by Ed Gorman
“Who’re you working for?”
“I’m not working for anybody except myself and Uncle Bob.”
“Who’s Uncle Bob?”
“Right now I don’t feel like talking anymore.” She had decided to sulk. Under other ordinary circumstances her sulking probably would have been kind of erotic. Big bad man kiss away all those fake tears and then pitch her into the sack. That’s where sulking usually ends up.
But hers was so obviously just one more theater turn that all it succeeded in doing was making me angrier.
“You ever had anybody stomp down on your instep?” I spoke just as my eyes contacted the straight razor beneath the bureau. I walked over and picked it up. It had black grips with small white diamond logos on each side. Not cheap, not expensive. There was a small taint of blood on the tip of it. My blood.
“They told me you were educated. Even went to college for a while. I was expecting a gentleman.”
“It hurts like hell, somebody grinding down on you like that. Can hobble you up for a week.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“You will be after I stomp down on you a little while.”
“I’m not who you think I am.”
I wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean. I said again, “Stand up.”
She put her hand out for me to take hold of and ease her to her feet.
“You don’t look helpless. Now get up.”
“Some gentleman.”
I watched her struggle to her feet. She looked a lot cuter than I wanted her to at the moment. When she was about halfway standing, she said, “Uncle Bob!”
I had no idea what she was talking about. This was a girl who spoke in mysterious ways. I was still working on how she knew Grieves and why anybody who knew Grieves would put a straight razor to my throat.
I sensed a presence to my right and when I turned, I found out who “Uncle Bob” was.
There in the window, standing on the fire escape, was an old man in a tuxedo with a top hat who looked like every ancient duffer you see in those traveling vaudeville shows.
He tipped the hat and waggled his white-gloved fingers at the young woman.
“That’s my Uncle Bob. You should let him in. He’s probably freezing.”
Once, a very pleasant Mexican woman with whom I’d spent a few nights convinced me to try a little peyote. I didn’t use much but it had the effect of skewing my perceptions, anyway. Strange images. This was starting to feel like that peyote night again. Middle of the freezing night and some sorry old actor is in my window.
“Sure, why not let him in? He have a straight razor, too?”
“He’d never hurt a fly.”
“How about a human being?”
“Well, if you won’t let him in, I will.”
The situation was so odd I felt I was back in my peyote dream again. A beautiful crazy girl and an ancient vaudevillian grinning and waving inside the frame of my window.
That was when it happened. There is no way to set down the feelings you have in that first moment of recognition.
There is an irritating old man in your window. He is waving like a clown and then he is not waving like a clown because the bullets from the rifle explosion you’ve just heard have now reached him.
The white-gloved hands spread out as the explosion lifts him up. He seems to hang in the air there a moment. Even in death the clown-likeness clings to his face. He appears to be smiling in these last moments of his life.
But his will be a spectacular end, probably the same kind of end that all those who trod the boards hope for.
Instead of falling backward, he fell forward, his top hat flying off as the tip of it touched the window. His white-gloved hands came through the window just as it was shattering from the force of his head smashing into it. Glass shards flew into the room. The girl and I turned away from them in time, though tiny bits of glass bit into our backs.
Uncle Bob continued to sail through the window. As I was to find out, he was mostly rag and bones, a tenpenny street performer who couldn’t have weighed a hundred pounds. He didn’t make much noise when he crashed to the floor and skidded a few feet on the broken pieces of glass his body had brought into the room.
I grabbed the lantern and turned it down. A long moment of empty wrecked window and the cold midnight air rushing in and the girl’s sobs. I could hear the broken glass crunch under her as she knelt beside her uncle. “Oh, Uncle Bob, Uncle Bob.”
I made my way to the window. Pressed myself to the side of it and started to peer outside. My Colt was cold in my hand as I leaned forward for a look.
And that was when the shooter pumped two more bullets at us. This time when she screamed, there was nothing theatrical about it at all.
There is always that time after unexpected violent death when most of us lose our capacity to think clearly. In war, this incapacity can get you killed. You’re standing in a daze next to your friend’s corpse and the enemy keeps firing away.
I pushed the girl on the bed and said, “Stay there and don’t move.” The bed would be safe from any more bullets.
I hunched down and went back to the window. This time I got a better look.
Oh, yes, a much better look at—nothing.
Chapter 4
According to a lot of the more misinformed magazine articles I’ve read from back East, there is so much violence in the West (or New West as some still persist in calling it) that Westerners are used to it. They see so much violence that they brush up against it and just move on. What’re a few dead bodies more or less?
I wanted to invite anybody who still believed these hoary old tales to the hall outside my room on the night old Uncle Bob took three bullets to his back.
It was a human stampede, the sort you see when horses are in a burning barn. Pure blind panic. Pure blind fear. Pure blind screams and running this way and that. Every single one of them sure that the boogeyman who had just visited Room 207 was now about to visit their rooms, too. And with the same results.
There was no way to stop the girl from sobbing, there was no way to Lazarus-like revive Uncle Bob, so I did the only thing I could do. I took out my federal badge and walked out into the hall and addressed the mostly male group of people who stood in nightshirts and long johns a few yards from my room. Some of them had handguns, some of them had pints of whiskey. Some of them, the visionaries in the crowd, had thought to bring both.
