Robert B. Parker's Bull River

by Robert Knott

“We are,” Virgil said.

  “Why . . . I just tried to wire you in Appaloosa!”

  “We ain’t there,” Virgil said.

  “No,” Holly said. “Of course . . . What, what is the nature of you being in San Cristóbal?”

  “Inside your jail there is Captain Alejandro Miguel Vasquez,” Virgil said.

  Holly looked to the door of the office and back to Virgil with a shocked face.

  “My God!” Holly said. “My God.”

  “Yep,” Virgil said. “Not sure how much God’s got to do with Alejandro, but he’s locked up.”

  “You met Ira, I presume?” Holly said, nodding toward the office.

  “Did,” Virgil said.

  “I apologize in post for his lack of good manner,” Holly said, “but he is a fine jailer.”

  “No post necessary,” Virgil said.

  “Well, this is just serendipitous,” Holly said.

  Virgil looked at me. A questioning look.

  “Good luck, like,” I said.

  Virgil nodded.

  “Thank God . . . and now here you are!”

  “We are,” Virgil said.

  “What were you wiring us about?” I said.

  “Well,” Holly said. “We need your help.”

  “What sort of help?” Virgil said.

  “We have a very serious situation on our hands,” Holly said as he nervously turned his hat by its brim.

  “Situation being?” Virgil said.

  Holly looked around, making sure no one was listening.

  “This have to do with the robbery?” I said.

  “You know about that?” Holly said, dropping both of his hands to his sides.

  “Know some,” I said.

  “Ira mentioned it?” Holly said.

  “He did,” I said.

  “What do you know?” Holly said.

  “That there is a posse out,” I said.

  Holly nodded.

  “Yes,” Holly said. “I just stopped by to see if there had been any discovery I needed to hear about.”

  “We wouldn’t know about that,” I said. “But I suspect not, seeing how there’s nobody here but your jailer.”

  “You want to tell us about this?” Virgil said.

  “I do,” Holly said. “Tell you what. Now that you are here. Let me gather the parties involved. It would be better if you got the details firsthand. It will take me a little time. Where are you staying?”

  Virgil looked at me.

  “No place,” I said. “Not as of yet, anyway.”

  “Tell you what,” Holly said. “My brother Lewis owns a nice little hotel just around the corner called Holly’s House Hotel. He’s got a stable in back and he serves good food. Let me get those involved together and I will let you know when and where.”

  Virgil looked at me.

  “I could eat,” I said.

  7

  Holly was right. His brother had a good place for us to stay. Virgil and I got a room and freshened up a bit. We ate some good corn-potato soup before Holly stopped by and told us when and where we were to meet.

  Thirty minutes later Virgil and I rode down Main Street. We located the large brick-and-limestone building we were looking for on the corner of Sixth Street and Main. It had tall windows and double doors with COMSTOCK NATIONAL BANK etched across ribbed glass panels on the top half of both doors. A CLOSED sign hung crooked on one of the doors. We left our horses on a hitch across the street in front of an upholstery shop, waited for a few buggies to pass, then walked across the street and entered the bank.

  Inside it was cool and a relief from the hot day. The bank was big and fancy. The ceiling was high, with wide, ornate iron chandeliers that nested frosted globes casting a honey-colored glow. The walls were raised wood panels with gilded framed paintings of ships. The floor was shiny hardwood with a band of green marble that bordered the perimeter of the lobby. There were two young men busy shuffling papers behind the brass bars of the polished tellers’ counter, and seated in a large carpeted seating area to the left of the entrance were four men, including Constable Holly. They were looking at us. Holly and one of the three other men got to their feet. They moved quickly to greet us. The man with Holly held out his hand.

  “Marshal Cole, I presume.”

  Virgil didn’t shake his hand but nodded toward me instead.

  “This is my deputy, Everett Hitch.”

  “This is Mitchell,” Holly said.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Mitchell Brisbane. I’m the Comstock Bank manager.”

