Black Hats

by Max Allan Collins

  “These are…” Gross looked up, mildly surprised. His tone was dismissive. “We’re just getting out of the car. Going into one of these cabins.”

  “And out,” Millie added, frowning in concentration.

  Wyatt said, “I don’t do bedroom photography. But those indicate what’s going on here.” He took one more step, nearing the foot of the bed. He was still dripping. “Those tell the story.”

  Millie snatched the photos up and sat like an Indian and studied them some more. Gross, thoughtful, got off the bed, one of his bare feet crushing the forgotten cigar. He was three paces from Wyatt.

  “What story do they tell, Gramps?”

  Gross was maybe thirty, thirty-two. Five nine, five ten. A solid, fairly muscular specimen. Probably played handball, tennis; maybe even boxed a bit.

  “You know what story, son. You’re shaking down Bill Hart, who never did a damn thing to this girl but put her in the motion pictures.”

  Thunder shook the sky and the windows.

  “These won’t hold up in court,” Gross said, gesturing to the pictures Millie was going over, as if studying her next script. “I’m Miss Morrison’s agent, after all. We might have been having a private business conference, for all those pictures indicate.”

  Wyatt granted him a nod. “Might seem that way to a court. Won’t to your wife.”

  Gross’s eyes tightened. He took a step forward.

  Wyatt raised a hand. “Stay put. Here’s what’s what. You intended to bilk Bill Hart. This child would marry and divorce him, and he would pay through the nose. Plus, her name value in the flickers would benefit from the press.”

  “Divorce never benefits—”

  Wyatt held the hand up again. “I’m sure she’d have a tale to tell on the witness stand that would curl the hair. How Bill beat her, or maybe forced perversions upon her. She’s a good actress. She could sell that.”

  Millie smiled up at Wyatt, as if to say “thanks,” caught herself and remembered to frown at him, which she did.

  “Now here’s the deal,” Wyatt said. His words were affable but spoken in a deliberate fashion. “You get the negatives of those photos…and our word we won’t go public.”

  Gross sneered. “Your word?”

  Wyatt didn’t care for the man’s tone, but he merely said, “If Miss Morrison does not hold Mr. Hart to his proposal of marriage, we would have no reason to embarrass her…or you, Mr. Gross.”

  The agent thought about that.

  Wyatt said to the actress, “And Mr. Hart says you may keep the diamond as a memento.”

  Her eyes flashed. “Really? Do I…have to keep it?”

  “Yours to do with as you will. At your discretion.”

  The agent stepped forward—two paces. He was less than an arm’s length from Wyatt now, and smelled of pomade.

  “Listen, Mr. Earp,” Gross said, smiling now. If a snake could smile, that was how. “You know and I know that William S. Hart is worth a lot more than that diamond.”

  “Yes he is. But you and Miss Morrison are worth considerable less.”

  The agent’s eyes widened and his teeth bared and he grabbed Wyatt by the rain slicker and slammed him against the door.

  “Listen, old man,” Gross said, and the pomade scent was overpowered by the Sen-Sen on his breath, “you can’t intimidate me. This is blackmail, and you can tell that fart Hart that if he so much as—”

  What happened next was so fast, the agent didn’t see it happen—but he felt it. He surely felt it.

  The long-barreled .45 came out from under the fish, Wyatt’s right hand jerking it from the holster on his left hip, and the side of the gun met the side of the agent’s head with a sickening whump.

  Wyatt saw the man’s eyes roll back like slot-machine horseshoes and the agent, right side of his face bloody, dropped at the foot of the bed in an ungainly pile of flesh and underwear.

  Millie’s eyes were almost as wide as her mouth; the actress was still sitting like an Indian, with knees cuter than a teddy bear, and the photos were in her lap and hands.

  “Can you reason with him?” Wyatt asked her.

  She nodded. “I…I…I…”

  “You what, child?”

  “I never…never saw one that big before.”

  She meant the gun.

  Wyatt put it away.

  “You can keep those,” he said, meaning the photos.

  Down on the floor, Gross was stirring.

  Wyatt knelt to him. The man was conscious enough to understand the words Wyatt had for him, which were these: “You know how to settle the matter with Mr. Hart. That’s one thing. This is another. If you ever put your hands on my person again, Mr. Gross, you will have to settle with me.”

