Ralph Compton Straight to the Noose

by Marcus Galloway

  “I’m looking bruised again?”

  “And you smell like gunpowder.”

  Mason started to get up but was held in place by the hand on his chest. He wasn’t about to fight to get away from her, so he leaned back again. “Greeley isn’t telling me all of what’s going on here,” he said.

  “Now, there’s a surprise.” Maggie chuckled. “A man like that is actually lying to you?”

  “I know it’s strange, but it made more sense when he told me he wanted Simons dead because of a gambling debt. I mean, he was about to kill me for the same reason and I don’t even know how many others he’s killed before me.”

  “It’s just a bluff with a good amount of groundwork laid down ahead of time. Nothing new there.”

  “I know that now,” Mason said. “But after I got past the bluff, I still don’t see what the purpose of it was.”

  “He had to tell you something to get you to go on that job.”

  “Not really. I do owe him a hell of a lot of money and I still don’t think he forced me into that predicament.”

  “But he must not have wanted you poking around into what was truly going on,” she said. “He gave you a story that wouldn’t be hard to swallow so you’d just go off and do the job you were given. Speaking of which . . . did you?”

  “Did I what?” Mason asked.

  “Did you do the job?”

  “Yes.”

  Maggie sat up so quickly that she nearly threw Mason onto the floor. “What did you just say?”

  “That I did the job,” Mason replied.

  “You killed a man in cold blood?”

  “It wasn’t cold blood. It was the job I was given.”

  “Isn’t that cold blood?” she said.

  Mason blinked and furrowed his brow in thought. “I don’t . . . think so.”

  He let her hang for a few more seconds before letting her off the hook. “I didn’t kill him, Maggie.”

  “I knew it,” she sighed. “You couldn’t fool me.”

  As they both leaned back into their original positions, Mason waited until she was relaxed once again before saying, “I did cut his finger off, though.”

  She patted his chest and replied, “Sure you did.”

  Now that the tension had been relieved somewhat, Mason felt more like talking. After giving her a quick retelling of what had happened in Sedrich up to the last hour or two, he said, “Simons had a lot to say about his history with Greeley.”

  “And do you think you can believe him?”

  “Yes.”

  Being no stranger to gut instinct, Maggie accepted that. “What did he tell you?”

  “That he helped Greeley hire enough gunmen to get his business ventures going.”

  “And why would Greeley want him dead?”

  Mason thought back to his conversation with Simons. Eventually he had to admit, “We never really came up with an answer to that.”

  “There’re other names on the list, right?”

  “Yes. Two more of them. You think one of those other men will know why Greeley hates Simons so much?” Mason asked.

  He could feel Maggie shrug behind him. “Maybe. Maybe not. I was just thinking that you might get a better idea about what the whole picture is once you got a look at more than one piece of it.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “So, what happened to Simons anyway?”

  “He’s headed east,” Mason said. “I’ve got a small place in New York City that I’m loaning him for a short while. I got the impression that he was just as happy to get away from his cousins as he was to get away from Greeley.”

  “Family is always trouble. I never had much luck with mine.”

  “I think his family is a bit more than just trouble. At least some of them are killers.”

  After a slight pause, Maggie said, “My aunt Irene is a real piece of work. If I introduced her to Simons, perhaps he’d run as far as the Alaska coast.”

  Mason laughed a bit but found himself distracted. More than anything, he wanted to simply lie there and enjoy as much silence as he could get before Greeley summoned him. Something was bothering him, though, and had been for a while. Like the proverbial burr under a saddle, the matter became more painful the longer it was allowed to sink in. Finally he said, “I killed a man.”

  Maggie’s hand came to an abrupt stop over his heart. “What was that?”

  “I said I had to kill a man. While I was in Sedrich.”

  “Who was it?”

  “One of the overmen,” he said.

  “Good Lord. Was one of them following you?”

  It was at that moment that Mason realized he hadn’t mentioned the overman when he told her about what had happened in Sedrich. Mason started talking again, retelling parts of his account only with all the key participants in place.

  When he got close to the end, he said, “I put my knife to his throat just to end the fight. If I’d killed him in that instant, I think it would have been easier.”

  “He meant to kill you.”

  “No doubt about that.”

  “And he would have killed you if you’d let him go, right?”

  Mason thought about that, but not for long. “Probably. I’d say he was there to put me down if I didn’t play along like I was supposed to. Then again, if I’d done the job like I’d agreed . . .”

  Shifting on the bed, Maggie situated herself so she could face him. “If you’d done the job like Greeley wanted, you would have killed an innocent man.”

  “Simons wasn’t exactly innocent.”

  “Neither are we, in case you haven’t noticed. That doesn’t mean we deserve to be executed.”

  “Depends on which judge you ask,” Mason said. When he saw the scolding expression on Maggie’s face, he added, “But I do see your point.”

  “That man was there to kill you. I don’t see your problem. Haven’t you ever had to defend yourself before?”

  “I have. Usually you can feel a fight brewing,” Mason said. “You can tell it’s coming, and by the time it does, you know why it happened and where it’s headed.”

