“Him? You wouldn’t dare, that’s—”
“I shot him. You boys better look at your hole card. Who’s going to pay you now?”
The momentary flicker of doubt in the man’s face told Val that he had struck a nerve. He tried again. “Look at it—nobody else is going to do it. Do you suppose the company will admit it had anything to do with what you’re doing here? If that big fellow doesn’t live, you can’t collect a quarter. Not a lousy two-bits.”
Nobody was trying to shoot from the steamer now, for their own men were aboard and they awaited the outcome. “See?” Val said. “They’ve stopped shooting. They know the show is over.”
The man hesitated, in doubt. Val knew his every urge was to come on, to finish the job if he could, but the gun muzzle was pointed at his belly, and no doubt Val’s argument undermined his resolution.
At that moment he heard a whistle, and around the bend came the “Idle Hour”, Paddy Lahey standing in the bow with a shotgun in his hands. Moments later another boat rounded into the cove, this one with four armed men standing in the bow.
“There you are,” Val said. “Now you just swim back to your boat—or swim to shore, for all I care.”
“You ain’t heard the last of this,” the knife man declared. “We’ll find you in St. Louis.”
The second boat, flying a blue flag, drew alongside the wreck. The man in the bow looked up at Val. “Are you all right?”
“No complaints,” Val said, “but you got here just at the right time.”
Seven days and nine trips later they had emptied the wreck of its cargo of flour as well as nearly a ton of lead, and odds and ends of salvage from the staterooms. The latter would be returned, wherever possible, to the original owners.
The flour, which was currently selling for twelve dollars a hundred pounds, brought them a good return, although several barrels had been completely destroyed and others had been a total loss from water damage. When they settled up, Val found himself with something more than four thousand dollars.
Steven Bricker was in his room when Val called on him to settle up for the four men he had hired.
Bricker accepted the money, but waved away any suggestion of payment for legal fees. “Danforth was bluffing,” he said. “He thought you didn’t know what you were doing and he’d scare you off. It has been done before.”
He studied Val. “You’ve a lot of nerve for a youngster,” he said, “but they raise them that way out west.” He bit off the end of a cigar. “I can use a lad like you. My business is building railroads, and I can give you a chance for a lot of hard work, wild country, and education.”
Val shook his head. “I think I’ll go east for a while. I want to study law.”
“Good idea. You do that. When you decide to go to work, you write to me.” Bricker scribbled an address on a piece of paper. “I will make a place for you. We can use your kind.”
He got up and held out his hand. “Good luck, boy. We will meet again, I am sure.”
Outside in the street it was raining again, but Val had proper clothes now, and wore a good raincoat. Earlier, he had said good-bye to Captain Peterson and Paddy Lahey. Now he walked down the street to the railroad station. He had checked his bags there earlier.
He was going east. He was going to New York.
*
THE NEXT FEW years went by so swiftly that he was only vaguely aware of the time passing. They were years spent in hard work, in study, in learning. For a year he stayed in New York, reading law in an attorney’s office, and reading almost everything else he could find. He went to the opera whenever he could.
He grew taller and heavier. He became friendly with several prize fighters and spent hours in the gymnasiums boxing with them, or out on the roads when they did their road work. He wrestled, punched the bag, and skipped rope. At twenty he weighed a hundred and ninety pounds, and was six feet two inches tall.
After New York he spent a year in Minnesota, and later in Montana. He was first an assistant and secretary to Steven Bricker, who was building branch-line railroads, opening mines, dealing in mining and railroad stocks, as an associate of James J. Hill.
From time to time he had letters from Pa Bucklin, always written by one or the other of the girls. They had drilled four wells, they had bought more stock. They were now running three thousand head of cattle and planned to make their first real sale. There had been small sales from time to time, the money defraying expenses or being used to purchase more breeding stock.
It was in the autumn of his twentieth year when he was in New York that he left the gymnasium where he had been working out and walked up the street to the corner. He stopped on the Bowery, watching the faces of the people as they passed. Suddenly a hand touched his sleeve. “Sir? If you could manage it, sir, I haven’t eaten today.”
It was a moment before Val turned, for he knew that voice, would have known it anywhere. When he did turn, the man had already started away. “Just a minute, please,” Val said.
The man turned, and Val was right—it was Van…Myra’s man, who had left him with Will Reilly, fifteen years back.
Van’s hair was grayer, his face thinner, his cheeks more hollow, he seemed not much changed. His clothes still looked neat, although he had perhaps slept in them.
“Yes?”
“Would you dine with me, sir? I should take it as a pleasure.”
Van’s eyes searched his face, his expression almost pleading. “You are serious, sir? If you are, I accept, most sincerely.”
Val’s heart was pounding strangely. He had always liked this lonely, weak man, this man who had been kind to him. He had told him stories, he had been gentle when no one else seemed to care.
“If you don’t mind, we’ll walk up the street. There is a good restaurant where I occasionally eat.”
They walked along together, neither speaking, until they reached the restaurant, which was one with notable food.
“You are sure—? I do not look as presentable as I might,” Van said.
