Robert B. Parker's Blackjack

by Robert Knott

  “Guess I timed it just right.”

  “You did.”

  I opened the gate onto the stone walk leading to the house and made my way toward where Allie stood in the garden. I thought about how I laid every stone of that path with Virgil on a day that was as hot as today.

  “I should have gotten out here earlier, but I piddled around until it got to boiling, silly me.”

  Allie pulled back the strands of hair hanging in front of her eyes.

  “What kind of no good are you up to?”

  “Thought I’d just pay my respects.”

  “Well, I’m glad to know that I am owed.”

  “Always, Allie.”

  “Virgil’s not here,” she said.

  “Who’s Virgil?” I said.

  She cleaned the dirt off her hands with the front of the apron as she turned, appraising her garden.

  “Would you just look at this?” she said. “This is a full-time job.”

  “Tomatoes look good,” I said.

  “Fat and juicy. Problem is keeping enough water on ’em.”

  Allie took off her apron and shook it free of dirt.

  “Yeah, well, it’s been hot, that’s for sure.”

  “What you got in the bag?”

  I held up the dripping gunnysack.

  “Beer, ice.”

  “What?” she said.

  “Yep.”

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “Wednesday.”

  “Is it?”

  “It is.”

  She looked down at herself and her blouse was soaked with sweat and clinging to her chest.

  “Aren’t I a sight?”

  She pinched the fabric of her blouse and gave it a few pulls away from her chest so as to give her breasts a little air.

  “You look just fine to me, Allie.”

  “Why, Everett, you are a flatterer if I have ever heard one.”

  “I’m sure you have heard plenty.”

  “Oh, Everett.”

  I smiled.

  “Why don’t you let me freshen up a little and I will meet you on the back porch for a taste of some of what you have there.”

  “Sounds good, Allie.”

  I put the bottles of beer into a bucket with the ice and sat on the back porch, listening to the meadowlarks, as I waited on Allie. A welcome breeze picked up and under the shade of the porch was beginning to feel comfortable.

  I thought of the conversation I had with S.Q., about what he said about Roger Messenger, and then I wondered about what really happened, about who really did kill Ruth Ann Messenger.

  I heard Allie call from the house.

  “Be right there, Everett.”

  I looked back and could see Allie through the curtains of the open bedroom window. She had her back to the window and for a moment she was without covering, but then she slipped a dress on over her head.

  After a few moments Allie came out. She was wearing a loose-fitting white cotton dress with her wet hair wrapped atop her head and held in place with an ivory hair comb.

  “Forgive me, I had to water myself a little,” she said.

  “By all means,” I said. “I waited on you.”

  I got a bottle of beer and poured us each a glass.

  “You are a gentleman, Everett Hitch.”

  I handed Allie a glass.

  “Look at the foam.”

  “Cheers,” I said.

  “Cheers to you,” Allie said.

  We touched glasses and drank.

  “Oh, my,” she said.

  Allie licked the foam from her top lip.

  “My goodness. Is that refreshing.”

  “It is.”

  “Thank you.”

  We sat and sipped our beer, and for the moment we didn’t say anything. It was comfortable with Allie, and she was, after all we had been through, a friend and I had grown to enjoy her company.

  We heard Virgil come through the gate, then open the front door.

  “Back here, Virgil,” Allie said.

  Virgil made his way down the hall and out the back door, and when he did Allie held up her beer.

  “Look what Everett brought.”

  Virgil looked back and forth between Allie and me.

  “Sit, I’ll get you a glass.”

  Allie was up and into the house before Virgil had a chance to take his hat off.

  “See you got a saddle on that black.”

  “Good to know he’s still out there.”

  “He is.”

  Virgil took off his hat and wiped his brow with a handkerchief he pulled from his pocket as Allie came back out the door with a glass. She poured Virgil a beer and handed it to him, then kissed him on the cheek.

  “What have you been doing, Virgil Cole?”

  Before Virgil answered he took a long pull of the beer, then held it up in the light and looked at its color.

  “That’s damn good,” he said.

  Allie smiled.

  “S.Q. got that from Saint Louis,” I said.

  “Glad for it,” Virgil said, then looked to Allie.

  “I been over at the Western Union office.”

  “What’s happening?” Allie said.

  Virgil looked to me.

  “Boston Bill Black has been caught.”

  33.

  Where?”

  “El Paso.”

  “Damn, Virgil,” Allie said.

  “Yep,” Virgil said.

  “No,” she said. “Is this necessary?”

  “What?”

  “You sure do know how to spoil a good time,” she said.

  “How’s that?”

  “Everett and I have been doing just fine, drinking this lovely beer that come all the way from Saint Louis, and now this business of being caught.”

  “Hell, Allie,” Virgil said. “Everett and me spent a good goddamn amount of time searching for him, and the fact he has been caught has significant meaning here.”

  “That does not mean we have to bring it up on a pleasant Wednesday afternoon, does it?”

