Lust Is No Lady

by Michael Avallone

  “We left Vegas on the job, Mr. Riker. Maybe he’s in among the rocks somewhere, keepin’ his eyes peeled —”

  Mr. Riker glared him down. “And maybe he isn’t! You may recollect we left my beautiful wife behind also.” He raised himself in the saddle which played hell with my hands because he moved so fast. His attention seemed to focus on one of the cabins which was showing some light through the small windows. The other cabins were dark. “Have the men dismount and hitch the horses. This warrants looking into —”

  They hadn’t waited for his orders. Some of them were already leading their mounts to a put-together hitching rail that was nothing more than two tree stumps about fifteen feet apart connected with a strip of wood. There was some grumbling and I could pick up a word here and there but nothing I could hang anything on. Mr. Riker had forgotten about me completely. He didn’t dismount or suggest I do either. He had frozen in the saddle, his big hands closed tight on the pommel.

  Tubby suddenly blurted, “Why, there’s Mrs. Riker now —”

  “I see her, Mr. Tubbs,” Mr. Riker said quietly. “You will please turn the other way. You too, Mr. Noon.”

  But it was too late. The woman who had suddenly emerged from the silver pool had materialized like a dripping phantom. She raised herself in the low water, at calf-depth, unashamed and defiant. The dim glow of her pale body was intriguing. You couldn’t make out the vital details but the superb silhouette that confronted us only yards away was unmistakably naked. She had her hands planted solidly on hips that curved like quotations marks. It was quite a view, like Eve in that first garden where it all began. Out of some peculiar consideration for Mr. Riker, I turned my head away. But a light, rippling laugh hung in the quiet air. A mocking, go-to-hell laugh.

  “Rita,” Mr. Riker said evenly. “Kindly put some clothes on. We have a visitor.”

  “Still playing the lord and master, even in the middle of nowhere.” The voice was high and shrill because its owner was covering fear with bravado. Fear or guilt. “It was so hot I decided to take a moonlight swim.”

  Mr. Riker laughed humorlessly.

  “A splendid idea as are all your other ideas, my dear wife. But since there is no moon, the camp does need guarding. Where is Las Vegas?”

  Her voice drew nearer.

  “In the cabin. Playing Twenty-one with himself as he always does. What the hell do I care where he is?”

  While I wasn’t looking, I got the idea she was dressing rapidly. I could see the rest of Mr. Riker’s cavalry had wandered off talking among themselves. Light flicked on in one of the other shacks. Tubby was the last to go but even he stalked off, shaking his head, after hitching his mare. Which meant something too. Mr. Riker and his wife were an old story to the hired hands. Either that or the iron in the man himself convinced them they had better beat it while his wife was shaming him.

  “You may dismount now, Mr. Noon. My wife is now ready to meet guests properly.”

  That was a relief. I slid off the roan and enjoyed the feel of solid ground beneath my shoes. I stamped around a little getting the kinks out. The lights from the cabins and the new noises of men talking and pots clattering gave the whole area an atmosphere of fresh, outdoor vigor. Mr. Riker got down off the roan and led it to the post where he methodically flipped the reins in a fancy tether. When he got back to me, I became painfully aware of the fact that he was about six feet four and all solid bone and muscle. He planted himself at my side and waited.

  His wife came toward us, walking slowly from the silvery oval of water. Her long hair hung damply, shining in the darkness. Her walk wrote a whole book. With complete chapters on The Female Body, Sex Power Over Males and I-Can-Do-Anything-Better-Than-You. She was incredible.

  “You are beautiful, my dear,” Mr. Riker said softly.

  Rita Riker shrugged, her bare shoulders screaming the wonders of the remarkable bustline concealed beneath the clinging Bikini-style bra. Lithe, tawny thighs that should have belonged to a cougar swayed insolently under matched Bermuda shorts. She made the country pool look like a branch annex of the Riviera.

  “Hello,” she said and walked right by me with the same slow insolence. Mr. Riker nudged my elbow. I followed. It looked like the captain’s table for tonight. He fell in step beside me and we trudged behind his wife toward the cabin that had showed a light from the beginning.

  “Charley Redwine is dead, Rita,” Mr. Riker spoke to her retreating back. “Brutally murdered. Mr. Noon here is a private detective from New York. He went with Brandy to the cabin. The poor girl went out of her mind, burned the cabin I expect, and began shooting at us from the hills —”

  Rita Riker kept walking as she said, “Brandy is a lot of things but she’s not crazy.”

