by Lou Cameron
Stringer did. The action of a Luger was tricky indeed and the way to work it called for pulling the loading knobs straight up, not backwards or forwards. The ingenious action worked by jackknifing rather than sliding, as one might expect. He said, “I’ve never owned a Luger, Tom.” Which was the simple truth when one studied on it.
Horn handed him the stubborn if deadly weapon and suggested he give it a try. Stringer hauled straight back, and when—naturally—nothing happened, he said, “You’d better not try to throw down anyone with this, Tom. A gun you can’t fire is worse than no gun at all. It gives all sorts of gents a good excuse to shoot you. It could be embarrassing as hell.”
Horn took the weapon back, fiddled with the stubborn knobs until he got one finger to bleed, then said, “Well, I’ll feel just as embarrassed standing there with a noose around my neck. So I’ll just have to study on her some more.” Then he hid the Luger away again.
They went on talking until Stringer had smoked down to nothing worth another drag. Then, since they still hadn’t settled anything, Stringer stomped out what was left and got back to his feet. “I’ve done all I can if you won’t give me any more leads, Tom,” he said. “I hope you’ll tell your pals that for me. I’d hate to wind up dead by mistake. As of now, you’re all theirs, you poor trusting soul.”
Back at his hotel, Stringer borrowed the city directory and sat down across the lobby to read it by the light of an India rubber plant. Martin was not quite as common a name as Smith or Jones. But it was common enough. He found a page and a half of Martins, and Cheyenne wasn’t near as big as Frisco.
Three of them were listed as doctors and four as lawyers. It didn’t say what all those other Cheyenne Martins did for a living. It was getting sort of late to call on lawyers at home with a tale at least three of them might find crazy enough to report to the law. To begin with any Martin interested in the life or death of a range detective was more likely to be a cattleman, and to begin even more with, the Mr. Martin that Friendly Frank had confessed to knowing would have been a fool to use his real name for hiring professionals to send after folk. This world was filled with fools. But better let the lawyer Martins off. Lawyers knew more than most about covering their tracks.
Stringer rose, gave the directory back to the desk clerk, and strolled into the tap room to see if any Gibson Girl wanted him to buy her some Coca-Cola. The stuff had lost most of its kick since Teddy Roosevelt had ordered them to stop putting cocaine in it. But Gibson Girls still sipped it, feeling up to date and sort of naughty.
He failed to see a Gibson or any other kind of girl in the half-deserted tap room. He ordered a beer, not wanting to feel naughty all by himself, and carried it to a secluded corner booth. Then he got out his notes and went over the list of rodeo contestants he’d taken down, more thoughtfully this time. He recognized some of the names. Rodeo riding was getting to be a regular sport now, just like baseball. He didn’t see any Martins or Smiths, and he knew Buck Jones was a real cowhand—mighty young to be entered in the saddle broncs, but if his momma didn’t care it was nobody else’s business. None of the names Stringer failed to recognize matched any sinister reps he’d heard about in his travels. He decided to keep the list handy and check off each name as its owner came out of the chutes or failed to. He knew it was a long shot. For despite his taste in shirts, it hardly figured that Billy Gower would want to shoot men for money if he felt sure enough about his roping or riding to put up a stiff entrance fee.
Stringer put the list away and slowly sipped beer until there was no more left. He considered ordering another. Then he got up, yawned, and decided a good night’s sleep, alone, wouldn’t kill him. He was still a mite saddle sore from all that cross-country riding and he hadn’t rested his legs much since getting back to town.
But as he was passing the desk the clerk called out, “I just now got a telephone message for you, Mister MacKail. I didn’t know you were next door. So I told the lady you weren’t here.”
Stringer frowned and said, “A lady, you say? What was her name?”
The clerk replied, “She didn’t leave her name. Just a number for you to call. Would you rather call from down here or up in your room?”
Stringer said there was little sense in climbing two flights of stairs if he might be going out some more. So the clerk shot him a knowing look and told him to pick up the desk set. Then he stepped back to the hotel switchboard and put the call through for Stringer. It rang three times at the far end. Then a pissed-off female voice was asking him, “Where have you been all this time, damnit?”