  Brisbane was a smallish man, clean-shaven, with close-cropped dark curly hair.

  A very large and imposing man wearing a Panama hat called to us from where he remained seated in a corner chair.

  “Do you know who I am?” he said loudly.

  His voice was gruff, and it echoed in the bank’s cavernous lobby.

  Virgil glanced at me, smiled a little, and I followed him as he walked toward the big man in the corner chair.

  “Don’t,” Virgil said. “I suspect you’re going to tell me.”

  “I am,” the heavyset man said as he puffed and chewed nervously on a fat cigar. “I’m Walter C. Comstock, and this is my bank.”

  Virgil nodded, glanced up to the massive chandelier and back to the glossy tellers’ counter.

  “Looks like a fine bank,” Virgil said.

  “This is the biggest, most secure bank between New York City and San Francisco, but we got robbed, Mr. Cole. The whole vault was cleaned out two days ago, and now it’s not so goddamn fine.”

  Comstock was sitting on the edge of the armchair. He was doing so because he would not fit in the chair if he tried to rest himself back into the seat properly—he was too wide. He wore an expensive suit and had a gold watch chain that looked to be about two feet long draped across his button-stretched vest.

  “This is Truitt Ellsworth, the vice president of the bank,” Comstock said as he motioned to the older man to his left.

  Ellsworth was a long and slender-looking man with a nervous energy about him. He nodded sharply and offered a crooked smile but did not get out of his chair.

  “Please sit, gentlemen,” Comstock said. “Please.”

  Virgil and I took a seat facing Comstock in a pair of straight-backed chairs that were separated by an oval-shaped cherrywood table.

  Holly and Brisbane sat on a sofa to my right.

  “We appreciate you, Marshal Cole,” Ellsworth said, “and your deputy, for being here.”

  Virgil nodded a bit.

  Ellsworth leaned forward, quickly putting his hands together in a manner that resembled praying, and started to speak, but Comstock beat him to the draw.

  “This is the goddamnedest situation,” Comstock said, shaking his big head back and forth.

  “Why don’t you fill us in on the situation, Mr. Comstock?” I said.

  Comstock looked to Brisbane and nodded to Virgil and me.

  “Tell them,” Comstock said, as if he didn’t have the patience for what needed to be imparted.

  “Well, I opened up with two tellers,” Brisbane said, pointing to the two young men behind the teller windows. “It was Friday, and Fridays are busy days, so there are three of us—”

  “And that goddamn Henry Strode!” Comstock said, interrupting. “He did it!”

  “Yes,” Ellsworth snapped quickly, “he damn sure did.”

  “Mr. Strode,” Brisbane continued, “came in and told us we wouldn’t be opening for business. He said Mr. Comstock ordered for us to remove the contents from the vault and load it into a buckboard.”

  “Horseshit!” Comstock said.

  “Who is Henry Strode?” I said.

  “The goddamn president of this bank,” Comstock said with a huff.

  8r />
  “Your bank president robbed your bank?” I said.

  “He damn sure did!” Comstock said. “It’d be funny if I read about it in the newspaper and it was someone else’s bank, but it’s not. He robbed my bank and now he’s vanished, gone. Him and that wife of his . . . makes no sense.”

  “His wife,” Ellsworth said, “was quite well off. Henry had a good salary here, too. Money certainly was not an issue with them, so it is all perplexing.”

  “What about your police?” I said. “What have they found out?”

  Holly shook his head.

  “Far as we know, nothing,” he said.

  “It seems,” Comstock said, “they just goddamn disappeared. Our illustrious sheriff, Webster Hawkins, put together a posse but has found no sign of him.”

  “Webb Hawkins?” Virgil said.

  “Yes,” Comstock said. “Do you know him?”

  Virgil nodded.

  “I do,” Virgil said.

  Comstock nodded some.

