by Matt Braun
After Vivian had stepped down, Tallman fingered a silver dollar from his vest pocket and paid the driver, who got wide-eyed over the four-bit tip.
No one strolling the granite-block Chicago sidewalk would have imagined that the pair had just returned from a savage land. Tallman could easily have been mistaken for a successful lawyer, and Vivian looked as if she might be chairwoman of the Chicago Concert Society.
“Here we are,” Tallman said as they turned to face the imposing four-story brick structure.
Vivian, looking exceptionally refined in her reserved but finely cut dark-blue dress, nodded her approval.
Allan Pinkerton will be impressed, Tallman thought to himself as he limped through the carved oak door, which swung on heavy hammered-brass hinges. He had rarely seen her in a dress that covered her to the neck, and he liked it.
Gold-leaf scrollwork on a heavy frosted-glass door announced the PINKERTON DETECTIVE AGENCY.
“Good morning, Mr. Tallman,” the young receptionist said, eyes and teeth gleaming.
“Myrna. Good to see you,” he said as he doffed his fedora. “You’re looking fit.”
Myrna, a pert blonde with kewpie-doll features, batted her lashes and glowed. Then she saw Vivian come into full view.
“Myrna. I’d like you to meet Vivian Valentine, one of the firm’s newest agents.”
“Pleased to meet you,” the secretary responded, her voice, in fact, revealing displeasure. “Mr. Pinkerton is expecting the both of you.” Her tone was suddenly very businesslike. “Go right in.”
Vivian shot Tallman a playful reprimand as he limped toward the inner office.
As they entered the plain but functional office, the famous detective popped out of his chair, circled his desk, and extended his hand toward Vivian.
“Miss Valentine. An honest pleasure, to be sure.” His mood was ebullient.
Tallman smiled inwardly. More often than not, his meetings were with a peevish Allan Pinkerton who was forever intent on reprimanding him for his unruly behavior.
“My pleasure,” Vivian responded, her eyes the focus of her inviting beauty.
“Ashley,” Pinkerton said as he released Vivian’s hand and directed it toward his most errant employee. “Fine job in Tucson.”
Tallman raised his eyebrows and imagined that Pinkerton’s handshake and tone were a little more sincere this time. He even thought he detected a smile beaming through the man’s thick salt-and-pepper beard. “Why thanks, Allan,” he replied. “It did get nasty toward the end.”
While Pinkerton dropped into a wingback chair, Tallman and Vivian settled on a sofa that was trimmed in hand-carved walnut.
“Both of you are to be commended for your work in Tucson,” Pinkerton said as he scooted the chair toward his desk. “I’ve received wires from Mr. Oldham, the newly appointed sheriff, and the chairman of the board of Wells Fargo. They all heaped praise on you. In fact, the chairman of Wells Fargo insisted that you, as a team, handle any further work they have.” Pinkerton’s eyes dropped and his voice became quieter. “Mr. Oldham briefly explained your ordeal . . . ahhh . . . Miss . . . ahhh . . . Valentine. And . . . ah . . . I must say you have shown a degree of courage which reflects favorably on the agency.”
“Thank you, Mr. Pinkerton,” Vivian said, truly appreciating the praise. As a con artist, her work had been acknowledged only by the penalty of the law. Honest gratitude from one of America’s best-known men gave her a new sense of pride. Then she thought of Tallman. “Of course, Ashley’s wound is no small matter.”
“Of course! Of course!” Pinkerton said as he pushed aside a stack of papers and looked toward Tallman.
“What did the sheriff have to say?” Tallman asked, intent on keeping tabs on Traber’s fate. “Have they had the trial yet?”
“Next week,” Pinkerton said in a matter-of-fact voice. “He expects that Traber and the express clerk will hang before the end of the month.”
Tallman was relieved at the news. Then his eyes caught a flashing glance from Vivian and they began to snicker. During the train trip back to Chicago, they had gone into several fits of laughter over Vivian’s explicit imitations of Floyd Traber pounding his meat as he went through the trapdoor.