  The agent swallowed; then he swallowed again. “You’ll have no problem with me, Mr. Earp. Tell Hart…tell Hart his terms are fine.”

  Wyatt stood. “Nice doing business with you.” He tipped his Stetson to the girl in the chemise on the bed. He couldn’t resist adding, “Ma’am,” and he stepped back out into the storm.

  TWO

  When the black taxicab rolled up to the curb in front of Wyatt Earp’s rented bungalow, the woman rider spoke to the driver as she paid him from the back seat. Then the cabbie came around and held open the door for her and even tipped his cap. The tip must have been good, because the driver returned to his post behind the wheel and waited for her while she made her way up the sidewalk toward the porch where Wyatt sat in a hard chair with a book in his lap and a dog at his feet.

  She was dressed appropriately for the cool sunny April afternoon, and very modern—white straw hat, coral silk dress with white polka dots and kimono-style sleeves and waist cinched with a satin sash, black purse fig-leafed before her. White stockings. White shoes.

  She was tall enough to carry it off, slender enough, too; but too old by half. Sixty if she was a day. He was just wondering what kind of damn dress-up party this was when he recognized her, half-way up the walk.

  The little spitz pooch sat up and, furry tail a blur, studied their approaching visitor with the one eye he had left after fighting two cornered rats at the Happy Days copper mine two summers ago. The pooch’s name was Earpie, and that the animal wasn’t growling was a good sign…

  …or would have been, if Wyatt hadn’t felt like growling himself.

  “Kate,” he said.

  Not greeting her so much as identifying her, out loud.

  And she halted.

  She should have looked foolish in that get-up, but she was clearly well-preserved, the long oval of her face still smooth and glowing. Hell, she had always had a way about her.…

  “Wyatt,” she said, in that musical voice corrupted by an accent that she always claimed was Hungarian; did sort of sound like a mouthful of goulash. “May I send the taxi away?”

  “No one’s stopping you.”

  “I’d like to talk to you.”

  “You already are.”

  She turned and nodded to the taxi and the driver nodded back and rumbled off hurriedly, knowing no fares would likely be found in this modest residential neighborhood with its stucco-and-frame bungalows and indifferently mowed grass and old men sitting on porches.

  When she reached the two wooden steps, Wyatt finally rose. Earpie’s furry tail was twitching, tongue lolling, eyes bright—eye bright, anyway.

  Wyatt said, “Sit yourself,” and gestured to the rocker, which was his wife’s.

  As if Kate knew that, she asked, “Oh, is Sadie home?”

  “She’s gone for the afternoon. Shopping.”

  Gambling was more like it. Off to San Bernardino on the Big Red Car, for some backroom poker game at one hotel or another. But that was nobody’s business.

  “Pity,” Kate said. “Be awfully nice to see her.”

  Wyatt figured seeing Sadie again was about the last thing Kate would have wanted—the two women had never got along—and knew damned well this old gal in young silk was just trying to be sociable.


  Coquettishly, Kate climbed the two steps, gathered her dress and lowered herself into the rocker, setting her purse on the wood slats beside her. Wyatt returned to his hard chair, angling it toward his guest.

  “I’m surprised you recognized me,” she said.

  Hard not to. “Big-Nosed” Kate Elder, the common-law bride of Doc Holliday, had distinctive features, albeit not the big beezer one might expect. She’d also been called “Nosey” Kate, which was more accurate. She liked to stick her nose in, where it had no call to be.

  True, her nose was noticeable, long not big, her eyes crowding it some; but most considered her pretty, in her day—the eyes were dark blue and sparkled (still were, still did), her mouth a small girlish bud (thinner lips now). Damn, her face was smooth for her age.

  In the 1880s, she’d had a lot of dark, lustrous hair; and even six decades along, no signs of white were apparent, or henna coloring either, for that matter—she had it pinned up in back, but he’d seen it flow.

  She was settling her hands in her lap. “After all, it has been a while.”

  “Twenty-five years,” he said. “Rock Creek, Colorado. You were married to that blacksmith—George something-or-’tother. What became of him?”