  Mr. Riker chuckled. “Women stick together, don’t they, Mr. Noon?”

  “They have to sometimes,” I said drily. “Men have a habit of giving them a pretty hard time — sometimes.”

  Rita Riker stopped and flung a look at me. We had reached the cabin now and the window light washed over her face briefly. I saw a mouth Italian painters went nuts for, skin that shamed the olive and eyes that were wider than the state of Wyoming. The compassionate, friendly look in those eyes caught me unprepared.

  “You may have earned yourself an extra lamb chop for that one,” she said coolly and pulled the door open. Light spilled out suddenly from the big hurricane lamp centered on a square wooden table. There were four wooden chairs, low rafters, and a general sense of order and neatness in the cabin. I caught a flash of wall pictures, lace curtains on the windows and the same railroad calendar which had adorned the murder cabin. There was a vase that looked like an Indian souvenir resting on the table too with a spray of fresh flowers smelling up things very nicely. But neither the hurricane lamp nor the vase had prevented the man at the table from playing cards.

  He pushed back his chair and got up as we came in. His face was as dark as the death card but there was nothing negroid about his features. His nose was thin, his lips were thin and so was his pencil mustache. He was about as tall as I was but not nearly as well-padded. But his lankiness was deceiving. You just knew he could take things apart without working up a decent sweat. He uncoiled like a wire spring and reached out a hand to me. The perfect salesman about to sell a phony product.

  “Hi,” he said in a velvety, syrupy voice. “I’m Las Vegas.” We shook hands and his eyes went to Mr. Riker. “New man, Mr. Riker? Looks like a good one, too.”

  Rita had padded quietly on shoeless feet into what passed for a kitchen leanto. Mr. Riker said nothing and just stared at Las Vegas. I appreciated the dark man’s compliment but he wasn’t fooling Mr. Riker. Or me either, for that matter.

  Las Vegas’ hair which was black and fitted over his head like a patina, shone damp and wet. Like he’d just been taking a shower. Or gone for a moonlight dip.

  “Las Vegas,” Mr. Riker said slowly. “If you ever leave your post again, as surely as you had a Spanish mother, I will personally kill you.

  7

  There was an awkward silence and then Las Vegas laughed softly. The laugh told me more about the man than a book on his life might have. He was fearless. Mr. Riker had a gun, four inches of height and about fifty pounds on him but Las Vegas had laughed. His wet hair didn’t bother him either.

  “Easy now, Mr. Riker,” Las Vegas said unhurriedly. “Rita was out there taking her swim. She spelled me while I played some cards. It’s been quiet around here in spite of you having the jumps. No harm in it, is there?”

  I horned in before everybody started swinging. I’d had enough trouble for one day and Rita’s talk about lamb chops suggested a meal being prepared which I didn’t want interrupted.

  “Twenty-one fiend, huh? Learning how to be a dealer?”

  Las Vegas eyed me with surprise. He placed a booted foot on his chair and reached down to pick up the cards. The slow smile returned to his face because Mr. Riker had walked by him to hang his ten gallon hat on a nail peg by the
far window, Rita was already rattling plates in the small kitchen. I smelled coffee perking. Strong coffee.

  “Been one, friend. Spent half my life in Vegas. You know Vegas at all?”

  I shook my head. “Reno once for four months. Played a lot of Twenty-one in Harold’s and the Nevada Club. Gave it up when I realized you needed a bankroll to ride out your luck.”

  Las Vegas looked at Riker’s big back. I could see Rita in the kitchen shaking her head at him in exasperation. Vegas shrugged and got back to me.

  “The house is always favored. But a man has to know what he’s doing when he plays cards. That way you shorten the chances of getting hurt.”

  I grinned. “Doesn’t that apply to just about everything?”

  He didn’t miss my pointed stare at his wet hair. “Depends, friend. Depends.”

  “You can pull out the chairs,” Rita said without enthusiasm from the kitchen. “Riker’s special tonight. Lamb chops, mashed potatoes and coffee.”

  Mr. Riker was busy with a tin pail of water and a GI colored towel. Rolled-up sleeves showed thick forearms with bristly red hair.

  “No need to joke about good, honest food, my dear. Like to clean up, Mr. Noon?” He ignored Las Vegas whose hair was still wet.