I held up my badge and identified myself and explained that the threat was over. That I was going to be investigating what had happened in my room and that in due time the killer would be brought to justice. They knew what a crock of shit this latter point was as much as I did. The last estimate I saw from the Department of Justice said that as many as 40 percent of murderers were never found.
“You knew the man who was killed, did you?”
“That goes under the heading of the investigation. I’m sorry but right now that isn’t anything I can talk about.”
“There’s a girl in there crying. I can hear her right now. Is she all right?”
“Physically, she’s fine. But that was her uncle who was killed in there so she’s pretty sad right now.”
In the flickering light of the wall sconces, I saw a couple of the men tilt pint bottles of rotgut to their mouths and take a few healthy guzzles. They were calm now. And now that they were no longer afraid for their own lives, they turned into ghouls. They’d want all the details. All the blood. The smashed bone. The strange grotesque look on the dead man’s face. And was there any chance—just maybe—that the girl in the room crying…was there any chance at all that she was naked perhaps?
A stout man in a white shirt and black trousers and wide yellow suspenders said, “It’s over then, folks. You heard Mr. Ford here. It’s perfectly safe to go back to your rooms. Now why don’t you relax and get a good night’s sleep?”
He then began moving them with the subtle skill of a sheepherder easing his flock in just before dusk.
He
gently prodded each of them to their respective rooms, offered a polite good night, and when he was finished came back to me.
“Name’s Kent Barlow. I’m the night man here. We didn’t get a chance to meet earlier. The sheriff’s on his way.”
We shook hands. “You’ve got a way with your customers, Barlow.”
“Well, first of all, credit where credit is due. You and your badge calmed them down. And my part came from sheer practice. I spent my early years working in a hotel in Brooklyn, New York. Have you ever been to Brooklyn, New York?”
“Couple times.”
“Have you ever stayed in a hotel in Brooklyn, New York?”
“Stayed in Manhattan, I guess.”
“Well, this shooting tonight—something like this happened four or five times a week where I was night man. Admittedly, these weren’t the best hotels but they weren’t too bad for Brooklyn. Shootings, stabbings, drug overdoses—never had any men killed on a fire escape, I’ll give you that. But—”
“But you had plenty of practice with situations like this, is what you’re saying.”
“And this is the first time anything like this has happened out here. Three years I’ve been out here and this is the first time.” Footsteps behind us. A glance over his shoulder. “Say, there’s the sheriff now.”
The average monthly wage for a lawman in this area of the West was around $120. He could make himself two dollars for every person he arrested if the arrest resulted in conviction.
I had a sense that this man was probably doing a mite better than that. The dark suit, the white Stetson, and the custom cordovan Texas boots plus the swagger suggested that here was a man who wouldn’t settle for living on the economies most lawmen had to suffer. The white hair and cold blue eyes belonged to half the senators I’d met back in D.C.
“Sheriff Michael Terhurne, this is federal inspector Noah Ford.”
His smile was as cold as his gaze. “Well, you federal folks seem to have discovered our little town.”
“If you mean an agent named Grieves, that’s why I’m here.”
“And that’s why your boys back in D.C. have been sending me a telegram a day asking if I can find him. I guess they don’t have much faith in you fellas, huh? They think he’s on a toot?” He winked at the night man. “He was on a couple of good ones out here, wasn’t he?”
The night man looked afraid to go along. If he was as sarcastic as Terhurne, he’d make me mad. If he stayed somber, he’d make Terhurne mad.
He was smart. He excused himself and moved quickly to the stairway.
“So what happened here?”
“I’m not sure yet. Let’s go in the room and I’ll tell you what I know.”
“What’s wrong with out here?”
“You afraid of some blood, are you, Terhurne?”
“A fella could get the wrong idea about you, Ford. If he didn’t know better, a fella could think you were a prick.”
I smiled. “Funny, I was just thinking the same thing about you. How a fella could get confused and all.”
But he wasn’t finished. He thrust his hand out palm up and said, “The first thing I need to know here is are you really a federale?”
“Meaning what?”
“A badge and some papers, for starters. And tomorrow I wire D.C. to double check on you.”
“They’re in my room.” I smiled again. “Along with all the blood.”
Even a swaggering mick bastard like him couldn’t conceal his distaste for blood and death.
He was able to hold his face in check when we stood in the room looking down at the mess that had once been Uncle Bob. What he couldn’t control was his gulp. Big, incessant gulps followed by ragged, nervous sighs. There were a lot of men in the war like him. They just never could adjust to the carnage. I had felt sorry for them. I had my own anxieties about all the slaughter, especially in the area of nightmares. Terhurne here I didn’t feel sorry for at all. I imagined all his deputies did most of the work where corpses were concerned.
A woman came in the door while I was showing Terhurne my papers and badge and pointed to Molly, who was sitting on the bed with her back to the corpse. “Mr. Barlow said to take her to an empty room. I’ll stay with her.”
