Clea's Moon

by Edward Wright

  “Oh, Baby. Let it out, Honey. Let it out.”

  The sobs came full-throated then, wailing and full of pain, as if they were years’ worth of pent-up cries. He patted her shoulder, not knowing what else to do, just telling her it was going to be all right now, whatever it was, it was going to be all right. He would make it all right, he said, even as he asked himself how he possibly could.

  “I saw him,” she cried.

  “Who?”

  “The man with the rings.”

  “The man with the. . . . When?”

  “At the funeral. For Scotty’s father. I saw him there. And I remembered his face, and the rings on his hands. And his hands had black hair on them. And how one of his hands grabbed me and held me, while he was doing things to that other little girl. I wanted to leave so bad, but he wouldn’t let me. He said I should watch. It was a long time ago, but when I saw his face, and the rings, I remembered.”

  He gripped her tightly. “I know about it. You’re never going to see him again. And someday you’ll be able to forget all of it. Do you hear me?”

  “No,” she said, her voice thickened with tears. “I didn’t think about it for a long time. But now I can’t stop. When I saw him, he saw me too. And the way he looked at me. . . .I just keep seeing his face, over and over.”

  “Is that when you ran away? After you saw him?”

  He felt her head nod against his shoulder, felt the wetness there.

  “But why didn’t you just tell your mother? She could have helped you. Your new

  father—”

  “I couldn’t have talked to him about that,” she said.

  “Your mother, then.”

  “She’s the reason it happened,” Clea said, her breath heaving again. “She let it happen to me.”

  “Honey, she didn’t know.”

  But there was no reasoning with her. She lay there crying, and all he could do was hold her. Finally, when her sobs finally subsided to breathless gasps, and he could feel his chest drenched from her tears, she turned her face up to him. “You came after me, didn’t you?” she asked.

  “You bet I did, little girl,” he said, gripping her hard. “You bet I did.”

  In a few minutes she was asleep. His name was Vincent, he said to her silently. You don’t ever need to know that.

  * * *

  It didn’t take him long to find his old foot locker. It was in a corner of Maggie’s tack room, under a worn saddle blanket. There was no lock. Opening it, he saw Sierra Lane’s old cavalry boots and hat, the brim pinned up jauntily on one side. Close by were the familiar gun belt and holster, done in plain leather. Underneath, neatly folded, were the pants and the blue shirt with its array of buttons. He pulled out a wide sheet of tightly rolled-up paper and unrolled it.

  Okay, Indian, maybe I lied a little. Maybe I did keep one of my posters.

  It was the one-sheet for Wyoming Thunder, and it showed Sierra Lane astride Raincloud, galloping full-tilt toward the viewer against the background of a stormy sky. The cowboy gripped the reins in his left hand while his right swept his hat high and wide. Dust billowed under Raincloud’s hooves, and horse and rider seemed one, almost like a centaur, swept up and lost in the joy of running.

  He replaced the poster and, at the bottom of the trunk, found what he was looking for, a heavy bundle wrapped in oilcloth. He unwrapped the cloth and held the Colt in his hand, feeling the grip, testing the balance. One more thing, and soon he had fished it out too: A small, heavy box bearing a label that said Caution: Live Ammunition. Not for Use on Set.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “I don’t need you on this,” Horn said as Mad Crow guided the Cadillac eastward on Hollywood Boulevard, the top down, the midmorning sun warm on the dashboard.

  “White man make joke,” Mad Crow said. “You have no idea what you need, my friend. You need me to watch over you, like an overweight guardian angel. To keep a rein on you. Mostly, you need me to make sure you don’t come uncorked again, the way you did that time with Junior. In short, you need me to keep you out of Cold Creek. Reach us a couple of RCs from the back, will you?”

  Horn shrugged, not in the mood to argue. He half-turned, dug two bottles out of the cooler on the back seat, shook off the ice, and pried off the tops with an opener from the glove compartment.

