped to one side and waited. There was no reply. He knocked again and still there was no answer. He looked at the foot of the door, but there was no sign of light.

  Yancey tried the handle but the door was locked.

  Then the door of the next room opened and a saloon girl stood in the lighted rectangle in a gown split to the thigh. She smiled.

  “He ain’t in, cowboy, but I am—and mighty lonesome.”

  Yancey grinned. “I’d sure like to keep you company, ma’am, but I’m in a kinda hurry. You know where I can find Chisholm?”

  She wet her lips.

  “Hell, I’m more interestin’ than Walt Chisholm, ain’t I?”

  “You sure are,” agreed Yancey readily, “and I sure would like to spend some time with you, but I gotta find him. Matter of life and death.”

  She looked at him through fluttering lashes and sighed regretfully. “Can’t help you.”

  “You good friends with Chisholm?”

  “Good enough. ‘Close’, I guess you could say.”

  Yancey nodded and wondered if she were close enough to front for Chisholm in buying an assassin’s gun ...

  He touched a hand to his hat brim then went down the outside stairway to the alley where the dead gunman’s body was just being removed. He hesitated a few seconds then headed towards the main street, determined to search the town.

  He wanted to see Chisholm’s face when he confronted him again.

  ~*~

  The Palace was on the other side of town and Cato hadn’t heard the shooting.

  By the time the killers had cut loose on Bannerman, Cato was breasting the crowded bar ordering rye and a beer chaser, while swiftly running an expert eye over the whores lined up in the alcove near the foot of the stairs.

  He tossed down the rye and ordered another then turned to lean an elbow on the bar as he sipped the beer from the big glass mug. There were a dozen girls to choose from and he savored the moment, studying each woman closely. He decided he would be choosy. He wouldn’t settle for second best.

  He aimed to have himself a good time that night and he wanted it to go well right from the start. There were three girls that particularly took his fancy: a jet-haired beauty with a swarthy flush to her skin that spoke of Spanish ancestry and hot blood—but he wanted to see her smile first; next was a little brown haired girl with a very fine figure, a flashing smile, and dark, glittering eyes: the third whore was a blonde with milk-white skin but he felt her eyes and mouth had a mean set to them. He thought she might be the kind to rip a man up—and he wasn’t in the mood for that kind of night.

  The others he had rejected totally.

  Then he saw the jet-haired beauty smile and he kne
w she would have to join the reject list.

  He turned as the bartender slapped the second glass of rye onto the bar at his elbow. Cato nodded, pushed some coins across and downed most of the liquor in one gulp. He had almost decided on the little brownette.

  He glanced towards the batwings. There was still no sign of Yancey. He hesitated. Perhaps he’d run into some trouble, he mused. Perhaps he should go and look for him. Hell, no. Yancey could look after himself; he sure as hell could take on Chisholm if he had to and come out on top. Well, maybe he’d wait a spell longer just to be on the safe side. But not too long. There were a couple of cowpokes eyeing the little brownette, too ...

  He drained the whisky glass, reached for the beer and lifted the glass to his mouth. As he did so, he glanced up at the stairs and he was just in time to see a tall woman with bright, red hair looking away after an exchange with the bartender. Her green eyes rested on Cato and she smiled. He paused with the glass against his mouth.

  She was tall and willowy and wore a lime-green gown that was strapless and seemed to be held up by the rise and swell of her breasts. Cato thought it would be interesting if she were suddenly taken with a fit of coughing—

  The woman came slowly down the stairs and seemed to have eyes only for him. The way her slim hand ran along the polished banister made his skin crawl. She seemed to slink along, the gown clinging to her long legs tantalizingly.

  He had already forgotten entirely about the little brownette. This was the woman for him and he was glad he had delayed making his decision. Yancey Bannerman had also gone from his thoughts as the woman reached the foot of the stairs and walked towards him with a smile on her glistening lips. Cato fumbled as he tried to place the beer glass on the bar.

  Almost every man in the big room was watching the red haired woman—and envying Cato—as she stopped in front of him and placed a hand over his on the edge of the bar.

  “I see you’re interested in our girls,” the woman said huskily. “You look quite—mature—to me. At least like a man who prefers his women mature ... ?”

  Cato managed a smile. “You’re right there, ma’am.”

  She laughed. “Call me Cherokee. Cherokee Morgan. If you’re interested enough, I could even tell you how I came by the name.”

  “I’m interested,” Cato assured her. “Name’s John Cato. Suppose I buy us the best bottle of bourbon the house can come up with and we take it to your room?”

  Cherokee slid an arm through his and smiled.

  “I’m game. But I warn you, I’m expensive—even though you’ll receive full value for money.”

  “I’ll go along with that,” Cato said, a mite breathless as she pressed against his arm. “Barkeep ... ?”

  He paid an exorbitant sum for a supposedly bonded and sealed bottle of Kentucky bourbon, then went slowly up the stairs with Cherokee Morgan on his arm.

  “I don’t usually take clients myself,” she explained as they climbed the stairs. “Not unless someone takes my particular fancy. And there’s something about you, John Cato, that I find distinctively—interesting.”

  “I guess I have my moments.”

  She squeezed his arm.

  “It certainly isn’t your stature, or your clothes. Perhaps it’s that strange-looking gun you wear; it seems so big and heavy.” She leaned close and laughed. “Maybe there’s an unconscious association there.”

  Her elbow dug him lightly in the side and he laughed with her.

  “Who knows?” he said.

  “Or it may have been something of a ‘look’ about you; a suggestion of wild trails and hardness; a ruthlessness. Certainly a strength that I didn’t expect to see in a man of your size. But whatever it is, I find it—attractive. And I’ve learnt over the years never to pass up the chance at anything that really interests me. For, once the moment has gone, it rarely, if ever, returns.”

