The Killing Machine

by Ed Gorman

  “This hayseed marshal seems to think one of us killed him and took the gun,” Spenser said.

  “Why just one of you?” I said. “What if two of you got together? Or three or four?”

  “Bad theory,” Wayland said. “We each represent a different party. We couldn’t work together.” He’d eaten little. He’d left most of a steak on his plate, potatoes and applesauce untouched.

  “Which party is it that you represent, Mr. Wayland?”

  “I’m afraid that’s none of your business.”

  “I wouldn’t say that, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh?”

  “If I find out that you’re representing a hostile government, then I can have you held until some other Federal boys get down here to ask you some questions.”

  “If you think you scare us, you’re wrong,” Spenser said. “You shouldn’t try and intimidate anybody when you’ve got your arm in a sling.”

  His right hand was resting flat on the pure-white tablecloth. I grabbed it with my left hand and squeezed it so tight I could feel the bones grinding against each other. His size and his cold stern face didn’t help him much. He was all pain, helpless as hell right now.

  “You sonofabitch,” he said when I let go his wide, long hand.

  “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t confuse me with some sort of invalid,” I said. “Because I’m not.”

  As he rubbed his damaged hand, he glared at me.

  “Neither of us killed your brother,” Wayland said.

  “I suppose you can prove that?”

  Spenser stood up. “I need to relieve myself, gentlemen. If you’d be so kind as to explain to this cretin about our alibi, Mr. Wayland, I’d be most grateful.”

  I didn’t see the jerking limp or the heavily built-up shoe until he’d taken two steps. His size, but most of all his arrogance, made his limp seem impossible. He kept his head tilted so that he could watch me watch him. Instinct made me want to pity him. But he didn’t want my pity and he made sure he didn’t get it. “Don’t worry, Ford. Even with this foot, I’m twice the man you’ll ever be.”

  Wayland sipped coffee. “You didn’t make any friends here, I’ll tell you that.”

  “What makes you think I’d want you two as friends, Wayland? You sell arms to the highest bidder.”

  “We have alliances. We represent our clients’ best interests.”

  “Unless some other ‘client’ offers you more money.”

  He leaned back and looked at me, his eyes dark in the shadowy restaurant. I wanted to be outside. Away from the gloom. Away from these two. There were a lot of filthy ways to make money, but selling arms had to be one of the filthiest. “If one of us had killed your brother and taken the gun, the first thing we’d have done is get the hell out of here before the marshal could stop us.”

  “That’s the last thing you would’ve done. If you’d killed him and taken the gun, you would have had to stay here. Leaving would make you look guilty for sure.”

  “We were here before,” he said. “This is the second time your brother invited us. We had a good relationship with him.”

  This was something I hadn’t known. Nobody’d mentioned it before. “When were you here?”

  “Seven months ago. All four of us. Your brother wanted to whet our appetites. The gun still needed work, but it was well enough along that we could get a sense of its power. We saw it and we went back to our respective clients and told them about it. They then began figuring out what they were going to bid for the project. All the clients wanted to have a guarantee that it was an exclusive. Your brother promised he could deliver sixty of them three months after the demonstration he gave us the day he died.”

  “He wasn’t set up for manufacturing.”

  “He didn’t have to be. There was a firm back East.”

  “So you gave him sealed bids?”

  “Of course. He couldn’t afford to alienate us, so he acted honestly. Your brother was a very energetic man. He always had something to sell. Everything from guns to information. So he always took sealed bids and opened them in front of everybody placing bids. The highest bidder won. Simple as that.”

  “Maybe one of you got greedy.”

  “We didn’t bring money, only the bids.”

  “Of course. But you could tell your client that somebody else had the gun now and you needed to pay him.”

  He smiled. “You have a devious mind, Mr. Ford. You could be one of us.”

  Spenser came back. As he sat down, Wayland said, “I was just telling Mr. Ford that he was devious enough to be one of us.”