  “Thanks,” Mad Crow said, taking a long swig. “You ever wonder why they never asked us to sink our big feet into the cement over there?” He pointed to Grauman’s Chinese Theater, passing on the left, where a few tourists were idling over the stars’ footprints out front.

  “Next to Ronald Colman and Greer Garson?” Horn said. “Somewhere between Gable and Lombard? Gosh, I don’t know. Must have been some kind of oversight. I keep thinking the phone’ll ring some day, and it’ll be Sid Grauman saying, “Mr. Horn, my most sincere apologies for neglecting you. I just saw Wyoming Thunder, and it’s a masterpiece. I want to immortalize you today. And don’t forget to bring your sidekick, what’s his name.”

  “An oversight,” Mad Crow said, hitting the brakes as a bell rang and the Stop arm flew up on the traffic signal up ahead. They heard a yell and saw a young man on the sidewalk waving at them enthusiastically.

  “Fan of yours?” Horn inquired.

  “Could be; I don’t know,” the Indian said, saluting him back with the RC bottle. “Most likely he’s just waving at the car. I get a lot of that.” He looked sideways at Horn. “I know, you think I’m crazy to enjoy all the attention. I don’t care. I like it. You be all morose and private if you want to. Me, I’m going to put the top down, drive in the sunshine, and wave at all the nice people.”

  The Go signal flew up, and he stepped on the gas. “Now what’s this thing you didn’t want to talk about on the phone?”

  “She opened up to me last night,” Horn replied. “Clea. It’s starting to make sense. When Iris and her new husband took her to Arthur Bullard’s funeral, she saw Bonsigniore there. And she remembered him from the lodge. He had tried to rape her. She was little more than a baby—”

  “Oh, man.” Mad Crow gripped the wheel and shook his head, his face twisted into something ugly.

  “And it came back to her at the funeral. Not only that, he saw her. He must know that she remembers. All this time, I thought the lodge was something way back in the past for her, just a bad time she could grow out of. I didn’t know she was in any danger today. But it’s all connected. She ran away because she blamed her mother for letting her father do all that to her. But most of all, because she had seen that man’s face again after all these years.”

  “You think he’s after her?”

  “I know he is. If he’d have Scotty killed to cover up what he did, why not Clea? I think he would have sent someone to get her soon after the funeral if she hadn’t run. I also think it was a kind of miracle she wound up with Del Vitti, because he was one of the few people who could protect her.”

  “But he was Vinnie’s boy,” Mad Crow said. “I don’t get it.”

  “I don’t either, altogether. But Clea told me she met Del Vitti around the high school and that it didn’t seem accidental. Long before she spotted him at the funeral, I think Bonsigniore was trying to keep tabs on Clea. He could have sent Del Vitti to casually check up on her, get to know her, try to see if she was any kind of risk. It would have been insurance for him. Most of the girls who went up to the lodge were from poor families, families that could be paid off. Clea was different. Her new father had money. Bonsigniore couldn’t afford to take the chance that she might be a threat to him someday. So he sent Del Vitti to keep an eye on her.”

  “Okay, but that doesn’t explain—”

  “What happened at Del Vitti’s house. I know. I think he fell for her, that’s what happened.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No. Clea told
me he was a perfect gentleman, never laid a hand on her. I think he was in love with her. After the funeral, Bonsigniore must have made it clear that he wanted her killed—may even have ordered Del Vitti to do it. But just at that moment, she showed up at his front door, asking him to take her in. And he did. He decided to be her protector. Bonsigniore figured it out and sent Falco over to kill them both. But just before he was killed, Del Vitti managed to hide her, and save her.”

  Horn stretched his arms overhead to work out the stiffness from his lack of sleep. “He was a snake,” he said. “But I owe him for that.”

  “What’s that under your shirt?”

