‘Never have paid for a woman, ma’am.’
‘Then that means you’ve never had one! They all get paid for one way or another. Who shall I tell Rod Kirkby is looking for him, mister?’
‘He’ll know me when he sees me.’
The hardness had spread from her eyes to take over her entire face. She looked a lot older now. And dangerous with the smoldering fire of ill temper that was ready to flare into a vicious anger. ‘Not here, he won’t. I’m not in business to supply free liquor for men with time on their hands.’
‘Why don’t you just tell him where he can find Rod, Madam Fay?’ John asked.
He and Philip were working to a pre-arranged plan for dealing with a troublemaker. One had moved to the left around the curve of the bar, the other to the right. When they were fifteen feet apart they came to a stop and rested one hand on the counter top while the other went out of sight below it.
‘Like hell I will!’ the madam snarled, shrill and loud, her angry tones silencing the sounds of secret pleasure from behind the curtains of the occupied booths. ‘Get this bummer out of here! He smells of horses and like he hasn’t changed his underwear in two months!’
The two free drinks he had swallowed had served to ease some of the tensions out of the half-breed. Tensions which had been seeded by Gilpatrick’s questioning and grown rapidly, with no outward signs, between the time the quick-to-smile Sheldon had pressed the Colt muzzle into the back of his neck and when the enforced ride in the darkened carriage ended. Tensions which had nothing to do with being shot at, the knife attack or the deaths of the innocent Powell and two would-be killers. Violence and sudden death left him untouched for they were as much a part of his life as breathing and he had learned to deal with them emotionally as coolly as he handled them physically.
What clenched at his nerves and drew them taut was the time that had been wasted while he meekly conformed to the dictates of city society. First holding still for interrogation by the law, then allowing himself to become a virtual short-term prisoner of the arrogant crime boss. While the man who had shot at him made good his escape into the cement jungle of New York and the man who had ordered the assassination had time to organize and set up another attempt.
This was not the way of the man called Edge. He had almost always handled his own trouble in his own way, preferably without outside help. If a man hit out at him, he hit back. Do unto others as they do unto you. Kill or be killed. One of the few tenets by which he lived not drawn from his wartime experiences. For in war the army chain of command had existed. An order for giving orders which demanded that a man’s responsibilities for his own actions should be strictly limited by his rank.
He had understood the need for this, used to advantage the links of the chain of command within the small, tight-knit group of killers he led on missions behind the Rebel lines and even in the hell hole of the Confederate prison camp at Andersonville. For as a captain he was charged with the survival of his men as well as himself. But since the war - or was it only since the terrible death of Beth? - he had had no one to look out for except himself. Apart from the handful of men or women who had paid him to look out for them.
But nobody had bought the protection of his gun here in New York, which was the way he liked it to be, with just his own life on the line and confident that he had what it took to stay alive. But the civilized ways of the city had got to him. In less than three lousy days.
Or was it just this city in that short length of time? Hell, in Denver when he first tied in with Silas Martin after killing the Oriental and an express man who made the mistake of pointing a gun twice in the same direction, peace officers had descended in force to cramp the style of the half-breed. And in other towns all over the west - old towns and new ones that were springing up all the time - a strict code of law and order was being established. A code which insisted on due process of law, practiced by peace officers and judges who were likely to deal as harshly with the second man to draw a gun as the first.
The effect of the two drinks was instantly neutralized by the madam’s snarled insult. But the tight ball of rage that began to pulse in the pit of his stomach did not alter any line on his lean face, and his easy stance at the bar with both hands resting easily on the counter top did not change.
‘You don’t really mean that, ma’am,’ he said evenly as the extent of his feelings began to show in the intensity of the glitter from his slitted eyes. ‘Smell of horse or dirty long johns ain’t strong enough to rise above the stink of a cow palace.’
