Frame Angel! (A Frank Angel Western) #7

by Frederick H. Christian

  He stood still while his gun was lifted from his holster. Hands patted his body: their owner knew where a man might keep a hideaway gun or a knife, and he wasn’t a bit concerned about embarrassing his captive. But Angel had no knife or gun hidden on him, and after a moment he was told to turn around.

  ‘Name?’

  His questioner was a stocky, almost portly man of about five feet seven, dressed in ordinary blue work pants and a white cotton shirt. His open vest was held together by a looping metal watch chain, which started at a horizontal silver bar slipped through the buttonhole on the left side and ended in a bulging pocket on the right. The waistcoat had old-fashioned lapels, and on one of these was pinned a five-pointed star with the word Sheriff engraved on it in script.

  ‘Angel, Frank Angel,’ Angel told him. ‘Sheriff, I’m glad you’re here – this man’s been murdered.’

  He saw Herlow peering at him from behind the sheriff, pimp’s eyes taking in the whole scene with vicious satisfaction.

  ‘Well,’ the sheriff said in his unexpectedly deep voice. ‘As to that, I’m sorta glad I’m here too, Mr. Angel. Sure as Satan didn’t figure he’d died from old age, there.’

  ‘He was dead when I got in here,’ Angel said. ‘You can see for yourself. Whoever killed him stuck him in that cupboard there. I just dragged him out before you came.’

  ‘Sure,’ the sheriff said. ‘You want to try the other leg, now?’

  Angel looked at him for a long moment and then at Herlow. His face set.

  ‘What did he tell you?’ he said.

  ‘Who, Herlow? Said some feller come into his hotel, asked for a guest who’d told ’im nobody knew he was here an’ that was the way he wanted to keep it, an’ then said he should go get the sheriff ’cause they was goin’ to be a murder done.’

  Angel nodded, acknowledging his own stupidity. The Easterner was out-thinking him all along the line.

  ‘And of course, you came in here to find me with blood on my hands, the dead man with his pockets turned out, and the murder weapon right there for you to use as exhibit number one for the territory.’

  ‘Boy, you’re half-smart for someone done somethin’ this dumb,’ the sheriff said.

  ‘Herlow didn’t mention the other man who was in here just before me?’

  The sheriff raised his eyebrows. Without taking his eyes off Angel, he said, ‘Herlow?’

  ‘Sheriff?’

  ‘Was some other guy in here before our visitin’ Angel, here?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Let me talk to him …’ Angel said, starting to move forward. Herlow shrank back, fear washing his face white, but Angel stopped in mid-stride, the sheriff’s gun jammed into his belly.

  ‘Don’t you be an old silly-billy, now,’ the sheriff said gently.

  ‘All right,’ Angel said. ‘All right.’

  He took a step back, hands held at mid-bicep level.

  ‘I’m going to get something in a pocket in my belt, sheriff,’ he said. ‘OK?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a badge,’ Angel said, ‘just a badge.’

  ‘Get it,’ the sheriff said, curiosity on his face now. ‘But get it slow.’

  Angel unnotched his belt, and from the slit pocket on the right hand side above his hip, he produced a circular silver badge. He tossed it on the bed where the sheriff could see it. The watery sun coming in through the deep-walled window caught highlights on the embossed lettering, Department of Justice, United States of America.

  The sheriff looked at it and then at Angel.

  ‘You might’ve stole that,’ he said, reasonably.

  Angel was already unfolding a parchment from the thin oilskin in which it had been wrapped. He handed it to the sheriff, who took it with his left hand.

  ‘That paper says I’m a special investigator for the Department of Justice, acting on direct instructions from the attorney general of the United States. One part of it somewhere says that all federal and territorial officers are requested to give me their fullest cooperation and assistance in all matters.’

  ‘You could’ve stole this, too,’ the sheriff said.

  ‘I could be Billy the Kid as well,’ Angel said. ‘But I’m not. Look at that bastard’s face an’ tell me he told you the truth!’

  The sheriff looked at Angel dubiously. He wasn’t going to fall for any of those tricks. He was good at what he did, and he was able to keep on being so by never falling for the old dodges. He took a step back until his shoulders touched the wall. Now he could see both Angel and Herlow.

  ‘Well, Herlow,’ he snapped. ‘What about it?’