  “You really do think that much about every little thing,” Maggie said as though she’d only then taken that as truth. “I’m surprised your head hasn’t torn itself apart yet.”

  “You’ve been on the circuit. It’s like you just said. We’re not innocents. We both have bent the rules or broken them outright to get where we needed to go. Sometimes it’s justified and sometimes it’s just convenient. But when we get caught and there’s trouble headed our way . . .”

  Maggie nodded and put her hand on his knee. Since Mason was getting flustered, she said, “When there’s trouble, we know we’ve got it coming.”

  He met her eyes. “Yeah. With what happened in Sedrich . . . I knew it might happen. Even so, it just seemed so . . . cold. Does that make sense?”

  Laughing just a little, she said, “You didn’t deserve the trouble that you got. That’s what’s different. You’re not used to being the innocent one in a fight. Even if it is just partly innocent.”

  “I hadn’t thought about that, but I suppose you’re right.”

  “You shouldn’t feel bad about what happened or what you had to do. It sounds to me like things turned out as best they could.”

  Mason shook his head and sighed. “I didn’t even dislike him.”

  “The man you killed?”

  “He was there doing a job . . . just like me. If a man is going to put another one off this earth, it makes things a whole lot easier if he can at least hate him.”

  Maggie gave him a kiss. “You’re a good man in a bad spot. That’s all.”

  “Stupid man is more like it,” he groaned.

  “How do you figure?”

  “Making that bet on a straight to the
eight. Damn, that was stupid.”

  Holding him tight, she said, “Yes, it sure was.”

  Chapter 28

  For someone who bluffed so much and spent most of his days with folks doing their best to bluff him, it was refreshing for Mason to be with someone who told him everything, whether it was good to hear or not. By the time one of Greeley’s men came along to collect him, Mason was feeling almost as good as if he’d gotten some sleep. The young man who’d knocked on the door of Mason’s cabin was tall and dressed in black pants and a white shirt. If that didn’t make it clear he was one of the waiters in the largest of the Jack’s dining rooms, the small red apron tied around his waist sealed the deal.

  When they went to the fore of the riverboat’s third deck, Mason said, “This isn’t the way to Mr. Greeley’s office.”

  “No, sir. It isn’t.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Mr. Greeley wanted to meet with you. He’s having breakfast right over there.”

  They were in an elegantly furnished restaurant looking out to the Mississippi. The sun’s rays reflected off the swaying waters, and the entire front wall of the room consisted of large windows for people to take it all in. Food was brought in from a kitchen located elsewhere, freeing up all the space within the bright room for wrought-iron tables and polished wooden chairs. A light green carpet completed the illusion that passengers were dining on the terrace of a mansion instead of floating down a river. Greeley sat at the table closest to the window so he could look straight out at the water while his ever-present armed escorts kept other folks a good distance away.

  As soon as he saw Mason, Greeley stood up and waved him over. The young waiter came as well, plastering a smile onto his face as soon as he got close enough to be heard without shouting. “What can I get for you gentlemen?” he asked.

  “I’ll have some more of these crepes,” Greeley said.

  When he heard Greeley request the fancy little pancakes, Mason couldn’t help thinking of an old phrase about putting a dress on a pig but not being able to make it dance. “Coffee for me,” he said.

  “You must be hungry. Order whatever you like,” Greeley insisted.

  “Fine. I’ll have some biscuits and gravy.”

  “Good choice,” Greeley said while shooing the waiter away. “Now have a seat. We got some things to discuss.”

  Mason sat across from Greeley. He tried to get comfortable but finally had to concede the fact that the chair had been made as more of a display piece than anything that might make a man feel grateful for being off his feet.

  “So,” Greeley said, “tell me about Sedrich.”

  “I would have thought your spy had told you all about it.”

  “Oh, come, now. You must have guessed I’d send someone to keep an eye on you.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I suppose I did. I take it he came back on his own?”

  Greeley didn’t respond to that. He showed no emotion whatsoever. Mason took that as a sign that he wasn’t a suspect in Garza’s disappearance and was more than happy to move along to other matters.

  “So,” Greeley asked, “what happened?”

  “I rode to the Bistro and found him just like you said I would.”

  “Simons is hard to miss, ain’t he?”

  Now that he thought the hook was sunk in nice and deep with Mason, Greeley had taken a more familiar manner with him. While it made for easier conversations, Mason already missed the terse threats of bodily harm. Having Greeley treat him like an old friend made Mason want to vomit.

  “He sure is,” Mason replied through a smile that he wore like a cheap coat of paint.

  Greeley was so wrapped up in his own smugness that he barely seemed to notice. “What about the bounty hunters? Did they give you any trouble?”

  “The men I saw were armed, but they looked more like rowdies than assassins. And there weren’t too many of them.”

  The expression on Greeley’s face showed no sign of suspicion, which meant he almost certainly already knew what he’d just been told. He nodded, anxiously awaiting the next part of the story.