Molly was at the point where she looked like one of those zombies you always read about in the Eastern tabloids. Creatures who are dead but don’t seem to know it. She wasn’t crying now, in fact she wasn’t making any sound at all. Her eyes were fixed on a realm only she could see. She tripped on a small rug. The frail helpmeet steadied her and then guided her slowly out the door.
“You see the tits on that one?”
Mr. Swagger was at it again. Maybe playing manly was compensation for being such a sissy about blood.
He didn’t wait for my answer.
He handed me back my badge and letter and then walked over to the rocker and sat down. His eyes scanned the corpse. It was cold as hell in there. He apparently didn’t find anything interesting but he spent a good two minutes just staring at the man’s head. “You know him, Ford?”
“Nope. He came in through the window. Or rather he tried. Came up the fire escape, I guess. Then he stood in the window and waved at the girl and then somebody shot him. He smashed through the window.”
“What about the girl? You know her?”
“Nope. She came through the window while I was still sleeping.”
“Kind of a strange story, don’t you think?”
“That’s not the strangest part. She fixed my drink up so I’d be asleep when she climbed through the window.” I told him about the straight razor.
It seemed to grab him then. Even with the wind, the smells of death were pretty harsh.
“Let’s go downstairs and get some coffee.” A couple seconds after he said it, he was in the hall, waiting for me. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing I was ready to get out of this room, too. By now I’d picked the last of the glass from my back. That was the last memory I wanted to have of this place.
We sat in an alcove where travelers played pinochle. Barlow brought us hot coffee. Through the doorway I could see two deputies and two men from the funeral home going up and down the stairs.
He got right to it. He didn’t give a damn about the murder. All he cared about was that his name came before mine in the newspaper story. “This is my jurisdiction.”
“Technically, I can take over if I need to.”
He nodded his white-maned head. “Yes, that’s true up to a point. But I can make your life hell if I want to.”
He turned to the kid deputy who had appeared in the doorway and said, “Mr. Ford and I need to be alone here, Hayden. You know how to take care of things.”
Hayden had a shitkicker grin and a pug nose and he looked harmless. “You comin’ back upstairs, Uncle Mike?”
“A night for uncles, I see.”
Terhurne scowled at me.
“I’m not coming back upstairs unless you screw up and force me to, Hayden.”
Hayden blushed. He wore a sheepskin that looked a couple sizes too big for him. He looked like he wanted to crawl down inside and hide. “I was just askin’ is all, Uncle Mike.”
“You heard what I said, Hayden. Now get the hell out of here.”
Hayden went away.
“He’s just helping out. My regular night man has got the croup. If that meets your approval, that is.”
“Uncle Bob, Uncle Mike. A lot of uncles.”
He brought the mean out in me, the way some people do. I wanted to smash his asshole face in. I expected he wanted to do the same to mine.
He asked me to go over my story again but he figured out fast that I didn’t have much to add. Girl awakens me says she needs help, Uncle Bob on fire escape. Three shots. Dead.
“You wouldn’t try and bullshit a bullshitter, would you, Ford?”
“Not as big a bullshitter as you.”
He actually smiled. “I guess I had that coming. I mean it’s some story. If y
ou weren’t a federal man as you say you are, I’d half expect you did in Uncle Bob yourself.”
“I ran downstairs into the alley and shot him and then ran back upstairs so I could get glass in my back.”
“You got glass in your back?”
“You want to see it? Molly got some, too.”
“She’s got one fine pair on her.”
“Yeah, you said that.”
“You thinkin’ she’s kinda beholden to you?”
“I’m thinkin’ I came here to find Grieves. Or find out what happened to him, anyway. And I’m thinkin’ that Molly knows something about him. And I’m thinkin’ that maybe if I find out who killed Uncle Bob I can find out where Grieves is.” I drank some coffee. He watched me. He definitely wanted to do some work on my face, too. I set my coffee down. “What you’re thinking is that for whatever reason, you want all the glory in this.”
I started rolling a cigarette. I waited for him to say it. I had to give him some help. “So what do you want, Sheriff?”
“Me? Hell, I just want to clean up this murder is all.”
“I’m sure you do. But that’s not the only thing you want. The way I’ve been insulting you, most lawmen would have tried to shoot me by now. But not you. That means you’re willing to put up with my guff because you want something.”
He leaned back in his chair. He was one of those men who could swagger sitting down. “You’re no dummy.”
“Thanks for the compliment. Now let’s talk about what’s really on your mind.”
He leaned forward, stared right at me. “I’ve got my pride.”
“That doesn’t come as a shock.”
He sighed and leaned back. “Like I say, I’ve got my pride. And I’m not used to askin’ people favors. Not around here, I’m not.”
He produced, from deep in the pocket of his suit coat a half-pint of bourbon. He took a long and reverent drink. He made a face when the alcohol hit his belly. But at least he didn’t shudder. I wondered how much he drank while on duty.
He shoved the bottle over to me. I shoved it back.
“We got an election comin’ up here. And to be honest I’m not as popular as I used to be. I’m expecting somebody to run against me. And that would be the first time that ever happened.”