  ‘Listen,’ Herlow faltered. ‘I didn’t know. It … he—’

  ‘All right,’ Angel rasped. ‘Let’s hear all of it, Herlow!’

  Cornered, Herlow gabbled it all out, stuttering in his anxiety to tell it all as fast as he could, to get out from under the basilisk glare of the sheriff, whose name, Angel now learned for the first time, was Hogben.

  Herlow told them that the first man, the big American who had come into the hotel perhaps an hour before Frank Angel, had asked for Hainin. Hainin had paid Herlow twenty dollars to say to anyone who came asking for him that he was not there and then to tip him off so he could check out whoever it was before revealing himself. But the big American had said, ‘Tell me the room number, nothing more,’ and when Herlow had professed ignorance, he had started counting ten dollar gold pieces out onto the counter, stopping each time he added five to the growing pile to ask once again for the room number, nothing else. When the pile was three hundred dollars, he stopped and straightened. Herlow, fearing that this fortune in gold was about to be swept from beneath his nose, had blurted out Hainin’s room number. The American had nodded.

  ‘Something else,’ he had said quietly. ‘In a short while, perhaps two or three hours, no more, another American will come here asking for Hainin.’ He had described Angel perfectly, then continued, ‘You will tell him that I am still in the room with Hainin. Nothing else. You understand?’ Herlow had said he understood, and the American had then told him that Angel would probably question him about who the first man had been and what he looked like or send for the sheriff or the US Marshal or both. If he claimed to be a government investigator, he was lying. He was, in fact, an escaped convict named Briggs, who had broken out of Folsom Penitentiary a few days back and was wanted for attempted murder. Herlow would be able to claim the reward, and there would be no risk involved, no risk at all.

  ‘Unless,’ the big man had told him, ‘you fail to do exactly as I say. Should that happen, Herlow, I would of course feel it necessary to come back to Santa Fe and kill you.’

  He had said this so coldly, his words such a calm and unemotional statement of deadly intent, that Herlow had devoutly believed him and signaled his agreement. Then the man had gone down the corridor and into Hainin’s room. There had been no noise, no sound of a struggle, nothing. He had not, truly, seen the man leave the hotel. But of course, he had gone across the street for a couple of drinks to celebrate his windfall.

  ‘Brother,’ the sheriff said when Herlow had finished talking. ‘If that don’t muddy the water, I don’t know what does!’

  Angel stifled his disappointment and chagrin. Once again the Easterner had outthought him, setting Herlow up with a story which he had told so patently and blatantly that Herlow had swallowed it hook, line and sinker. It was just right, contrived so artfully that no matter what evidence he produced to the contrary, the sheriff was going to have to check with Folsom before he could release Angel.

  And that would take time, and time was all that Angel’s quarry needed.

  He had the two halves of the claim check now. All he had to do was get to Trinidad and collect the suitcase.

  ‘Hogben, what trains are there to Trinidad?’ he asked unexpectedly.

  ‘One a day, but you ain’t takin’ it,’ Hogben said.

  ‘What time?’ Angel asked impatiently. ‘What time does it pull o
ut?’

  Sheriff Hogben delved into the bulging waistcoat pocket with his left hand – all this time he had kept his drawn six-gun more or less generally pointing in Angel’s direction – and pressed the lid of his watch.

  ‘Leaves at midday,’ he said, as if reading it from the face of the watch.

  ‘About four hours ago.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Hogben confirmed. ‘She gets up there, oh, ’bout nine or nine-thirty, dependin’ on how things go.’

  He looked levelly at Angel, then glared at Herlow again.

  ‘Damn if I know what to make of all this,’ he muttered. ‘You say you’re some kind of investigator for the Department of Justice. This other feller said you was an escaped felon.’

  ‘This other fellow killed Hainin,’ Angel pointed out. ‘Didn’t he?’

  ‘As to that,’ Hogben said, cocking his head to one side wryly, ‘that’s how it looks on the face of it. But you ain’t said why.’

  Angel picked up his badge, folded the Justice Department commission, and stowed them in his pocket.

  ‘Is John Sherman in town?’ he asked.

  The sheriff looked startled. John T. Sherman was the United States Marshal for the territory.