Stringer sighed and said, “I can see you found out I was back in town. When I called on you earlier, you seemed sort of busy with someone else. So I thought it best to just move on.”
“Are you crazy?” she snapped. “What ever made you think I had something wicked going on with him? We’re just good friends, you fool. Where have you been all this time? Was she pretty?”
He laughed and said, “Jealousy sure sounds dumb, coming from someone else. But I know the feeling. So let’s just say we’re even and let it go at that. I can only think of one way to assure you I haven’t been with another woman tonight. So prepare to meet your maker as soon as I can get over there and ride you to glory, you pretty little thing.”
She gasped and replied, “You sure come right to the point. But aren’t you taking a lot for granted, you brute?”
He sighed. “Oh, come on, are you one of those gals who expects a man to start courting from scratch every time he wants to go to bed with you? I would have offered to take you out on the town earlier if you hadn’t been jawing with that other gent. But you were, and I’m sorry if I took it wrong. The point is that it’s too late now. I’m tired after a long hard day, but I may be able to rise to the occasion if we can get right down to it. So do you want me to come over or don’t you?”
There was a long thoughtful silence. Then she sighed and said, “You’re just so damned romantic I’d be a fool to resist you. But I don’t want to meet you at my…ah…public address. You know how people talk. I’ve taken a hotel room in town for the night. I’m at the Laramie Hotel, just down the street from you. Do you think you can find it, honey bunch?”
He growled, “Not if you call me honey bunch when I get there. What room number shall I ask for, doll face?”
She said, “I’m in 202 but don’t ask. I checked in alone. It’s a big old hotel with four ways into the lobby. Just walk in like you own the place and come on up. You won’t find the door locked and if you want…”
“Hold on,” he stopped her. “I know it’s none of my business. But about that other gent you were entertaining earlier…”
She sounded flustered, perhaps hiding something, as she told him, “Didn’t you even look at him? I wasn’t entertaining him. We were just talking, about the rodeo tomorrow, dear.”
“How come?” he asked. “You’re not riding in any fool rodeo, are you?”
“Of course not,” she giggled. “But he is. Can’t we talk about it later, I mean, soon?”
He laughed, hung up, and left the brace of guns he’d taken from Friendly Frank with the desk clerk for safekeeping. He might have left his .38 as well—had he been feeling safe at all. But while at least two gunslicks of the mysterious Mr. Martin had been accounted for, Mr. Martin was still in town and such help came cheap. He’d make up his mind about the rodeo rider Pat had been entertaining in her kitchen after he heard her explain a little better just what in thunder a gent like that needed with a lady lawyer if the lady was only feeling platonic about him.
The streets were darker and less crowded now. He ran the odd conversation through again a few times as he legged it towards her hotel. Whatever a rodeo rider might have wanted at her place, Friendly Frank wouldn’t have been creeping up on the two of them if Pat’s mystery guest had been in on it with the mysterious Mr. Martin. He was likely just a would-be client and Pat was right about how easy it was to take male visitors after dark the wrong way. He’d
been guilty of such hasty conclusions himself.
But wasn’t it a mite late for old Pat to commence worrying about what the neighbors might think? She hadn’t worried about that other male visitor laughing like a jackass loud enough to be heard through closed doors. She hadn’t worried about hauling a client into bed the night before last, with that open side window broadcasting her moaning and groaning to just about anyone with an ear for listening.
Stringer slowed his pace as he spied the sign of her hotel ahead. He tried to decide whether it made good sense for a lady with her own private quarters to check into a downtown hotel if it was just privacy she was wanting. He tried to decide if that had really been her voice on the telephone. You got to where you could tell, after you’d talked to the same person a few times through an electric wire. But he’d never talked to Pat on any telephone—before now.
He moved on, entered the Laramie Hotel via a side entrance, and put a silver dollar on the marble desktop, telling the bemused clerk on duty, “I’ll bet you a dollar you don’t know how to let me make a telephone call to some friends of mine here in town.”
