Wilde West

by Walter Satterthwait

  Carver grinned. “Yes, sir. Reckon that’s so.”

  Grigsby handed Carver another sheet of paper. “And I want Mort to send this off, too.”

  Carver read from the sheet. “‘The New York Sun.’ What’s that?”

  “Newspaper.”

  Carver read slowly: “‘Par … tic … u … lars.’” He looked up. “What’re they, Marshal?”

  “They’re like details. You go ahead now, Carver.”

  “Yes, sir. And I won’t say nothin’ about the survey to nobody, Marshal. Mum’s the word.”

  “Good, Carver. Appreciate it.”

  As Carver loped quickly off, Grigsby stood and walked over to the window. Peering out it, looking down at Main Street, he rolled himself a cigarette.

  There was an outside chance that the killer wasn’t traveling with Wilde. Grigsby doubted this, but it was a possibility. Like Wilde had said, if even a single hooker had been killed in a town the tour hadn’t covered, then everyone on the tour was pretty much in the clear. The cities on Grigsby’s second list were close enough to the other cities, the cities where hookers had been killed, for the killer to reach them in the time available. If no hookers had been killed in any of them, then Grigsby was back where he’d started. With the people on the tour.

  He snapped a match alight with his thumb.

  Naturally, it was possible that if the killer wasn’t connected to the tour, he could’ve killed off a hooker in some other town somewhere, some one-horse place too small for Grigsby’s list. And Grigsby would never know about it.

  But how many of those small towns had hookers anyway? And even if they did, how many of the hookers had red hair?

  Grigsby puffed at the cigarette. He could hear the wind sliding around the corners of the Federal Building, growling low in its throat. Outside, down in the street, the gusts kicked flurries of dust at the bent figures who scurried along the sidewalks, their heads tucked low, their hands hooked at their hats.

  Exhaling smoke, he glanced up at the rooftops opposite. Dark clouds, swollen and sullen, still bellied their way across the sky. The rain would arrive soon, curtains of it, each one swaying dull and cold behind the other.

  A memory came to him then, a summer afternoon riding with Clara, a storm coming up, the two of them too far from town to make it back before the shower hit, but racing for it all the same, Clara laughing with excitement, her brown hair flung behind her like a banner. The downpour starting cold and shivery, fat round raindrops hard as pebbles slapping at his thighs, the smells of earth and grass suddenly draped across the cooling air, and he and Clara making a final sprint for an empty barn in a huddle of trembling pines. And there, standing in the opened doorway, both of them dripping wet, the horses softly shuffling in the shadows, they had come together, mouth to mouth, hip to hip, the clean smell of Clara’s soap mingling with the sweet barn smell of hay, and right there, Clara’s back arched against the pinewood jamb, they had taken each other.

  Grigsby swallowed, sucked a quick staggered breath into a chest abruptly too tight. It still surprised him, the pain, by how swiftly it could sneak up on him, and how real it was, how physical, as though some great gray claw had lurched between his ribs and ripped away his living heart.

  Even a storm could bring the pain. Almost anything could. They had so long been together, he and Clara, or maybe so intensely together, that everything in the world had been touched and shared by the two of them. They had left, the two of them, their imprints on everything. And now, in those hollows, a kind of poison had welled up, as bitter as acid, and the world had become a precarious place, crowded with dangers. A snatch of music. A child’s laugh. A flicker of rose in the sunshine. A rainstorm. Almost everything he saw, or heard, or smelled, was tainted now.

  He stepped over to the desk, lifted the glass of bourbon and finished it off. Setting it back down on the desktop, he heard footsteps in the anteroom. He turned. Carver, as usual, had left the door open.

  A thin man walked into the office, holding himself as upright as if he wore a corset somewhere beneath his gray suit and topcoat. His bristly white hair was so short that the pink scalp shone through it. He looked at Grigsby, nodded stiffly, and said, “You are Marshal Grigsby?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wolfgang von Hesse. Mr. Vail suggested to me that I see you.”