  Several notions had occured to me that had nothing to do with washing. But I nodded and joined him at the wash basin which was set up in the leanto. Rita’s kitchen featured a small brick barbecue pit with a grill on which lamb chops were turning brown and a giant-size coffee pot making bubbling noises. There was no porcelain sink. But the low row of bricks, about five high, reminded me of the Piper bombardment. It was a screwy setup. Not the kitchen. Agreeable Wells.

  “All in good time, Mr. Noon,” Mr. Riker was a mind reader. “We’ll eat first and get down to matters directly. You must be famished if you’ve been wandering around in the sun all day.”

  Rita brushed by me as she headed for the table with two loaded plates. Her shapely hips made a Minsky boardwalk of the surroundings. But not intentionally. She was unself-consciously beautiful. Las Vegas camouflaged his leering enjoyment of her good looks with remarks about the food. Mr. Riker stared at me intently, his squint and big nose as unwavering as gun barrels.

  The meal got under way. I sat across from Las Vegas with Mr. and Mrs. Riker at opposite ends of the wooden table. There were no place mats or tablecloth. Just four hot plates and knives, forks and spoons. The food smelled good. I picked up my fork tentatively. I expected a Bible reading. Mr. Riker didn’t disappoint me. Mechanically and with no spirit, Rita Riker and Las Vegas folded their hands and lowered their heads. It was a familiar ordeal for them. Mr. Riker’s immense shoulders squared and his big, shaggy, redhead lifted to the ceiling, eyes closed.

  “For what we are about to receive, oh Lord —” Before he got through it, I turned the cutlery over for a fast look. Somebody had a sense of humor. The silverware was stamped Riker’s. Just like the kind they use in the chain of restaurants famous in New York. Now I knew what Rita had meant by “Riker’s Special.” I also knew the West wasn’t her native habitat, either.

  When you’re really hungry, a meal is usually a success no matter how it’s cooked. This one was a banquet. Sexy Rita could cook, too. She’d done something with the lamb chops to make it taste like pure steak. The coffee was sensational. There was no bread but the potatoes made up for it. When I had my second cup of coffee, I realized that my cigarettes were down to a crumpled three in my shirt pocket. I’d bought a whole carton in Laramie but it was locked up in the Buick. I lit a Camel carefully, hoping I could bury the pack before the remaining two were bummed from me. No luck. Rita Riker and Las Vegas descended on them like Bowery bums. Mr. Riker didn’t smoke, of course.

  An easy survey of the cabin under normal circumstances told me nothing. It was plain and simple and somewhere in Rita Riker was hidden the female she really was. Apart from the bedroom Rita. The wood of the interior shone from scrubbing. The lace curtains were polka dot horrors but they were pressed and clean. She hadn’t bothered with doilies or frillies but the house-was-a-home atmosphere clashed with her metropolitian personality. It didn’t jibe with moonlight-clowning with the hired help, either. I watched her drink her coffee. She had long, graceful fingers. Her lovely oval face was controlled and nearly perfect. She’d hooked her heavy black hair into a convenient pony tail. You could look at her face all day and find something worth studying each time.

  Las Vegas chuckled, seeing my interest in her.

  “Mr. Riker can sure pick ’em,” he said.

  I put my cup down. “That was a fine meal, Mrs. Riker. Thanks.”

  She nodded. “So you’re from New York. Detective, too. Is that where you always carry your gun?”

  She sounded like she was being facetious but I sat through the whole meal with a .45 strapped to my shoulder in plain view.

  “Well, generally it’s out of sight. But the sun was killing poor Brandy so I put my coat around her. She and it disappeared over the horizon when your husband rode up.”

  “Poor girl,” Mr. Riker said heavily. “A real daughter that, in spite of her wanton nature —”

  “Brandy —?” Las Vegas made a face. “What’s all this about Brandy? I thought she’d gone back home for good after that beef with P. J. —”

  The cat had jumped out of the bag. But they didn’t know I knew about the cat, yet.

  “Las Vegas,” Mr. Riker intoned calmly. “Mr. Noon encountered Brandy this afternoon under peculiar circumstances.” He went on from there with almost Biblical relish. Before he got through, I sounded like Moses leading the girl through the wilderness of desert and sun. He was a born evangelist. Las Vegas was as fascinated as a kid hearing about Santa claus.

  “Well, I’ll go to hell —” he swore.