  “Sounds like a right good philosophy,” said Cato as they made their way down the passage to a white door with gilt edging around the panels.

  Cherokee Morgan took a key from between her breasts and winked at Cato. She opened the door and led the way inside.

  When she turned up the lamps, he whistled softly as he took in the luxurious fittings in the suite of rooms.

  “Make yourself to home,” Cherokee said, gesturing to a long sofa with mahogany arms and brocaded cushions. “Stretch out there, kick off your boots and put up your feet. Give me your gun rig and I’ll hang it on the wall, then I’ll make you a drink. And while you relax, I’ll, get into something more—practical.”

  Cato hesitated, then unbuckled his gun rig and gave it to her.

  “My, that’s the heaviest rig I’ve ever felt, outside of a cannon,” she cried, studying the massive Manstopper but making no attempt to take the gun out of the holster.

  She smiled as she hung the rig on a wall peg. Then she turned and patted his cheek, kissing him lightly on the lips. She took off his hat and turned him towards the sofa.

  “Now, you lie down there and I’ll make your drink and—we’ll let things kind of develop from there, okay?”

  “Fine with me,” Cato said, sitting on the sofa and grunting a little as he pulled off one of his boots.

  Cherokee tossed his hat onto a chair then took a large glass and poured bourbon into it from a sealed bottle. She added a twist of lemon peel and a sprig of mint, then carried the glass to the sofa where Cato was swinging up his legs and stretching out.

  “Where’s yours?” he asked as she handed him the drink.

  She leaned over and kissed him.

  “I’ll get mine when I come back,” she said as Cato took a deep draught of the bourbon. Then she winked and crossed the room to a pink door. She went through swiftly, but Cato caught a glimpse of a highly polished brass bed with frilly pink covers.

  He drank another deep draught of the bourbon, then removed the lemon rind and the mint.

  Cato closed his eyes as he lay back on the cushions and felt that the night held the promise of being one of the best in his life. It had been pure luck that Cherokee had come down those stairs just at that moment, he figured. A minute later and he would have already been committed to the little brownette, and who knows what he might have regretted ... ?

  Suddenly, he opened his eyes as the glass fell with a thud from his fingers. He hadn’t been aware that he had released it. He gripped the edges of the sofa.

  The room spun crazily. His stomach wrenched and heaved as bile burned the back of his throat. Then his eyes began to sting and seemed to be bulging in their sockets.

  His body began to shake—and he recognized the signs at once. Chloral hydrate. He had been slipped a classic Mickey Finn. But that was crazy. How? Cherokee? Well, it had to be her of course, but she was so ... Built like ... He shook his head in an attempt to clear it.

  It was Cherokee, he thought. Couldn’t be anyone else. Yet he had seen her break the seal on the bottle and pour the drink, straight into the glass.

  The bottle. That was it. The explanation filtered through his thudding head. It was a ‘special’, kept for just such occasions.

  But he had been there before. Cato had been slipped Mickey Finns on a few previous occasions—and it only took one for the experience to be burned indelibly in a man’s memory. The Barbary Coast whores never erred on the side of safety: they doubled the usual dose to make sure it took effect. If it killed, it was too bad.

  Cato didn’t know how much had gone into his system, but he had drunk half that whisky she had poured, and the bitter taste of the chloral hydrate had been effectively disguised by the lemon rind and the mint. He gazed at the pink door. She was likely waiting behind it, waiting for him to pass out, he thought.

  He dropped off the sofa with a dull thud and landed on hands and knees, his head resting on the thick carpet. He groped for his boots, but missed them by a foot. Everything was distorted and out of focus and heaving. Even the floor seemed like molasses as he crawled forward—

  Suddenly, his head ban
ged against something. He looked up, focusing with difficulty, and saw the pink door swaying above him.

  “That you—honey?” Cherokee called from the bedroom. There was a slight edge to her voice: likely she had heard his head rap against the panel but had expected him to be unconscious on the sofa. He made an enormous effort, and reached up to snap the key in the lock.

  It clicked and almost instantly the handle was gripped from the other side and rattled savagely.

  “Goddamn it!” Cherokee screamed through the door. “Unlock this door, you bastard. You lousy, sawn-off runt, you hear me? Unlock this goddamn door!”

  Cato smiled bleakly as he crawled away, hearing the door shaking in its frame. The floor heaved and he tilted dangerously, then crashed to his side. He struggled to his knees, feeling as if he were sliding down a steep deck on a plunging windjammer caught in a storm.

  Somehow, he found himself at the white door that led into the passage. He got the door open and collapsed halfway through it. He made another immense effort and thrust feebly to his hands and knees. Something banged heavily against his left side. He looked around and down, moving his head in slow motion, and trying desperately to focus his eyes.

  The heavy weight was his gun rig. He had somehow managed to get the Manstopper down from the wall peg and had slipped the cartridge belt over his shoulder. He had no recollection of doing it.

  He didn’t know that his hat was on his head or that he had pulled on his boots—even though they were on the wrong feet.

  Cato gingerly lifted a hand and slid it along the bare boards of the passage. He pushed his other hand after it, then had to fight and struggle to will himself to move his legs. After what seemed an age, he crawled the length of his own body then stopped. His head was full of ringing sounds and there were bright, whirling lights in front of his eyes.

  His head crashed into something and he looked up, murmuring, moaning and trying to make sense out of the sight of bare, vertical boards towering above him. At first he thought he had crawled into a wall but after a spell he realized it was the door leading to the saloon’s outside stairway. The latch was high above him and he scrabbled wildly at the door, making animal sounds for what seemed an eternity before he was able to clamp one hand on the latch.