  “Well now, Colonel,” said Grigsby, sitting back in his chair. “That’s a mighty fine story. I’ve always been a sucker for stories about graveyards and storms and such. But I’ll tell ya, that corporal of yours, it doesn’t surprise me none that he tried to claim he was innocent. Just about every lowlife I ever met tried to tell me the same thing. I know of a fella, Jake Lindstrum, five different people saw him gun down his partner in broad daylight, and he was still claimin’ he didn’t know a thing about it when he got hung. Prob’ly believed it himself by then.”

  “Ach, yes, of course,” said von Hesse. “But I speak here of something quite different, Marshal. Consciously, this corporal would never have done what he did.”

  “Crazy people do crazy things,” Grigsby said. “That’s what makes ’em crazy.”

  Sitting across the desk from Grigsby, his back very straight, von Hesse had given him a precisely detailed account of his activities last night. Dinner with Wilde and the Countess from nine-thirty to eleven. Escorting the Countess to her room at eleven-ten. A single drink—a brandy—in the hotel bar, which he finished by eleven thirty-five. Reading in bed until twelve-thirty. Asleep by quarter to one.

  While von Hesse talked, Grigsby had tried to picture the man wielding a knife over the body of Molly Woods, cutting and slicing. He hadn’t been able to. But he hadn’t been able to picture any of the others doing it, either. Even though he’d seen the results with his own eyes, he still couldn’t picture anyone doing that.

  And now von Hesse was trying to sell Grigsby on an idea that made no sense at all.

  “There are many forms of madness,” said von Hesse.

  And this was one of them, Grigsby thought. “So what you’re tellin’ me here,” he said, “is that any one of these people could be the killer, and not even know about it.”

  “Yes, exactly,” said von Hesse, and nodded. He looked toward the bottle and the glass, full once again, on Grigsby’s desk. “Marshal, I see that you are a man who enjoys the occasional drink.”

  Grigsby looked at glass and bottle, smiled bleakly. “I been known to indulge.”

  “Have you ever, in the course of an evening, perhaps lost a few moments of time? I mean to say, have you ever, on the following day, been unable to recall certain events of the night before?”

  Grigsby nodded. “Once or twice.”

  “But yet, during the time lost to you, you moved about, you spoke, you acted and reacted.”

  Grigsby shrugged. “Never killed no one.”

  “But still, in a sense, during that period your conscious self was somehow absent. In a sense, another part of you had taken over.”

  Yeah, Grigsby thought. My pecker.

  He said, “So you think this fella’s a big drinker.” Like O’Conner.

  “Ah,” said von Hesse, sitting back. “I mention the drinking as an example only. Perhaps alcohol would have this effect, perhaps it would not. The corporal I spoke of, he drank nothing at all.”

  “So you could be this guy yourself. And not know it.” Was this some crazy kind of confession? Was von Hesse the killer, and maybe playing with him?

  “Exactly. If I were he, I would have no recollection whatever of committing these crimes.”

  “Which’d mean,” Grigsby said, “that you’d be innocent in a way, that right?”

  “In a sense, yes. But I believe, you see, that in a sense we are all innocent.”

  “Yeah. Well, Colonel, I been around too long to buy that. There are some folks in the world that’re just plain evil, pure and simple. They got something missin’, a conscience or whatever, and hurtin’ other people don’t mean a thing to them. Some of them e
ven like it. This bastard that killed those women, way I read him, he’s one of the ones that like it.”

  “But evil, I think, is a kind of ignorance.”

  “I don’t give a damn what it is, tell you the truth. All I care about is stoppin’ it. Now this corporal you’re talkin’ about, what happened to him?”

  Von Hesse pressed his lips briefly together. “I recommended that he be hospitalized. My recommendation was ignored. He was executed.”

  “Well,” said Grigsby, and shrugged, “there you go.”

  “Justice in this world is imperfect, Marshal Grigsby.”

  “Maybe so. But at least that fella wasn’t out there diggin’ up no more graves.” Grigsby shifted in his chair. “But okay. Let’s say you’re right. Let’s say one of the others is crazy the way you’re talkin’ about. Which one you figure it is?”

  Von Hesse smiled a small prim smile. “But this is exactly my point, you see. There would be no way of my knowing. Outwardly, this man would appear perfectly normal.”

  Grigsby nodded. “Uh-huh. So try it the other way. Say this bastard knows exactly what he’s doin’. All the time. So then who would you say it is?”

