She laid the poster down and faced the sheriff. “I do not know how this relates to me,” she said.
“You don’t?” The sheriff raised an eyebrow. “It is strange, don’t you think, that the description on this poster so closely matches you, Miss Abrams? And let us not forget that you have been here just over a year, and nobody knows anything much about you.”
“I am a widow—”
“Yes, I know that, but where have you been? Who are you? Are you a killer? We don’t want killers in this town.” He leaned forward as he said this and laid his hand on the desk. His shirt shifted and Alma caught a glimpse of his shoulder muscle, which was round and hard. His pistol hung from a strap on the wall. Alma felt a shiver go through her: a shiver equal parts pleasure and fear.
The mood was coming over her in which she did not question her own desires, her own motives. It was a mood that had served her well and she would use it here.
She locked eyes with him. “I would no more kill someone, sir,” she said, “than you would take advantage of a poor widowed woman in your office.” She felt her clit warm up at her own words, and warm up even more when his eyes widened. She tugged at her shirt, pulling it down and showing the tops of her breasts. The sheriff gulped.
“Miss Abrams . . .”
“Alma, please.”
“Alma, this is not appropriate.”
“Do not worry about what is appropriate,” Alma said, unbuttoning her shirt. She unbuttoned it all the way down to her belly and opened it, showing him glimpses of her pert breasts. She saw in his face that he was hard – she could always tell when men were hard – and felt an answering call in her body, an urging, animalistic and primordial. She stood up and let her shirt flow to the floor. “Do you want me, sir?” she said, in her sweetest voice.
She walked around the desk, just as she had done with Wallace, and fell to her knees. Looking up at him under her eyelashes, she said: “I can bring you more pleasure than you have ever experienced, sir, if you will let me.”
Sheriff Carson Gill was trembling by now, his whole body trembling. He breathed out the words: “And what would you want from me, Alma?”
“Oh, nothing much,” she said. “Just destroy that pesky, nasty poster. Never mention it again. Is that so much to ask?”
She grabbed the front of his trousers. His cock was hard and pressed through the fabric of his trousers in a clear outline. She rubbed, up and down, up and down, and felt her body ache when he moaned. “Yes,” he said, and grabbed her wrist. “It’s a stupid poster, anyway.”
“It is,” she agreed.
He lifted her to her feet and onto his lap. Alma opened her legs and split them either side of him, sitting opposite him on the chair, their groins touching.
* * *
Maybe she should have felt ashamed as she left the office. She did not. She rarely felt shame and she would not feel it now. She had done was necessary. The poster was embers now, and Sheriff Gill would keep his mouth shut. Alma could not be absolutely certain of that, but she felt confident. She had left a good impression.
When she entered Beryl’s the sun was a half-inch over the horizon. She went upstairs, splashed some water in her face, changed, and made her way to the offices. Going to her room in the back, she began to sort through the papers. Events, she felt, would soon come to an impasse. Never again would she be in a position to be threatened by a poster. She would be too rich, too powerful. Alma Abrams would make her mark on this world, and nobody – not her father, not the sheriff, not the miners, no man – would stop her.
She was formulating and reformulating her plans when a scream sounded from down the hallway. It was a girlish scream, but when she reached the source of it she saw Wallace, hands clasped on his face.
“What is it, my love?” Alma said, removing his hands.
He nodded. Alma followed the trajectory of his nod. Abraham Saville lay upon the floor, hand clutched to his heart, his body frozen in death. One side of his face looked as though it had melted, slack. Alma took Wallace to her office and made him sit down. Then she found the doctor, who came at once to the offices.
It was all over in around half an hour. Abraham Saville had suffered a massive stroke and died.
Maybe, somewhere deep down, Alma was a good person. Maybe she would one day repent for what she had done in her life.
But she was not sad for his Abraham’s death. It furthered her cause, after all.