  “The old Colt. I dug it out of my foot locker last night. This is serious from now on, Indian. We aren’t talking any more about getting a girl back to her parents. Somebody wants her dead. She’s safe at Maggie’s for now, but every day that goes by, they’re closer to finding her.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “First off, getting the police in on this. With my record, they won’t listen to me—”

  “Afraid I wouldn’t do much better,” Mad Crow cut in, “considering my line of work.”

  “But I know someone they’d listen to. Helen Bullard.”

  “The widow?”

  He nodded. “She’s a tough old bird—ruthless, even, just like her husband. She carries a lot of weight in this town. She told me there’s nothing she wants more than to nail whoever killed Scotty. I’m going to tell her all I know and let her use the information any way she wants. If she doesn’t want to do it, I’ll talk to Paul Fairbrass. He’s a solid citizen too. But I don’t think he knows as much about hating as Mrs. Arthur Bullard.”

  “Good luck with that,” Mad Crow said, sounding dubious. Without looking, he tossed the empty bottle over his shoulder. It bounced off the back seat and landed on the floor. “What else?”

  “Now that I know the kind of danger Clea’s in, I want to get her out of town. If she went home, she wouldn’t be safe. Iris and her husband can always have me arrested later, if that’s what they want to do. Right now, I want to make sure she’s a long way from Bonsigniore and his people. Any thoughts about that?”

  Mad Crow hesitated. “Maybe. I got a good friend in San Bernardino. I staked him to a truck and horse trailer a long time ago, and he owes me. I could call him, see if he’d put her up for a while.”

  “Good. I’ll go with her. You can stay in touch with me, let me know if the problem clears up at this end. If not. . . .”

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Mad Crow said, looking grim. “Somebody is going to have to go after him. And Falco. And anybody else who gets in the way. Are you up for that, amigo?”

  “No.” Horn allowed himself to smile at the idiocy of it. “It’s a lot easier to play a hero than to be one.”

  “Sometimes you find out things about yourself you didn’t know were there.”

  “I know,” Horn said. “I found out a few things in Italy, none of them very pretty. Anyway. . . . There’s one other thing. It’s about you.”

  “Yeah.” Mad Crow, eyes straight ahead, drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “About me and my friend Vinnie.”

  “That’s right. You and your partner.”

  “He left his calling card with me the other night.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “After that day we met up at the Alexandria, he told me you were trouble, I should fire you. He said someday he might have to deal with you, and if I was in the way, he’d deal with me too, and it wouldn’t be good for me or my business. I told him I respected his sage counsel and I’d think about it.”

  Horn listened silently.

  “Other night, after we closed, somebody filled up a Budweiser bottle with gasoline, stuck a rag in the top, lit it, and busted it against my back door. Not a lot of damage, it just singed things a little bit. But I got the message.”

  Horn made a face. “Look, Indian, I didn’t know things were headed this way. I try to never get up against a man’s business. But that’s where we are. He wants Clea dead. You can’t be on both sides in this.”

  Mad Crow made a U-turn and docked the Cadillac at the curb near their destination. He turned and gave Horn a slack-jawed grin. “So fuck him,” he said. “The fat guinea, him and his fat little fingers with the fancy rings.”

  “You mean it?”

  “Sure. The little girl comes first. Let’s take care of this business, okay? Starting right here.” He gestured toward the storefront a dozen yards away.

  “Okay.” Horn started to get out.

  “Wait a minute. Can I have that, please?” Mad Crow held out his hand. After a few seconds, Horn pulled the Colt from under his belt, and Mad Crow put it under the seat. “You won’t need it. I forgot the most important reason you need me around—to keep you from shooting up the saloon and scaring all the dancing girls.”

  “Fine with me,” Horn said. “We’re here just to talk.”

  “That’s right. You be the good-natured, slow-witted cowboy. If the need arises, I’ll be your slightly unpredictable companion.”

  The little bell tinkled as they entered Geiger’s bookshop. The only person inside was a business-suited customer sitting in one of the soft leather easy chairs, a large book balanced on his knees. He looked up furtively.