‘Cow palace!’ the madam shrieked, as a half dozen pairs of drapes were jerked apart and the shocked or curious faces of the booths’ occupants peered through the gaps. ‘John! Philip! I’m not going to stand here and be...’
‘So sit,’ Edge snarled, bringing both hands away from the counter top.
With his left he reached across the front of his body, splayed the fingers and shoved hard against Fancy Fay’s rage contorted face. She screamed in fear and alarm as she was sent staggering backwards, got her feet entangled in the hem of her gown and fell to the carpet.
The pianist banged out a discordant series of notes as he dragged his hands off the keyboard and spun around the stool.
By that time the half-breed’s right hand had fisted around the butt of the Remington and his thumb cocked the hammer as he drew the gun from the holster. On the periphery of his vision he saw that the man at the piano was unarmed and open-mouthed with fear. There was neither the time or the capability to rake his narrowed eyes over the occupants of the booths. For the two faggot bartenders were hoisting up long barreled revolvers from under the countertop. And the expressions on the delicately boned faces of the men left no doubt that they were ready, willing and able to use the guns against Edge.
‘Don’t point them at me!’ he rasped as his own gun cleared the holster and he swung it up into view.
‘Kill him!’ the painted and humiliated madam ordered from the floor as she tried to untangle her smartly booted feet from the torn lining of her dress.
The Remington swung on to John first, as the hammers of both long-barreled guns clicked back. Edge squeezed his trigger and John suddenly had a hole in the center of his exposed chest. A hole that oozed blood as the man was driven backwards by the impact of the bullet – then spurted it as John hit the obscene sculpture, vented a keening wail of pain and fear, and fell forward. The front of his head cracked against the rear side of the countertop and the skin of his brow split open as he collapsed to the floor.
Philip’s gun exploded while his partner was still falling, the bullet cutting a furrow across half the countertop and then burrowing through the carpet to imbed itself in the floor beneath. It came within a fraction of an inch of putting a hole through the crown of Edge’s Stetson as the half-breed threw himself down to the right.
The faggot had squeezed his eyes tight shut while he fired the shot, perhaps because he hated to use a gun or maybe to blot out the sight of his dying partner. Whichever, when he opened when he opened his eyes and failed to see Edge standing at the bar, he felt certain he had scored as hit. And a smile of triumph spread over his features as he leaned forward to look down over the counter.
‘You friggin’ fool!’ Fancy Fay yelled at him, and Philip died with the accusation ringing in his ears.
Edge was lying on his side, the elbow of his right arm hard against the carpet as he prepared to fan the hammer of the Remington with the heel of his left hand—aiming to blast a fusillade of shots through the front of the counter. But he had only to knock back the hammer once and squeeze the trigger as he angled the barrel of the revolver upwards. To send a bullet tunneling into the head of Philip, which had appeared above the top of the counter like a target in a shooting gallery.
The man was hit in the right eye, the bullet passing through his brain to be trapped by the crack it made in the top of the skull. Philip was knocked upright and then backwards, to imitate John’s final actions, hitting the statue,
coming forward and cracking his forehead on the counter as he went to the floor.
‘Oh, my God!’
‘Sonofabitch!’
‘Murder!’
‘What’s happened?’
‘He’s gotta be crazy!’
The responses to the double killing were yelled by the occupants of the booths and by the whores and their clients who came running into the room through the doorway in back of the piano. Then all sounds in the room save for the splashing of water in the fountain were silenced as Edge got to his feet and swung the gun to aim at Fancy Fay. She had disentangled her legs from the dress and was sitting on the floor with her back pressed to the front of the bar counter.
‘Get up, ma’am,’ the half-breed rasped, as the killer glint in his slitted eyes lost its intensity.
She showed defiance in face of the gun’s threat, was apparently not afraid of it. ‘Make me!’
‘You ain’t my type,’ he answered and leaned down.
‘No!’ a whore gasped, certain Edge intended to put a bullet into the madam at point blank range.