  “I sat down at Simons’s table and played poker for a few hours,” Mason continued. “Got him good and drunk and then followed him to his home. Once he was there, I went in and killed him.”

  Naturally that was the moment when the waiter returned with coffee. He refilled the cup that Greeley had already been working on, set another cup in front of Mason, filled that, and did all that without showing that he’d just overheard a conversation involving murder. “Your food will be ready in a short while,” he said.

  “Much obliged,” Greeley said. After the waiter left, Greeley stirred some sugar into his coffee and said, “That man’s served me breakfast and lunch more times than I can count and I couldn’t tell you his name. So, how’d you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Kill Simons. I had to deal with that obnoxious little turd on more than one occasion and would have liked to kill him myself. I wanna know how he finally met his end.”

  “I shot him,” Mason replied.

  “Before or after you took his finger?”

  “What does that matter?”

  Somehow Greeley managed to handle his coffee cup like a truly civilized dandy when he said, “It’s a matter of how much screaming was involved.”

  Unable to contain himself any longer, Mason said, “I’m not going to dredge up such matters for you or anyone else’s amusement. If you want to tack a fine onto my debt, then go right ahead.”

  Greeley laughed once and sipped his coffee. “Don’t try to look down at me from some high horse. That may have suited you when you were just some gambler who made a bad call. Soon as you brought me that finger wrapped in a bloody rag, you showed your colors well enough.”

  “Colors? You didn’t leave me any choice.”

  “But you performed your duty, ugly as it was, real well. Ain’t that right, Abner?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I would’ve laid good money on you coming back here with just the ring. Maybe some blood on it for appearances, but just the ring.” Not only did Greeley’s eyes take on the steely chill of which Mason had become so familiar, but they looked across that table as if expecting to find similar dead orbs in Mason’s face. “So, tell me. I know you remember. Did that little weasel scream?”

  “Yeah,” Mason replied as he thought of all the carrying on Simons had done from the next room during the fight with Garza. “He screamed.”

  “I knew it.” Greeley leaned back in his chair as the breakfast plates were brought to the table. The waiter set them down along with silverware and hurried off. Picking up his fork, Greeley used it to point at Mason and said, “You’re gonna work out better than I expected.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Greeley.”

  “Call me Cam.” After using the fork to take a small piece of crepe to his mouth, Greeley pointed it once more at Mason, but a little lower than the last time he’d done so. “How’s your hand?”

  Mason had completely forgotten about catching his hand beneath the hammer of his own Remington. When he and Simons had taken Garza out of the house to be buried in the closest patch of ground, Mason grabbed the cleanest towel he could find and shredded it to be wrapped around his hand. The wound hurt, but no more than any other number of aches, pains, cuts, and bruises he’d collected of late. For Greeley, he summed it up with “It’s fine.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “There was a scuffle at Simons’s house.”

  “Scuffle?”

  “I’m sure you can imagine,” Mason said. “I was, after all, there to kill him. Most folks don’t take too kindly to that sort of thing.”

  “Why were you so much more pleasant when we were playing cards?”

  “Because that’s my element.”

  “Does this sort o
f work truly put you out of your element?” Greeley asked. “Or might you be confused about what your element truly is?”

  “This place, these dainty tables, these expensive plates,” Mason said while motioning to each of those things in turn, “aren’t even my element. I’m a cardplayer. A gambler. While I do enjoy civilized niceties, I’ve come to realize that I don’t enjoy what comes along with them.”

  “And what’s that?”

  Mason had done exactly what he hadn’t wanted to do. He’d spoken out of turn and out of the character he was trying to portray. Once again, it seemed, Greeley had outplayed him. Before too many awkward seconds ticked by, Mason salvaged his misstep by putting on a smile and tapping his coffee cup. “Civilized folk don’t drink whiskey for breakfast. That is something I simply cannot abide.”

  Back when Mason was new to the Delta Jack and its owner, he would have been certain that the smile he saw on Greeley’s face was genuine. Now he wasn’t so sure. Instead of sitting and pondering the matter, Mason simply dug into the biscuits and gravy as if there weren’t anything else in the world requiring his attention.

  “Civilized folk don’t do a lot of things,” Greeley said. With a wink, he added, “That’s why I don’t allow them on my boat.”

  “Hear, hear!”

  “So, when was the last time you saw the man I sent to keep an eye on you?”

  “You mean the spy?” Mason asked.

  “As you like.”

  “He was dealing with some of Simons’s men.”

  “That’s right. And how did you know he was there in the first place?”

  Mason took a bite of biscuit before replying, “I got lucky.”

  Greeley didn’t take long to digest that response. It seemed to fit in with what he’d expected, so he took another bite of food.

  “I want to talk about Virgil Slake for a second,” Mason said.

  “Who?”

  “Virgil Slake. The man with the loaded dice. Surely you must have had a look inside his cabin after his partner and I took our unexpected departure from this boat.”

  “Oh, right!” Greeley said. “You two did leave quite a mess. I nearly forgot about him.”

  “Well, I didn’t. I sniffed him out when he could have been soaking your craps games for a good while longer than he already had.”