The clerk scooped the coin up, saying, “You lose. What number do you want us to connect you to?”
Stringer swore softly as he realized he hadn’t picked up that message slip from the other desk clerk. Then he brightened, asked to see their city directory, and had no trouble finding Pat’s telephone number listed next to her name and address. The clerk told him to use the second set down the desk, wrote the number on yet another slip, and passed it back to the switchboard gal.
This time it rang a dozen times before Stringer decided Pat was really upstairs in 202 like she’d said. But just as he was about to hang up, someone picked up at the far end and he heard a much more familiar voice moan, “What on earth do you want? We’d just fallen to sleep. I mean, I just went to sleep and who is this?”
Stringer didn’t feel like a long tedious conversation with a gal in bed with another man. So he just hung up. He nodded his thanks and moved away from the desk, feeling more confused than sore. It was small wonder that other gal had sounded a mite mixed up in places. She’d been making answers up as they went along.
He moved toward the front entrance, keeping a wary eye on all the rubber plants. He tensed, then relaxed as he recognized Bat Masterson and another gent coming in off the street.
Masterson greeted him with, “Howdy, kid. Meet a pal and fellow writer of ours, Charlie Siringo. Like me, he was a lawman before he saw the light.”
As Stringer shook with the distinguished older man, he said, “I read your Texas Cowboy, Mister Siringo. Was it meant to be fact or fiction?”
The old-timer laughed lightly. “A little of both, I reckon. We all know how editors like to liven things up. Call me Charlie and, unlike Bat, here, I ain’t sold enough yet to call myself a full-time writer. I spent more time learning riding than reading and writing, growing up in Texas after my daddy got here from Italy, so I have to write careful and slow. Meanwhile, I’m still with Pinkerton. Can’t say I like it, but a man has to eat.”
Bat Masterson said, “Pay him no mind. He may write slow but I wish I could write half as good. What are you doing here at Charlie’s hotel, Stringer?”
Stringer replied, “I was about to walk into a trap until I caught on.” Then he told the two old-timers about the tempting telephone call and they agreed perfidity had to be the name of woman until a better one came along.
Bat Masterson asked how Stringer meant to cope with the setup and was told, “I was about to mosey out the door and start running. I’m not sure where. I can’t go back to my own hotel or anywhere else they might know about here in Cheyenne.”
Bat Masterson agreed he was in a fix. Old Charlie Siringo said, “Hell, what are we jawing about? Let’s take ‘em out.”
Masterson cautioned, “Now, Charlie, didn’t you just tell me you were only passing through?”
The crusty Texan replied, “That’s another reason not to shilly-shally. I got a late night train to catch. Run the whole setup past us again, kid.”
Stringer did. It was Masterson who decided, “If they was set up to bushwhack him down here in the lobby we wouldn’t be talking about it this late. Stairwell?”
Siringo shook his head and said, “Risky, considering all the safer ways to do her. I know where 202 figures to be. Numbers run the same on my floor, higher up. It’s a corner room. Anyone pounding on that door is exposed to the length of two corridors.”
Masterson said, “Right. He knocks, someone pops out another door, either way, and just makes for a graceful exit after the kid here hits the rug full of lead.”
Stringer asked, “Why couldn’t they be planning on getting me from inside—as the bait invites me in?”
The two older men exchanged disgusted looks. Masterson said, “They could indeed, but then the law would no doubt want a word with the lady who booked that room. Disguises and false names work better in mystery stories than real life. On the other hand, what call would the law have to question a lady whose only crime was noticing you lay dead in the hallway sort of near her door? Every dead man in a hallway has to wind up near some damned door. She could just say she had no notion at all as to who such a disgusting sight might be and…”
“Never mind, I get the picture,” Stringer cut in, going on to ask, “What do you gents reckon we can do about it?”
Siringo said, “Well, it’s always best to take at least some damned body alive. The bait sounds easy enough.