“Come along.”
Only when they were seated did Van look at him. A faint frown showed on his face. “Do I know you? I can’t place you, but there is something familiar about you.”
Val ignored the question until they had ordered, and then he said, “Tell me about yourself. You seem to be a gentleman.”
Van shrugged. “I would have claimed so once, but no more. I am nothing.”
“What became of Myra?”
Van stiffened, and stared at him. “What do you know about Myra?” He scowled. “You have known me then…but where?”
“What about Myra? Where is she?”
“If I had done what I should have done she’d be burning in hell. A dozen times I planned to kill her—”
“You weren’t much inclined toward killing, Van.”
“Damn it all! Who are you?”
“You haven’t answered my question. Where is Myra?”
“Right where she planned to be, one way or another. Myra Cord is a rich woman, rich and dangerous. If you plan any dealings with her, forget it. She would eat you alive.”
“She must have altered her profession.”
“I don’t know whether she did or not. Myra is a vicious woman, who used prostitution as you might use a stepladder. Where she is now she doesn’t need it, although I haven’t a doubt she’d use it if it was to her advantage. She’s come a long way, but she hasn’t changed.” Van continued to stare at him. “What’s your interest in her, anyway?”
The food was served, the waiter left, and Val said, “She was my mother.”
Van dropped his fork. His face turned white.
Slowly the color came back. He pulled at his tie, loosening it. “You’re Val? Valentine Darrant?” he said.
“Yes.”
“I’ll be damned!” The words came slowly.
“I don’t think you will be, Van. You kept me alive, you know. You saved my life, and did me the greatest favor a man ever did for another.”
“What was that?”
“You left me with Will Reilly. He kept me, Van. He raised me. He taught me a way of life for which I owe him, and you, more than I can say.”
“So? Maybe that was why we never saw him again. I was always expecting to have to meet him, and I was afraid—not of what he would do, but of the way he would have looked at me. I liked the man, damn it. I respected him. And then I had to abandon a kid on him.”
“You think he avoided you and Myra?”
“He must have. You know the West. It’s a small community, after all. The men of the mining camps were known in them all. They followed every boom. The same in the cattle towns. And Will Reilly was a known man. I had run into him fifty times before, but never after I left you with him.”
They talked the meal through, and much of the night.
“What about you?” Van asked at last. “Where are you going? What are you going to do?”
“I’m going West. Not for long, I think, but I want to see some people out there and look at a ranch. And I made an investment a long time back, and I want to see what became of it.”
He went on: “I passed my bar exam, Van. I can practice law if I want to. In fact, I have had some experience along that line. And I told you I worked with Bricker.”
“It’s a wonder you didn’t run into Myra. She’s done business with him. Knows him well, in fact.”
“Myra Cord? If she had done business with him, I would know of it.”
Van smiled wryly. “You don’t think she would keep the old name, do you? She’s too shrewd for that. She dropped that name a long while ago. She’s Mrs. Everett Fossett now.”
Val stared at him. Myra Cord…his mother…Mrs. Everett Fossett?
“You must be joking.”
“No,” Van said grimly, “I am dead serious. She married Old Man Fossett, married him for his name and his money. He was a respected man, you know, and a well-liked man, but he was no match for her. She tricked him and married him, and then murdered him in her own way. Oh, I know! It wasn’t anything the law could call murder, but it was that, just as much as if she had used poison.”
“She’s worth millions.”
“Yes, and not an honest dollar in the lot. She wasn’t a pauper when she married Fossett. She had robbed every man she knew, I expect, and she had spent very little of it. Fossett was only another stepping stone.”
“Have you seen her lately?”
“Not over two weeks ago, right here in New York. She didn’t see me. I took care that she didn’t, because I am one page she forgot to turn under; or rather, I got up nerve enough to run before she could do me in. She didn’t see me, but I saw her.” He was silent for several minutes. “She’s a beautiful woman, Val, even yet. She’s not much over forty, and even in the early days, mean as she was, she had good looks.”
“I have seen her. I just never dreamed…I mean, I had heard talk of her, but the idea that she was Myra Cord never entered my mind.”
“Now that it has, don’t go near her, Val—she’d kill you. Don’t look at me like that. She wanted you killed when you were a helpless child, didn’t she? And you’d open up a whole bag of tricks she wants forgotten. She’s an important woman now, socially and financially. And she’s completely ruthless. Once she sets her mind on something, there’s nothing in God’s world can stop her.”
“I wonder.”
“Don’t wonder—don’t even think about it.”
Val pushed back from the table. “Van, what can I do for you?”
“Maybe a ten-dollar gold piece. Any more would be a waste.”
“Van, why don’t you go home? I mean back to your own people? Your own world.”
“You’re crazy.” He chewed on his mustache. “Oh, I’ll not deny I’d like to. They know I’m alive, but almost nothing else. But I couldn’t. I’ve no money, no clothes, no way to make a living.”
“Would five hundred dollars help? I mean, five hundred dollars and clothes? I’ll stake you, Van. I think it’s a good gamble.”