  “I know I don’t need to tell you this, Allie, but in the process of chasing that sonofabitch, we lost one of our friends, a friend of yours, too.”

  “No, you do not need to tell me, I know,” she said. “I miss Skinny Jack, too, I do.”

  “I know you do,” he said.

  “But I still don’t think this is right,” Allie said.

  “What?” Virgil said.

  “That Boston Bill Black did this heinous crime he is accused of,” she said. “I told you that before.”

  “And like I said before, Allie. That will be up to the judge to decide.”

  “Oh, the judge. There is always a judge. I thought it was a foregone conclusion the other man, the fella from Denver, was the one that was the murderer.”

  “There is still a warrant and a bounty on Black’s head, Allie.”

  Allie got up out of her chair and filled her glass with beer.

  “I’m gonna go make supper.”

  She looked at me.

  “Thank you, Everett,” she said. “It was so lovely to spend some pleasant time with you.”

  “You too, Allie.”

  “I’ll leave you two to it,” she said.

  Then she went into the house. I watched after her as she walked back into the house and rounded the corner into the kitchen.

  “Heard something from S.Q. just before I came over here today,” I said. “We know S.Q. is going around the bend, getting more forgetful and a bit slower every day, but he told me Messenger spoke to him the day he was shot and that Messenger told him in a sober moment that he had come to town to arrest the man that killed his wife.”

  Virgil look
ed at me for a long bit, then shook his head a little.

  “The Denver detective that come here, Banes. He thought differently,” Virgil said. “Thought it could have been Roger Messenger that murdered his wife.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Virgil said.

  “Who caught Black?” I said.

  “A bounty hunter,” Virgil said.

  “They sure it’s him?”

  “So it seems.”

  “I’ll be damned,” I said.

  “Yup.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Today, I think,” Virgil said.

  “Now what?”

  “He’s being brought back here.”

  “To Appaloosa?”

  “Yep.”

  “Not Denver?”

  “No,” Virgil said. “He’s gonna be tried here.”

  “But the murder was in Denver.”

  “According to the Denver DA, Black was here, hired a gunman here, fled from here, and was involved in a crime here that left a Denver policeman dead.”

  “He’s not charged with that shooting, Truitt is.”

  Virgil shook his head.

  “I know, but Denver DA said since Judge Callison is coming through, dealing with Truitt, and this crime happened here, they’d deal with Boston Bill then, too.”

  “How will they do that, the fact that Ruth Ann Messenger’s murder happened in Denver and the potential witnesses and such are in Denver, you’d think they would want him, need him back there to stand trial?”

  “Could be the profile of the case gives Denver an opportunity to get it out of their backyard. Maybe it has to do with the fact of what this is all about, the nature of it.”

  “You mean, seeing how this has to do with the fact the son of the police chief was married to a woman running around flaunting her goods with an itinerant gambler, they don’t want to make this any more public than they have to?”

  “Don’t know,” Virgil said, “but I would suspect that is right. They are taking this opportunity to keep Black out of the chief’s path . . . All this business was happening over the wire between El Paso, Appaloosa, and Denver these last few hours, and I think suppertime crept up and nipped it. Anyway, that was that.”

  “I’ll be damned,” I said. “And if he’s convicted, what then?”

  “Don’t know. Figured they’d let him get shipped here and go from there, let Black fend for himself,” Virgil said. “Last bit back from Denver said they are sending in a reception team to deal with this.”

  “Another unit?”

  “Sounds like it,” Virgil said. “Bounty hunter left a demand, too, that stated if the three thousand was not available with the return of Boston Bill Black, he would let Black go free.”

  “When will Black get here?”

  “According to the El Paso sheriff’s office, he would have already been here, but Mr. Black needed a day to heal up.”

  “What happened?”

  “Seems there was some altercation that happened and Black was knocked around a bit. Office said they’d be here within a few days.”

  “Who’s bringing him in, who’s the bounty hunter?”

  “Don’t know,” Virgil said.

  34.

  After two days there was no sign yet of Boston Bill Black or the bounty hunter, but both the Denver authorities and Judge Callison had arrived and were awaiting Black’s arrival.

  Early evening, as the sun was going down, Virgil and I walked over to the Colcord Hotel to have a talk with the Denver authorities.

  We met them in the dining room as they were getting up from a table near the back door. They were the Denver district attorney, Eldon Payne, and the captain of police, G. W. McPherson.

  Both men looked to be in their mid-sixties. Payne was a slender, solid-looking man with deep-set eyes and dark skin. He wore a dark gray suit with his bowler tilted back on his forehead. McPherson was a big, rough-looking, ruddy-faced Irishman with silver-red hair and wearing a blue police uniform with gold buttons and tall boots in need of polishing.

  After our introductions, Virgil and I walked out on the back porch with them, where they lit cigars.

  “It will be about time to put an end to this,” McPherson said.

