Let It Bleed

by J. R. Roberts

  “Maybe.”

  “Don’t worry,” Clint said. “I’ll be back.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Just to talk to some people.”

  “Come,” Tanner said, “I’ll show you where you can work.”

  Clint watched as the editor and Temple went farther into the building, then he turned and left.

  * * *

  As Clint Adams left the newspaper office, the two policemen, Dillon and Benson, got into an argument.

  Dillon said since he was older, he’d take the Gunsmith, and Benson could stay and watch the newspaperman.

  On the other hand, Benson said since he had been with the police department longer, he should follow the Gunsmith, and Dillon should stay with the newspaperman.

  In the end they almost lost Clint, but after a quick flip of a coin, Benson took off after him while a morose Dillon stayed to watch out for Temple.

  * * *

  Clint hadn’t told Temple, but he had another friend in Abilene, not only Abe Corman. He walked down Main Street and stopped in front of a dress shop called Mathilda’s. He looked in the window, saw that there were no customers inside. He opened the door and entered.

  He was on his way to interview the local sheriff, whom he’d met briefly when he first came to Abilene. It was his policy to check in with the local law whenever he arrived in a new place, and it was his experience that Western towns that had adopted Eastern police methods and departments usually had a resentful sheriff. That lawman often had information about the police, and the town politicians, that he didn’t mind sharing. Information that was not particularly complimentary. This was the kind of information Clint wanted. But since he had to pass the dress shop first—and there were no customers—he decided to stop in.

  “Well,” the girl behind the counter said, “you don’t look like my usual customer.”

  “You do sell dresses here, don’t you?” he asked.

  “We do.”

  She was tall, full-breasted, her face dominated by high cheekbones and huge eyes. When she smiled, she was transformed from pretty into a full beauty. If she had been a saloon girl, men would be fighting over her every night. In fact, Clint would have liked to see her in a low-cut gown, with some makeup on her face. He knew saloon girls who would have killed for her face and figure.

  He could stop in to see the sheriff a bit later. After all, he’d already met the man and knew that, more than likely, he’d find him in his office no matter when he went there.

  “But I doubt that you’re looking for a dress,” she said, putting her hands on her hips.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because a man like you would have no need for a dress,” she said.

  “What if I had a wife?”

  She laughed. “A man like you has no need for a wife!”

  “You seem pretty sure of yourself,” he said, approaching the counter.

  “I’m very sure.”

  “You’re very confident.”

  She raised her chin. “Shouldn’t I be?”

  “Maybe not.”

  He reached over the counter to grab her and pull her across. He gathered her into his arms and kissed her. Her mouth became soft and pliant beneath his.

  “Clint,” she said, gasping, “one of my customers could come walking in here any minute.”

  “Then maybe I should lock the door,” he said with his mouth against her neck. The smell of her was intoxicating.

  He kissed her again, and this time her mouth was aggressive rather than compliant. When they broke, they were both breathless from it.

  “To hell with the door,” she gasped. “Just take me into the back room and fuck me!”

  FIFTEEN

  He half dragged, half carried her into the back storage room.

  She was wearing a simple cotton dress, so when they got into the back room, he simply tore it off her—after all, she had plenty of dresses there to replace it with.

  When he had her naked, he carried her to a pile of cloth bolts and laid her down on them.

  “Hey!” she protested. “You know my customers are going to want to make dresses from this cloth.”

  “And they’ll be very special dresses,” he told her.

  She laughed and watched, languishing naked on the bed of cloth, while he removed his gun belt, set it aside within easy reach, and then took off the rest of his clothes. She always caught her breath when his erect penis—the most beautiful she had ever seen—came into view.

  “Come here,” she said, reaching out to grasp him by the cock and pull him to her.

  He climbed on top of her and began to kiss her face, her neck, her shoulders. She shivered as he worked his way lower. He had to slide off the cloth bolt bed in order to get down between her legs. She lifted them for him, spread them, and curled her toes as his tongue went to work on her.

  “Oh God,” she called out, “I hope nobody comes in . . . maybe we should have locked the door . . . oh, do that, yeah . . . do that some more . . . right there . . .”

  She was very aggressive in her lovemaking, which Clint liked, but she also had a habit of talking during sex. This may have only been the third time they were together, but this was clearly the trend.

  “Oh, yes!”

  * * *

  In the offices of the Abilene Reporter-News, Temple was sitting at a typewriter for the first time in months. And for the first time in two years he was writing about Mulligan—or whatever the killer was calling himself these days.

  “How’s it coming?” Tanner asked from behind him.

  Temple turned, looked at his new editor standing in the doorway of his shoebox office.

