Ragtime Cowboys

by Loren D. Estleman

“It’s got twice as many keys as you’re used to. The black ones are for the capitals. They hadn’t got round to inventing the shift yet when it was made.”

  “Well, I’d trade you my Remington for it. It probably works twice as fast and gets double the rejections yours does in half the time.”

  “I don’t need to counsel an Agency man about the virtues of patience.” Siringo unscrewed the top from a Mason jar and poured an ounce into each of their cups of coffee. “Four, five years, you’ll be rich as me.”

  “At least your view’s better than mine.”

  “I wish somebody’d set fire to that sign. You shouldn’t have to take up that much real estate to sell real estate.”

  Something thumped the front door. Hammett started, reached for his .38.

  “Simmer down. It’s the boy with the paper. I forgot to stop it, which is how I got the fire started in the stove. Get it, will you?” Siringo had just sat and picked up his spoon.

  Hammett found the day’s Los Angeles Times on the wooden front step and unfurled it as he shut the door behind him. “Good news for once. Harding commuted Eugene Debs’s sentence.”

  “Do me a favor and don’t spice up my stew with radicalism.”

  A one-column headline farther down the page caught the other man’s eye:

  BODY FOUND IN SAN FRANCISCO BAY

  Police Identify Local Resident

  He read the lead, looked up. “How do you feel about murder with your meal?”

  “So long as it ain’t mine.”

  “It’s Mike Feeney.”

  18

  Siringo snatched the paper from Hammett and read:

  SAN FRANCISCO, March 18—(AP) Michael A. Feeney, familiar to many local residents as a “jobber” for the Democratic Party, has been identified as the man whose lifeless body was discovered floating beneath a pier in San Francisco Bay yesterday evening. It is believed he lost his way in the morning fog and fell in.

  Feeney was a familiar sight in establishments still associated with Barbary lore …

  “We was still in town yesterday morning,” Siringo said, tossing the paper on the table. “Time enough for the eel to run an errand for Clanahan before he followed me to L.A.”

  Hammett nodded. “Dropping Doheny’s name in the Shamrock Club was a bad idea. It tipped Clanahan off that we’re sniffing around the oil scheme.”

  “I get a heap of ideas, half of ’em bad. How’d this one work its way around to Feeney is what I’d like to know.”

  “That call I made to Beauty Ranch had an eavesdropper on the line: Clanahan’d make it a point to know what goes on there. It isn’t hard to trace a long-distance call, or to link the caller in this case to Pinkerton. That’s when he put Feeney on us, to find out what we’re up to. I’m local, you’re not, so Feeney played a hunch and followed you when we split up. When Clanahan found out we knew the name Doheny, he knew we had to have gotten something out of his boy.

  “You saw how easy it was to crack him open. After the eel got what he wanted, he threw Feeney into the bay like so much garbage.”

  “He’d of wound up there anyway. The Feeneys of this world always do.”

  “The question is, what’s Clanahan got in mind for us?”

  “He’s a careful man, or I don’t know nothing about playing cards. But there’s a lot more ways to be cautious than there is to go off half-cocked. Is he going to watch how we play and figure out our hands before he bets, or is he going to play the percentages and serve us like he did Feeney before the odds change?”

  “All I know is he won’t waste time. Lanyard’s too valuable an asset to throw away on a simple tail job. Clanahan’s competition might get the bright idea he’s left his flanks exposed. There’s all kinds of new talent in town since Prohibition came in. They’re not as discreet about disposing of an obstacle as the eel.”

  “I was in Chicago during the Haymarket riot. A bomb blew a company of police officers into so many pieces they still ain’t sure how many was kilt. I don’t see a nickel’s worth of difference in slaughtering for politics and slaughtering for money.”

  “We agree on that at least. Mr. Siringo, I think there’s a radical in you waiting to bust out.”

  The old detective gulped Irish coffee, looked sour; not necessarily in that order.

  “That’s the danger of living alone. You get a dumb idea, nobody calls you on it, you get a dumber one later, nobody calls you on it, and before you know it you got a head full of dumb ideas and you run around like a blind horse till you smack up against the side of a barn. Where’s that gal you’re fixing to marry?”