Chapter 11
Though Wallace had screamed when he first saw the misshapen corpse of his father, he seemed remarkably calm when Alma returned to him in his office. He sat in his chair, back straight, hands on knees, and stared directly ahead. When Alma entered he looked up at her briefly and then looked back down at the desk. “We were never close,” he said, and shrugged. “I think he loved me, but we were never close. He was busy. And after Mother died . . . He never hurt me, but he never showed his love for me.”
Alma sat opposite him and waited. “Tell me, should I cry?” he said. “I do not feel like crying, but that’s the proper thing at a time like this, isn’t it? I shouldn’t be able to sit here, calmly, with Father dead. That makes me a monster.”
“Feel how you feel, my love,” Alma said. “You do not have to weep if you do not feel like weeping. But . . .” She let the but hang, saw the interest tug at his features; his eyebrows raised, his lips twitched. She folded her hands in her lap and crossed her legs.
“But?” he said.
“It pains me greatly,” she sighed. “I hardly want to talk about it. I can’t stand it, but I can see that it will pain you more. I wish there was a way I could keep it from you, but I fear that would be as unjust as revealing it to you.”
“Tell me, Alma.”
Am I a snake? A wolf? A bat? Perhaps all three.
“Bill Gaston, your father’s friend, was stealing from him—stealing from all of you. While going over the records I found the evidence for these thefts. He did it slyly and intelligently as to not arouse suspicion. A little here, a little there, but over time it has added up. He—”
“Son of a cunt!” Wallace leapt to his feet and paced up and down the office, fists thumping his thighs. “Damn it, damn it!” he growled, pacing, cheeks flushed red, breathing through gritted teeth. “He was like an uncle to me. He was. My Uncle Bill, and this is how he treats me!” He walked to the desk, opened the drawer, and pulled out a revolver. “I’ll blow his goddam head off,” he spat, thumbing the hammer. “I’ll blow his head off and piss on his goddam brains!”
“You have every reason to want that,” Alma said, in her most soothing voice. She went to him and put her hands on his hands which clasped the gun. “Of course you have every right to do that. I would never argue with you over that. But, think about it, my love. What is the most important thing? It is the business. It is your father’s legacy.”
His face was a wall of rage, but her words somehow penetrated. His features softened. He sighed, turned to her. “What do you mean?” he said.
“We should confront him with the facts and make him sell his portion of the company to you. You will, then, be two-thirds owner of the Silver King Mining Corporation. He has no way to refuse the sale. You have all the leverage. He has nothing. He either sells it to you and leaves Calico or we take our evidence to the sheriff. Do you see? This is the smarter choice, my love.”
“I would prefer to kill him,” Wallace grumbled.
Alma grabbed the barrel of the revolver and slowly removed it from his hand. He relaxed his grip and did not fight her as she put it back in the drawer. “I know,” Alma said. “But this is the better choice. I only have your best interests in mind, Wallace.”
Has there ever been a larger lie? Has there ever been a more wicked deceit?
“I know,” Wallace said, lapping up her lies like a cat lapping milk. “I am afraid that if I confront him, I will throttle him.”
“I will do it,” Alma said quickly.
“Good,” Wallace said, and sl
umped back into his chair. “Don’t pay what it’s worth. Pay less than half. Even less if you can. That’s more than the bastard deserves.”
“Of course,” Alma said. “I will be back in an hour or less.”
She left the offices and went to her hotel rooms to collect the folder. When she had it, she returned to the offices and went to Bill Gaston’s room. Of course, he was not there. He was in, appropriately, the Round Belly, one of Calico’s three restaurants. Alma made her way to the Round Belly. When she entered, she was accosted by an old man, all loose teeth and wispy hairs, who leaned heavily on a wooden crutch.
“What’re you doing in here?” he said, looking her up and down. “I know you. You’re that girl who came here a year ago, the one what’s so close with the mining fellas.”
“That’s me,” Alma agreed, looking around the room.
“You ought to be careful with them,” the man said. “They’re a snakelike bunch, they are.”
“You’re wrong, old man,” Alma said, as her gaze settled on a fat man stuffing bread into his maw. “There’s only one snake in this town.”
