The Great West Detective Agency

by Jackson Lowry

  Before he could kick the knife out of the man’s hand or draw his own pistol, though threatening these two could backfire, he looked up. Not only didn’t they look like the type to pony up information at the mere threat of being shot, but they were being joined by three more men intent on dragging out their pistols.

  Lucas left them, ducked into a store, and waited for them to give up chasing him. Only then did he retrace his route to the laundry to get his cleaned coat. Little Otto had not steered him wrong. Conklin had something to do with Tovarich’s theft and stood at the front of the line as being the thief. Only he was now the dead thief. Did the men who had killed him know where the dog was, or was he now in a race to find the pup?

  It began to look as if a hundred dollars wasn’t adequate for the job. He needed to find out more from Amanda. But after he paid off his debt. Though the way the day had gone, Carmela might not even talk to him, much less be amenable to politely greeting Little Otto.

  5

  After a bath and shave, and a few hours sleep, Lucas Stanton felt like whipping his weight in wildcats. Or at least telling whoever would listen that he could. With the freshly cleaned and repaired coat once more gracing his broad shoulders, he strolled down Colfax warily looking for the men who had killed Amos Conklin. It came as no little relief that they had hightailed it after stabbing the man. To his disgust he saw that Conklin’s body still lay where he had been killed. Both coat and vest were gone, as were his shoes. The city scavengers were as efficient as any buzzards circling above the plains waiting for something to die.

  He went to a pair of policemen leaning against a lamppost, politely coughed to get their attention away from a ribald joke one was telling the other, and then pointed.

  “What’s botherin’ you?” The short one closest to Lucas had pupils the size of pinpricks from chasing the dragon. The cloying odor of opium hung about his heavy wool uniform, as if his behavior and appearance were not enough to alert Lucas to the addiction. “Spit it out. Me and my partner ain’t got all day.”

  “The man in the alley appears to be somewhat deceased,” Lucas said. He held out his hands, palms toward the police. “I had nothing to do with it. I am simply pointing out that a corpse is unsightly along such a major street as this.”

  “Nobody else’s complainin’. Why are you? You have somethin’ to do with the killin’?”

  The second officer was as large as his partner was small. He peered down at Lucas, tapping a slung shot against his left palm with meaty whacks. From the callus there, he habitually did this. If he intended to bully whomever he faced, he succeeded wildly. Lucas was sorry he had ever mentioned the body.

  “The two men running down the alley in the other direction must have alerted the others to the body by now,” Lucas said, edging away. As he backed off, he described the man with the knife, hoping this would deflect interest from him and direct it where it belonged.

  “Mr. Dunbar’s boys, you saw ’em snuff somebody?” The short one looked around as if the devils from hell were galloping down on him and he couldn’t find a proper hiding place.

  “Keep up the good work, men. I’ll let Mr. Dunbar know you’re doing a fine job.” Lucas slapped the opium fiend on the shoulder, then thrust out his hand to shake with the larger copper. For a moment, the man couldn’t decide what to do and finally tucked his slung shot under his left arm and shook. His hand engulfed Lucas’s but was curiously feeble.

  “You tell Mr. Dunbar we’re on our toes. We’ll get that body all hid so nobody’ll ever find it.”

  Lucas touched the brim of his bowler and strode off. He had done what he could for Conklin and, by doing so, had found yet another thread to follow. To the north in the Capitol Hill section lived the bluest of the blue bloods. A cute little puppy dog might be found there, though why a man as powerful as Jubal Dunbar would send out his thugs to kill for it posed something of a problem begging for an answer.

  He dickered a few minutes with a pretty young girl selling apples, more to enjoy her company than for the apple itself or the extra nickel it cost him. When another customer came by, he paid and buffed off the red skin. He bit into the astringent fruit and almost spit it out. The taste matched that of a persimmon. He turned, judged distances, then heaved the apple at the two coppers with great accuracy. The big one whirled around, face livid. Lucas pointed down a side street, sending the policemen running away. Lucas took a moment’s amusement at how the hopped-up officer had wobbled awkwardly and fallen off a curb into a mud puddle. It was small enough payment for them not going after Conklin’s murderers.