  “Montana, where she was raised. Why?”

  “You ought to go pay her a visit. There’s nothing like a woman or a slap with a two-by-four to right a man’s thinking.”

  “Jose can swing a two-by-four. She’s little, but she’ll surprise you. She practically carried me on her back when I came down with TB in Tacoma. She was a nurse before I knocked her up.”

  “That was a right romantic story till the end.”

  “I didn’t get to the end. The end part is I’m not hiding behind anybody’s skirts while you deal with Clanahan and his gunny. They aren’t as easy to buffalo as a common horse thief like Butterfield. That homemade hooch has got you thinking you’re half your age and twice your size.”

  “I didn’t say go to Montana. I said you ought to. If Clanahan knows you was with the Agency he knows your personal situation too. He won’t think it odd you got a hard-on and decided to smuggle it east. The eel won’t follow you any farther than the state line. He’ll count that proof enough you’re headed where it says on your ticket. Get off in Carson City, then take the next train back and meet me in Frisco.”

  “What good’s splitting up?”

  “While he’s busy making sure you’re a-courtin’, I can pay a visit to this fellow Kennedy and ask him what kind of deal he made with Clanahan that’s got Clanahan putting the boots to Charmian London for seed money.”

  “Why Kennedy?”

  “Because Clanahan was head skunk till Kennedy spoke up. Paddy knows too much about us, and all’s we know for sure about him is he’s fat and plays a cautious game of poker. I aim to even the odds, but I can’t do it with no eel wrapped around my ankle.”

  “Why don’t you go east, see that little boy of yours, while I pump Kennedy?”

  “Three reasons. One, I don’t know where Lillie took him when she left. Two, how do I know while I’m gone you won’t do something dumb to show off in front of Becky London? I seen you tripping on your pizzle every time she came into the room.”

  “I’ve got eyes too, old-timer. That wasn’t Washoe Ban’s ass you were admiring in the stable.”

  “Charmian turned out different from what I had pictured, that I’ll warrant. I wouldn’t object to making her the third Mrs. Siringo if she’d consider it. But the advantage of being an old-timer is you’ve learned to follow your brain instead of your pizzle.”

  “What makes you so sure she’d consider marrying a gimpy old saddle tramp with a roof full of holes?”

  “I ain’t, but there’s no hobbles on either of us. You got a gal picking out kitchen curtains and a loaf in the oven.”

  “Are you telling me you never stepped out on your wife while you were on a case?”

  “That was in the line of duty. Mamie never had a reason to think me disloyal; Lillie neither, if she’d only gave me half a chance to prove it. You’re just a young goat with blue balls.”

  “I ought to knock you on your ass.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “Yeah? How come?”

  “’Cause it’s still sore.” Siringo brought his hand up from under the table and drew back the hammer on the Forehand & Wadsworth.

  “You won’t shoot me.”

  He raised the revolver an inch and fired.

  The slug burrowed into a plank behind Hammett’s head as the young man, moving already, launched himself across the table, tipping it over under his weight, while S
iringo threw himself off his chair to the floor. They rolled around among the beans and dust bunnies, grappling for the gun. Hammett lanced his fist against the old man’s jaw in a short right cross that put Siringo’s eyes out of focus; but as he did so he loosened his grip on the wrist belonging to the weapon. Siringo bared his teeth and swung the revolver to the left, laying the barrel alongside Hammett’s temple. A gong rang and the room broke up into black-and-white checks. The white checks kept shrinking until it was all black.

  Something wet dashed his face. He sat up, his lungs turning themselves inside out, and tasted coffee and grain alcohol. He looked up at Siringo, standing with his feet spread, the revolver in one hand and his empty cup in the other. The old cowboy was panting with his hair in his face.

  “Never back a man into a corner,” he said. “He’s got no direction to go but straight through you.”

  Hammett finished coughing, got out his handkerchief, wiped his mouth, and studied the square of linen. Then he applied it to his temple and looked at the pink smear. He stuck the handkerchief back in his pocket. “Any other wisdom?”