  “Yes,” Payne said. “Good he was apprehended.”

  “We don’t have to tell you two why we are here and why we are not bringing Bill Black to Denver,” McPherson said.

  Virgil glanced at me, then looked back to Payne.

  “You don’t have to,” Virgil said.

  “Yeah,” McPherson said. “The sensitive damn nature of this, the political backlash, you understand? So the fact that Black was involved in an altercation that put him on the run with other criminals was in some ways a blessing in disguise.”

  Virgil nodded.

  “It would be harmful for the chief and his family,” Payne said. “Newspapers have already brought a great deal of grief to the chief and his wife.”

  “And the department,” McPherson said.

  Virgil nodded a little as he puffed on his cigar.

  “I take it you have plenty of evidence that supports this warrant on Bill Black?” he said.

  “We do,” McPherson said.

  Payne looked to McPherson.

  “Enough for this to go to trial?” I said.

  “We do,” McPherson said.

  “You think?” Virgil said.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Callison is a fair judge,” I said.

  Payne nodded.

  “I know,” he said.

  “You don’t have it, he’s likely to call bullshit on it,” Virgil said. “He’s not one for hearsay.”

  “From what we heard, there were no eyewitnesses,” I said. “That correct?”

  Payne looked to McPherson, then back to us, and nodded.

  “That is correct,” Payne said. “But Ruth Ann Messenger was killed in the Platte River woods, where Black was boarding. There was blood found on the back steps.”

  “The owners of the inn heard them arguing,” McPherson said.

  “This much we heard,” I said.

  “Then,” McPherson said, “the next thing you know, she’s gone missing . . .”

  “That might be enough for a warrant,” Virgil said.

  “And to squeeze out a bounty,” I said.

  “But you are gonna be hard-pressed to get a conviction with that,” Virgil said.

  I looked to Payne.

  “You’d have to figure that, don’t you?” I said. “You know better than we do, that is your business, but you are going to have to spin a silky web with that.”

  “Black taking off, on the run, does not bode well for his defense,” McPherson said.

  “Might not bode well for him, but it damn sure don’t hinder him, either,” Virgil said.

  I nodded.

  “He hired gunmen when there was money on his head,” McPherson said.

  “That don’t hinder him, either,” Virgil said. “If anything, that helps him.”

  “How’s that?” McPherson said.

  “He was in fear for his life,” Virgil said. “Three thousand dollars dead or alive is one shot away from dying.”

  “And what about Black’s defense?” I said.

  “He’ll have to hire a lawyer here or have the court appoint him a lawyer.”

  “If it is a conviction you are after,” Virgil said, “you just might want to take this back to Denver and face whatever backlash comes about as a result.”

  “We will remain here, Marshal Cole, and see to it justice is served,” Payne said. “At least for now.”

  Virgil puffed on his cigar for a moment, then said, “What about the money?”

  “
The reward, you mean?” McPherson said.

  “I do.”

  “Once we have him in custody and safely behind bars we will have the money wired to the First Appaloosa Bank and Trust.”

  “That’s a lot of money,” Virgil said.

  “Fair amount,” Payne said.

  “And then some,” Virgil said.

  Virgil looked out over the porch railing to a tall lamp at the bottom of the steps that was being lit by a young black fella wearing a dark suit that was too short for his long legs. He puffed on his cigar for a bit, then turned back to Payne and McPherson.

  “What about other suspects?” Virgil said.

  “Like who?” McPherson said.

  “Roger Messenger,” Virgil said.

  Payne looked to McPherson, McPherson looked to Payne, and they both shook their heads.

  “What about him?” McPherson said.

  “What are you alluding to?” Payne said.

  “Not alluding to anything at all,” Virgil said. “I have no alluding to offer whatsoever, but your fellow officer, Lieutenant Detective Banes, had suspicion Roger Messenger might be the killer.”

  Payne and McPherson shared a look with each other, then McPherson shook his head.

  “Well, Banes does not know what he’s talking about,” McPherson said.

  “So you don’t think Roger could have done it?”

  “No,” McPherson said. “I do not and he did not.”

  “You know that for a fact?” Virgil said.

  “I do.”

  “So there is other evidence?” Virgil said.

  “Bill Black murdered Ruth Ann Messenger, and that will be proven in court.”

  “What makes you so sure?” Virgil said. “From what you have told us, it’s no coffin nail.”

  “We feel certain we have the evidence for a conviction, Marshal,” Payne said.

  Virgil nodded a little with the cigar wedged in the corner of his mouth. Then he removed his cigar and looked at it in his hand. He rolled it between his fingers and thumb.

  “One thing you can be guaranteed about Judge Callison . . .” Virgil said.

  “What’s that?” McPherson said.

  “He will take the feeling out of it,” Virgil said.

  35.

  When Virgil and I were leaving the hotel, the door opened and Hollis Pritchard entered, followed by the pretty woman I saw on the street with the parasol.