  His steps took him back past the Great West Detective Agency office, where the man and the woman paced back and forth, waiting for the owner to show up.

  “. . . the ad,” finished the man.

  “It’s not a fake, and we’re not leaving. We need this job.”

  “Dear, we can look elsewhere. In a town the size of Denver, there must be others who will hire us.”

  “After you were caught with the goat? I don’t think so.”

  Lucas kept walking, never breaking stride although he wished he could get a more complete description of the affair of the goat and the man who looked so sheepish. Eventually the detective agency owner would return and the couple would beg him for whatever job had been advertised. He wished he could be there to see not only what the owner looked like, without any of the disguises he apparently used in his work, but also to find if the persistent man and woman were hired. If it were left up to him, he would hire them to run the office.

  If for nothing else, his curiosity about the goat ran wild.

  He made his way through the maze of streets and finally stood in front of the Emerald City Dance Hall and Drinking Emporium. The green paint used on the front had begun to peel after a long winter of fierce blizzards and a summer of baking heat and little rain. The doors were propped open to let in what breeze could be found sneaking off the distant mountains as a steady rush of cigarette smoke and bad music came from inside.

  A quick step avoided a drunken cowboy who found the double doors too narrow. As he entered, the cowboy fell face first into the watering trough with a loud splash. Lucas never looked back. He made his way to the bar. Lefty might as well have been a permanent fixture behind it. He never seemed to leave, making Lucas wonder if the man owned the saloon. All his dealings were with the one-armed man, and until now he had never wondered who the owner night be.

  He chalked up the sudden interest to his hunt for Amanda’s missing dog. Questions that went unanswered never troubled him as long as he sat across the table from a man with a big poke and a small hand.

  “He’s been here looking for you,” Lefty said. “Blood in his eye. Him and four men with the look of gunslingers.”

  “The rancher?”

  “I don’t want trouble in here. If you can’t take care of him, clear out.”

  “You know your revenue would drop through the floor if I left for another gaming parlor.”

  “Prying up the floorboards might expose gold dust and money these liquored-up sots have dropped over the years.” Lefty scratched his chin, nodding to himself as he worked over the notion. In a voice almost too low to hear, he said, “That’s not a bad idea. Gold dust in the dirt.”

  “Carmela getting ready for the show?”

  “Hell, Lucas, I don’t know if she’s even in town. She might be. I’m not paying her to go onstage a minute before ten tonight.”

  Lucas glanced at his watch. Twelve hours until the light of his life made her grand entrance to a throng of cheering, jeering men.

  “Deal some faro. Jenny’s not up to it right now.”

  Lucas knew better than to ask why the woman had skipped work yet again. Lefty might tell him. The last time he had asked after a coworker, he had learned more than he ever wanted to about the effects of malaria on the human body and soul. Short of Rocky Mountain
spotted fever, that had been the scariest description of symptoms he had ever heard.

  “Usual split?”

  “Whatever you can steal is yours, unless I catch you. It’s a slow day, but I don’t want to pass up a single sucker. Keep them in the saloon however you can for tonight’s show.” Lefty walked down the bar to serve another beer to a man dressed in tatters. As he went, he evaluated what he might find under the Emerald City’s floor.

  Lucas went to the faro table, pulled back a tablecloth covering it, and found a deck of cards wedged into a small compartment beneath. He shuffled, then began his spiel to draw the willing victims into his web. Faro was a simple enough game, or so the players thought. A pretty woman dealing, leaning forward over the table in a low-cut dress, gave them their money’s worth even as their wallets were picked clean. Lucas’s appeal had to be different to keep them pressed along the far side of the table as he worked.

  A young cowboy came up and worked at building a cigarette. From his clumsy attempt, he’d either had little practice or he’d had a snootful of whiskey already. Lucas saw the man’s yellowed teeth and realized the cowboy had likely pushed through the door first thing when Lefty opened that morning.