  “I would say, then, that it was none of them.”

  “Way I figure it,” Grigsby said, “it’s gotta be one of them.” And maybe you, scout.

  “I am inclined to agree. That the murders were committed in each of the towns we visited makes this seem likely. But none of these men has at any time evinced any behavior that suggests his guilt. It is precisely this, you see, which leads me to believe that he may himself be unaware of it.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, Mr. von Hesse, I appreciate you comin’ by and talkin’ to me. I’ll surely bear in mind what you say.”

  Von Hesse smiled. “And I thank you for your patience, Marshal, in listening to me.”

  The rain had started. It drummed steadily along the window, rattled occasionally against the glass like a handful of thrown stones. Now and then, muffled by distance, far-off thunder boomed and rumbled. Grigsby had lighted the oil lamp and, ankles crossed, bootheels on the desktop, the glass of bourbon perched atop his stomach, he sat back in his chair and considered.

  Wilde? O’Conner? Vail? Von Hesse?

  He couldn’t buy von Hesse’s theory. Okay, you drink too much, you black out, you maybe act like a born fool (you grab Brenda from the saloon and drag her home). But you don’t spend hours cutting a prostitute into careful bloody strips. You don’t hang pieces of her from the mirror, from the dresser. That took an act of deliberate will. A completely crazy will, for sure, but a will. And enough physical strength and enough coordination to carry it out.

  So how come von Hesse wanted him to buy the story? He was blowing smoke, maybe. Trying to confuse the issue.

  Only reason to do that was if he was the killer.

  But he really seemed to believe all that shit. And he even admitted that if he was right, he could’ve been the killer himself.

  More smoke? Trying to flimflam the bonehead country marshal?

  Just then, Grigsby heard a commotion out in the anteroom, beyond the closed door. He heard Carver’s voice rising almost to a squeak as it called out, “You can’t do that!” and then another voice, gruff and deep, bellowing, “Out of my way, you fool.”

  Grigsby recognized the second voice as Greaves’s. He frowned and remained where he was.

  The door swung open, smacked against the doorstop, bounced back. Greaves slammed at it with his open palm and strode into the room. Behind him, Harlan Brubaker held his splayed hands to Carver’s narrow chest, preventing the deputy from moving forward. Carver’s face was red and his mouth was twisted in frustration.

  Greaves stopped, still looking sleek and prosperous in his fur-lined overcoat, and he smiled broadly, theatrically, at Grigsby. “Well, my friend,” he said, “you really fucked up this time.”

  Carver said, “Marshal, I told ’em you were busy, they couldn’t come in, but they—”

  “S’okay, Carver,” Grigsby said. He took a swallow of bourbon. “Greaves, you tell your boy there to let go my deputy.”

  Greaves laughed, a deep booming baritone. He turned to Brubaker and nodded. Brubaker stood back away from Carver and put his hands in his topcoat pockets. Carver adjusted his black wool vest and then, glaring at Brubaker, elaborately brushed it off with his fingers. Brubaker smirked.

  Grigsby said, “Go get some coffee, Carver.”

  Carver glanced at Brubaker, at Greaves, back to Grigsby. “You sure, Marshal?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Frowning, Carver glanced again at the other two men, and then turned and walked away.

  Grigsby looked at Greaves. “You got somethin’ to say to me?”

  Greaves grinned. “I’ve already said it. You fucked up.”

  “That right?”

  “I told you to stay away from the Molly Woods killing. I told you, I reminded you, that you don’t have any jurisdiction over a municipal homicide. I made that very clear this morning. Imagine how surprised I was when I found out, a few hours ago, that you’ve been snooping around, asking questions, disturbing people, sticking your fat nose in places where it doesn’t belong. So I went and had a long conversation with Judge Sheldon. I have to tell you that the judge was shocked.”

  Grigsby smiled. The only time Sheldon ever got shocked was when someone forgot to slip him a bribe.

  “But he agreed with me,” Greaves said, “that this meddling of yours has got to be stopped.” He reached into the inside pocket of his topcoat, came out with a folded sheet of paper. “This is an injunction ordering you to to cease and desist your interference in the Molly Woods investigation.” He tossed it onto Grigsby’s desk. “And I think it only fair to tell you that Judge Sheldon has sent a telegram to Washington, demanding your immediate recall.”

