"If you want to see the woman and boy alive."
He could picture it: 'Berto leading him up through the draw, his lit cigarette marking him clearly in the darkness. All Cecil would have to do was sight in on the figure behind. Plenty of moonlight to snipe by. Once Jack was dead, they could roll his body in some gully. He wondered if they hadn't already done so with Donna and Randy.
But these men weren't hardened killers. They weren't even that bright.
"You got a spare smoke?" Jack said.
'Berto shook his head.
"Well, lead on, caballero."
'Berto turned to face the trail. He tottered a little, like his feet weren't too sure of themselves. Lubbock Red had done a number on him, alright. Maybe he could use it to his advantage.
"I know you've got a goddamn gun in your pocket," 'Berto said, without turning his head. "Try anything with it and I'll gut you. Then your woman dies. And the boy."
"Cheerful fella, aren't you?"
"Just stating facts."
Jack followed on his heels. No sense giving Cecil a clear target. The high rocks to either side of the draw provided a good vantage. He could almost hear the shot that would come ringing out of the darkness.
'Berto whirled. "You're too close." He made a warning motion with his horn-hilted Bowie.
But Jack already had the Colt clear of his pocket. He chopped the barrel in a short, inside arc, aiming for the white bandage. Hardened steel slapped against bone. 'Berto shrieked. His knife clattered to the ground and his boots danced a spastic jig. Jack reversed the gun and hit him again, on the temple. Put some shoulder behind it. 'Berto dropped soundless across the trail.
Then, from high up to his left: a keening cry. It wasn't a coyote bitch or a mountain lion. It was human. He threw himself to the ground alongside 'Berto. The anticipated shot boomed. Rocks and dirt scattered from an impact about two feet in front. He rolled off the trail, just as white muzzle-fire flared. Another bullet struck close.
Jack's gun tracked automatically to return fire. He checked himself. Donna and Randy could be up there. His mind's eye pictured Cecil squinting down the barrel of Donna's Winchester.
But the next shot didn't boom.
A curse echoed down into the draw, followed by a frantic scraping sound. Jack's mind conjured another image: Cecil working the rifle's lever action, trying to clear a jam. The gun was an antique, after all.
He leapt to his feet. Pure craziness, but he charged up the slope. This could be his only chance. On the other hand, it could also be a ruse. Cecil might be trying to draw him close for a kill shot.
Seconds passed like hours. His boots tore shale loose in little torrents as he ran.
He crested the slope.
Two shapes huddled there, next to a boulder and an unlit Coleman lantern. Donna and Randy? But where—
Something whirled through the darkness towards him. He ducked by sheer reflex. A rifle stock clipped the top of his head, knocked his hat free, and continued on. Cecil must've thrown it in frustration. His tall form appeared, limned by moonlight. Jack raised the Colt to fire, but not before a pair of strong hands seized him by the wrist. Wrenched. The big revolver clattered out of sight.
Jack struck with his free hand, a hook to the ribs. Cecil grunted and let go.
The man wrestles bulls for a living, Jack's mind warned. He gets those arms around you and it's all over. He head-butted. Cecil staggered back, but the top of Jack's forehead, already smarting from where the rifle had struck, flared in agony.
Jack tried a quick right. Cecil dodged it with a back hand-spring.
"Sonofabitch."
Cecil sprang forward to clinch. Jack grit his teeth for what he knew would be a one-sided contest. The Coleman came clattering across the ground between them. Cecil tripped and recovered, but for a moment stood flat-footed.
There. Jack threw a one-two with desperate strength.
His left snapped Cecil's head back, exposing his jaw—the "button." His right hand caught him flush. Pain laced up his arm from the impact, but Cecil went flying like a Hollywood stuntman. He fell over the other side of the ridge. A conscious man would have flailed his arms, trying to roll. Cecil slid down into the ravine, ragdoll-limp.
Someone mmmphed. Jack turned to the boulder. Randy crouched there, hands tied behind his back and gagged. His foot still jutted from where he'd kicked the lantern. Donna crouched beside him. She'd been bound too, but not gagged. Why bother to gag a deaf-mute?
