Touched by Angels

by Alan Watts

  He closed the trap carefully, and grinned in the dark, as he heard them charging into the room.

  Sixty-one

  Sam Sullivan was speechless, after Billy told him of the vast fortune he believed to be in the suitcase depicted in the drawing he held at arm’s length.

  Initially, he reckoned that in the panic of the ship’s sinking, she must have gathered it from the unsuspecting, most of whom were now dead, probably by ransacking their cabins after they were evacuated from them.

  A voracious newspaper reader, Sam had soaked up all he could about the disaster.

  The Hartford Times, Sam’s favourite journal, mainly because of its staunchly Republican views, had run an article about the on-board thief; a short piece that many people would have overlooked, as being secondary to the disaster itself.

  The article had stated that he (it was always he Sam noticed) had absconded with enough wealth, “to fight the Republican campaign in the fall”.

  Why should it be a he, Sam thought now, having sniggered at the thin wit.

  Why shouldn’t it be a woman?

  What better cover was there, especially with a kid in tow?

  Or….perhaps she wasn’t a thief at all.

  From what Billy had told him, she sounded very well-to-do herself.

  Was she on the run for other, more innocent reasons?

  Did she need protecting, in this foreign, harsh land?

  And the most poignant question of all; did he want the death of another beautiful woman on his conscience, if he could prevent it?

  He didn’t think so.

  He needed to catch up with her, and quickly.

  ***

  Jack Quint thought so too, as he looked through a large hole in the rotting wood, where the guttering had long since fallen away.

  There was a small, overgrown yard beneath. The chair lay on its side among the broken glass. Thankfully, the hotel overlooked the rear end of another, much taller building, with no windows, that he guessed was a factory of some sort.

  The yard was surrounded by a tall crumbling, ivy-covered wall, and he knew that it wouldn’t take a genius to imagine that that was the way he had gone.

  ***

  As the police entered the room below, and started ransacking it, Lil Smith was looking herself up and down in a long mirror, amazed at the transformation unthinkable scant weeks ago.

  To send out a message to the world that she would never be at the mercy of any man again, she wore a pair of hand stitched platform hide boots, topped with a tan coloured dress with white fringing, while a broad, low crowned hat adorned her head. Her blonde hair hung to her shoulders.

  She stood around five ten in the boots and, as she gazed at herself, she thought she looked a force to be reckoned with, unlike the down-trodden wife who was beaten and raped by her slob of a husband, a continent and a lifetime away.

  They had left the hotel at three in the morning, when the itching had become intolerable and Robert had woken up screaming with a cockroach resting on his face.

  The store was on the outskirts of the city. After studying a map of the eastern seaboard of the United States, pinned to one of the walls, she had told Robert of her plan to escape New York altogether.

  They would move inland, probably south, to where it would be warmer, but he cut her off by snapping, “Mum, I don’t want to run any more!”

  She looked at him critically. He looked completely drained, but she knew they had no choice but to keep on moving.

  “I’m afraid we’ve got to.”

  “No, we haven’t. I’m tired. I want to go home!” He was close to tears.

  “This is our home now. Don’t you understand? At least for the next few years.”

  He looked at her as though she’d punched him, so she said more softly, “Do you remember Mr King, the landlord?”

  He nodded.

  “This man is just like him. He’ll keep on coming and coming, and he absolutely will not stop until he gets the money, and he won’t flinch from killing us to get it. This isn’t England. Life isn’t worth a carrot here, so to survive, we must be like him, understand?”

  He nodded grudgingly.

  Her eyes were moist as she crouched before him and said, as she held his shoulders, “We’ve fought all our lives. We’ve been pushed about, never knowing where our next meal will come from, or whether we will have clothes on our backs, or a roof over our heads the next day. So this time, we’re going to win! All right?”

  She gripped him harder and stared into his brown eyes, knowing she would kill anybody who so much as touched him.

  “Now, the last thing he expects us to do is to move inland. Do you agree?”

  He nodded. “S’pose so.”

  “Good boy. Then one day we’ll find another port, somewhere else, and then we will go home, this time without worry.”

  He nodded again. It sounded so simple…

  Sixty-two

  Quint ducked back as he saw two peaked caps suddenly poking out from the smashed window below; both of them cops. He could hear their conversation quite clearly.

  “Cunning bastard!” said one.

  He sounded like he was the senior of the two.

  Quint heard him spit out a mouthful of chewing tobacco.

  “See his style, Clarke? Smashes this window to make us think he escaped this way, and so waste valuable time. Well, we ain’t gonna be fooled. Kinda obvious what he did next, don’t yer think?”.

  There was a long pause, as if he was trying to get the younger man to work it out for himself.

  Then he laughed, and said, as he smacked his forehead, “Don’t you worry. You don’t understand the criminal mind yet, green as you are. This is how I figure it. He put the chair through the glass, to draw our attention, and then went back the way he came. You see, Clarke, it’s what I got up here, boy, that got me mah stripes, brains, and lots of ’em, like you’ll have one day, you care to watch and listen. Then, when you’ve earned ’em, you’ll be a true professional, just like me.”