Instead he hooked the long, brown skinned fingers of his left hand inside the high neckline of her dress and jerked his arm up. The movement was smooth and his impassive face showed no hint of strain as he lifted her like she was no heavier than a loosely packed sack of straw. He raised her high enough so that her feet were two inches clear of the floor. Then he set her down gently.
‘Kill him!’ the woman shrieked, emerging from the terror which had gripped her while he lifted her. More angry than ever. ‘Some of you creeps gotta be carrying guns!’
The whores, their partners and the piano player remained transfixed in their state of shock for a stretched second more. Until some of the women stared at or nudged some of the men. Edge snatched a glance around the plushly furnished room and saw two men make a move to draw a weapon. He pushed forward his gun hand to press the muzzle of the revolver hard into the madam’s belly.
His voice was a hard as his eyes as they gazed into the enraged face of Fancy Fay. ‘Know the women in this place are fast. How about you fellers?’
‘No!’ the madam gasped, tearing her eyes away from the trap of Edge’s gaze to rake them fearfully around the room.
The half-breed used his left hand against her again. But this time the fingers were clenched into a fist, the knuckles of which crashed into the point of her jaw as she swung her head to look up into his face again. Her defiant rage had been replaced by fear and then, as the blow found its mark, her features took on the lines of repose.
She made no sound as she was driven into unconsciousness. One of the whores vented a short scream while another snarled an obscenity. Fancy Fay began to drop limply to the floor, but Edge moved to prevent this. With the Remington still pressed into her belly, pinning her to the front of the bar, he bent forward from the waist and curled his left arm around her back as her head, arms and torso folded forward. So that, when he straightened, her feet came up off the floor and she was draped over his right shoulder. When he turned to start for the doors everyone could see that the gun continued to threaten the madam.
‘Ray!’ a whore yelled.
‘What the hell can I do?’ the piano player demanded shrilly, angry and afraid. ‘John and Phil had guns and look what happened to them!’
Edge had reached the double doors and he turned to look back across the basement room. ‘Don’t plan to hurt her any more unless I have to,’ he announced flatly.
‘So what you takin’ her away for?’ a man wanted to know.
‘You saw it. She fell for me and I swept her off her feet. But she’ll be back.’
‘Whether she is or ain’t won’t make no difference to what happens to you, cowboy,’ a whore with dyed blonde hair warned, her mouthline twisted by an ugly sneer. ‘That’s Lu Orlando’s woman you got and he...’
‘Likes me, I figure,’ the half-breed rasped, kicking open one of the swing doors. ‘On account of I’ve taken his Fancy.’
CHAPTER FIVE
IN AT least one respect New York City was much like many of the frontier towns Edge had been in. In that people were curious enough to stare at anything out of the ordinary, but reluctant to get involved if it looked as if there was any chance of being hurt.
Thus, many people either walking or riding looked on as the tall, Western dressed man carrying an unstruggling woman over his shoulder emerged from a known brothel and ambled casually along the street to where a line of carriages were parked at the curb. Last in the line was a buggy with the roof raised and he set the woman gently on to the seat before he climbed aboard himself, took up the reins and steered the horse into an unhurried U-turn to drive north up Park Avenue. Nobody saw him holster a revolver after he had settled the woman and perhaps no one realized she was unconscious in the shadow of the buggy’s roof, wedged upright between the side of the seat and the powerful frame of the man who drove her. Not until whores and clients spilled up out of the Silver Lady Bar yelling excitedly about murder and abduction did interest heighten in the strange sight recently witnessed. But even then, after the buggy had been lost amid Park Avenue traffic, passersby hurried on their way, shaking their heads and responding with blank expressions to the questions that were shot at them.
Edge felt as calm inside as he looked, driving the buggy at an easy pace up Park, then along East 63rd, across Madison and Fifth to the fringe of the park. He was in greater danger than ever now, but he knew the reason why the first shot had been fired at him and he had struck back in a situation he had set up himself. Had taken the initiative instead of waiting for Emilio Marlon to make a third attempt on his life.
