Sensitive to her cover, Cass didn't hail her as she swept down the hall. Judging by her brisk bootfalls—and the smart tapping of her brass-handled cane on the alabaster tiles—he guessed she was headed for the alley exit. He heard the guttural farewell of Mattie's second bouncer and the squealing of the rear door. Cass decided to give Sadie a couple of minutes to reach her coach before he tailed her. He wanted to make sure she returned safely to the Windsor.
He waved to Collie. The boy nodded.
"C'mon, varmint," Cass called to Vandy as he reached for his Stetson and stepped into the foyer. "We're leaving."
As usual, the coon ignored him.
"Cockleburr!"
No response.
Confound it. What was that idiotic flower-command Collie used instead of heel?
"Snap dragon! Pussy willow!"
Beady black coon eyes winked at Cass before disappearing beneath the linen. He would have sworn Vandy was laughing at him.
"C'mere you rotten, good-for-nothing, wannabe hat!"
Prepared to spank the furry little craphead, Cass raised the linen. Vandy bolted out the other side and galloped merrily for the door.
A newcomer was arriving in a flurry of snow. Vandy ignored Pug's shout. Squeezing his 50 pounds between the John's legs, Vandy caused the elderly gent to stumble and drop his spectacles. Cass could hear the ominous crunch as Vandy streaked like a silver bullet into the cold autumn night.
Aw, hell.
Collie chose that precise moment to emerge from the parlor. Jamming his Stetson on his head, the boy cast suspicious eyes up and down the foyer. "Where's Vandy?"
Cass jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "You see that man on the threshold, cursing like a muleskinner and wishing he'd brought his shotgun?"
Collie glanced at the outraged John, who was picking bent frames from a pile of glass. "Vandy sneaked outside?!"
"Don't look at me that way," Cass grumbled, feeling unaccountably guilty. "He's a coon, for crying out loud. He belongs outside. 'Sides. You know he never lets you out of sniffing distance."
Collie's face purpled. "You were supposed to be watching him!"
"I was supposed to be watching Sadie! And you were supposed to be—"
Suddenly, a gunshot exploded on the alley side of the house. Cass's heart leaped to his throat.
Sadie!
Shoving the kid after his coon, Cass ran to protect his
woman.
* * *
Sadie knew she was in trouble the moment the metal door squealed closed. It had no knob, and she smelled blood.
"Evenin', mister." The stench of saloon rolled off the unwashed mountain of flesh, who'd been hiding behind the door. "That your carriage?"
The hansom cab loomed in the splash of moonlight serving as the alley's entrance. Her Pinkerton escort was missing. She suspected the smell of blood was coming from Pryce's corpse.
"Hard to tell," she hedged. Mentally, she cursed her lack of foresight. She was right-handed. Her .32 was strapped under her sleeve, above the same fist that gripped her walking stick. She'd have to create some pretext for juggling the weapons if she wanted to use them both. "But you're welcome to the cab. I'll call another."
"Ain't that neighborly?" the Mountain jeered.
"More neighborly than your driver," menaced a second man, who stepped out from behind a refuse pile near the opposite wall. He was munching a dried strip of meat, called pemmican.
"My apologies, gentlemen," Sadie said as nonchalantly as her hammering heart would allow. "I'll speak with the blackguard immediately."
"Your driver ain't feeling so good," Mountain confided.
A third ruffian, lean and weasel-faced, chortled in the shadows to her right. "And you won't be feeling so good neither, if you don't hand over your purse."
"Sounds like a perfectly reasonable request, Friend." Sadie juggled her cane to her left hand. "Allow me to—"
Mountain's gun hammer clicked, freezing her right hand near her belt.
"We're gonna take a ride first, Friend," he taunted.
Sadie drew a shuddering breath. Any outlaw with half a brain knew that a John, leaving a brothel, would emerge with spare change. These thugs weren't after money. They were after blood.
Did Maestro send them?
A low, hungry growl reverberated through the alley.
"What's that?" Mountain squinted into the moonlight.
A humped-back form prowled closer. Sadie glimpsed whiskers and a ringed tail before her three-foot champion promptly vanished in the shadows.
Vandy!
"Hell. You see a dog, Harry?"
Pemmican Man craned his head over his shoulder. He made the mistake of dangling that dried meat from his fingers. Suddenly, 50 pounds of salivating coon were leaping for the treat.