  “But… er, shouldn’t we, well, you know… just check?”

  Quint closed his eyes cringing, knowing which of them should be wearing the stripes.

  “Damn you, boy! Don’t you ever listen to nuthin? I done near fifteen years, afore you was even a twinklin’ in yer daddy’s loins, let alone yer mumma’s, so don’t you never contra…”

  “Sorry, boss.”

  Quint felt his heart slow down as they went back inside, and could imagine the greenhorn watching the posturing sergeant with open-mouthed admiration, as he threw back his shoulders, and tucked his thumbs into his Sam Browne belt.

  He sank back against the inner brickwork, relieved, but frustrated too, knowing the longer he waited, the further away the woman and kid were going to get.

  ***

  As Quint was tuning his ears into building below, for noise, Sam Sullivan and Billy Tweed were looking out the window above the cigar shop, as Sam stuffed his favourite pipe; the one he was sure imbued him with inspiration.

  He had a rack containing six others above the mantelpiece, each of which were smoked depending on the mood he was in. Sometimes, when he was melancholy, his thick briar was puffed. Today it was his meerschaum with the amber stem.

  Aromatic smoke drifted in swathes around Billy’s head. They had heard the window breaking and the shouts, before seeing a young woman being helped to walk by two police officers. Sam recognised her as the hotel maid, with a blanket around her shoulders.

  He knew there was no other exit from the hotel except out through the front door, so he knew it possible that Quint had hidden himself away somewhere inside until the cops moved on.

  They saw the other guests leave every so often, but when the woman and child never appeared, they guessed they must have left before Quint had even turned up.

  ***

  Billy could see no future without that money. Worse, this man might decide to turn him in for a nice easy thousand bucks after all, if he decided th
e woman wasn’t worth pursuing.

  While they had been watching, he had asked Sullivan, more to test the waters than anything, what the job here entailed, just in case. After all, anything would be better than the streets. It was, as he had suspected, as a counter assistant, with no prospects whatsoever.

  It started to get dark.

  Billy turned to see Sullivan tapping out his pipe in the hearth, his brow creased in concentration, as he thought. Billy felt defeated as he watched him, sure that if Quint had escaped, they would never catch up with him. He was probably near them already and would kill anybody who tried to interfere. Over the next few hours, each of them took odd peeks out the window in case he appeared.

  Billy found himself seething once more at the way Quint had humiliated him. He said, “I’m already wanted for murder. I know if they get me, I won’t stand a chance, so it won’t matter if I kill again, will it?”

  “I guess not,” Sullivan said, as he blew along the stem. Satisfied it was clean, he replaced it in the rack with the others. Without turning, he asked, “Who’re you intendin’ to kill?”

  “Quint!” He punched the palm of one hand with his fist, as his temples pounded with fury. Sullivan nodded, chewing his lip, as unpleasant memories were stirred.

  He turned. “Ever shot a man?”

  “No, but I will!” Billy punched his palm again.

  “You seem a decent enough kid to me, and if what you’ve told me about the events of last night are completely true, then you were provoked before you slit that kid’s belly, and it was a genuine accident when the place…”

  “It was an accident, I swear on my mother’s memory.” He crossed his chest several times, though he knew, as well as Sullivan, that no court in the land would ever believe it.

  “I don’t doubt you, boy, but… you shoot this man, however much you hate him, it won’t be an accident and you will have to live with it. Think you can do that?”

  Billy said nothing.

  “I shot a man once and I mean once, down south, in a dusty street outside Santa Fe. No witnesses and nobody ever knew I did it. I even kept it from Ruth. I was a Deputy Marshal and the man was a murderer, by the name of Ross McKenna.

  “I’d been on his trail for more than a month. That was the day I tossed my badge away forever. I swore I would never kill a human being again, whatever they did. Want to know why?”

  Billy was looking at the pipe rack.

  “I shot him through the gut. Not deliberately. Thought I was aimin’ for his heart. It would have been a mercy. I don’t hold with hangin’ no matter what a man is guilty of, since I saw it done once. Stead of his heart though, the slug hit him ’bout three inches to the side of his belly button, here!” He reached out and prodded Billy’s stomach. “I sat there for hours, listen to his groanin’ and beggin’ as he called out for his mumma and the Good Lord. Had to put my hands over my ears. Couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t work up enough guts to put him out of his misery. Thought I might get Jesus when he finally crawled behind some bushes to die, but I never did. Boy, I was a coward! Mounted up m’horse and left him. Plagued me ever since.”

  He saw the boy’s Adam’s apple bob up and down as he gulped. “Did he die?”

  “Must have. Don’t know what the state o’ play with medicine is now, but back then, if you were gut shot, you died.” He leaned forward and added, “And, let me tell you, in great pain. When you shoot a man, it ain’t pretty and Jesus won’t love you for it. You ’member that.”

  The lecture had painted a stark picture, but done little to quash his thirst for revenge. If anything, it had strengthened it.

  Sixty-three

  Quint was quietly optimistic as he listened hard.