  “Always make sure your left hand knows what your right’s up to.”

  “Okay. Now I got one for you.” Hammett placed his palms flat on the floor and butted him in the crotch.

  The cup hit the floor first, followed a moment later by the man who’d been holding it. He landed on his knees and tipped over onto his side, hugging himself between his thighs, one hand still holding the gun.

  “He-he-he,” he said a minute later, in a voice that held no timbre.

  “What are you laughing about, you old hyena?”

  “I was thinking how bad this’d hurt if I still used it every day.”

  Hammett laughed then. It brought on another coughing fit, and for a while there was no telling whether he was enjoying himself or hemorrhaging.

  “You all right?” Siringo asked, when he fell silent.

  “No. You?”

  “Tell you when one of ’em drops back down.”

  “Were you really going to shoot me?”

  “I don’t recollect. But it seemed to me you’re pretty agile for a lunger.”

  “You’re lucky I’d parked the thirty-eight.”

  “Not lucky. I seen you do it, though I wasn’t sure about them persuaders you carry in your pocket.”

  He reached into it, felt the brass knuckles. “I forgot I had ’em.”

  “Then they’re no good to you. See what I mean about dumb ideas?”

  “You said yours was good for three reasons. What’s the third?”

  “I got it first.”

  “So what?”

  “So you know what they call a writer who steals his ideas.”

  “Rich?”

  PART THREE

  THE BRASS KEY

  Politics has got so expensive that it takes lots of money to even get beat with.

  —Will Rogers

  19

  “See anything?” Siringo asked.

  Hammett shook his head. “Just what I’m supposed to when it’s the eel.”

  They went to the cigar counter in the station, where Siringo bought a pouch of pipe tobacco and Hammett his makings. The eastbound train pulled in just as they were paying for their purchases. Hammett picked up his satchel. Siringo scowled when he heard glass clinking. Hammett grinned.

  “I helped myself to your cache. I’ll bring you back a couple of jugs from Carson City. I know a bootlegger there whose Canadian doesn’t speak with a Spanish accent.”

  “I can always get plenty. Just don’t drink yourself overboard. Lanyard may take it into his head to split us up permanent.”

  “I hope you’re right and he follows me instead of you.”

  “I know a trick or two if he don’t. The Agency didn’t start when you joined.”

  “It didn’t stop when you quit.” The whistle blew two short blasts. “There’s Mother.” He shook Siringo’s hand and raised his voice. “I’ll send you a postcard from Anaconda.”

  “Don’t waste your penny.” Siringo spoke just as loudly. “Them things always get home before you do.”

  He watched the young man board and took a step back on the platform to light his pipe, eyes working from side to side; but if Clanahan’s man got on, it was in a scrum of last-minute passengers or under the cloak of steam as the train started rolling.

  Six blocks from the station, he stepped onto a streetcar, walked all the way to the back, and got off on that end, without looking back to see if anyone followed. He entered an ice-cream parlor on the corner, a place of spotless chrome and enamel, ordered a strawberry sundae, and asked the counterman in the paper hat if he had a restroom.

  “It’s news to me if I do.” He used his scoop.

  “What about a phone?”

  “Down that hall.”

  This was a narrow corridor with numbers penciled on the wainscoting next to the wall-mounted instrument. A tin sign read FIRE EXIT above a door at the end. He went through it, crossed an alley with trash cans bunched around the back doors of neighboring establishments, tried a door, found it locked, ignored the others as too time-consuming, and walked briskly around the end of the alley and into the first front door he came to. This belonged to a neighborhood movie theater. He bought a ticket to a William S. Hart western, took the aisle past the piano player, who was too busy trying to keep up with the action onscreen to notice, and let himself out a door reserved for employees. He changed cabs twice, kept the driver waiting outside his house five minutes while he packed some things, and watched out the rear window as they rattled away.