Pinkerton raised his bushy eyebrows and dropped his jaw, taken aback as the two detectives seemingly laughed raucously over a double hanging.
“Private joke, chief,” Tallman said, checking his laughter when he saw Pinkerton’s surprise. “Floyd Traber has several humorous idiosyncrasies.”
Vivian laughed again and Tallman chimed in. Pinkerton sighed and his shoulders sagged as he stroked his beard, his eyes revealing some minor distress. Vivian Valentine would not be one of his more manageable agents. He usually had his hands full with Tallman, and he pondered the possibility of trying to hold a pair of unruly agents in check. The thought of it almost made him wilt. Then he reminded himself of the large bank draft coming from Wells Fargo. The pair was damn near worth their weight in gold coin. Right then and there, as the pair chuckled over their private joke, he decided that he’d find some way to deal with them, even if the only solution was to let them dance to their own music.
“Well, chief,” Tallman said, red-faced but quiet, and trying to get their meeting back on the tracks. “We are glad you were satisfied.” He paused and gently slapped his knees as if to signal that he was about to get up. “Both of us need a little time to allow the wounds to heal. We figured to take off until the beginning of September. That’s just under three weeks.”
Pinkerton smiled through the full black-and-gray beard and tapped the fingers of his right hand on the mahogany desktop. Then he began flipping the pages of a calendar. “It’s Friday,” he said in a monotone. “Let’s see.” Pinkerton stopped on one of the pages, looked up, and eyed Tallman as a father might look at a disobedient son. “A week from Monday, you’ll be on your way to Texas.”
“Texas!”
“Yes, Texas! I need two good undercover operatives. And you’re it. I’ve already promised the governor himself.”
Vivian shrugged her shoulders and Tallman slumped back in his chair faking a look of disappointment. A week was more than he had hoped for. On the way over to the office, he had explained to Vivian that he would ask for three weeks, hoping for no more than three days. He didn’t look in her direction, frightened that the laughter might break loose again.
“What calls us to Texas, Mr. Pinkerton?” Vivian asked.
“It seems as if we’ve got a nasty feud, which is on the verge of becoming a war. It started as a family vendetta. But it has developed into something much bigger.”
“Sutton-Taylor?” Tallman butt in. Though not up on details, he was aware of the developing storm. “The newspaper scribblers are picking up on it. Especially since John Wesley Hardin sided with the Taylors. Noble outlaw with a cause!”
Vivian seemed surprised that Tallman had heard of the problem. She hadn’t.
“What troubles the governor is that people are taking sides,” Pinkerton said. “It’s not just gunslicks like Hardin. Lawmen, judges, the large ranchers, and even the Texas Rangers are beginning to show sympathy with one side or the other.”
“Where do we fit in?” Vivian asked.
“I want you to infiltrate both sides. Find out exactly what is going on so that I can report to the governor. Armed with that information, he will—with your help—attempt to bring the Sutton-Taylor mess to an abrupt conclusion.”
“I hear they are playing for keeps down there,” Tallman said as Pinkerton opened his bottom desk drawer.
The bearded, once-muscular hulk drew a large manila envelope from the drawer and thumped the heavy object on his desk. “Summary hangings, wild-eyed vigilantes, hired gunmen, local political skulduggery . . . you name it,” the firm’s founder said as he slid the package toward the front of the desk. “Our research people have prepared dossiers on the principals involved, and the governor has provided you with his suspicions and suggestions, written in his own
hand. Right now, only four people in the world know about our prospective operation. Three of them are in this room.” Pinkerton paused and gave each of the two detectives a stone-cold eye. “You are alone on this. And with killers like Hardin involved, I don’t have to tell you that you’ll not be on a picnic.” He paused and leaned forward on his desk. “Add longstanding family feuding to man’s routine evildoing and you have a situation that makes stagecoach robbery look like child’s-play.” He stared at Tallman only. “Brings out the worst in people. I am sure you understand that, Ashley.”
“Been there before,” Tallman said, making light of Pinkerton’s serious tone as he stood up and snatched the heavy envelope from the desk.
Vivian followed Tallman’s lead and got up. After half a minute of small talk, they left the spartan office.