  “He’s too stupid to be one of us.”

  “If I didn’t know better,” Wayland said, “I’d say you two didn’t like each other.”

  “You never did get around to telling me about your alibi, Wayland.”

  Spenser snapped, “Then I’ll tell you. There’s a whorehouse on Dodge Street. 33 is the address. The four of us rented it for the night. Middle of the week business is slow there. They gave us a special rate. We did everything you might expect.”

  Wayland: “I dimly recall doing a few things I hadn’t expected.”

  “That’s your alibi? A madam?”

  “Tell me, Ford,” Spenser said, his entire body tense with anger at my simple presence in his world. “Do you only deal with people of high moral character?”

  “Obviously not. I’m sitting here with you two, aren’t I?”

  Wayland laughed. “I have to admit, that’s a good one.”

  “He’s an asshole.”

  “Oh, c’mon, Spenser. We’re probably just as bad as he says we are. We do sell to the highest bidder and sometimes they aren’t exactly virgins.”

  “You’re agreeing with him?” Spenser snapped. “We work in a capitalist society. This bastard sounds like an anarchist.” He turned his angry gaze on me. “And anyway, I wonder if he has any idea how many people in the Department of the Army we’ve bribed over the years. You’ve probably taken a little graft yourself, Ford, you sanctimonious prick.”

  “Shout a little louder, Spenser, she wasn’t able to pick that last one up.” I nodded to the prim lady sipping tea several tables away. “Repeat the part about how you bribed people in the Department of the Army. I’ll need a witness to get a warrant for your arrest.”

  “Arrest?” Wayland said. “We were just having a little fun here…”

  “Spenser here just admitted to a federal crime. The department’s well aware that some of its employees take bribes for information. We’re gradually getting rid of them. And once we do, we’ll start on people like our friend Spenser here.”

  “You’re no friend of mine,” Spenser said. “Don’t even joke about it.”

  It was time to leave. “I’ll no doubt want to talk to you again.”

  “Fair warning?” Wayland smirked.

  “Something like that, I suppose. In the meantime, tell Spenser here that he needs to relax a little. For the sake of his heart. Unless he killed my brother. Then he won’t have to worry about his heart. I’ll take care of that for him.”

  Wayland still seemed amused by it all. Maybe he just liked to see a good fight. “I’d watch out for this fellow if I were you, Spenser.”

  I decided to end all the fun. “The same goes for you, too, Wayland.”

  He smiled, and the smile said that not only was he smarter, richer, and prettier than I was, but he was also better at the little game we were playing.

  I was glad to leave.

  Chapter 8

  Despite what the ministers will tell you, there are whorehouses and there are whorehouses. There are some, for instance, where you are likely to get(a) robbed, (b) diseased, (c) blackmailed. There are others where you don’t want to see the girls you’ll be going upstairs with because if you saw them first you wouldn’t go upstairs. And then there are those where the girls are pretty and checked once a month by the local docs, and the bouncer, usually Negro, is there to keep peace and quiet, not to rob you.


  I had the impression, as soon as I stepped inside her door, that Luellen Conroy ran the latter variety. The house was clean, the furnishings new, the air fresh smelling. Luellen herself was a trim little woman in a tan business suit, pince-nez glasses, and a quick, pleasant smile. Her graying hair was pulled back into a chignon.

  She answered the door herself and said, “I’m afraid we’re not open now, sir. If you’d like to come back around four, we’ll be glad to see you.”

  I showed her my badge.

  She smiled. “Well, a Federale. I’m impressed. Had a lot of lawmen through here before, but never a Federal man. And especially not one as nice-looking as you.”

  Prim and proper as she was, she had to get a whorehouse compliment out. In her calling, flattery was meaningless and mandatory.

  “Afraid I’m here on business.”

  “Business? A Federal man? Well, c’mon in.”