Merciful God.
In that moment, all Sadie could think about was a dead coon, a grief-stricken boy, and the guilt that would haunt her for the rest of her days because Vandy was too damned trusting of people.
Swinging her cane with all her strength, she smashed Mountain's gun arm, triggered the .32 up her sleeve, and fired to disarm Pemmican, who was shrieking at a bewildered and snarling Vandy.
Meanwhile, Weasel, who'd been deciding whether to plug her or the coon, made up his mind. The slug pounded into her chest. She slammed into the bricks. Dazed and winded, she dropped her .32, fighting to shake off the pain of being saved by a bullet-proof vest. She knew her good fortune wouldn't last if Weasel fired a second shot at her head.
"Vandy!" she wheezed, as Pemmican booted the yiking coon and sent him somersaulting into the wall. "Beggarticks!" It was the command she'd once heard Collie yell to make Vandy hide.
Mountain and Weasel were both turning their guns on her. She muttered a prayer. Her walking stick only fired one bullet.
Suddenly, the door crashed open. Cass loomed on the threshold. Bullets starting flying from his .45.
Sadie took advantage of the distraction to duck behind the metal barricade. Ripping a button-bomb off her vest, she hurled it at Weasel's boots. Smoke billowed up around him. Big mistake. The door separated her from Cass. Now she was cornered with Weasel!
Eyes stinging from sulfur, ears ringing with the outlaws' shrieks, Sadie could scarcely think. All she could do was react. When she glimpsed the glint of steel, slicing through gray billows toward her throat, she lashed out with her cane. She heard an oomph and the clatter of Weasel's knife as it skittered across the cobblestones. Like a rabid dog, he lunged again. This time, he swung his fist. She managed to block his arm with her cane, but they grappled. He was too close; she couldn't raise the tip to fire.
"Hey!" His breath smelled like curdled beer and rank tobacco as he leered at her breasts. "You're a woman!"
"And you're a dumbass," she said, driving her knee between his legs.
He yiked and staggered backwards, doubling over.
A man's hand snaked through the dissipating smoke. Steely fingers closed over her forearm. She was prepared to smash her assailant's face until she realized Cass was trying to drag her around the door and shove her inside the brothel.
She also realized that Cass had turned his back on Mountain. The wounded outlaw was edging on his belly, reaching for his Colt. She fired the walking stick. Her bullet struck the .45 and sent it skating across the alley. For a moment, she had the satisfaction of watching Cass's eyes grow bigger than twin moons.
"Damn!" he muttered. "I need to get me one of those!"
Pemmican saw his chance. He rolled to his haunches and drew back his arm. Steel glinted in his fist. Cass moved so fast, Sadie's eyes couldn't follow. Fire spat from his revolver. A pinging sound accompanied sparks. For a fraction of time, a knife was illuminated in mid-air, changing its trajectory. Then came the tell-tale clatter on the cobblestones.
Cass had shot down the knife!
"You boys don't know when to quit," he growled, looming over the three fallen outlaws like the devil's own henchman.
"You ain'
t got but one bullet left!" Pemmican spat.
"And there's three of us," Mountain menaced.
"Count again," Cass said in lethal tones. A Smith and Wesson slid down his left forearm into his fist. "I've got five bullets. Who wants one?"
The outlaws quailed.
"That'd be murder!" Weasel whined, still clutching his balls.
"You see any tin-stars around here?" Cass retorted without a hint of irony. "Any lawman who gives a rat's ass if your brains get splattered all over the wall?"
An uneasy silence settled over the outlaws. Even Sadie knew the local law didn't come to Holladay Street—except on Payoff Day.
"You have five seconds to get your sorry asses out of this alley." Cass cocked his .38.
"You can't shoot us in the back!" Weasel cried.
"Four seconds," Cass growled.
The outlaws didn't waste another second. Limping, cursing, they scrambled for the street as fast as their wounds would allow.
Sadie drew a shuddering breath.
Cass holstered his guns.
Collie stepped out of the cab's shadow. He was carrying a shotgun. "The driver ain't dead, just knocked out. I bound his bloody arm the best I could."
Vandy ventured out of hiding. When he limped into Collie's arms, the boy shot Sadie a murderous glare. She wanted to yell at the kid, "If you would stop following me, your precious coon wouldn't get hurt!"