“Ashley,” the secretary said as Vivian closed Pinkerton’s door. “I have a message for you.”
“Oh?”
“Aaron Wagner. He dropped us a note last week and requested that you go by his gun shop the next time you have a chance.” She held out the note, her eyes fixed on his angular features. He took the note and kissed the back of her hand, allowing his gray-blue eyes to penetrate her psyche as if to say: Some day, Myrna.
After Vivian had climbed into a carriage they had flagged down, she reprimanded Tallman. “Shame on you! Using that pretty little mutt the way you do! She ought to be courting some bean-counter at one of the local accounting firms. As it is now, she’ll stumble after you forever.”
Tallman turned to his partner and grinned as he jammed a thin cigar between his square white teeth.
That settled, Vivian went on about how she had been embarrassed at their laughter. “I felt like a fool. But I couldn’t help it,” she said as the single Belgium clip-clopped along the city streets, its clean and brushed features flying with each powerful step. She craned her neck to one side, held her right hand over her head as if she was gripping a rope, stuck out her tongue, rolled her eyes back, and pumped her hand up and down in her lap. The driver had turned around, and the sight almost caused him to fall from his hack. Bugeyed, he turned back to his horse and snapped the reins as if to escape an approaching highwayman.
In twenty minutes, the driver had made his way to the outskirts of the Chicago business district. He stopped in front of the small but neat store marked with a black-on-white sign: GUNSMITH, AARON WAGNER, PROP.
After he got his money, the driver gave the well-dressed duo a furtive glance and quickly urged his stout Belgium away from the curb.
“Ash!” the slender gunsmith said as he came from behind the counter with his hand extended. “Glad to see you!” Then he turned to Vivian. “And I bet this is Miss Valentine.”
“Vivian,” she replied, her tone sonorous, her eyes twinkling.
“Ash explained that he had a lady partner when he purchased a pair of .41 derringers. But he never let me in on the fact that she was one of the prettiest ladies in Chicago.”
The gunsmith was obviously charmed by Vivian, and she, likewise, found Wagner to be a captivating gentleman. His eyes revealed intelligence and intensity and his clothing and heavy cotton apron were pressed and tidy. Though he was short, his coal-black hair, eyebrows, and stubby mustache gave him a classy appearance. He looked more like a successful commodities broker than an inventor and merchant of instruments of death.
“I got a message that you wanted to see me,” Tallman said when he had regained Wagner’s attention.
Wagner’s eyes lit up like diamonds on black velvet. Without a word, he beckoned them to follow him into his workshop.
He reached up on a shelf and got down a cigar box. When he opened the wooden lid, Tallman saw twenty or thirty one-inch steel ball bearings bedded in snow-white cotton. Then he remembered that Wagner had explained during his last visit that he was working on a small impact grenade. Wagner plucked one of the small spheres from the box and headed toward the back door. “Follow me,” he commanded, his tone and demeanor like that of a twelve-year-old showing his best friend the new .22 rifle he’d just gotten for Christmas. “You’ll get a kick out of this, Ash!”
Once outside, Wagner turned and held the shiny metal ball aloft as a magician might hold up a silver dollar before making it disappear. Then he pointed at a full-length paper target mounted on thick oak planks that leaned on the six-foot fence enclosing his firing range and test area. Someone with no artistic ability had drawn a silhouette of a man on the stiff paper. The chest of the paper victim was full of large-caliber bullet holes. Without warning, Wagner drew back his arm and hurled the small bomb at the hard ground at the feet of the target. A simultaneous eruption of fire and an explosion not unlike the muzzle blast of a .60-caliber buffalo gun caused the two detectives to spin away and cover their eyes. Dirt and several slow-moving shards of steel fell on them in the aftermath of the demonstration.
As the smoke drifted over the fence, Wagner turned, his face aglow like that of a man viewing his newborn son.
“What do you think, Ash?”
Vivian and Tallman were speechless.
“Take a look,” Wagner insisted as he set out toward the target, which was only twenty feet away. “The thing doesn’t have any range, but up close it’s got punch!”
