Showdown

by Edward Gorman / Ed Gorman

  "I must have the wrong room."

  "I'm snufflin' my guts up and you have the wrong room? Get the hell outta here."

  He caught ill when he went back downstairs.

  The man who opened this one was in a wheelchair. He was fortyish, gray-haired, and looked both intelligent and friendly.

  "Wrong room, I guess. Sorry."

  "Nothing to be sorry for. I appreciate the company. My granddad owns this place and just gives me this room. I'm in here all day trying to write a novel. And then at night I just sit at the window and look out at the street. I'd like to be up on the second floor. I'd have a better view."

  "I just got the wrong room is all," Prine said, uncomfortable around the man in the wheelchair and feeling guilty because he was uncomfortable. "I'm really sorry to intrude."

  "Say, if you're down in the saloon and somebody wants to have a party, send 'em up here."

  "Your granddad wouldn't mind?"

  "He used to mind when I had parties here. But he hasn't complained since they buried him about four months ago." The man had a big, sad smile on his face.

  Not that Prine had any better luck at the next hotel. According to the chunky blond German fellow behind the desk—a very jolly man was he, except for the killer eyes—there had never been, in the history of this particular hotel, anybody who even remotely fit the description of this Tolan man. For one thing, this Tolan man, said the clerk, sounded far too common to stay in a hotel of such obvious prestige. For another thing, this Tolan man would have instantly attracted the attention of Heinrich, the former Pinkerton man who now worked as the hotel detective. And for a final thing, this man would not even have come here because he would've heard that the hotel prices would make it impossible. He said all this with great pride.

  Leaving Prine back on the street.

  Leaving him to wonder how Neville was doing.

  Leaving him to wonder if they'd find Tolan and Rooney in time.

  "You go get the sheriff, you think there's gonna be any trouble," the desk clerk told Robert Neville. "There won't be any trouble."

  "That's what you say now. How do I know you get up there and there won't be a shootout?"

  The desk clerk was a heavyset man who kept a handkerchief on the desk to daub his face with. His face looked as if it had been glazed. His brown shirt was soaked around the collar and in the armpits. "I don't want a shootout."

  "That don't mean they won't give you one."

  At this point, Neville reached for what he'd reached for all his life. His wallet. He took a considerable number of greenbacks from the wallet and laid them on the counter.

  "What's that for?" the desk clerk asked.

  "You really don't know what that's for?"

  "Look, mister, that money looks nice now. But what about when it's gone and I lose my job? You want to explain that to my wife and three kids? I need a job a lot more than I need that money."

  Neville laid more greenbacks on top of the counter.

  "You must really want them two."

  He kept staring at the money.

  "I do."

  "You mind I ask why?"

  "Yeah, I do mind. It's none of your business." But even as he spoke harshly, he laid more greenbacks on the counter.

  "I still think you should go get the sheriff and have him help you."

  Four more greenbacks were laid down.

  "Pretty soon, I'm going to pick up my money and go home."

  The clerk ran a pudgy finger around his collar.

  "I could really get in trouble here, mister. I ain't just sayin' that."

  "Think how your wife's eyes will light up when you bring all this money home."

  The clerk smiled. "Yeah, she'd be happy, all right." A frown quickly erased the smile. "But she'd be scared."

  "Of what?"

  "Of Mr. Peck findin' out I took this money."

  "Maybe I should talk to Mr. Peck."

  "Can't."

  "Why not?"

  "He's in California."

  "Then how the hell's he ever going to find out?"

  The expression in the clerk's brown gaze altered without any words being spoken. He must've been thinking of making his wife happy again, because he broke into a smile that would win him a smile contest at the county fair.

  "You're right," the clerk said, sweeping the money on the counter up with a massive hand. "Now, you promise no rough stuff?"

  "No rough stuff."

  "And you promise no gunplay?"

  "No gunplay. Just give me the room numbers," Neville said with increasing impatience, "and let me get on with my business."