* * *
Bill Gaston looked up as Alma sat down. His chins seemed to shrivel when he saw it was Alma. His eyes, sunken into his head, seemed to sink even more. He dropped a bread roll onto his chest and reached for it with podgy arms.
“You spend a lot of time here,” Alma said. “I am surprised you find the time to steal from your partners.”
“You’re a devil woman!” he suddenly spat. Bubbles of spit blew from between his lips. “That’s what you are. A devil woman!”
“As you say.” Alma leaned back. “It might interest you to know that Abraham died this morning. Quite recently, in fact.”
Bill’s face did not change: just a mass of folded flesh and fat and sunken features.
“You do not seem very distraught,” Alma said. “Was he not your friend?”
“Oh, Abraham!” Bill cried melodramatically, and brought his hand to his chest. “Oh, my Abraham!” He picked a crumb from his shirt and flicked it into his mouth. After swallowing, he went on: “He was my brother. I loved him like a brother. I will miss him so much. He was a beautiful man. Oh, my friend, my—”
“Oh, do shut up,” Alma hissed. She slammed the folder down on the table. “Let’s not make-believe, sir, that we are anything other than we are. You are a thief. I am the woman who is going to save your life. There, we have our roles. Now, let’s play them. You have stolen from your partners since the first day you started the business. I have the records right here. I suppose you assumed you didn’t need to cover your tracks. Nobody cared enough to go through them. The funny aspect to this, sir, is that I would not have noticed them had you and DeBell not banished me from making the rounds.”
“What a scandalous, reprehensible, unjust—”
“Shall I fetch the sheriff?” Alma asked. She half-stood. “It really is no trouble to me . . .” She waited, locked his eyes.
“Okay, devil, okay,” he sighed. “How, exactly, do you propose to save my life?”
“Wallace is a kind fellow,” Alma said. She picked up a bread roll, took a bite, and laid it back down on his plate. Then, she sipped from his cup, wiped her mouth, and placed it upon the table. “He does not want to see you, a man who was an uncle to him, fall into ruin. He will buy your share of the corporation and you will leave Calico. You will leave Calico tonight, before sunset.”
“This is my home,” the fat man muttered.
“Not anymore.” Alma smiled. “Nobody blames you for stealing, sir. How can they? Stealing, when the opportunity arises, is extremely difficult to resist. But being so sloppy about it? Eating yourself to death instead of tending to your records? Yes, you can be blamed for that. You have made a grievous mistake, sir, and it is time to take the only lifeline you have. So, name your price.”
“What if I don’t want to leave?” His voice became high-pitched; tears appeared in his pitted eyes. “What if I refuse?”
Alma shrugged. “The sheriff,” she said. “Punishment. Shame. Why must we play this game? Name a price. Let’s begin a negotiation.”
He named a price.
Alma laughed.
“Wallace will pay you one-quarter.”
“That’s less than it was worth when we started!” Bill protested, his whole body jiggling. “That’s outrageous.”
Alma slammed her fist down on the table. “No!” she cried. People in the restaurant turned and stared at the table. Alma ignored them, and spoke in a low, vicious voice. “You stole, you broke the rules. You have no room for protest. You are lucky to be making anything from this, sir. You played, you lost. Now you pay the price of losing. Agree, or I go to the sheriff. I have no time for these games.”
“But . . .”
“I will count to three.”
“You cannot be . . .”
“One.”
“This is . . .”
“Two.”
“Please, please!”
“Thr—”
“Okay!” he huffed. “Okay, okay! I agree! I agree!”
* * *
The sun had set and Alma was having trouble keeping her eyes open. Even so, she smiled, and rubbed Wallace’s shoulders, and looked down with him at the document. Bill had just ridden out of town on a horse that squealed in protest with each step.
“Before you arrived in Calico,” Wallace said, “I had no say in the business. None at all. I was ignored by all. Now, I am two-thirds owner. You are an amazing woman, Alma. You are the most amazing woman I have ever met. How can I ever repay you?”