  “I divorced him. He drank too much.”

  Wyatt was too much of a gentleman to point out that Kate had a leaning toward that ilk.

  “You’re reading a book,” she said, as he set the thick little red-bound volume on the porch railing.

  “You needn’t sound so surprised.”

  “What is it?”

  “Hamlet. Friend of mine suggested it.”

  Bill Hart.

  This seemed to amuse her. “What do you think of it?”

  “This Hamlet feller is a talkative man. Wouldn’t have lasted long in Kansas.”

  “Most likely not.” She glanced toward the house, revealing little white teeth that seemed to still be the original articles. “What a quaint little place. How charming.”

  “Not hardly. It’s a rental.”

  The living room turned into the bedroom when a Murphy bed came down, the kitchen was a sink and a stove in a corner behind a pull curtain, the bathroom tiny enough to make a crowd out of a sink, toilet and shower. Not much better than a cheap motel room. Like out at Lowman’s Motor Court.

  “Just temporary,” he assured his guest.

  Wyatt’s fortunes would turn; they always did.

  “I heard that you and Sadie were working a mine out Vidal way,” Kate said, in a friendly if strained small-talk fashion. “That you work the mine and prospect around the Colorado River, winter months, and spend the rest of the year here in Los Angeles.”

  His eyes searched the supposed innocence of her facial expression. “How is it you know that, Kate?”

  “Well, your diggings are near Parker, Arizona, aren’t they?”

  He nodded.

  “And I live in Dos Cabezos; in fact, I’ve spent many, many years in Arizona…where it’s no secret who I am, or that is, used to be. People ask me about you. People tell me about you. What you’re up to. They assume we’re friends.”

  “People assume lots of fool things, don’t they, Kate?”

  She glanced down, noticing the spitz who was sitting at her side, staring at her with that bright eye of his, apparently hoping for affection, heavy tail fanning. Kate rocked forward and scratched him around his ears and his collar.

  She gave Wyatt a glance that was a little too friendly. “I heard you’re doing detective work again. Like in the Wells Fargo days.”

  He sighed. “Some,” he granted.

  “I thought perhaps you might do a job for me.”

  Earpie was on his hind legs now, paws at the nice silk dress.

  “Earpie,” Wyatt said sternly.

  The dog looked over at its master who gave him hard eyes, and then the animal hung its head and returned to his place and curled up at Wyatt’s feet. Sullenly, but the dog did it.

  Kate laughed. “So, Wyatt—everybody still jumps when you bark.”

  Sadie didn’t, but he didn’t point that out.

  “Even Doc jumped at your command,” she said, trying to sound light but bitterness edging in.

  “I couldn’t make the funeral,” he said.

  Funny to be making an apology over something that happened thirty years ago. Sort of just came out.

  She gave him a sharp, surprised look that immediately softened. “You couldn’t have got there in time, and I couldn’t afford the ice. Anyway…you and Doc had your goodbyes, year or so prior, I understand.”

  Wyatt had been in Denver, to gamble, staying with Sadie at the Windsor Hotel. Doc had heard the Wyatt Earps were in town and came looking for his old compadre. The two men had sat and talked in the lobby, but Doc did more coughing than speaking. His dapper friend had always been slender, but now was a skeletal apparition.

  “Can’t last much longer,” Doc had said. His eyes were sunken, his cheeks, too; but the mustache was perfectly trimmed. “Wanted to see you one more time, Wyatt.”

  “…Strange.”

  “What is?”

  “If you hadn’t saved my tail in Dodge that time, I wouldn’t be sitting here. And, Doc—I have no damn way to repay the favor.”

  Doc’s eyes were moist; the sickness, surely. “You have repaid me myriad times, Wyatt. With your friendship.”

  Suddenly Doc embraced him, startling Wyatt.

  Then the notorious gunfighter got to his wobbly feet and managed a half-bow. “I will see you again, but not too soon, I hope…considering where I’m bound.”

  And Doc moved away quickly if feebly. Next thing he knew, Wyatt had needed to dry his eyes with a hanky, feeling like a goddamned woman.