  With an important sigh—the things I have to do to make a living, the clerk's sigh said—he leaned forward, took a blank sheet of paper, a No. 3 lead pencil, and wrote down the two room numbers.

  Neville hitched up his holster and set off for the stairs.

  Chapter Twenty

  "It ain't gonna work," Tolan said.

  "What isn't going to work?" Rooney said.

  "You think I'll get drunk and pass out and then you'll take all the money and run."

  "Our train'll be here in two hours or so. That wouldn't be enough time to get you that drunk."

  They were in Tolan's room. Tolan had checked Rooney for weapons before letting him come in and sit down. Rooney had brought a bottle of rye with him. It had sat, unopened, for nearly an hour now.

  Tolan nodded at the bottle. "That's a nice bottle."

  "I figured we'd have ourselves a nice little drink before we left. We've been friends a long time, Tolan."

  "We've never been friends, Rooney. You're too selfish to have friends. You even left me behind when I was wounded."

  "You would've left me."

  Tolan eyed him and shook his head. "That's the funny thing, Rooney. I wouldn't have. I would've been dumb enough to find you a horse and take you with me."

  Rooney smiled that cold, cold smile. "You're a sentimental man, Tolan. Nobody'd think you were, if they just met you and all." The smile vanished. "But it's dangerous, Tolan. Being sentimental like that. It gives other people a weapon against you."

  "You left me, and even so I took up with you again."

  "Nobody forced you, Tolan."

  "And you kept on screwing me every way you could. A little bit here and a little bit there. But it all added up."

  "I thought we'd have a friendly drink before train time, Tolan."

  "I'm like that poor old collie we had on the farm. The old man'd get drunk and try and teach it tricks, but the dog never picked up on 'em very good. And so the old man'd beat her and beat her with his razor strop. He'd draw blood. He even put one of her eyes out. My little sister 'n' me'd cry and beg my old man to stop hitting the dog. But he never would. He'd go beating her until he got bored and turned on one of us. The funny thing was that we were just like that collie. No matter how much the old man'd beat us, we'd forgive him. We loved him. There wasn't any reason to love him. But we loved him just like that poor old collie did. I guess that's what you mean by sentimental, huh, Rooney?"

  But Rooney's mind was elsewhere. He'd never taken any interest in Tolan's trouble, and he clearly wasn't about to start now.

  Without warning, Tolan picked up the bottle of rye and tossed it to Rooney. Rooney caught it with his crotch. He laughed. "You could've caused some permanent damage there."

  Tolan didn't smile. "You take the first drink."

  "Tolan, God Almighty, you think I put something in this drink."

  "I sure do."

  "You're too smart for something like that. I wouldn't even try it."

  Tolan sat up on the bed, pointing the six-shooter at Rooney's head.

  "Take a drink, Rooney."

  "I just had a full meal. Don't really feel like drinking right now."

  "You don't take a drink there, Rooney, I'm gonna kill you on the spot."

  "Now, that wouldn't make a lot of sense, would it?"

  "Sure it would. I'm pretty dumb, but I can sure ma
ke it look like you fired at me first. I might spend a night or two in a cell. But a good lawyer'd get me off. And I'd still have plenty of money left to go to California." Tolan pulled the hammer back. "Now, go on, Rooney, and take a drink."

  "Aw, shit," Rooney said. Then he laughed—almost giggled, in fact, like a tyke who'd been caught stealing something from his old man's coin box. "I might as well admit it."

  "Yeah. You might as well."

  "I queered the rye."

  "You prick. I knew that's what you done." Rooney pitched the bottle on the bed.

  "You took my money, Tolan. What the hell else could I do?"

  "I thought you said I was too smart to go for queering the drink."

  The icy smile. "Well, you didn't go for it, did you? But I still thought I'd give it a try anyway."

  Tolan was about to say something when they heard heavy footsteps in the hall. And then a heavy knock.

  Tolan and Rooney glanced at each other.

  "Who is it?" Tolan said, not moving from the bed.

  "Sheriff's office. Deputy McBride."

  This time when they glanced at each, there was tension in their eyes. Somebody from the sheriff's office wasn't what they needed with less than two hours to go until train time.

  "What is it you need?" Rooney said.

  "Sheriff wants me to ask you a couple questions. This won't take long."

  Tolan started up from the bed, his gun aimed directly at the door. He holstered that and picked up a sawed-off.

  Rooney half-leapt at Tolan, grabbing the man's gun wrist, pushing against the sawed-off.

  Rooney whispered: "We sure as hell don't want a shootout. Let's just see what he wants. Maybe they just like to hassle strangers here."

  With that, Rooney shrugged and tugged his suit into proper fitting position, slicked back his hair with the palms of both hands, and then wiped a heavy finger across his lips, in case he'd left some crumbs there.

  He looked back at Tolan. Tolan was ready to reenact the Civil War right here and right now. That was all he knew how to do.

  But this situation called for a civilized man of intelligence and self-control. One who could, through charm and subterfuge, make short order of a hick deputy sheriff.

  He opened the door, and Richard Neville hit him in the face with the butt of a Sharps buffalo rifle.

  Rooney—not a tough man, not a tough man at all—went wheeling backward, a womanly sound emitting from his lips.

  Tolan tried to reach his sawed-off, but it was too late for that now, wasn't it?

  Neville closed the door behind him and said, "You two were supposed to be on a steamboat two days ago. God knows I paid you two enough money to take care of my sister and then get away from here. What the hell happened?"

  Chapter Twenty-one

  There was a lot of disagreement from people in the hotel—staff and guests alike—as to which came first: the sound of the Colt or the sound of the sawed-off. Opinion seemed to divide right down the middle.

  The sheriff's name was Walt Naismith. He was tall, sinewy, and carried a wad of chaw that made his cheek look eight months pregnant. He wore a dusty suit and a suspicious expression.

  He checked it all out upstairs, where the killings had taken place, meanwhile keeping Neville in the temporary custody of a lone deputy in the lobby.

  The gunfire hadn't been difficult to hear. Prine had been less than a block away when it came. He knew who was involved. What he didn't know then was who had survived.

  Now he sat next to Neville in the hotel café, across the table from Naismith, who had dragged a spittoon over to his chair.

  "These the men killed your sister?" Naismith said.

  "Yes, sir, they are," Neville said.

  "And you're sure of that?"

  "Yes, I am, Sheriff. And the deputy here will vouch for me."

  "Is that true, son? You'll vouch for him?"

  "If you're asking me were these the men who killed his sister, yes. I believe they were."

  "And you don't have any reason not to believe they were?"

  "I guess I don't follow."

  Naismith smiled around his chaw.

  "Not fun when you're the one being asked the questions. You're too used to bein' the asker instead of the askee."

  "That's probably right. Hadn't thought of it that way."

  "What I'm getting at here, son, is do you have any major doubt about them bein' the killers?"

  "None that I can think of."

  "Good, son. Now back to you, Mr. Neville. And let me say that I'm well aware of who you are and who your pop was. But I treat all people fair and square—at least most of them—so I'm not gonna go too easy on you or too hard. You understand?"

  "I do, sir. But it's actually pretty simple, you see—"

  "One thing I learned in thirty years of bein' a lawman, nothin' is pretty simple. Not even the simple stuff is simple."

  Neville sighed impatiently, sat back in his chair, and folded his arms like a man whose wife had dragged him to a ballet.

  "I'm glad to answer any of your questions," he told Naismith.

  "Very good. That's the way we need to handle this. That way we can speed things right along." He sipped his coffee. Then spat. "Now, did you ever see Tolan and Rooney before today?"

  "No, I didn't."

  "How did you know they were in those rooms?" Neville explained how he'd worked all the saloons and hotels.

  "Did the deputy warn you about getting violent with them?"

  "Yes, he did. He was very explicit about it. He said that just because they'd killed my sister didn't give me any right to kill them unless it was in self-defense."

  "And you're saying that it was self-defense?"

  "Oh, absolutely it was. Tolan—that's the dark one, that's the only way I can keep them apart in my head—Tolan let me in, but then he only gave me about a minute before he brought up the sawed-off and fired at me."

  "Two bullets, from what I can see, Mr. Neville."

  "That's right, he fired twice."

  "Did Rooney shoot at you?"

  "He certainly did. Twice also, I believe. It looked like an old Colt to me."

  Naismith looked at Prine.

  "You ever hear of that, son? A man with a six-shooter like Mr. Neville's here holding off a man with a sawed-off and another man with a six-shooter?"

  Prine shrugged his shoulders.

  "In my experience, you can never predict how a shootout like that is going to go. There're a lot things involved. Speed, accuracy, courage—you just can't predict."

  Naismith turned back to Neville.

  "So there you were and you were facing two armed men. And what did you do?"

  "About the only thing I could. I threw myself in front of the bed and crouched down. There wasn't a lot of space."

  "You fired from that position?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you remember who you fired at first?"

  "I'm pretty sure it was Rooney. He was closest to me."

  "Do you remember where you hit him?"

  "It's all a blur. But I remember afterward—when he was down on the floor, I mean—I remember seeing this large dark hole in his forehead."

  "How did you come to shoot Tolan?"

  "He had to reload. And I heard him. I told him I wouldn't fire on him if he gave himself up."

  "So you warned him?"

  "Yes. I thought of what Prine here told me. About how I could fire only in self-defense."

  "So there is he reloading, and you shot him?"

  "He had a pistol underneath his blanket. He pulled it on me and . . ."

  "And you shot him."

  "Yes."

  "Do you remember where you wounded him?"

  "The chest, I believe."

  "The chest and the face."

  "Yes. Then I just got out of the room as soon as I could. I needed to get out in the hallway. Fresh air. I was getting sick to my stomach. Maybe I did hit him in the face, too."

  "I'll be honest with
you here, Mr. Neville," Naismith said. "We're not a rich county, and you could put up one hell of a fight that we'd probably lose anyway. Prine here knows what I'm talking about."

  "You're not saying what you mean, Naismith," Prine said.

  "I'm not saying he's guilty."

  "But you're not saying he's innocent, either."

  Naismith sighed and shrugged. "My boys talked to the people staying in the room next to Tolan's room. They heard the shooting, but they didn't hear anything else. And that might mean that they actually didn't hear anything or that they know who your friend Neville is and they don't want to get involved. Either way, all they heard was the shots. They don't know who started the fight or who fired first. We checked all the guests on that floor to see if anybody was walking past the door and heard anybody in Tolan's room talking. There were five people on the floor at that time, or so they say, and not one of them heard anything. Or so they say."

  "So you'll have to take Neville's word for it," Prine said.

  "This isn't the old days," Naismith said. "We're all legaled up now, or like to think we are. You get two men dead and you're talking to the man who killed them, you hope you can get some kind of corroboration for what he's saying."

  "I guess his word's about all you've got."

  "Then I can go? I want to get back home, Sheriff."

  Naismith smiled. "I needed to put a little fear in you, Neville, feel like I was doin' my job at least a little bit."

  Neville's smile was one of those big public smiles that politicians hand out like promises.

  "Well, for what it's worth, you got my stomach in knots for a few minutes there, Sheriff."

  "Good," Naismith said, offering a large, worn, liver-spotted chunk of hand. "Now I'll sleep better tonight."

  Chapter Twenty-two

  By the time they reached the town limits of Claybank, mist and fog had turned them into cold, unspeaking wraiths. They'd each nodded off from time to time. Hard to say who was more tired, the men or their horses.

  "I'll be turning off here," Neville said. His face was slick with moisture. He stank of grime and sleep and dampness. "You're going to say no to this, Prine. But I don't want you to. I'll consider it an insult if you do, in fact. I'm drawing a check for a thousand dollars for you and having somebody from the bank run it over to the sheriff's office tomorrow."