  Such a guess gave him the way to hold the cowboy’s interest.

  “You’re good enough with that smoke to do it on horseback,” Lucas said.

  “Have done it while stretched over a horse’s back,” the cowboy allowed.

  “Then I’d better tell you how dangerous that might be,” Lucas said. He motioned for the cowboy to lay down a bet. He took a deep breath and remembered what he had learned from the Preacher about spinning a web of words to keep his audience intrigued. Then he began telling his story to keep the cowboy distracted from the cards.

  “My partner got consumption from smoking and upped and died on me last January. Don’t think I’m prone to that.” As if to put his words to the lie, he coughed, then spat, hitting a cuspidor at his feet with reasonable accuracy.

  “Not what I mean. You ever hear of Glue Bottom Backus?”

  “Can’t say I have. That’s a mighty odd name.”

  He lost another hand but wasn’t budging. Lucas had him hooked.

  “He came by it honestly. Glue Bottom could ride any horse, no matter how the son of a bitch bucked.”

  “Ain’t never been a horse that can’t be rode, and there ain’t never a rider that can’t be throwed.”

  “You’re wrong about that,” Lucas said. “Once old Glue Bottom plopped down on a saddled horse, no amount of sunfishing or quick spins ever unseated him. He was up in Wyoming on a ranch outside of Cheyenne when he about met his match, though.”

  “What I said. Any rider can be throwed.”

  “Glue Bottom set himself down on this maverick and was bounced about, jerked this way and that,” Lucas said, all the while dealing faro and scooping up the coins the cowboy lost because he paid more attention to the story than his odds. “He thought he was a goner when the belly strap began to groan under the strain of the varmint’s heaving. The leather stretched enough so daylight showed between saddle and the lathered up horse’s back.”

  “Sure sign Glue Bottom’s name got to change. He might stay with the saddle, but when the cinch loosens—”

  The cowboy clapped his hands together loud enough to draw attention from the more serious gamblers and drinkers. Even Claudette looked up. Lucas shook his head. He didn’t want her to break the spell he wove. Another quick move pulled in sorry bets. The cowboy put down more without even considering how he bet.

  “That’s so,” Lucas said to string him along. “But the effort tuckered out the horse. That maverick settled down and Glue Bottom rode it out of the corral. I tell you, the other wranglers stared at him as if he was a bronco buster who’d go down in history as the best ever.”

  “Sounds like it,” the cowboy said with more than a touch of skepticism.

  “Of course, Glue Bottom got a mite arrogant about his skills when he rode that mustang out, thinking it was just another horse.” Lucas lowered his voice for effect. “It wasn’t anywhere near broken.”

  “Didn’t think so.”

  Lucas saw that he had drawn a crowd as big as any Jenny could, and he didn’t have her impressively displayed chest. The bets came fast and furious. Lucas paid out some winners, but the money mattered less than the tall tale he spun.

  “Old Glue Bottom started to build himself a smoke, the reins draped over his left arm and not gripped properly. The horse knew and rocketed forward, straight over a cliff. Glue Bottom let out a yell as he and the horse plunged over the brink going straight down toward the river.”

  “If his body was swept away by the river, they wouldn’t have to bury him,” the cowboy said.

  Lucas motioned for Claudette to start working the crowd and sell as much whiskey as she could. He worked his table, the cards flying so fast the faces blurred as they slapped down on the green felt. The speed of betting increased, and he finally continued the story.

  “Yes, sir, his partners thought Glue Bottom had ridden his last trail. They fanned out along the base of the cliff, hunting for his body. They didn’t find a danged thing.”

  “The river,” the cowboy said. “A horse what leaps like that’s gonna carry outwards quite a way.”

  “It wasn’t the river where they found him. There was a huge cottonwood tree on the riverbank. One of his buddies looked up and there was Glue Bottom, still astride that horse. He held up his smoke and asked, ‘Anybody got a light?’”

  For a moment only silence greeted Lucas, then laughter rippled around.

  “That there’s a good story, gambler man.”