  She led me down a narrow hall. A gray tomcat waddled after us. “He may hiss at you. I’ve put him on a diet and he doesn’t like it. He takes it out on everybody. I’ve got a couple of gals who are just like him. I say lose a few pounds and they act like I told them to get an arm amputated or something.”

  She said all this as she walked, without once looking back at me.

  Her office was painted yellow, with yellow curtains and mahogany office furnishings. Clean, competent, like the lady herself.

  “Like some coffee?”

  “That sounds good, actually.”

  She had a graceful silver pot on top of a three-shelf bookcase. She poured steaming coffee into two rather dainty cups and handed me one.

  “I told the girls they could sleep in. Had a little trouble last night. Couple cattlemen got pretty rowdy and started fighting with a couple of the other customers. One of them pulled a gun and held one of the girls hostage.” She smiled. “He was so drunk he couldn’t tell me why he was holding her hostage. I had to sit up half the night talking to him. He was a pretty sad case. Some people shouldn’t drink. I didn’t think he’d shoot her on purpose, but there was the chance he might accidentally misfire or something, so I had to be careful.”

  “You didn’t send for the marshal?”

  “Charley Wickham?” She smiled. “Charley makes his money the easy way. He stops by to pick up his ‘stipend,’ as he calls it, once a month but otherwise he wants to forget this house even exists. That doesn’t make him bad, just sensible. Every lawman I’ve ever known takes sin money. He’d come out here if we had a murder—God forbid—but anything else, he lets us handle.”

  “Never samples the merchandise?”

  “Nope. Never did.” She sat back in her chair and picked up one of three cigarettes she’d rolled for herself. She lighted it with a stick match which she snuffed out between thumb and forefinger. “Your brother was here a few times.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Some of the time I liked him.”

  “Our whole family’s that way. Some of the time we’re likable.”

  “You, too?”

  “Imagine I’m the same way, yes.”

  “I don’t think that nurse of his ever knew about it. Stuck-up gal. I send our girls to the hospital for their monthly checkups. She’s never very friendly to them.” She took a long drag on her cigarette. “She put your arm in that sling?”

  “Matter of fact, she did.”

  “I could make a lot of money on her. A certain kind of man goes for a woman like that. Aloof. Makes the men think they’re getting a real prize.”

  “You want me to mention that to her?”

  She grinned. “Oh, sure. And then you’ll have your other arm in a sling.”

  “She’s a pretty decent woman, actually. Once you melt the ice.”

  “If you like the type.” Another deep drag. The smoke was baby blue in the slanting autumn sunlight through the window. “But you’re not here for small talk, are you?”

  “I’m here to find out if a couple of men named Spenser and Wayland rented your whole house Tuesday night?”

  “And that would be the night your brother was murdered.”

  “You keep up on the news.”

  “Half the merchants in town sneak over here. We hear all the news and all the gossip.”

  “So did they?”

  “I can’t give you the answer you want because I wasn’t in town. I have a man I see over in Riverton. I was there that evening. It was my birthday. As far as I know, they were here from about eight in the evening until about four or five the next morning. Spenser had a little trouble getting excited enough to do anything until the girls gave him a bath. That got him going. They giggled about him the last time, too.”

  “The last time?”

  “Spenser and Wayland and the other two who came to visit your brother several months back—they all ended up here one night. The girls don’t mind helping men who’re having a little trouble—men who’re a little shy or nervous or feel they’re doing something wrong. A lot of the time that’s actually sweet, believe it or not, makes the men more human and they’re more grateful when they finally do get all fired up. And that means tips for the gals. But what they don’t like are men who blame them. Insult them. Tell them if they were prettier or this and that—well, they blame the woman. Spenser’s like that. So they don’t like him much. Wayland’s fine. He just wants to have a good time.”

  “You say you hear gossip? You hear anything about my brother’s murder?”

  “Nothing you haven’t heard.”

  “You know James Andrews?”

  A sour face. “Everybody knew James. And almost nobody liked him.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “He had a way of snooping around. Finding things out that people didn’t want found out.”