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘No,’ Angel said. ‘But we’ve got mutual friends. And he’s got priority call on the telegraph if he needs it. Maybe we can clear this up that way.’

  Hogben pursed his lips. ‘Well,’ he said.

  ‘Sheriff,’ Angel said levelly. ‘You could be right. I might be Briggs, I might be wanted by Folsom. In which case, you’ve got me anyway. But if you’re wrong – and you are – you’re going to get the biggest black mark in your copybook anyone’s ever seen. You’ll be lucky if they let you run for dog-catcher. Now don’t you figure it’s worth the trouble to check?’

  ‘Well,’ Hogben hesitated.

  ‘Sheriff,’ Angel said, and there was no pleading in his voice any more, no anxiety, nothing but a flat certainty. ‘I don’t want to have to kill you to get out of here now, but if I have to, I will.’

  Hogben looked at Angel’s eyes, then down at the gun in his own hand, and then back at Angel with a new expression. He damned well thinks he could do it, he thought to himself. He thinks he could come at a man with a gun in his hand three feet away and kill him. And in the same moment he realized that this was no ordinary fugitive cane-breaker.

  ‘All right,’ he said, thrusting his six-gun into its holster. ‘Herlow, lock this place up. Nobody in or out, understand? I’ll likely want to talk to you again!’ The way he said it made Herlow cringe, but the hotel keeper nodded, rubbing his hands together anxiously.

  ‘Angel,’ Sheriff Hogben said. ‘Let’s go!’

  Chapter Twelve

  The big man knew he was clear now.

  He sat in the plushly upholstered Pullman car of the Atchison Topeka & Sante Fe train laboring up the long, rising incline across the flank of the Turkey Mountains, satisfied that he had covered everything, delayed pursuit sufficiently, and given himself more than enough time to do what needed to be done. Each time the train swayed around a curve, he could see the snowy peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, some of their peaks fourteen thousand feet high, the fresh snow pink in the light of the sun sliding through the western sky. Up ahead lay the Raton Pass, and twenty-five miles beyond that, Trinidad, Colorado.

  There was no one left now who could connect him with the money; no one, that was, except Frank Angel. He knew the man well enough to know that the delaying tactics he had spread in Angel’s path would slow his pursuit but not stop it. Never stop it. He might get clear of Trinidad with the money, but Angel would never stop looking for him and never forget. So Angel must die. He did not want to kill Angel. Yet he could see no alternative, and so he had arranged that, too. Angel knew where he was heading – Trinidad. Therefore, he would come to Trinidad. Probably on the next day’s train – he would get help in Santa Fe; they would confirm who he was very quickly. Perhaps even a special train? It was no matter. The three men would wait at the railway station, and when Angel came, they would kill him. It would not be a matter of stupid Anglo-Saxon manners, of ‘even breaks’ and facing the man you were about to kill. The three killers were ladrones, who murdered for gain, from cover, by stealth, at night, without warning, in ambush – murdered only when it was safe for themselves, when no risk was obtained, when the victim had no warning.

  It was a pity; but if he was ever to know peace, Angel must die.

  He thought ahead, anticipating his route. From Trinidad through Denver to Cheyenne, Wyoming. From there by stagecoach to Salt Lake City, and from the Mormon capital by easy stretches, sometimes on horseback, sometimes by buggy, others by public transport, across the country to Portland, Oregon. Then to Seattle and by ferry from there to Vancouver. He had been there once when he was a very young man and had fallen in love with the long, silent fjords, the majestic pine-clad mountains on their sides. Across the bay from Vancouver was the very British settlement of Victoria, its kaleidoscope of colored, wooden houses sloping gently down to the water’s edge, the snowy grandeur of the mountains astonishing and ghostlike as they soared above the flat gray clouds across the Gulf of Georgia.

  There he would buy a house, hire a housekeeper – maybe after a decent interval marry her, if she were pleasant enough – and live the life of a country squire amidst the gossiping, inbred British settlers. A man could live very well on the income from $250,000, very well indeed. Well enough to leave the capital untouched for his sons. He was still young enough, man enough, to spawn a litter of them if he felt the urge. He allowed himself a thin smile at his own daydreams. All in good time, he told himself, all in good time. And only when Angel is dead.