It'd been her warning cry he heard, just before Cecil fired.
Jack untied them both. "I'm sorry," he said, was all he could think to say. He said it over and over. Part of his mind was on the two unconscious men lying to either side of the ridge. They wouldn't stay that way forever. But when he helped Donna up, his hands encircled her waist and drew her to him. He pressed his lips against her nape. She smelled of horses, liniment, and straw.
He clutched her for as long as he dared.
* * *
Elroy Adair took some convincing. He didn't want to believe two of his closest friends tried to kill him. Seeing a photograph of Red's wound and reading the threatening letters finally brought him around. He'd recognized Cecil's handwriting. The sheriff questioned Cecil and 'Berto personally, as they lay recovering from concussions on the second floor of St. Anthony's Hospital. He also took a statement from an injured Hobart, who identified Cecil as his assailant. The clown and the pickup man spent the rest of their stay cuffed to their respective beds.
* * *
"You think Brenda was in on it?" Elroy asked Jack. They were killing a bottle of Crown Royal together, at the Adair ranch. The nurse had wheeled Elroy's bed to the rear living room, where picture windows displayed the grounds in arthritic evening light. Jack shook his head. "She thought my theory about someone trying to kill you was funny, when Hobart mentioned it on the phone. A guilty person would've been more defensive."
"Makes things easier." Elroy tilted his head in what could've been a shrug. "Not the sleeping around with Cecil part, but I knew about that afore'n you showed up."
"You going to stay with her?"
"Don't have much choice, do I? This isn't a good time to be alone."
Jack kept the wash of pity from his face. He wouldn't want someone else's sympathy, if he was the man lying on that bed.
"You know what the funny thing is, Laramie? I'm broke as my spine. Mortgaged this place to the eyeballs, and that was before all the medical bills … if Red had killed me, Cecil wouldn't have gotten anything, anyway. Brenda would have to sell the estate to pay my debts."
Jack's whiskey suddenly had an off-taste. "But you do have enough money to pay the other half of our deal, right?"
"Not really."
"What do you mean, 'not really'? We practically shook on it."
"I haven't been thinking too straight these past couple weeks, you want to know the truth. Just picturing Red with his brains all blowed out. It's kept me going. And seeing as how you didn't actually kill the horse …"
"I damn near got shot." Jack raised his hand to show him the bandage around his knuckles, from punching Cecil.
"Aw, don't be a baby about it. I got an idea. Help prop me up, will you?"
Jack found a crank at the back of the bed. A couple turns and he'd ratcheted Elroy into a sitting position.
"Now take a look out there, at the shed next to the stables." Elroy tried to point with his good hand, but gave up. "See that white horse trailer? It's brand new. Bought it about a week before the accident as a birthday present, but I won't be needing it now. You got something to haul it off, you can have it."
"What the hell am I going to do with a horse trailer?"
"Fetch you a hundred at least, you wanted to sell it."
"You owe me a hundred and fifty."
"Well, what about all that high-grade whiskey of mine you been guzzling? I haven't been keeping a tab, but—"
"Forget it," Jack said. Adair's bronc busting days might be over, but he had a fut
ure as a salesman if he took a mind to it.
* * *
Jack drove out to Donna's house later that evening, with the trailer rumbling behind his newly-repaired DeSoto. He hadn't seen much of her in the two days since Palo Duro. The porch light was on, and even better, she'd left the front door unlocked. He let himself in to the smell of boiling coffee. Donna sat at the walnut table off the kitchen, a game of solitaire laid out in tidy rows. She looked up when his shadow fell across her. Happy to see him? He thought maybe so.
"Where's Randy?"
She folded her hands together and tilted her head. Sleeping.
"I hope you don't mind, me showing up like this. I feel bad for everything that happened. And I wanted to thank your son. If he hadn't tripped up Cecil, we'd probably still be in that canyon."
A genuine smile lit her mouth. The effect was stunning, like in the movies when the wallflower heroine takes off her glasses for the first time.
She got up and pointed towards the hallway. She wanted to show him something. "Alright," Jack said, giving the coffee on the stove a wistful glance. He followed her to a spare bedroom. The bed had been made up, with an extra pillow, the furniture dusted, and all the drawers on the dresser tilted open, as if waiting to be stocked.