As he drove into the cool darkness of the park, the half-breed ignored futile contemplation of the possibility that blasting the life out of two men was largely responsible for his peace of mind. If he had not killed them, they would have shot him down. It was as simple as that. The fact that he had experienced elation as he saw the blood spurt and the bodies fall, and would never for part of a second feel remorse about the killings, was something he took for granted. He was the way that he was and had long ago given up trying to force changes upon himself. All that mattered was that the two faggots had drawn first. Whether out in a canyon of the far west or here in the city, the half-breed’s response to such a situation would always be the same.
Deep into Central Park, he angled the buggy off the track and halted the horse at the side of a stand of timber a hundred feet back from the shore of an inlet of the lake. The woman groaned as he lifted her down from the seat but was quiet again as he draped her across his shoulder and carried her over to the water. He glanced without apparent interest to left and right, checking that the area was deserted. Then tossed Fancy Fay unceremoniously into the shallows of the inlet.
She screamed as the shock of cold water brought her back to awareness. Then flailed at the surface with her arms. Edge dropped down on to his haunches and reached a hand to the back of his neck to draw the razor from its pouch. The woman found her footing in the mud of the lake bottom and rose up, making to wade out of the water. Then she saw the crouched down half-breed and caught the flashes of reflected moonlight off the razor as he stropped it slowly on the palm of a hand. It was as if she had no recollection of what had happened to her until she saw Edge. Then she gasped and stood still, up to her waist in muddy water, and raised a hand to explore the discolored bruise on the side of her jaw.
‘You yellow livered sonofabitch,’ she hissed. ‘Did great against a woman, didn’t you?’
‘You were no problem, ma’am,’ he answered flatly.
‘How many more you have to kill, gettin’ me out of the place?’
‘Nobody wanted to take a chance on me killing you.’
She nodded in arrogant satisfaction. ‘That’s because of who I am, mister. Do you know who I am? I’m engaged to be married to Luigi Orlando. Maybe you don’t know who he is, since you come from out in the boondocks and...’
‘Know who he is
,’ Edge cut in. ‘Godson of a feller named Marlon who’s doing his best to have me killed.’
Fancy Fay’s confidence increased to the extent that she could show a sneering smile. ‘You’ve crossed up Emilio Marlon, mister?’
‘He thinks I did.’
‘Then you’re dead mister. You just ain’t fell down yet, that’s all.’
‘Come on out of the lake, ma’am.’
‘Why the hell should I?’
‘You could catch your death. Not from the cold, if I have to get my boots wet.’
The defiance drained out of her again, almost as if her fear grew by degrees as she watched the half-breed unfold out of his crouch to his full height, continuing to run the sides of the razor’s blade up and down the leather textured skin of his palm.
‘You threw me in here,’ she accused, but her words lacked force. When he made no reply, she brushed strands of her ruined hairdo off her face and asked meekly, ‘What else do you plan to do to me, mister?’
‘Have you carry a message for me, ma’am. You can either listen to what I tell you and remember it. Or I can carve it into your hide.’
She shivered and started for the shore. When she stepped on to dry land, she took hold of handfuls of the fabric of her dress and began to squeeze out the muddy water.
‘Threats don’t mean anythin’ to a man like you, do they?’ she asked, subdued.
‘They bother me. You ready to listen now?’
‘I have any choice?’
‘You’re free, white and over twenty-one.’
‘Speak your piece.’ She gave up working on the dress. ‘This gown cost more than three hundred dollars, you know that?’
‘Maybe he’ll buy you a new one. If he lives long enough.’
‘Luigi? What the hell is your beef with Luigi? I thought it was Marlon who wants you out of the way ?’
EDGE: WAITING FOR A TRAIN (Edge series Book 30) Page 5