We’ll go up together and then spread out. I’ll cover you the length of one corridor and Bat, here, can cover you the other way. Then you only have to bang on that door and announce yourself in a manly tone. Out of line from a shot through the door panels, of course. If any other doors pop open, me or Bat, depending, can freeze or smoke the popper in our own sweet way. Meanwhile, you bust in on the bait, shove your gun in her face, and see what she has to say.”
Stringer asked, “What if she says I’m dead? What if I bust into a firing squad on the far side of that door?”
The grim old Pinkerton man told him, “We’ll have ‘em boxed-in, and you can rest assured Bat and me will avenge you a heap.”
Stringer said he’d think about it on the way upstairs. But by the time they’d made it to the second floor he hadn’t come up with anything better. So he sighed and said, “All right, it’s my funeral. I’m just as likely to wind up dead some other way, if I can’t catch someone who knows what’s going on and make him or her talk.”
Neither of the older gunslicks answered, both running off to take up their positions eagerly as hunting dogs, or perhaps a couple of old timber wolves that hadn’t tasted blood for a spell.
Stringer waited until he was well covered from both angles. Then he drew his .38, took a deep breath, and knocked on the door of room 202, calling out, “Are you in there, girl? It’s me, the one and original love of your life, Stringer MacKail.”
A shy female voice on the far side answered, “The door’s not locked, and for heaven’s sake don’t tell the whole world about us.”
Stringer glanced both ways, dropped into a fighting crouch, and burst into the darkness, crabbing to one side to get a dark wall behind him as the dark figure on the bed gasped, “Oh, you’re so impetuous!”
He covered her as he groped for a wall switch with his free hand. When the ceiling lights flashed on, she gasped again and hauled the sheet up over her entire. But not before he’d seen her naked cupcakes and swirling black hair. He blinked in surprise and asked, “What in thunder are you doing here?”
She giggled under the bed covers and replied, “Who were you expecting, the Queen of Sheba, you horny thing?”
As he suddenly grasped the full meaning of the grotesque telephone conversation he’d thought he’d been having with Pat Morrison Stringer laughed like hell, stepped out in the hall, and called out, “Forget it, gents. It was all a dumb mistake on my part and suffice it to say I don’t seem to be in any danger after al
l.”
Then he stepped back inside, locked the door, and switched off the lights. But once he was in bed with Rimfire Rowena he saw he might have spoken too soon. For she proceeded to endanger his health, if not his life, by screwing him beyond all common sense.
CHAPTER
NINE
*
Later on, as they shared a smoke with the covers kicked off their sweat-slicked naked bodies, Rimfire Rowena insisted on telling him yet again how she’d never acted so wicked with just any man. He was too polite to point out that no woman could have ever learned to move so good, in some of the damnedest positions, without at least a little practice. It wouldn’t have been fair to ask such questions about a lady’s past, since he’d been as naughty with two other gals —make that three, now—since arriving in Wyoming just a few nights back.
“It was mean of you to accuse me of flirting with that colored man,” she said, frowning real pretty. “I’ll have you know I don’t have anything going on with anyone connected with the Frontier Days. Couldn’t you tell, just now, how frustrated I’ve been of late?”
He snuggled her closer with his free arm and assured her that made two of them. She dimpled, kissed his bare chest, and told him, “I know. I could tell when you talked to me on the telephone that you was out of your mind with hunger for my flesh. I was hoping you’d get around to some slap and tickle sooner or later, of course. But I must confess I never had a gent come out and just ask for it afore. Not any gent I wanted to do it with, least ways. Do you talk so direct and dirty to other women or did you want me extra special?”
He chuckled fondly and said, “I’m sorry I spoke to you so shocking before. I thought…I mean, I thought there was no sense beating about the bush with such a pretty little thing, seeing the rodeo’s half over and you could have left town before we got past flowers, books, and candy.”
She began to stroke his limp shaft, skillfully, as she said, “I know. I cussed myself good later for turning down your offer to buy me an ice cream soda. What do you suppose makes us gals so contrary when we see a nice-looking gent wants us? Why do we feel honor-bound to act so snippy, even when we want a man so bad we can taste it?”