  This sentiment was echoed by others. They drifted away, but Lucas ran his knowing fingers over the stacks of coins won for the house. More than a hundred dollars had been bet and lost by the crowd as he spun his tale. Claudette winked broadly at him. Sale of whiskey had been good, too. He might not have Jenny’s attributes, but he had other talents.

  “I entertained you boys,” Lucas said, “so now you can do me a favor. I’m looking for a puppy dog stolen a couple days ago.”

  “Is there a reward?”

  “For the right dog, I’ll pay . . . five dollars.”

  “I seen a dog out back ’fore I came in.”

  “Warn’t no dog. That was a mangy coyote.”

  The argument between the men grew and took them away from the faro table. Claudette followed to capitalize on spilled liquor and emptied glasses. For a moment, Lucas found himself alone at the table, giving him a chance to catch his breath. He knew any number of ways of sweet-talking a crowd to keep them interested while they gambled, but it always sapped his energy.

  He looked toward the back of the Emerald City, where the stage stretched empty, almost forlorn. The curtains billowed and moved, sometimes hinting at stagehands moving about to prepare the set for Carmela. He shifted in the direction of the stage but caught Lefty’s eye. The barkeep sternly shook his head, then pointed at the faro table. Lucas shot him an insincere smile and went back to plying his trade.

  More than a half hour passed. A cowboy walked away three dollars to the good, bragging on his luck. Lucas waited for the rush to the table when word got around that the cards favored the bettor. Luck meant everything to a dyed-in-the-wool gambler—and even more to a superstitious cowboy.

  A loud yelp followed by fierce barking made him reach for his pistol. He paused when he saw a man as mangy as the dog he wrestled coming toward him.

  “This here’s yer dog, mister. Where’s my money?”

  “He’s only got one eye and that back leg’s all twisted around,” Lucas said.

  “So?”

  “This isn’t a puppy. It’s five years old if it’s a day.” Lucas looked askance at the animal as it struggled, trying to escape the death grip the man had on it.

  “Yo
u never said the dog you wanted wasn’t all busted up.”

  “I said it was a puppy. I can’t even tell what breed this is.”

  “What breed you want it to be? Looks like a bit of ever’thing’s been mixed in.”

  “Get it out of here.” Lucas edged back as the man tried to force the animal into his arms. He didn’t want fleas when he intended to renew his acquaintance with Carmela Thompson.

  “You ain’t gonna pay me? You thinkin’ on cheatin’ me when I brung you yer dog?”

  “Not mine,” Lucas said. He realized now the error of even asking a drunken crowd in the Emerald City to find Tovarich.

  A pair of high-stepping dancers came onstage, kicking their knees up high enough to give a quick glimpse of ankle, calf, and even higher. They danced without music; none was needed. A hush fell over the dance hall as their heels clicked on the stage and they exposed more and more. Flouncing about, they held the crowd in silent rapture. Then the piano player started. Lucas had to give him his due. He was not a bad player, but often he was too drunk to do more than bang on the keys.

  Tonight his tinny piano sounded as if it had been moved into a grand concert hall and he were playing for the crowned heads of Europe. Lucas covered the faro table. No one would gamble now. He slid the stack of coins into his pocket. As they slipped between his fingers, he counted, stopped when he got to the usual percentage, then went to the bar and left the neat stack for Lefty. The barkeep had said he could keep everything until the crowd came in, but Lucas knew his credibility as an honest gambler would go up if he paid up. This was a good place to call home, and Lucas wanted to stay on good terms with the management.

  In spite of the buildup for Carmela and the increasingly naughty dancers, Lefty came the length of the bar and counted the coins. He nodded, smiled in appreciation, pocketed the money, and left Lucas to his own devices.

  Moving along the back of the crowd, Lucas found his special spot by a pillar. It took him a few seconds of fumbling, but he pulled out a two-by-two crate almost two feet high and stepped up onto it to give a view of the stage over the heads of the crowd. He wrapped his arms around the pillar and rested his cheek against the splintery wood.