  And this goddamned woman in the coral dress, for all her faults—and she had considerable—had loved that man, too. Of course, oftentimes Big-Nosed Kate had expressed her abiding affection by hounding Doc and trading drunken blows with him, shaking a gun at him while he shook a knife at her, and vice versa. Never had two people walked the line between love and hate more unsteadily than Doc and Kate.

  In a way, Wyatt’s brother James bore the blame for bringing the two of them together, Doc Holliday and Kate Elder.

  Saloonkeeper James and his wife Bessie ran prostitutes on the side, in those days, and Kate had been one of their soiled doves, a pretty sassy thing in her twenties when James and Bessie brought her (and a wagonful of other wenches) to Fort Griffin; and Doc, working the gaming tables, took to Kate right away, smart, good-looking, well-educated lass that she was, with that clumsy, graceful European accent of hers.

  Kate had proved her mettle to Doc the night things got out of hand at Shannsey’s Saloon. Doc was playing poker with a local gambler, Ed Bailey, and Bailey started fiddling with the deadwood, the discards. Doc called Ed on it, Ed jerked a sixgun, and Doc slashed a blade across the cheater’s brisket.

  Ed seemed to be dying (he survived but didn’t look he would), and the town marshal held Doc under house arrest at the Planter’s Hotel. Hearing of this later, Wyatt figured Doc had been betrayed by the marshal, because jail would have been safer, and the hotel gave a local lynch mob an easy avenue to the prisoner.

  But spunky Kate had set fire to a nearby shed, and while the vigilantes transmogrified into a fire brigade, the pretty little whore waltzed into the hotel, drew down on the deputy sitting guard, and escorted Doc out to the waiting ponies.

  Or so the story went, as Doc had so often grandiosely told it. Kate once denied the rescue, calling it a fairy tale; but Wyatt believed Doc. After all, if Doc said up was up, Kate would call it down.

  “If you live in Arizona,” Wyatt said to his guest, who was gently rocking now, “what are you doing in Los Angeles?”

  “Perhaps I came to call on you.”

  “Just to see me.”

  “To see you about doing a detective job.”

  “All the detectives in Arizona busy?”

  Her small mouth twitched a smile, but her eyes were
nervous. “This isn’t a job that…just…just any detective could do.”

  “Takes a Los Angeles one, then. Something out here?”

  “Something…something in New York.”

  Wyatt didn’t know what to say to that.

  She sat forward, her hands clasped prayerfully tight in her lap. The smile disappeared but the nervous eyes remained. When she leaned closer, lines around her eyes and on her upper lip showed. Still, a smooth mug for an old gal, though.

  “Doc and I…you know that we were together, at the hotel in Glenwood Springs, those last six months…?”

  Wyatt nodded, and took any edge off his words. “I know that you were at his side. That you nursed him. That you comforted him, and for that I am damned grateful.”

  She averted his gaze, nodded back, rather absently; then said, “Thank you,” very softly.

  Then she sat in silence, for an eternity—perhaps thirty seconds. The spitz was snoring. Traffic noise thrummed, and down the block a neighbor was playing “Avalon” on the piano, badly.

  Wyatt arched an eyebrow. “Kate?” he prompted.

  She swallowed. “I did more than just…comfort Doc, Wyatt. I…we…had a son.”

  Wyatt blinked. “The hell you say.”

  “Doc never knew it. He had no interest in having any children with me or anybody else; he considered himself some kind of…dark soul, a strain of the Holliday blood best not continued.”

  That sounded like Doc’s line of bull.

  “I was expecting his child, at the time he passed,” she said. “You know we were married, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  He knew she claimed it. Doc denied it, of course. God had not invented the subject Kate and Doc agreed upon.

  Despite his assurance, her response was defensive: “My son is not illegitimate! I want you clear on that. I had a rough start in life, lost my parents to influenza back in Davenport, Iowa; left the foster home for a riverboat and wound up earning my keep on my back, just sixteen, Wyatt Earp! Sixteen and soft, pleasuring hard men like you!”

  “Those are distant days,” he said, thinking that last sounded a mite rehearsed. “Nobody need be judged.”

  Indeed Wyatt had been one of her customers—hell, she was his brother’s wife’s worker, using the last name Earp at the time!—but that had been before Doc, and their friendship, and Doc’s doings with Kate, for that matter.