  Poor Mort would be earning his keep today. “Sheldon tried that once,” Grigsby said. He shrugged. “Didn’t get him very far.”

  Greaves grinned again. “Like I say, Grigsby, times have changed. Even at the attorney general’s office. Your friend Dan-ner is out. And by tomorrow, you’ll be out too. Just another saddle tramp.” Still grinning, he added, “I’m going to enjoy that.”

  Grigsby nodded. “Fella’s got to take his pleasure where he finds it.”

  Greaves smiled. “You know, Grigsby, the sad thing is, it never had to come to this. I’m a reasonable man—I told you that a long time ago. We could’ve worked together. We could’ve cooperated. But no, not you. You chose to go your own way. And after all this time, you still haven’t learned that your way, the old way, is finished now. Forever. You’re like one of those big lizards they dig out of the ground, so old they’ve turned into stone. And the pitiful thing is, you don’t even know it. In a way, it’s a real.tragedy.”

  Grigsby smiled. “You want to borrow a hanky?”

  Greaves grinned at him. “I’ve always admired your spirit.” He turned to Brubaker. “Haven’t I, Harlan? Haven’t I always said so?”

  Brubaker smirked. “Sure.”

  “But the fact is,” said Greaves, “you’re washed up. Look at you. You’re a pathetic old drunk. A lush. A rummy. No good to anybody, not even yourself. No wonder you couldn’t hold on to that pretty young wife of yours. No wonder she took your brats and ran off to California.”

  Behind Greaves, Brubaker snorted.

  Greaves grinned. “And now, old man, you don’t have anything. Not a wife, not kids, not even a job. Not anything at all. In six months time you’ll be scrounging drinks in the nigger saloons.”

  Grigsby nodded. “Prob’ly. But I reckon you’ll be wantin’ the information on the other hookers.” He swung his legs off the desk and stood up.

  Greaves frowned. “What information?”

  “About the other hookers. In all those other cities. Maybe you can make somethin’ out of it. I surely can’t.”

  Greaves was watching him, his eyes wary. Grigsby walked over to the file cabinet, opened the top drawer,
took out a sheath of papers. Holding them in his left hand, he turned and offered them to Greaves. As Greaves stepped forward, Grigsby dropped the papers and hit Greaves as hard as he could along the side of the jaw. Greaves went flying toward the wall, arms opening wide, and Grigsby turned to Brubaker.

  Brubaker was going for his holster, a cross-draw rig on his left hip, below his overcoat. Grigsby took a step and grabbed Brubaker’s wrist and squeezed. Brubaker’s eyes winced narrow and then they closed completely and his mouth opened wide in a silent scream with his teeth showing and his lips white. Grigsby squeezed some more and Brubaker dropped to his knees. Grigsby brought up his own knee into Brubaker’s face.

  Brubaker banged back against the doorjamb and Grigsby turned again to Greaves. The chief of police was coming off the wall now and his hand was moving toward his gun, another cross-draw rig, and Grigsby took a step toward him and smiled. His own gun was hanging on the coat rack in the anteroom. He knew there was no way to get to Greaves before Greaves had the gun out, but he didn’t much care because he also knew that no matter how many bullets Greaves put into him he was going to kill the man. “Yeah,” he said. “Do it.”

  Greaves jerked his hand away from the holster and held it up, palm outward. “Hold on, Grigsby. You listen to me.”

  “No,” Grigsby said. “I already did that. Maybe I’ll be marshal tomorrow and maybe I won’t, but I’m still marshal today and you’re in my office and I don’t want you here. Get out. And wipe up that gob of spit on the way.” He nodded toward Brubaker, still slumped in the doorway.

  Greaves opened his mouth to speak and Grigsby shook his head. “Out,” he said.

  Greaves pulled himself fully upright and tugged once at the lapels of his overcoat, settling the coat back over his broad shoulders. He walked around Grigsby and over to Brubaker. He kicked him lightly on the hip. “Harlan.”

  Brubaker groaned. Greaves bent forward and took Brubaker under the arms and levered him to his feet.

  His left arm supporting Brubaker, he looked back at Grigsby. “Tomorrow,” he said.