“Allow me to ride with you again,” Alma said at once. “I wish to be at your side once more. I tire of being stuffed indoors. Also, Roach grows tired. She is not used to being still for so long.”
“DeBell will be angry.” Wallace stroked his beard. “But, then again, I am majority owner. How can he refuse me? And, it is true, I have missed your company.”
“So you agree?” Alma said. “I, too, have missed being out there.”
Wallace waved a hand, as though it was not a big decision. “I agree,” he said. “Why shouldn’t I?”
“Oh, you make me so, so happy, my love,” she said, with overacting emotion, melodrama, and not a hint of sincerity.
* * *
“What is that for?” Wallace had asked, when he saw Alma tying the hamper onto the back of Roach, but now he saw.
Alma had thought the men respected her for the mere fact that she rode above them, but DeBell and Bill had been right. It was impossible, she now saw, for a working man to respect a trouser-wearing woman who seemed cold and distant, who seemed, to them, like no woman at all. Whilst she would not wear a dress – she had always hated the things – she could approach her involvement from a different angle. Instead of sitting atop Roach with a regal, distant demeanor, she would play the Kind Mother; and her reputation would flower.
The men emerged from the mines for lunch and Alma climbed from Roach, took down the hamper, and walked among them. She opened the hamper and handed them fresh-baked bread, purchased with her own wages, to accompany their usual midday meal of gruel. The men were awkward as they muttered their thanks – none of them had ever seen a woman as beautiful as Alma – but their gratitude was clear in their eyes.
“It won’t take long for the men to love you for that,” Wallace said, pride in his voice as they rode through the desert from mine to mine. “They’ll adore you. I bet in a few weeks you’ll be a legend.”
That’s the plan, she thought.
“You’re too kind,” she said.
Chapter 12
Autumn’s first whispers came when Alma returned to the hotel one evening to find a rather excited Elise standing outside of her bedroom door. “What is it?” Alma said. “Is something wrong?”
“Wrong!” Elise laughed. “Wrong! Wrong! I want my pay. That’s what’s wrong.”
Alma took the old crone by the arm, unlocked her door, and led her inside. “Keep
your voice down,” Alma warned. “Don’t lose control. You’ll get the rest of your pay when you give me enough to work with.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Elise said. “I have details, now. I have many, many details. I have so many details you could fill a book with them. Hair color, where they went, everything . . .”
“Excellent,” Alma said. She led Elise to the chair and sat her down. Alma sat on the bed opposite her. “Tell me everything.”
And Elise told Alma everything, from the first time DeBell had met Bethany right up until her death. About half way through, Alma found her notebook and pencil and made Elise start over. She scribbled down the details, as precisely as she could, and then asked Elise to turn around. She collected the woman’s wages.
“You’ve more than earned this,” she said, handing her the notes. “You’ve helped me a lot.”
“You won’t be seeing me again,” Elise said, as Alma helped her to her feet.
“I won’t?”
“I’m leaving Calico. With the money you’ve paid me and the little I’ve saved, I’m leaving. I have a sister in the east. I reckon I’ll go there. There are a lot of whores and a lot of old people, but few old whores. I’ve worn myself out. That’s the truth.”
Alma found herself oddly sad to hear this. “Turn around,” she said. She went to the mattress and took out two more notes. “Okay.” Elsie turned back and Alma handed her the notes. “I wish you the best of luck, Elise.” Spontaneously, she wrapped her arms around the old woman. Elise, to Alma’s shock, fell into the embrace.
“I feel blessed,” Elise said, “to have laid eyes on a woman as beautiful as you before I die. I feel truly, truly blessed.”
“I have a favor to ask you,” Alma said, as they stood apart. “When you go east, do not mention me. My name, my appearance, my accent—do not mention anything about me, I implore you.”
Elise held her hands up. “You don’t need to tell me nothing,” she said. “I won’t say a word. I wouldn’t.” Elise leaned in, licked her lips. “Alma, my girl, are you going to be the queen of Calico one day?”
Romance: The College Bad Boy: A Young Adult Romance Page 106