  There had been no noises coming from anywhere below for more than half an hour. The snag was, that had no way of seeing down there to be sure. There were tiny holes in the ceiling, but although within eight feet of him, he risked making creaking noises if he tried to get to them.

  He could see his surroundings reasonably well because of the hole he had been looking through, and several others, but going back through that trap would be a one-way trip.

  If they had rumbled him, and were waiting with their guns drawn, the game would be up. He could only hope that arrogant sergeant was as stupid as he sounded. Then he thought of all that wealth slipping ever further away, and groaned with longing.

  It was now or go without, he thought, as he wondered where they were headed.

  The longer he left it, the harder it would be to locate them, though they were still hopefully hampered by that stripy suitcase that he would see for miles. He drew his gun, and eased the trap up a couple of inches, whilst pointing the muzzle through the crack.

  The room seemed empty.

  He raised the trap all the way, and eased it down onto the rafters.

  Then he listened hard for a minute or so, before lowering himself through. Then, hanging from the wooden lip either side, he saw that he would have to drop the last foot, and that it would make a bang he had no way of muffling.

  He gritted his teeth and let go.

  The bang seemed out of all proportion to the force, and Quint ran around to the other side of the bed, shaking, while two doors down, Billy gazed at a revolver that looked brand new, in spite of the fact Sullivan had assured him it was more than twenty years old.

  ***

  It was of polished chromed steel, yet the grip was as black as night.

  He spent some time looking at that alone, not sure what it was made of.

  “Heartwood ebony,” Sam told him. “One of only three ever made.”

  Billy spun it round and grinned as he thumbed back the hammer, revelling in the delicious sounding, well oiled clicks.

  “The very gun I killed that man with, in ninety-two,” Sam told him. “It’s not been fired since.” He watched disillusioned, as the boy held it out straight, drawing a bead on one of the pipes in the rack.

  Ebony. A black wood for a black heart.

  ***

  Quint was determined too, as he looked at an open copy of the New York Sun that lay on the floor, next to the bed.

  Several minutes had passed, and he was almost sure he was alone.

  A portion of the advertisements page had been torn out, though enough of it remained to tell him who it promoted. It was the Western Trading Company, a place from where he had procured supplies himself, over the years.

  Knowing her plan now, locating her was going to be easier than he thought.

  He grinned, knowing she was intending to draw him out, by leaving a trail a mile wide, with the loot as bait. He admired her thinking, but the pity for her was, she would be luring him to the sort of place where he felt most at home. He laughed out loud, knowing they didn’t stand a chance.

  Sixty-four

  Lil, however, was not at all amused as she was presented with a revolver with mother of pearl grips, which had to be one of the smallest in the world.

  She and Robert were outside, on the shooting range, where a dozen large tin cans stood atop a shot splintered log, ten yards away. Either side, as if on guard, were life-sized targets, depicting men holding revolvers at the hip.

  A table before her carried about forty different handguns, from revolvers to semi-automatic pistols, in varying calibres, sizes and finishes. She had been told that all of them were loaded and ready for firing.

  “This is a lady’s weapon,” said George Brady, the balding, combed-over proprietor, as he held it delicately between finger and thumb. “You can keep it in your purse, or handbag, discreetly, and if you are threatened, you can…”

  Ignoring him, she reached out and picked up a revolver that was about five times the size, and a look of horror spread across his face.

  “Ma’am, that’s a Colt service revolver. It kicks like a mare. It’s not really a lady’s…”

  “I need it to stop a man, not a mouse.”

  She thumbed back the hammer, aimed and pulled the trigger. There was a bang l
ike the Day of Judgement and the can was blown into pieces.

  He shook his head in amazement, as the fragments fell about them, making tinkling noises.

  ***

  Less than two hours after she had left, Jack Quint was listening to what George Brady had to say, not sure whether he believed him, though he didn’t think he’d dare lie.

  Brady had just closed up shop when a shot rang out, blowing another of the tin cans to pieces.

  When he saw Quint step out from behind one of the man-shaped targets, with the gun now pointed at him, he lost control of his bowels, thinking he was about to die.

  He just wanted information about that English woman and kid, thank God, so when he told him how she had fired six shots and demolished five cans from ten paces though, Quint was sceptical.

  He snatched his gun from its holster, shoved it under his chin and began pushing him backwards until he fetched up against the wall with the map.

  He thumbed the hammer back and pressed even harder, making his eyes water.

  “You’re lyin’, I know the dame. She’s never fired a gun in her life.”

  “But… she, she did… honest. Some people, even dames, are born…”

  “Phew, you stink. Shit your pants?”

  “Yeah… I…”

  His combed-over hair had fallen into his eyes.

  His hands waving about at his sides, as if he was trying to work up the guts to lash out.

  “Don’t, or you’ll be dead before you can blink, and if you don’t start truthin’ too, like right now, there’ll be more than just shit oozin’ out of you.”

  “But… but I am. It’s like she was a natural. Honest, sure as I’m standin’ here. Please, would I lie to you?”

  Terrified, and with the pressure on his larynx, his voice had become a high-pitched yammer.