But Cass drew her fire first.
"What the hell's the matter with you?" he snapped. "You told your driver to wait in this neighborhood? Why didn't you just shout up the street, 'Come back in 20 minutes and rob me, boys!'"
"Piss off."
"Come again?"
"Not that it's any of your business," she bit out, "but Pryce was doing his job. He works for Sledgehammer."
"Well, that explains everything. 'Cause I never did meet a bigger, weasel-mouthed polecat—"
She hauled off and punched Cass in the gut.
He wheezed, doubling over. "So Sledgehammer gave you that topaz necklace, eh? Now it's all becoming clear."
"Interfere in my business again," she ground out, "and I'll do a helluvalot worse than give you a licking."
He straightened, grimacing. "I'm not opposed to a licking from you, sweetheart."
She flipped him off.
"Any time."
She made another fist.
"Go on." He spread his arms wide. "Get it out of your system."
"Oh, for God's sake," Collie grumbled. "Just kiss her."
"Shut up!" she snapped.
Vandy growled in defense of his boy.
"You too, Tubby!"
"Don't you be calling my coon names!"
"Now Tiger," Cass chided, as if he were speaking to a petulant child. "Don't be spitting and clawing at Vandy. He's a hero. He saved your life. And he's got the war wounds to prove it. The least you could do is let him gnaw your shoe while Collie drives you back to the hotel."
The furry little monster blinked big, shiny eyes at her as if to say, "I love shoes!"
Sadie was in dire danger of erupting, geyser-style. She didn't like being ambushed. She liked even less that Cass had been the one to save her. His 'I-told-you-so' was a bitter pill to swallow after he'd drugged and robbed her. The jackass deserved a whole lot worse than a bruise, and she would have dearly loved to walk to Larimer Street to spite him. The trouble was, she wasn't likely to survive the trek.
"Just so we're clear," she said in gravelly tones. "On no account does your fancy shooting exonerate you for your traitor's kiss."
"Aw, but you saved my life with that whiz-bang walking stick." He flashed endearing dimples. "That's gotta mean you still like me."
"What it means," she said acidly, "is that even ratfink scum-buckets don't deserve to get plugged in the back. Stay out of my affairs. Or God help you, the next time, you'll be answering to Sledgehammer."
Cass watched through narrowed eyes as Sadie snatched her .32 from the cobblestones and stalked toward the unconscious Pryce, whom Collie had propped against the wall. She knelt beside her comrade, checking his pulse and inspecting the makeshift bandage the boy had ripped from his shirttails.
"Pryce is fine. He's gonna live," Collie groused, shooing her into the cab. "But you aren't, if you keep strutting around Holladay Street, oozing sex under that beard."
"What?!"
"You heard me." He shoved Vandy into her arms. "Here. Make yourself useful. He likes belly rubs," Collie added, slamming the door and muffling her protest.
Cass's amusement was fleeting as the boy clambered onto the driver's seat and slapped the reins.
So Sledgehammer gave the order that nearly got Sadie killed?
Cass flexed his fists gunfighter-style as he watched his woman roll away in the cab.
Sounds like it's time for me and a certain Pinkerton to get acquainted.
Chapter 9
Cass figured any man who called himself Sledgehammer frequented prizefights.
Leaving Pryce in the excellent care of Mattie's physician, Cass cantered along 19th Street to the Highlands. Never mind that bare-knuckles boxing contests were illegal. Immigrants, especially Irish immigrants, considered fisticuffs the epitome of manly strength and courage. Dozens of Denver's police had risen from the ranks of Irish sluggers, so contests rarely got raided, especially in the Highlands, where promoters only received a wink and a nod. In truth, Cass expected to see many of Denver's off-duty constables at the Bust-a-Gut Saloon. He could hear the roar of bettors a block away.
The exhibition ring was located inside the saloon on an elevated stage overlooking the ice floes in the river. This arrangement allowed irate bettors to haul losing pugilists out the door and heave them into the Platte.
Silhouetted against the glare of lanterns, Porfi wasn't hard to spy above the booing, hissing crowd of all-male spectators. The boisterous Greek stood atop a chair, behind a makeshift counter that spanned two pickle barrels. Stacked before him were pork gyros, cheese pies, and lamb kebobs. He was swinging his apron over his head and bellowing, "Dunk the vlacas!" at the top of his lungs. Apparently, Porfi had bet on the beefy, red-haired palooka who'd just been KO'd by a well-muscled, Indian half-breed.