  “I am getting comfortable with it again.”

  “The typewriter?”

  “Writing.”

  “May I?”

  “Have a look? Sure.”

  Tanner came up to the desk and read over Temple’s shoulder.

  “Well,” he said, “I can see you haven’t lost your touch. Just from what I see here, I think the chief of police is not going to be very happy with you.”

  “I didn’t think my job was to keep the chief happy,” Temple said.

  “It’s not.”

  “You’re not afraid of him coming after your newspaper?” Temple asked.

  “I wish he would,” Tanner said. “It would be great publicity.”

  “So I should keep going.”

  “You should definitely keep going.”

  * * *

  “Keep going!” Mattie yelled. “Keep going!”

  Clint had climbed back on top of Mathilda on the cloth bed and driven his raging cock into her. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and as he pummeled her, she began to shout, “Keep going!” As if he were planning to stop. In fact, he couldn’t have stopped if a gaggle of women had just entered the dress shop.

  Then they heard the bell over the front door tinkle.

  SIXTEEN

  “Ladies!” Mathilda said, coming out of the back room, smoothing her hair down, trying to control her breathing. “How nice to see you.”

  The three middle-aged women turned and smiled at her.

  “We didn’t think you were here, Mathilda,” one of them said.

  “I was just . . . in the back room, doing some work.”

  “Are you all right, my dear?” one of the others asked. “You look . . . flushed.”

  Mattie put her hand to her breast and said, “I was just . . . moving some heavy boxes.”

  “You need a man around here to do that for you, my girl,” the third woman said.

  “And for other things,” the first one said, and the three of them tittered.

  “You’re right, of course,” she said. “I do need a man around here.” She moved around behind the counter and asked. “What can I g
et for you ladies?”

  * * *

  Clint barely had his pants on when he snuck out the back door. He strapped on his gun belt and walked down the alley on rubbery legs. When he reached the street, he headed in the direction of the sheriff’s office. He resisted the urge to look in the window of the dress shop again.

  * * *

  Clint knocked on the door of the sheriff’s office and entered. The lawman was seated behind his desk, seemingly in the same position he was when Clint checked in with him the first day he came to town.

  “Adams,” the lawman said. “I heard you were havin’ yourself a good time playin’ poker. Must be true, since you’re still here.”

  “Do you ever leave your office, Sheriff?”

  Sheriff Milt Evans laughed shortly, but with no humor, and said, “What for? They’ve got their new police department. What do they need me for?”

  “Well,” Clint said, “I need you to answer a few questions. Mind if I sit?”

  “Be my guest. Drink?” There was a bottle and a coffee cup on the desk. The older man’s hand shook as he reached for the bottle. His scalp gleamed pink through what was left of his white hair.

  “No, thanks.”

  Evans arrested his movement and left the bottle where it was.

  “Okay, then,” he said, “what can I do for you?”

  “Seems to me if anyone can tell me about the chief of police, it’s you,” Clint said.

  “And why is that?”

  “Because the town hiring him has turned you into . . . well, this.”

  Evans sat back in his chair.

  “You know, that doesn’t insult me.”

  “I wasn’t trying to insult you.”

  “Chief Landry . . . are you involved with him?”

  “I am,” Clint said. “A friend of mine and I are working on the murder of Laurie Wilson with him.”

  “Oh, that.”

  “What do you know about that?”

  “I know I tried to get involved and was invited to stay out of it.”

  “By who? The chief?”

  “And the mayor.”

  “I see.”

  “So yeah, if you want some information on our chief, and our mayor, I’m your man. And if you’re gonna catch that killer, I want to be part of it.”

  Clint looked at the whiskey bottle on the desk. Evans saw where his eyes went, took the bottle off the desk, and put it in a drawer.

  “Okay then,” Clint said, “fill me in.”

  * * *

  When Clint left the sheriff’s office a half hour later, he knew more about Chief Landry and Mayor Stanley then he ever thought he would. He also knew more about the district attorney, Ned Beaumont. All he had to do now was relay the information to Temple.

  They also had another ally in Sheriff Evans, maybe an ally they could trust more than Chief Landry. He still wasn’t sure about Detective Stokes. Evans wasn’t able to help much with him. He didn’t know the man.

  Clint returned the way he had come, bypassed the dress shop, and made his way back to the newspaper office.

  SEVENTEEN

  When he walked in, he found the place quiet. The printing press was lying dormant for the moment. Somewhere from the back, though, he could hear a typewriter, and he followed the sound.

  First he came to Tanner’s office. The man swiveled around in his chair.

  “He’s farther back,” he told Clint. “Just follow the sound down the hall.”