For a moment he stood in confusion. He remembered her impulsive kiss at the motor court. Was she offering herself? But no, Donna was shaking her head, anticipating his thoughts. She pointed at his chest. Her hands described a flattening, spreading motion.
Stay.
"You want me to stay here?"
She pointed at the roof. Pounded with an invisible hammer. Painted with an invisible brush.
"Oh, I get it." He could stay on as a hired man. Probably toss a ball to Randy, too, or take him hunting. Surrogate father. And maybe one night, if she decided he was worthy, she'd slip into his room to seal the arrangement.
Not a bad offer. Best one he'd had in a while, actually.
"Look, Donna …" he began. She had her head bent, scribbling away at her little notepad. Spelling things out. He touched her on the shoulder. She looked at him, and he spoke as slow as he could.
"Donna, I'm a drifter. I just come through the war and I can't stay put for too long." He shook his head from side to side. "I'm not fit for you, or Randy. Hell, I don't even know if I can make a living as a detective. It seems pretty chancy. I'm going to dust tomorrow, probably head for Abilene or Cross Plains. I heard someone might be offering work out there."
The smile dropped from Donna's face. It just up and died. She was the woman he saw peering into Red's stall, blank as an iron skillet. Her nimble fingers tore the paper she'd been writing on and crumpled it. Bounced the wad off Jack's chest. He reached down and picked it up.
She pointed. Out.
He left.
Much later, driving the sunlit Route Sixty-Six, he hesitated several times before tossing her note out the window, unread.
PART II | The Vinyl Coffin
Dallas, Texas, 1959
When the door to his office opened, Jack Laramie swore he could hear the creak of a spinner-rack loaded with Spillane novels, the shudder of an old black and white film threading over twin reels. A beautiful woman stepped inside.
He had to blink to make sure he hadn't conjured her from sheer boredom. It'd been that kind of day. She stood tall and blonde just like she was supposed to, trim rather than buxom, her narrow face pinched with concern. Delicate hands in pale blue gloves clutched a leather satchel, the kind for carrying documents.
He hunched over his steel case desk, a gesture intended to convey earnestness, but also cover the blotter calendar. Its pages were empty. Next to the calendar sat a fancy Rolodex stuffed with blank cards. He snapped the cover shut.
"Well now, Miss …"
"I don't like the kitchen," she said.
"Excuse me?"
"The kitchen. It's too small. I believe I specified that before. My husband and I do a lot of entertaining, and I need counter space. Acres of it." She pulled a blueprint from the satchel. "If you'll take a look, I've marked in pen the areas that need expanding …"
She started to hand him the paper, but Jack shook his head. The spinner-rack had toppled over. "You've got the wrong office, ma'am. The architect's three doors down, on the left."
"This isn't Lawson's Design?"
"I'm afraid not."
"Well, there's no sign on your door. And the receptionist's gone, so I thought …"
Jack checked his watch. "It's ten till five. Lawson probably left for the day, but if you hurry you might catch someone."
"Just in case, will you validate my parking? It's atrocious trying to find any spaces around here."
She was already taking her stub out. He managed a weak smile and rooted around in the desk drawer for his stamp. Where had he put the damn thing? He shoved aside a stack of invoice forms, an unopened box of paper clips …
When he looked up she was gone. Only the scent of her White Shoulders perfume lingered.
"Leslie?" he called through the open doorway. "Did you catch all that?"
No reply. The ghost-sounds of downtown rush hour carried through the walls.
"Leslie?"
He got up, stalked out to the waiting area. Leslie's little desk was empty. She'd left an issue of Life on her chair, open to an article about The Kingston Trio. He clenched his teeth. A dollar an hour, plus a generous hour-long lunch, and all he asked for was a presence.
Feminine laughter echoed from the hall.
He pushed open the glass door—the first three letters of 'Investigations' had been traced out, but not painted in yet. A wispy brunette in her early twenties leaned against the drinking fountain. She was talking to Pablo, the evening shift janitor.
Jack's teeth set tighter. "Miss Hough," he said.