  Mr. Riker said, “There is no need to blaspheme. The murder of Charley Redwine will not go unavenged. These wastes are full of marauders and desperate men, unfortunately.”

  “You’d better believe it,” Las Vegas said for my benefit.

  Rita Riker sighed. She’d heard it all before. She looked at me.

  “Some vacation for you.”

  “I can’t say it’s dull.”

  “Going to Cal, huh? I was there about five years ago. Wanted to crash the movies. Too much competition though. And you have to eat.”

  “Shame you couldn’t make it, Mrs. Riker. You and a camera would have gotten along fine.”

  Her eyes brightened. Either with memory or gratitude for the compliment. “Lots of people thought so. But they wanted me in exchange for the thinking so. I quit. I got married instead. I met Mr. Riker in Scramento when I was on my way back to Chicago.”

  “Well, well,” Las Vegas said with forced good nature. “Having our own little private conversation, aren’t we?”

  Mr. Riker hadn’t taken offense. “It is good for her to have someone to talk to from her old world, Las Vegas. I’m happy she’s enjoying herself.”

  It was some family group. “Sure, sure,” said Las Vegas. “That was my world too, remember? A guy can go nuts in this prairie burg.”

  “A guy can,” I said. “But it’s more so for a woman.”

  “More coffee?” Rita Riker tipped the pot toward me. I nodded.

  “Mr. Riker,” I said. “Tomorrow, with your kind help, I’ll clear out of here. I appreciate your hospitality more than I can tell you. But curiosity is killing me. I don’t want to get out of line but anything you want to talk about, I’ll be glad to listen to.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Las Vegas demanded suspiciously.

  “Let the man talk, stupid,” Rita Riker said. Las Vegas kept quiet.

  Mr. Riker leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. He would have been a frightening sight if it weren’t for the basically friendly attitude that always crept through his pores.

  “Please say whatever it is you have to say, Mr. Noon. I detect in you a man of restless nature. You are not one to let sleeping dogs lie, are you?”
>
  My last Camel buried itself in a tin lid can cover that passed for an ashtray.

  “Not if they’re going to wake up any minute and start chewing my toes. I’ve got a feeling, Mr. Riker. A feeling you might try something silly like not letting me leave tomorrow. You’ve been a peach so far but I’d have to be a complete dummy to think you’re going to let me go on my merry way after all I’ve seen here. I don’t think you’re planning rough stuff but I don’t want to guess about that either —”

  Las Vegas pushed back his chair and started to get up, new color mottling his dark face. “You tinhorn chiseler! You got your damn nerve —”

  “Sit down,” I said. “Before you get hot coffee all over your face.”

  “Sit down, Las Vegas,” Mr. Riker said wearily. “What he said is true. We can’t let him leave now.”

  Las Vegas was purple. “He wants to cut in and you’ll let him? This two-bit operator from nowhere? Let me toss him out on his ear —”

  “Exactly.” Mr. Riker’s tone was thunderous. “And then what? More people, more investigations? More trespassers to turn away? Sit down, you fool. Don’t you know an intelligent man when you hear one?”

  Rita Riker smiled. “Good for you, Father.”

  “Intelligent?” Vegas sneered. “What’s intelligent about graft? A crook’s a crook no matter how you slice him.”

  “Las Vegas,” I said. “You and I are going to get along fine.”

  “Sue me,” he said but he sat down and glowered in silence.

  “Please go on, Mr. Noon.” I suddenly realized that the fortyish-looking Mr. Riker had to be older. Lots older.

  “Okay. Here’s what I think for what it’s worth. I find seven men and a woman in the middle of the Wyoming nowhere. They’ve got horses, brand new Winchesters and cabins. One of the seven men is a sheriff. Sheriff of what? Agreeable Wells isn’t even on the map. It wasn’t the last time I looked at my road map. And how can a few cabins and a bunch of tools of some kind be a town? Rita here is a city girl. So is friend Vegas. Tubby sounds Western enough and maybe the four other guys are genuine cowboys. But what is this Agreeable Wells business? We’re miles away from Rock Springs and way out in the country. So what are you all doing here? From the supplies and all, making supper, the lamps and some comforts like a barbecue pit, you all seem to have been here for some time. The cutlery is Riker’s property, stolen or bought in some black market hardware store. The towel is the kind you find in the Army and Navy stores. See what I’m getting at? This all looks like an expedition of some size. A camping trip, to say the least.”