  “He ever bother you?”

  A deep drag on her cigarette. “Are you kidding? He used to sit up in that tree over on the corner of my property and write down the names of all the so-called respectable men who snuck in my back door. I think a few of them gave him a little money a few times, but that wasn’t good for my business. I had to hire a couple boys who were passing through town—gunnies, I guess you’d say—and they gave James the kind of beating that takes a long, long time to get over. He never sat up in that tree again, I’ll tell you that.”

  There wasn’t much more to say. I wondered about Spenser and Wayland. Unless one of the girls contradicted them and said that she saw one or both of them sneak out, their alibi from eight to dawn was covered. But the doc who’d examined David’s body said that he’d probably been killed in the very early part of the evening. It wouldn’t have taken much to kill him just at twilight and then sneak back to town and the whorehouse.

  “Ask your girls if they saw either Wayland or Spenser sneak off that night, would you?”

  She ground her smoke out in a glass ashtray and stood up. I guessed our meeting was over. She came around the desk and gently touched the elbow of my good arm. “I’ll make a point of asking them this afternoon.”

  She guided me to the front door.

  “You’re welcome here any time, Mr. Ford.”

  “I appreciate the invitation. Maybe I’ll take you up on that.”

  “That means ‘no,’ doesn’t it?”

  I laughed. “Yep, I expect it does.”

  “Too proud?”

  I shook her hand. She had a hell of a grip for such a small woman.

  “No,” I smiled, “too cheap.”

  “Oh, sure. I’ll bet.”

  I spent an hour at the mortuary where they were boxing David up to be shipped back to the ancestral home down South. I hadn’t had any contact with my folks in years, and didn’t intend to start now. I just wanted to make sure that David looked as good as possible. My mother would appreciate that. She was awfully fussy about how people dressed. Even dead people. Or maybe especially dead people. In her crowd, looking your best included being buried.

  While I was working with Mr. Harold Newcomb, who owned the mortua
ry, a thin, middle-aged woman in an appropriately black, high-collared dress, slammed away at typewriter keys in a small office off the room that could be rented for wakes.

  Whenever Newcomb was called away, which was frequently, he told me to look over the three types of shipping boxes he sold. A couple of times when he was called away, the thin woman in black quit her typing and came quickly out of the office, heading in my direction. But each time she started to speak to me, Newcomb came back, and she pretended to be just walking through the viewing area.

  I concluded my business in Newcomb’s office, paying cash, with the woman pounding away on the typewriter. I got a receipt, a damp handshake, and an offer to escort me to the front door. But before I could say anything, the thin woman said, “I have to run over to the newspaper for some more letterhead, Mr. Newcomb. I can walk him outdoors.”

  “Fine, Beth. I appreciate that.”

  She grabbed a shawl and off we went.

  She didn’t speak until we were outside on the steps. “I’m sorry about your brother, Mr. Ford.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I don’t mean that professionally. I mean, I don’t say it just because I’m in the funeral business.”

  “I know what you mean. And thanks again.”

  Clamor from wagons, buggies, a stagecoach. Bright-sounding birds; merry people in the cherished sunlight. Odd to see all this life from the steps of a funeral home.

  “I don’t mean to speak out of turn, but there’s something I wanted to tell you about because there’s no other lawman around.”

  I’d felt that she had some message for me. “All right.”

  “Last year a friend of mine died. A woman named Louise. I happened to be working late when they brought her in. Mr. Newcomb is also the county medical examiner. I know what he put on the death certificate, but I don’t think it was correct. I think somebody—well, you know.”

  The door opened. Mr. Newcomb, who did not look happy, said, “Something’s come up, Miss Cave. Would you come in here, please?”

  “But I need to get paper and…”

  Unhappiness became frozen anger. “Right now, if you please, Miss Cave.” Then, nodding to me, “Good day, Mr. Ford.”