Cass smiled nostalgically, remembering his long-time compadre, Lynx. The Cherokee had rustled, smuggled, and hurrahed alongside him for 11 straight years until Sera had made an honest husband of him. Nowadays, Lynx worked as the sheriff of Blue Thunder, Kentucky, but during his outlaw career, he used to brawl like a wildcat.
Cass waved to catch Porfi's attention.
"Didn't I always tell you, 'Bet on the Injun?'" Cass yelled over the sea of bobbing bowlers and caps. "Lynx only lost me two wagers in 11 years!"
Porfi scowled at Cass's taunt and slapped his hand away from a basket of cheese pies. "Just for that, boyo, pitakias will cost you a buck."
"I'll give you two bucks to help me find a particular nobody."
"Favors cost five."
"So Dame Fortune knocked you on your kolos tonight, eh?"
"You want to owe me ten?" Porfi growled.
Cass grinned. "Only if you toss in a pitakia. With plenty of honey."
"You're a malaka. But you have a deal." Porfi reached for the honey pot. "So." He was drizzling amber-colored sweetness over the biggest cheese pie in the tray. "Have you attended the opera lately?"
"Soon," Cass said breezily.
"Must I be on my deathbed for this prize you promised?"
"Hope not."
Porfi shook his head in exasperation. "I shoulda put my bet on him."
Cass snorted at this reference to Maestro. "You mean the fella who cuts you out of every deal?"
"At least he's a working man."
"Aw. You hurt my feelings."
"Good." Porfi thrust the pie, wrapped in wax paper, into Cass's hand. "If you wait much longer, you won't be the new prince of anything."
Cass sucked honey off his thumb. "Why? You hear something?"
"I hear a lot of things."
/>
"Like what?"
"Like he set his sights on Italy."
Cass stiffened.
"A humidor that makes music," Porfi added.
Cass's shoulders relaxed. Porfi wasn't talking about Sadie. "You think he'll make an appearance at the Rothschild's auction?"
Porfi nodded. "Word is, he likes novelties. Jewelry boxes, pocket watches, wind-up toys—anything that plays a tune. Rothschild's will be auctioning a green cigar box that's worth a fortune to collectors."
Thoughtfully, Cass bit into his pie. He'd always thought the jewelry box with the enameled peacock was a bit too frou-frou for Sadie's tastes. Maybe she'd been keeping it as evidence.
He made a mental note to ask her.
Porfi changed the subject. "Who's this Nobody you're looking for?"
Cass shrugged. "I don't know his name. He's middle-aged. Probably German. He's got mallet-sized fists and a build like a brawler. I don't think he's been in the ring, though, since his nose is as straight as a razor. He's a few inches shorter than I am. Sandy hair. Green eyes. Talks like he's chewing on gravel. The cleft in his chin could roost a canary."
Porfi chuckled. "A German who roosts canaries on his face. Now that rings a bell."
"Does it?"
"Nope."
Cass shot him a withering glare. "Now who's the malaka?"
A flash of white in Porfi's beard betrayed a mischievous grin. "From my point of view, a grunt like that would be sucking suds, not stuffing his pie-hole with cheese." He jerked his head toward the staircase.
Cass followed Porfi's gaze and spied Sledgehammer, standing apart from the bettors with his shoulder propped against the railing. He was polishing off a brew.
"Much obliged," Cass said, flipping a coin.
"Don't you forget it," the Greek retorted, deftly snatching the half-eagle from the air.
As the intermission crowd descended like locusts on Porfi's counter, Cass took a circuitous route to Sledgehammer. He used this time to study the Pinkerton, noting how the older man seemed to blend into the stairwell's shadows. This feat surprised at least one red-faced bettor, who tipped his hat and stammered apologies for nearly colliding with the detective.
Sledgehammer wore his bowler low over his forehead and disdained the comfort of gloves, which let Cass notice, again, just how big the Pinkerton's knuckles were. Even if Sledgehammer wasn't a contender, he should have been. He had beefy arms and a barrel-sized chest that would have strained the buttons of his Chesterfield if the charcoal wool hadn't been tailored so well.
Dance to the Devil's Tune (Lady Law & The Gunslinger Series, Book 2) Page 11