Pablo uttered a polite cough. Leslie straightened. "I'm on break," she said. "State law says I can have two every shift."
Jack jerked his thumb behind him. "A woman came wandering in a couple minutes ago."
"Was she lost?"
"That's not the point," he said, ignoring the jab. "Point is, I'm trying to run a business here, in a line of work that requires a high degree of professionalism …"
Her ash-colored eyes were already glazing over. Jack caught himself. He was talking like a Rotarian, not a former drifter who peeked through keyholes for cash. "Look, I'll let it go, but I want you in early tomorrow, so we can—"
"Tomorrow's Saturday."
"Monday then, you and I are going to have a talk about office decorum."
"Sure thing, Mr. Laramie."
He checked his watch again. Almost five. "Would you mind locking up? I've got plans for the evening."
Her smile tilted faintly at the corners. Knowing. "The club?"
"None of your business."
He grabbed his Stetson on the way out. Buses spewed exhaust fog-thick around the Wilson Building. The autumn light spilling between the concrete towers wasn't bright enough for sunglasses, but he slipped on a pair anyways. Might as well blend in with all the other Big D sophisticates. He thrust his hands in his pockets and walked a block down to Commerce Street. No need to get his Biarritz Eldorado out of parking.
Goddamn Leslie.
He'd hired her hoping for a Gal Friday. Turned out, she wasn't a gal any day. Just rolled her eyes at him, or flirted with young punks like Pablo. What did that little Mex have he didn't?
He's got a thirty-four inch waist, for one thing. And all his hair. And—
"Shut up," he said, louder than intended. A matronly type walking by glared at him. He tipped his hat and pushed on.
Some of his anger faded by the time he passed Lane Street, replaced with a sense of irony. Of all the places he could've set up an office, he'd chosen the belly of Dallas. A city he'd taken pains to avoid. In the forties, the Pinkertons had kept a monopoly on detective work here. And just three years previously he'd run afoul of the Dallas Mob, a syndicate of old oilmen, fat cats, and their crooked lawyers. A
high-ranking member by the name of Bunny Ziegler had threatened to drown him in cement if their paths crossed again.
But rumor had it Ziegler was now rotting in a Mexican prison. Jack figured it was safe enough to open a stake. What he hadn't figured was the dearth of business. When he'd been traveling, he'd developed a nose for finding cases. Hell, it took more skill than actually solving them. And if there wasn't any action, he'd just get back in his DeSoto and blow.
Not an option, now.
The waning daylight darkened a couple notches, as the sun slipped behind a building. Blue neon flickered along the street. He'd reached the nightclub district, a collection of seedy burlesque joints and hole-in-the walls. The gaudy signs advertised setups, but everyone knew you could buy straight booze inside. Among other things.
First place on his left was a smallish venue, with a marquee proclaiming several dancers' names. The Carousel Club. A spread of black and white pics offered a tease of the pastie-covered acts inside. Jack deliberated, considering this place or the nearby Montmartre club. Force of habit won out.
A squat man in a red dinner jacket held the door for him. "Your usual table, Mr. Laramie?"
"If you've still got it, Bernie."
"It's thick tonight, but not that thick." Bright pink flesh drooped down one side of the doorman's face; the kiss of a Japanese flamethrower. Still carried himself like a Marine, though. He slipped Jack some Luckies before ushering him through the crowd to a corner table.
"You up for chess later?" Jack said.
"If the creek doesn't rise. Have to be after midnight, when my relief shows."
"I'll be here."
Bernie left and a bored-looking woman in a beehive wig took his drink order. The club served a decent New York strip, but he'd already decided to avoid solid food. It made things easier if you had to throw up in the morning.
He sat close to the stage, where a four piece combo drizzled out passable jazz. The musicians were all white as Dover chalk. The real stuff lay east, in the Deep Ellum neighborhood. Some nights he'd venture down there if the mood struck him. When his waitress came back hugging a bottle of good scotch, he told himself this wasn't one of those nights. She set down a second bottle of seltzer and a dish stacked with limes.
Two-Trick Pony (The Drifter Detective Book 8) Page 4