  The message came chattering back over the wires, the key stuttering as the telegrapher scribbled furiously to write it down. They read it over his shoulder:

  SHERMAN MARSHAL SANTA FE STOP GIVE INSTANT PRIORITY ASSISTING FRANK ANGEL STOP IDENTIFY HIM BY CODED SIGNATURE RECEIVED FROM HIM THROUGH YOU CONFIDENTIAL THIS DEPARTMENT STOP BUT IF STILL IN DOUBT ASK HIM NAME HIS LANDLADY STOP WAITING.

  It was signed by the attorney general.

  ‘Mrs. Rissick,’ Angel told them. ‘Mrs. Maureen Rissick.’

  The telegrapher tapped out the reply and then switched off. They waited, imagining the looping wires that hummed in the moaning winds across the thousands of miles to the ugly old building on Pennsylvania Avenue. They jumped, startled, when the key began chattering again, as if it were angry. The telegrapher began to scribble furiously.

  ANSWER CORRECT THAT’S ANGEL STOP ASK HIM WHERE THE HELL HE THINKS HE HAS BEEN QUESTION MARK NO REPORT SINCE DEPARTURE STOP DOES HE THINK WE’RE TELEPATHIC QUESTION MARK RENDER ALL NECESSARY ASSISTANCE ON MY PERSONAL AUTHORITY STOP BY THIS I MEAN YOU WILL DO WHATEVER ANGEL SAYS YOU ARE TO DO STOP TRUST MESSAGE CLEAR STOP AWAIT REPORT FROM ANGEL.

  Frank Angel grinned. He could visualize the attorney general in his office, puffing furiously on one of his awful cigars as he stamped up and down dictating his message to his personal private secretary, Amabel Rowe. He let his thoughts linger on the memory of her honey-blonde hair spilling back in the sunlight and her light laughter. But only for a moment.

  Then he turned to Sherman.

  ‘Happy?’ he asked.

  ‘Hell, Angel,’ Sheriff Hogben said. ‘We had to check. You understand, it wasn’t anything personal.’

  ‘Forget it,’ Angel said brusquely. He didn’t have time for hurt feelings, his own or anyone else’s. All he was conscious of now was the time that had been wasted, the miles lost, the distance between him and his quarry.

  ‘I want a telegraph sent to Trinidad,’ he said. ‘Whoever you know: deputy US Marshal, local sheriff …?’

  ‘Sheriff up there’s a friend of mine,’ Hogben put in, eager now to make amends. ‘Cecil Smith. Smithy, everyone calls him.’

  ‘Good, fine,’ Angel said. ‘I want the baggage office at the railway depot covered by at least
three men. They’re to watch for anyone like our man coming in to claim a suitcase. I’ll write down a description for you.’

  ‘You want him taken, or what?’ Sherman asked.

  ‘Only if he tries to leave Trinidad,’ Angel said. ‘I figure he probably will, but I don’t know which way, so they’d better keep a damned close eye on him.’

  ‘I’ll tell ’em,’ Sherman said grimly. ‘Don’t you worry none.’

  ‘Something else,’ Angel continued. ‘I want the top local man from the A. T & S. F. railway, and I want him fast!’

  ‘Bob Gray,’ Sheriff Hogben said. ‘I’ll go get him.’

  He started out but was stopped by a word from Angel.

  ‘Tell him I want a special train,’ Angel said. ‘Fastest engine he’s got, the best engineer. We’re going to break the record for getting from here to Trinidad, and I don’t want anything fouling me up. Tell him I’ll want every inch of the track from here to there clean. Understand me? Clean! I don’t even want to see a dead chicken on it. Tell him I want the track cleared so we can run up there the whole way, no stops, nothing.’

  ‘You’ll need to stop for water,’ Sherman pointed out. ‘Fuel, maybe.’

  ‘Tell him to lay it on,’ Angel said. ‘He’ll know where, how much. But fast. Faster than he’s ever done it before.’

  ‘It’ll take a bit of doing,’ Hogben said, dubiously.

  ‘Then you’d best not waste any more time,’ Angel told him. The sheriff blinked and nodded, turning to almost run out of the marshal’s office into the darkening plaza outside. Angel watched him weaving between the idling walkers and disappear around the obelisk commemorating the soldiers who had fallen in the battle of Valverde.