The Pinkerton duo looked at each other with broad grins and followed. The legs of the figure on the paper target were peppered with metal splinters, saturated at the bottom, the concentration decreasing as their eyes moved higher.
“Ouch!” Vivian said, pointing to a large chunk of metal that was embedded in the vee of the target’s crotch.
Wagner’s face flushed to a pink glow. “Ah . . . yes . . . well, you can see that the grenade is not fatal if you throw it at your mark’s feet.”
“Depends on how you define fatal, Aaron!” Vivian exclaimed, giving Wagner a sly smile as she tapped the paper victim’s crotch with her red fingernail. “Looks as if our friend here is out of the fight . . . permanently!”
The gunsmith’s face went from pink to red and he quickly launched into an explanation of his new bomb. It was simply, he explained, one sphere within another. There was a sixteenth-of-an-inch space between the heavy-gauge steel outer shell and the thin tin inner ball. Wagner noted that he filled the inner sphere with a new high-velocity explosive developed by the Du Pont family in Wilmington, Delaware, and a flame-producing agent he’d concocted in his own lab. Once he’d sealed that, he’d filled the sixteenth-inch gap with fulminate of mercury. On impact, the fulminate exploded quickly and evenly, concentrating the force toward the center of the grenade. “It’s that concentration of energy that produces such a violent detonation of the new high-velocity powder and my fire agent!”
Tallman looked up from the little crater at the victim’s feet and eyed Wagner with some disbelief.
“Hardly something one could produce at a price the market would accept,” Wagner went on. “The Du Pont powder is very expensive and still in experimental stages. And it takes hours to fabricate each of the double-sphere casings.” He stopped and looked at Tallman. “And . . . of course . . . shipping would be a problem.” His eyes then grew hopeful. “But one never knows what the future will hold, Ashley. And I wonder if you might have the opportunity to test my invention on some—ah—future assignment.”
Tallman was thinking of Wagner’s concern over shipping the bombs, when Vivian chimed in. “I wish we’d had these on the last job,” she said as she again put her slender figure on the chunk of steel protruding from the target’s crotch. “I’d like to have thrown one of these little gems at Floyd Traber while he was dancing around the room with his talleywhacker in his fist!”
Wagner’s mouth dropped open.
“You will notice, Aaron, that Vivian speaks plainly,” Tallman said as he put his arm around the five-and-a-half-foot inventor and moved him toward the shop.
Vivian smiled. She enjoyed getting a rise out of men with her unconventional behavior.
Back in the shop, after assurance
s from Wagner that the grenades would not go off at the slightest jostling in his pocket, Tallman agreed to carry six of the little bombs on his next assignment. Considering that they would have to walk naked into a hornet’s neat within two weeks, they decided that anything he could bring along might help.
Both were tired and stuffed with German food and dark beer by the time they reached Tallman’s hideaway just beyond Chicago’s outskirts. As the carriage driver urged his Percheron away from the secluded stone dwelling, Tallman limped down the path toward the grove of trees that hid his home. He had told no one but his lawyer and Vivian about its existence. Pinkerton and his fellow agents had no knowledge of his private life, and he intended to keep it that way. He had always approached life with fierce independence as the foundation of his conduct. Except in rare cases where fate demanded otherwise, he held no man’s marker, nor did he issue any. He’d held firm to the understanding that with people came problems. Therefore, it followed that minimum contact with others led to fewer problems. And, were it not for the fact that Vivian held a similar view of the cosmos, she wouldn’t be following him up the path.
“Leg acting up?” she asked from behind.
“Not bad,” he lied.
“I bet.”
Once inside, she insisted that she change the dressing and examine the hole in his thigh.
Tallman limped into the bedroom and lay down on the bed. She put her things down and tugged off his boots, undid his trousers, and slid the blue pants from his legs.
The bandage was leaking, though not badly.
Vivian left the room and laid a fire in the kitchen cookstove, put on a pan of water, and laced it with Epsom salts crystals.
For the hour he lay on his stomach while she applied hot compresses to the exit wound, he imagined that he was as content as any man.