  A Ford coupe fell in behind them after the first turn. It didn’t have to mean anything, even if the eel had chosen the same model in a pickup truck when he drove onto Beauty Ranch; every third vehicle in California was a T. But some things never changed, not Butch Cassidy’s proclivity toward dun horses (he claimed they were harder for posses to see in the scrub) nor Billy Bonney’s liking for the small-framed Colt Lightning pistol that suited his lady hands nor Clay Allison’s choice of Old Pepper when it came to a three-day drunk, like the one that finally broke his neck under the wheels of his own wagon. The Motoring Age just gave a detective a fresh handle on the preferences of outlaws.

  He told his driver to make a right-hand turn, then another, and when the Ford stayed behind them, a third. At that point, the man behind the wheel of the cab squirted a stream of tobacco into the empty Quaker Oats box on the seat beside him and asked his passenger if he was lost.

  “No, I’m arranging that for somebody else.”

  But after they’d made that turn, the Ford continued on its most recent path and disappeared beyond the corner. Siringo told his driver to pull over against the curb. They sat there, the motor idling and the driver chewing and spitting, for three minutes while Siringo watched the street beyond the back window. During that time, a Ford passed them, but it was a touring car going in the opposite direction.

  Satisfied, he turned his head forward and directed the driver to an address on Cahuenga Avenue. It belonged to a saloon running wide-open despite the law of the land, with its door open in the southern California spring heat leading to a narrow passage with bat wings barely visible in the indoor gloom at the far end. A group of lanky locals dressed in ranch gear leaned in the doorway and against the front of the building, smoking and rolling cigarettes and watching a man in similar attire hopping in and out of the loop of the lasso he was twirling. The man wore a baggy grin and his Stetson pushed to the back of his head to expose a lock of dark hair spilling onto his forehead.

  “That’s a wicked-looking lot,” said the driver. “You better slip the cash over the back of the seat. You don’t want to flash no roll in front of that bunch.”

  Chuckling, Siringo paid him, adding a fifty-cent tip to make up for the inconvenience of an unusual fare. “You ain’t far off the mark. That fellow abusing the rope’s Will Rogers, and I owe him money.”

  Rogers looked up as Siringo approached; if a
nything his grin got broader and baggier, but he was spinning the lariat parallel to the sidewalk now and didn’t falter. “How do, Charlie. You come to pay back that twenty?”

  “You know goldarn well it’s ten, you stump sucker.” He held out a banknote. Rogers snatched it one-handed and stuck it in a jeans pocket without missing a turn of the loop. “I’d of been sooner, but I was down to my last chip till recent.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it: Your recent success, I mean. Lasky’s getting set to shoot in Nevada and he needs a doughbelly.”

  “I’d wear out my welcome in a week. I can’t cook nothing but beans and biscuits.”

  “I mean he’s casting the part. He wants a stove-up old waddie with a bum leg. I don’t know why I didn’t think of you first off.”

  Siringo didn’t dignify that with an answer.

  “What you about here?” he asked. “I thought you was too busy putting together your own picture outfit to mix with these phildoodles looking for work.”

  “Hey!”

  He squinted at the complainer, a gaunt man in flannels and denim with handlebars too black for the creases in his sunburned face. “Well, hello, there, Pete. I didn’t recognize you in all that bootblack or I wouldn’t of included you. Get too close to the lid when you was spitting in it?”

  “I got to make out, Charlie. It ain’t like the old LX, where they counted a man by his work. These directors don’t hire you without cutting you in two first and counting the rings. I’m fighting these drugstore dandies for walk-ons.”

  “How you fixed?” Siringo reached for his wallet.

  “Thank you kindly, but Will beat you to it. I’d just spend the extra inside. But I’ll be thirsty again next week.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Rogers stopped twirling and walked Siringo out of earshot of the loiterers.

  “It was produce pictures or starve,” he said. “I’m a rope thrower, not an actor. But I try to get down here to the Watering Hole now and again. I don’t want to come off all toney like Tom Mix. These boys show up here day after day, hoping a studio bus will come along, admire their hempsmanship, and scoop ’em up for a day’s work on the set, just like ranch days. Only the bus don’t come as often as it did. The western’s shot its wad, they say: Harry Carey and Hoot Gibson has done beat that horse to death. Lasky’s covered wagon picture is like to strand itself in the Nevada desert.”