  “Well, he’s come up empty-handed,” Comstock said, “so I told Constable Holly to contact you!”

  “Where does Strode live?” Virgil said.

  “Just on the edge of town,” Holly said. “A nice home.”

  “I imagine that was the first place you boys had a look-see?” Virgil said.

  “We did,” Holly said.

  “You find anything there?” Virgil said.

  “No,” Holly said. “Nothing out of place, no, just vacant. We asked the neighbors if they’d seen anything out of the ordinary, too. Turned up nothing.”

  Virgil didn’t say anything.

  “You said Strode had a buckboard?” I said.

  “He did,” Brisbane said.

  “The vault had that much money,” I said, “it took a buckboard?”

  Brisbane looked to Comstock and then to Ellsworth.

  “There was a good deal of money in the vault,” Ellsworth said.

  “Good deal being?” Virgil said.

  “Near two hundred thousand,” Ellsworth said. “A little less than a hundred in currency, smaller denominations, so there was some bulk, and another hundred in gold.”

  “You always have that much money in the vault?” Virgil said.

  “Not always,” Ellsworth said. “No.”

  “Why so much now?” Virgil said.

  “Well, it’s not that uncommon—the amount fluctuates, you see,” Ellsworth said. “We service many large organizations, including two military operations, the BIA reservations departments, as well as three major investment firms here in the city. We handle large volumes.”

  “The fact this happened on Friday,” Comstock said, “bought us a few days of avoiding chaos.”

  Ellsworth nodded.

  “But it’s only a matter of time,” Ellsworth said.

  “It is,” Comstock said. “The hell of it is, up until this happened, I would not have thought Henry Strode was capable of something like this.”

  “Me, neither,” Ellsworth said. “I appointed him myself.”

  “I thought you were the vice president?” Virgil said.

  Ellsworth nodded.

  “I was president of this bank for sixteen years. I stepped down, and we put Mr. Strode in the position,” Ellsworth said. “Strode was an exceptional banker, highly intelligent. His thoroughness and thoughtfulness made our customers comfortable. He’s much younger, and frankly better suited for the job than I ever was. My vice position is nothing more than handling the occasional loan. It’s now a board position, really.”

  “Truitt and I started this bank together,” Comstock said. “We built this goddamn thing from the ground up.”

  Ellsworth nodded.

  Virgil nodded a bit, looking down to the elaborate red-and-gold patterns in the rug splayed out under the seating area, then looked to Constable Holly.

  “What about guards?”

  Comstock shook his head with a disgusted look and pointed toward the front doors with his cigar wedged between his first and second finger, as if he were damning the existence of something unseen.

  “We have two armed security men on guard every time the bank is opened, but they were told by goddamn Strode the bank would not be in operation on Friday. Goddamn nonsense. They went home.”

  “Yes,” Brisbane said. “Mr. Strode had driven to the bank in a buckboard. He said it was Mr. Comstock’s orders to temporarily close and transfer the money. Said it was a safety precaution.”

  “A safety precaution my ass,” Comstock said with a scoff. “Horseshit!”

  “And you did that?” I said. “You loaded the buckboard?”

  “We did,” Brisbane said with a slight shake of his head. “Mr. Strode is . . . well, was, after all, the president. He had both keys, and we did as we were told.”

  “Both keys?” Virgil said.

  9

  Brisbane nodded. He looked to Ellsworth and then to Holly and then to us.

  “It takes two keys to get into the vault.”

  “Yes,” Brisbane said.

  “Then what?” Virgil said.

  “Mr. Strode locked up the bank and told us he would get in touch with us when he wanted us to return to work.”

  “Don’t seem like much security,” Virgil said.

  I nodded.

  “It doesn’t,” I said. “Not for that amount of money.”

  Brisbane looked to Comstock and Ellsworth.

  “Well,” Ellsworth said with a sigh, “as Mitch said, Strode had two keys. The opening of the vault requires one key from the president and one key from me or Walt.”