  A heavy curtain parted behind the counter, and Calvin St. George came out. His eyes quickly took in Horn and Mad Crow, and although his expression did not change, he seemed to sense that his store was about to be disturbed. He gave no sign that he recognized Horn. “May I help you?” he asked in a flat tone.

  “Sure,” Horn said. “Remember that talk we had? Well, I’ve thought of a lot more questions I need to ask.”

  “Ahh. . . .” St. George rested his fingertips lightly on the glass atop the counter, his eyes darting between the two visitors and the customer in the chair. “I don’t, ah. . . .”

  Mad Crow quickly worked out his own role. He walked around behind the customer, bent over, and stared at the open book in the man’s lap.

  “Whoa, Nellie,” he said loudly. “John Ray, come here and look. This gal’s on some kind of a trapeze. How the hell can she do that? No, wait a minute, it’s more like a—”

  The man slammed the book shut, grabbed his hat and left, causing the little bell to ring furiously. Following him to the door, Mad Crow flipped over the Closed sign, and drew the door’s shade down to cover the glass.

  St. George quickly retrieved the book and deposited it under the glass-topped counter. “That was very rude,” he said to Horn. His voice was steady, but his fingertips tapped nervously on the glass.

  “I suppose,” Horn replied. “But you don’t want an audience for this, do you?”

  “If you make trouble here, I’ll call the police.”

  “No, you won’t.” Horn took a seat in the chair vacated by the customer. “It’ll just cause you grief. Looks to me like a lot of your business is illegal. So if you have us tossed out of here, somebody in Vice will get a call about you. They’ll close you down, and you’ll go to jail. Who’s got more to lose?”

  When St. George didn’t answer, Horn reached over and patted the seat of the chair next to him. “Come on over here and talk to me, Calvin.”

  St. George stood still. His attention was on Mad Crow, who was moving around the room, occasionally taking a book from a shelf and leafing through it. “What about?” he asked.

  “Men who like to look at pictures of under-age girls,” Horn said flatly. “Just like the picture I showed you last time I was here. You recognized it, even though you said you didn’t. I want to know why you lied to me and what you know about these men.”

  St. George looked directly at Horn. “You probably think I’m afraid of you. I’m not. I’ve dealt with threats before.”

  “Is
that so? And how do you deal with them, Calvin?”

  “Get out,” St. George said, raising his voice slightly.

  Horn was about to reply, but just then he heard Mad Crow whistle softly through his teeth. “John Ray, this is just bee-yoo-tiful. I bet this book is worth a lot of money.” He held it up for St. George to see. “Isn’t it?”

  “Please be careful with that,” St. George said, sounding almost bored. “That’s a Decameron, printed in Italy in 1813. It’s in fine condition. The engravings alone—”

  “This one,” Mad Crow said, opening the book to a full-page illustration. “This is an engraving, right? This is pretty enough to put on my wall. Can I have it?”

  St. George sighed. “The book will cost you—”

  “No, just this page.” Mad Crow gripped the top corner and began to pull. The sound of tearing paper was surprisingly loud.

  “No!” St. George was across the room in an instant. As he grabbed at the book, he ran into Mad Crow’s open hand, which closed on his throat and maneuvered him back against the bookshelves.

  “Go sit in the chair and talk to my friend, Calvin,” the Indian said conversationally. “I’ll just keep looking at your collection here, see if anything strikes my fancy.” He spread his fingers, and St. George sagged, clutching at his throat. After a brief hesitation, he made his way to the chair and sat.

  Mad Crow carefully realigned the page, which had about an inch torn from its binding, and replaced the Decameron on the shelf, then resumed his browsing.

  “No time to be polite,” Horn said to St. George. “I’ve got some ideas about you. I think you’re the man who took that picture I showed you, along with a lot of others. All under-age girls, all of them molested, some worse than others. You’re one of the molesters. They’re good-quality pictures, and you’re a good photographer.” He pointed to the framed photos of the young woman and the girl. “And,” he said, looking around the store, “you also deal in roughly the same kind of material.”