  He did that and came to a room no bigger than a closet. Harry Temple was sitting at a typewriter, oblivious to anything but the paper he was writing on.

  “Looks like you got right back into it,” Clint said.

  Temple swiveled around on a creaky chair and smiled, holding his hands and wriggling his fingers.

  “Like I never left,” he said.

  “You almost done with that?” Clint asked.

  “Close. You got news?”

  “I’ve got information,” Clint said. “Thought we’d go get some coffee and talk about it.”

  “Coffee?” Temple asked. “Not beer?”

  Clint looked at him as if he was crazy and said, “A little early for beer, isn’t it?”

  * * *

  Temple finished his story while Clint waited, then they went down the hall together and he handed it to Tanner.

  “Do whatever you think needs to be done to it,” he said. “I may be a bit rusty.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine,” Tanner said. “It’ll be in tomorrow’s early edition.”

  “I’ll be back,” Temple said. “We can talk about what else I can do around here.”

  “Good enough,” Tanner said.

  He was already back at work as they went out the front door.

  * * *

  Abilene was big enough to have several of everything—saloons, hotels, restaurants, and cafés. Clint found a café he hadn’t been to yet, and they went in and got a table. They ordered coffee and pie from a bored waiter. Either the place didn’t do a lively business, or they were waiting for the next rush.

  “What have you got?” Temple asked.

  “I had a talk with the sheriff,” Clint said. “He’s not a big supporter of the local police, or administration.”

  “I thought you didn’t have much use for him,” Temple said. It was one of the things they’d discussed over a beer.

  “I didn’t, but I’ve changed my mind. He’s just upset about being edged out as the main law in town, so he did his research into his replacements.”

  “And?”

  “He doesn’t know much about Stokes, but apparently Chief Landry had been fired from his last three jobs—one back East, and two as he moved west.”

  “Why?”

  “The most Sheriff Evans could find out was something about incompetence.”

  “He strike you as incompetent?”

  “No,” Clint said.

  “But if that’s his reputation, why would he be hired?” Temple asked.

  “Again, according to the sheriff, Landry and Mayor Stanley are old friends.”

  “Ahh . . .”

  “As for Mayor Stanley,” Clint went on, “he’s a frustrated politician who likely won’t move much further in his career than he is now.”

  “And Beaumont?”

  “Evans doesn’t know much about the district attorney,” Clint said. “Just that he’s a lawyer Stanley moved into the position after the previous district attorney died.”

  “Died?”

  “Natural causes.”

  “So no foul play there.”

  “No.”

  “Hmm.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Well, since I’m going to be here,” Temple said, “maybe I should do a story on the present administration. You think the sheriff would talk to me?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “On the record?”

  “That you’d have to ask him.”

  Temple considered that for a moment, making circles on the table with his coffee cup.

  “Maybe I will,” he said thoughtfully.

  “You know, you really don’t have to do anything else,” Clint said. “That story of yours will either do the job tomorrow, or it won’t.”

  “Well,” Temple said with a shrug, “like I said, since I’m here.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Temple decided to go and talk to the sheriff right away. Clint went with him to watch his back on the street, but remained outside while Temple went in.

  Clint wasn’t sure why Temple wanted to attack the Abilene mayor and the chief of police. He was going to have enough trouble when his article about the murder came out the next day.

  On the one hand, it could make the killer go after him. But on the other, it could have the same effec
t his article in Boston had, and make the killer run.

  There was a difference this time, though. Temple was ready if the killer ran—this time he had Clint to help him track him properly.

  But there was another possibility, and that was that the killer was already gone, having been satisfied with the one murder.

  There was a chair outside the sheriff’s office, which Clint put to good use. After about a half hour, Harry Temple came back out, tucking some notes into his shirt pocket.

  Clint stood and asked, “Get anything good?”

  “Abilene,” Temple said, “may turn out to be fun.”

  * * *

  Temple decided to return to the newspaper office and work on his next story. Clint walked him back to the front door, and stopped there.

  “I’ll be safe here,” Temple said.

  “Yeah, you will,” Clint said, “especially since you’ve got a policeman watching you. We both do.”

  “What? Where?”

  “Don’t look around,” Clint said. “Act natural. Right now they’re both across the street, but when you go inside and I walk away, one of them will follow me.”

  “How long have they been there?”

  “Since we left the police building.”

  “So the chief . . .”

  Clint nodded. “He’s having us followed.”

  “Followed, or guarded?” Temple asked.

  “Might be the same thing,” Clint said. “When you come back to the hotel, don’t look around. Don’t let him know you know he’s there.”

  “I won’t.”

  “If I can,” