Hart the Regulator 4

by John B. Harvey

  ‘Hi, Charlie,’ Hart began as he walked towards him, but as soon as the words were out he realized that it wasn’t Charlie.

  The black barman didn’t seem to care; he was probably used to folk calling him Charlie or Sam or whatever they fancied.

  ‘Whiskey?’ the Negro asked, already tipping the bottle over an empty glass.

  ‘Okay.’

  A hand slipped between Hart’s left arm and his side. ‘Buy me one, too?’

  It was the girl from the stairs. Closer to, she looked older instead of younger; there was the fading mark of a bruise on her right cheekbone; her shoulder, where her hair touched it, showed the purple-red indentations of someone’s teeth.

  ‘Uh-uh.’

  The girl pulled her hand away, pettishly.

  ‘Got to buy a girl a drink,’ said the barman matter-of-factly. ‘Rule of the house.’

  Hart gave him a hard look but the Negro just smiled and after a couple of moments Hart nodded in the direction of the girl. The barman poured her a shot of gin and she put her hand back on Hart’s arm. He shook it free and she leaned her back against the bar and drank her gin instead.

  ‘What happened to Charlie?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Charlie. He always ran the bar for Kate.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the Negro. ‘I don’t know.’ He started polishing the rim of a glass with a cloth that was tucked into his apron. After a while he looked up at Hart and asked: ‘Who’s Kate?’

  Two girls sitting on either side of a large, sandy-haired man erupted into giggles at something the man had said. He placed one large hand on their right and left legs respectively and gave them both a squeeze.

  Hart turned to the dark girl beside him. ‘How long you worked here?’

  ‘Let me see now.’ She sipped on her gin and gave the matter some thought; it seemed to take her quite a little time to figure it out. ‘Three weeks, all but a day. No, two days. The stage got in on the Friday, but...’

  ‘Okay,’ Hart stopped her. ‘So you’re new. Are all the girls here new?’

  She thought about that question too.

  ‘Well, Margie and Steph came in on the coach with me and I know for a fact Beryl and Bridget hadn’t been here for more than a week so, yes, I suppose you could say we was new.’

  She smiled up at Hart and looked a trifle breathless, as though she wasn’t used to talking so much all in one go.

  ‘You know what happened to the girls who were here before?’

  ‘No. Never seen nothing of them.’

  ‘An’ you don’t know why Kate took it into her head to get rid of all her old girls and hire a new batch?’

  The girl set down her glass and looked at Hart through narrowed eyes. ‘Kate?’ she said. ‘Who’s Kate?’

  ‘She’s...’ Hart left it there and walked away from the bar, over towards a pair of girls sitting on one of the settees and looking unaccompanied and forlorn. As he passed the sandy-haired man another series of high-pitched giggles rose into the perfumed air and was joined by the man’s bass laughter.

  The two girls perked up as Hart approached, switching smiles of interest on to their faces and making a space between them for Hart to sit down. He remained standing.

  ‘Either of you know where Kate is?’

  They glanced at one another and made faces.

  ‘No Kate works here,’ said one in a tinny voice.

  ‘No,’ agreed her companion. ‘There’s a Karen.’

  ‘Kate doesn’t work here,’ explained Hart, his temper beginning to show in the volume and tone of his voice. ‘She runs this place, owns it.’

  There was a crash of breaking glass from the far side of the room and Hart swung round in time to see a man half out of his seat, one arm stretched out before him, fingers spread in a belated attempt to catch the glass that was in fragments on the floor. The man sank unsteadily back into his chair and called over the barman for a fresh glass.

  ‘I don’t know about no Kate,’ said the girl with the tinny voice. ‘Mrs Mitchell’s the manageress. She runs things for Mr Kennedy.’

  ‘All right. Where’ll I find either of them right now?’

  The girls looked at one another questioningly.

  ‘Mrs Mitchell’s probably upstairs making sure everything’s as it should be in the rooms. I haven’t seen Mr Kennedy all evening.’ She pointed to the man who’d knocked the glass from his table. ‘That one over there, he’s been waiting for him since we opened.’

  Hart glanced across at the man again, then nodded. ‘Thanks. I’ll wander upstairs and take a look for this Mrs Mitchell.’

  ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘No, you see...’

  ‘I don’t see nothin’. You said she’s up there an’ I want to see her so what’s to stop me goin’ up to look for her?’

  The girls looked quickly at each other.

  ‘No man’s allowed up there...’ one began.

  ‘Without one of the girls going with him,’ the other finished.

  ‘Well,’ said Hart, ‘since when’s that been the case?’

  ‘It’s a...’

  ‘... house rule.’

  Hart sighed. ‘Okay. We’ll stick to the rules.’ And he reached down and grabbed the tinny-voiced girl by the upper arm and lifted her to her feet. She started to squeal and protest but Hart half-carried her, half-dragged her towards the stairs, one of her high-heel shoes falling off in the process.

  The Negro behind the bar moved quietly in the direction of the pistol he kept in the back of the cash drawer.

  ‘Hey! Let me go! I can walk on my own if you want to...’

  ‘What is the meaning of this?’

  Mrs Mitchell stood on the top step of the stairs, hands on her hips, glaring down. She was tall and thin and the nose on her face stood out like an eagle’s beak. On either side of it the eyes were small and beady and below it the mouth was now a thin, tight line. A single diamond ring shone on her right hand; only one diamond but as big as a dollar piece.

  ‘Well?’

  Hart let go of the girl abruptly and she collapsed into a pile of slender limbs and smooth clothing on the stairs.

  ‘You Mrs Mitchell?’

  ‘What if I am?’

  ‘I want to talk with you.’

  ‘What pray, about?’

  ‘About Kate Stein.’

  Mrs Mitchell drew back her upper lip, revealing long teeth set close together, the central pair turned outwards near the root. ‘Come with me.’

  She turned and walked back up the stairs and along the corridor, Hart following.

  The room they went into had been Kate’s room but it wasn’t any longer. Apart from a dark wood sideboard the furniture was different. Kate’s paintings no longer hung on the walls; nothing hung on the walls. A medicine chest stood open on the table. The entire room smelt of carbolic.

  Mrs Mitchell closed the door and stood behind her medicine chest. She didn’t ask Hart to sit down; she just told him about Kate selling up to Kennedy and pulling out. Lock, stock and whores. They were heading for Dodge City. At least, that was what Kate Stein had said - the way Mrs Mitchell gave the information suggested that she didn’t believe a word Kate had said.

  When the story was over the two of them stared at one another in silence for several seconds. Hart half-wanted to ask if Kate had left any message for him, but it would have been a sign of weakness somehow and he didn’t want to make it. Not to someone like Mrs Mitchell. Maybe he didn’t even want to make it to himself.

  ‘Should you wish to use the facilities of the house. I’m sure you’ll find them equally as satisfactory as under the previous owner.’

  Hart narrowed his eyes and turned towards the door. As he did so it opened.

  The man who came into the room was around five foot eight or nine. He was fairly heavily built with a spreading stomach that his buttoned vest failed to hide. He was wearing a three-piece suit in dark grey material with a faint light stripe running through it. A watch chain was looped acros
s the front of his vest.

  He had black hair, a lock of which hung forward over his forehead. His eyebrows were quite thick and dark and below them his eyes were a very light blue.

  When he looked at Hart the eyebrows rose slowly.

  ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Hm, hmm.’

  ‘This, em, gentleman was inquiring after Miss Stein,’ explained Mrs Mitchell. ‘I’ve just finished telling him what little we know.’

  The eyebrows descended a fraction. ‘You have. Hm, well, that would seem to cover that, then.’

  His accent was oddly edged, the final that spread long and flat. Hart had known a rancher who hailed from Scotland and recognized Kennedy’s accent as being the same.

  ‘There’s a man downstairs waiting to see you,’ said Mrs Mitchell. ‘He says his name is Fowler.’

  ‘Fowler? Hm, well, I’ll see him shortly.’

  Hart stepped past Kennedy and went downstairs. The man he took to be Fowler was still sitting on his own in the corner of the room, still drinking quite heavily. The sandy-haired man seemed to have taken his two girls to one of the rooms. The whore with the coil of black hair and the teeth marks looked up at him expectantly and quickly away when she saw who he was.

  Hart needed a drink fast to wash the taste of carbolic out of his mouth and nose.

  He swallowed down the whiskey the Negro had poured as soon as he’d seen him heading over towards the bar.

  ‘Give me a beer chaser.’

  The black shook his head pleasantly. ‘Sorry, no beer.’

  Hart sighed. ‘Okay. Another whiskey.’

  While it was being poured out, Kennedy came downstairs and started on his way towards the small bar. A shout from the corner stopped him.

  ‘Kennedy! You Kennedy?’

  It was a growl of a voice from a short, dark bear of a man. Fowler sat with both arms on the table, curving inwards like paws protecting his bottle and glass. He had a round face topped with dark hair that seemed to be thinning out on top. He wore a beard and mustache which were much lighter in color around the mouth. Lines furrowed his forehead.

  ‘Kennedy?’ he growled.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I been waitin’ four hours for you.’

  Kennedy looked pointedly at the bottle in front of Fowler. ‘So it would appear. And what is it you’re wanting?’

  Fowler pushed himself up. When he’d been sitting down the size of his gut had been hidden but now it bulged out against the edge of the table freely. He moved one hand to his coat pocket slowly, as if he wasn’t too certain where the pocket would be. Carefully he drew out a small business card and held it towards Kennedy, shaking a little in between thick, stubby fingers.

  Kennedy went over and took the card: R. G. Fowler. Didion Detective Agency, Sacramento.

  ‘You sent for me,’ said Fowler, letting his hand fall back to his side.

  Hart was looking at him intently now, trying first to figure out where he wore his gun and settling for a shoulder rig on the left side. Secondly, wondering what it was that had brought the operative all the way from Sacramento.

  ‘I didn’t, mm, send for you. I sent to the agency for a detective.’

  ‘And they sent me.’

  Kennedy looked him up and down with clear disdain. ‘Very well. I shall wire the agency first thing in the morning and request that they send another man.’

  ‘No.’ The word was accompanied by a shift in Fowler’s position, moving out from behind the table. ‘They won’t do that. This is my territory. Besides, if the drinking’s what you’re worried about, you needn’t. It’s perfectly under control.’

  Kennedy went nearer. ‘Look, this is a very important matter. One requiring absolute trust. It was for that reason I contacted a detective agency in the first place instead of simply hiring a man from town.’

  ‘So,’ said Fowler with more than a hint of anger in his voice. ‘So you can trust me.’

  ‘That,’ replied Kennedy, lifting his eyebrows as high as they would go, ‘is a matter of opinion. And I have to say that it isn’t mine.’

  ‘The hell you say!’

  Fowler pushed the table heavily to one side, sending bottle and glass hurtling to the floor. In the midst of the crash he cursed and started to head for Kennedy as if he intended to butt him in the chest like a bull. He made three paces before his legs went under him and he fell with a loud thump to the floor.

  Kennedy stared down at the man as though looking at a pig wallowing in thick, rutted mud.

  ‘I think that bears out what I was saying, Mr mm, Fowler. I have no use for you whatsoever.’

  Fowler rolled over on to his side and pointed one hand up at Kennedy. ‘I was … I was hired.’

  ‘Hired and fired.’ Kennedy drew a leather wallet from inside his jacket and took out a number of bills, dropping them over the detective’s body.

  ‘You may have those for your trouble,’ he said curtly and turned away.

  The bills fluttered through the warm, scented air and landed on Fowler’s clothes and on the carpet around him. There were not many, Hart thought, to recompense a man who’d likely traveled a long way to take on a job.

  As Hart watched, Fowler turned on to his chest and slowly pushed himself up into a kneeling position. Several of the girls were staring at him, giggling openly. Fowler’s hand moved close to the front of his coat and Hart thought he might be about to make a play for whatever gun he was toting, but it was only a passing thought, if it had been one at all. The hand moved away and the man got to his feet with more than a little effort.

  Fowler walked slowly to the bar and stood close by Hart, paying him no attention.

  ‘Bourbon.’

  The Negro hesitated, glancing to where Kennedy was standing towards the center of the room.

  ‘Gimme bourbon.’

  ‘I’m not sure if...’

  ‘Oh, you’re not,’ growled Fowler, stepping back from the bar and going to where the bills still lay on the carpet. He bent down with difficulty, swaying as he grabbed them into his hand.

  ‘Here,’ he said with a note of triumph. ‘I can pay for it, see. You can’t turn this money down. It’s your boss’s money so it’s got to be good, damn it!’

  Kennedy looked at the barman and slowly but definitely shook his head from side to side. The Negro let his right hand drift in the direction of the pistol in the drawer and smiled placating at the detective.

  ‘Sorry, sir, maybe you’d best take your custom elsewhere.’

  Fowler shook his head as if to clear it, placing his finger ends on his temples and pressing hard. He made a sound in his throat midway between a growl and a roar. When he moved the hands away it was possible to see the white marks the fingers had made on the darker, flushed skin.

  Hart moved back towards the wall, flicking the safety thong from the hammer of his Colt, thinking he really didn’t want to get drawn into two bar fights in the one evening.

  But Fowler controlled himself again and stuffed the bills down into his pockets. He turned and stared at Kennedy with eyes that were brighter and clearer than they had any right to be then walked past him to the door and went out into the street.

  ‘Trash,’ said Kennedy to no one in particular. ‘Drunken trash!’

  Hart waited a few moments longer and followed Fowler out of the place.

  He shut the green door hard behind him and the brass knocker jumped up and down and banged twice. A couple of riders going past turned their heads under high-crowned Stetsons and looked in his direction. Over to the far side of the street a man and a woman were arguing loudly, both waving their fists in the air. Three horses were tied up outside the whorehouse, more at the saloon opposite.

  Hart was feeling dissatisfied, dissatisfied in all manner of ways and for more reasons than the unexplained and sudden departure of Kate Stein. It was too early to turn in and he didn’t fancy paying for any of Kennedy’s girls. Maybe he’d sit in on a game of stud over at the saloon and pass a couple of hours that way.
/>   He stepped off the boardwalk and into the street. Four paces later a pistol shot cracked out and instinctively Hart threw himself to his left, body curling as it dropped, head swiveling in the direction from which the shot had come, right hand curving towards the butt of his Colt .45. He saw the flash of fire from the opposite side of the street, close alongside the saloon. His left shoulder hit the ground hard and then his left leg and he felt himself rolling, doing so automatically, over and up as the second shot sounded and the second flare of flame spurted into the darkness. Hart’s gun was in his hand and the hammer was back and he could hear voices shouting from all around and see faces appearing over the top of the batwing doors of the saloon. The woman on the sidewalk had fallen into the arms of the man she’d been fighting with and was screaming against his chest.

  Hart couldn’t hear the bushwhacker running down the alley but when no more shots came he guessed that was what had happened. He jumped to his feet and sprinted for the opening of the alley.

  It was dark for most of its length and the shadowy shapes of barrels and old boxes lined the side nearest to the saloon. Hart ran along it and paused a few yards from the far end, listening. Something or someone made a scuffling sound to the right and he eased his way to the corner. A few inches of hat brim was enough to draw fire and immediately he was round and searching for his target, gun raised and arm extended.

  He saw the man’s silhouette as the gun flash faded: saw it and squeezed back on the Colt’s trigger. The roar of the gunshot merged with a shout of pain and the sound of a body falling heavily to ground. Hart ran forward.

  The cowboy was laying on his right side, left hand clasped to his chest and the right hidden underneath his body.

  Hart wasn’t about to take any chances.

  Keeping the Colt pointing straight at the man’s head, he moved in and used the toe of his boot to lever him over. The cowboy winced and groaned and Hart pushed harder until he was on his back. A pistol was still in his right hand.

  ‘Throw it clear!’

  The man’s face stared up at him through the half-light and his reactions were too slow. Hart swung his leg and kicked the hand, sending the gun skittering across the ground.