  “But Strode had both keys?” I said.

  Ellsworth nodded.

  “Who all has a key?” Virgil said.

  “Myself,” Ellsworth said, then he looked to Comstock. “And Walt here and Strode.”

  “Walt and I,” Ellsworth said, “we took our wives up to the Montezuma Hotel hot springs for what was meant to be a therapeutic few days. We go up periodically.”

  “You left your key with Strode?” Virgil said.

  Ellsworth nodded sheepishly.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “The sonofabitch,” Comstock said. “He waited for us to be away, came up with this ruse, cleaned us out, then . . . poof, vanished.”

  The front door opened, and two young men entered. They looked in our direction, then walked toward us. They both had good-sized bellies and shiny stars pinned on their vests. One was taller than the other, but they looked enough alike that they most assuredly were twins.

  “Deputies,” Comstock said. “Tell me some good news. Tell me you found Strode! Tell me you have recovered the money!”

  They moved a little closer. Before they spoke, they sized up Virgil and me.

  “This is Marshal Cole,” Holly said, “and his deputy, Everett Hitch.”

  The taller of the two men removed his hat and spoke.

  “We’ve heard about you two,” he said with a respectful tone of voice. “We heard you was coming. I’m Deputy Danny Rangfield, and this is my brother, Davy.”

  “What is it, boys?” Holly said.

  “Yes!” Comstock said impatiently. “Goddamn!”

  “We come to let you know we found Mr. Strode.”

  “Where?” Comstock blurted out as he sprang to his feet like he’d been stung by a scorpion. “Where is the sonofabitch?”

  “He’s near dead, sir,” Davy said.

  “What?”

  “Yes, sir,” Danny said.

  “What happened to him?” Virgil said.

  “Don’t know,” Davy said. “Sheriff Hawkins told us he had been beat up real bad and was . . . un—”

  Davy looked to Danny.

  “Unconscious,” Danny said.

  “That’s right,” Davy said.
“Slingshot Clark found him. He’s at the Cottonwood Springs.”

  “Slingshot Clark?” Comstock said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And the money?” Comstock said.

  The brothers shook their heads.

  “Don’t know anything about the money, sir,” Danny said.

  “What about the wife?” Ellsworth said.

  Danny and Davy shook their heads.

  “Don’t know nothing else,” Danny said. “Other than that Doc Mayfair is on his way out to the Cottonwood Springs.”

  “Slingshot Clark,” Comstock said, shaking his head, “and the goddamn Cottonwood Springs!”

  “Who is Slingshot Clark,” I said, “and where is this Cottonwood Springs?”

  “Slingshot Clark is the madam of the Cottonwood Springs,” Davy said. “A high-class whoring outfit south of town.”

  10

  Virgil and I rode side by side following the Rangfield brothers south toward the Cottonwood Springs whorehouse where Henry Strode was said to be found. Comstock, Ellsworth, and Holly followed in a covered two-seater driven by Brisbane.

  “Don’t look like we’re gonna be going back to Appaloosa anytime soon,” I said.

  “Don’t,” Virgil said.

  I turned in my saddle some and looked back at Holly and the bankers.

  “Ol’ Comstock’s sure enough a state fair hog,” I said.

  “Blue ribbon,” Virgil said.

  “I wonder if he’s the same Comstock of the Virginia City silver mines,” I said. “That Comstock, the Comstock Load?”

  “Might well be,” Virgil said. “He’s a hell of a load himself.”

  “He is,” I said. “This robbery’s a hell of a load, too.”

  “Comstock and Ellsworth fucked up.”

  “Giving Strode the key?”

  “Yep.”

  “That they did.”

  “That money don’t belong to them,” Virgil said.

  “They’re gonna have hell to pay,” I said.

  “What do you figure happened to Strode’s wife?”

  “At this point I can only surmise nothing good.”

  “Comstock referred to her like she was a barn cat or something.”