“Damn it, Val, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. And what would I say to them? My parents are alive. I have two sisters. I—”
“Just go back and don’t say anything. They will make up better stories than you ever could. You’ve been traveling, seeing the West…you’ve come home to settle down. I’ll give you the money. I’ve done well, Van. I can afford it.”
Actually he could not—not that much. But he was young, and the way looked bright ahead.
“All right,” Van said at last, “I’ll take it. If you will let me pay it back.”
“Whenever you can…but go home. Go back to your own people.”
Chapter 15
*
THE BUTLER PAUSED before the portly man in the dark suit. “Mrs. Fossett will see you now, Mr. Pinkerton.”
He got up and followed the butler over the deep carpets, through the tall oak doors, and into the library. He rarely entered this room, and was always astonished when he did. As the guiding hand of the largest and most successful detective agency in the United States, if not in the world, he had met all manner of men, and women. This was the only one who made him uneasy, and a little frightened.
Yes, that was the word. There was something about her cold, matter-of-fact mind that disturbed him. He had the sensation that she was always at least one jump ahead of him, and that whatever he said she already knew.
She sat behind the long desk, only a few papers before her, including, he noticed, several newspapers that he recognized as coming from various cities.
“You said you had news for me?”
“Yes.” He paused. “I have found him.”
“Well…that’s something, at least. Where is he? On the Bowery?”
“No, ma’am. He has gone home. He is with his family.”
Myra Fossett felt a cold thrill of anger go through her. Was it, as Van himself had once said, that she never liked to have anyone to escape her?
“You have made a mistake. He is a proud man, whatever else he may be. I am sure he would not go home without money.”
“He has money. A little, at least. He paid his bills. He bought new clothes—an excellent wardrobe, by the way—and he went home in some style.”
“There must be some mistake. How could he get the money? Nobody would lend him money any longer, and he was always a rotten gambler.”
“That we do not know, except that—”
“What?”
“Well, he was seen to meet a man—a young man—and they dined together. They talked for several hours. It was after that that he bought clothes and returned home.”
She pondered, considering all the possibilities. Van knew too much; and a sober, serious Van who had gone home to his family might prove more dangerous than a casual drifter and drunk whom nobody would believe. Moreover, he had run away from her, and that she could not forgive.
“What sort of young man?”
“A gentleman, ma’am. Handsome, athletic, well-dressed, well-groomed. He was young…perhaps twenty-five.…”
“What was he doing on the Bowery? Is he a bum?”
“No. Nothing like that,” he said. “We made inquiries…nobody would tell us anything, if they knew. He comes to the Bowery to train. To box and to wrestle. Incidentally, he is very good, they say.”
“A professional?”
“No. I do not believe so. He is a gentleman.”
Myra Fossett gave him a glacial look. “Sometime you must define the term for me, Mr. Pinkerton. I am not sure I know what a gentleman is, or how one becomes one. I doubt if I have ever met one.”
“Present company excepted?”
“No,” she replied shortly. “A man in your business, Mr. Pinkerton, is certainly no gentleman. In any event, I am not paying you for your moral standards. Rather,” she added, “for your lack of them.”
He got to his feet. “I resent that, madam—”
“Resent it and be damned,” she said. “Now sit down and listen,
or get out of here and send me your bill.”
He hesitated, his face flushed. He knew suddenly that he hated this woman, hated everything about her, but she paid him well, and she seemed to have an unlimited amount of work to be done. He stifled his anger and sat down.
“You do not have a name for this young man? They must call him something around that gymnasium.”
“Well, we do have a first name, but that is all. One of my men heard him called Val.”
Val…
Myra Fossett sat very still. Pinkerton, who had watched the emotions of many people, had the sensation that the name had struck her a body blow.
After a moment she said, “Mr. Pinkerton, if Van Clevern has returned to his people I am no longer interested in his actions. As of this moment, you may recall your investigators.
“However, I am interested in this young man. This Val, as you say he was called—I shall want a full report on him, his associates, his actions.”
“It is going to be very difficult—”
“If that means you will want more money, the answer is no. If you believe the task will be beyond your scope, Mr. Pinkerton, I believe I can find somebody who will find it less difficult. Surely, the investigation of one unsuspecting young man cannot be such a problem.”
“We have no idea who he is, or where he lives.”
“But he goes to the gymnasium to box, doesn’t he? Have him followed. Ask questions of those with whom he boxes.…I do not need to tell you your business, I hope.”
“If I had some idea—”
“Of why I wanted the information?” Myra Fossett smiled. “Mr. Pinkerton, I have known for some time that you are eaten with curiosity as to the reason for my investigations. You might just tell yourself that in business matters I find the human element is always important. I like to know the manner of man with whom I deal, and what his associations are. You are valuable to me for that reason. Do your work and keep your mouth shut, and you will have a valuable client; make trouble for me, and I will ruin you.…I believe we understand each other, Mr. Pinkerton.”
He got to his feet, his features set and hard. “We do, Mrs. Fossett. I shall have a report for you within the week.”
Novel 1970 - Reilly's Luck (v5.0) Page 14
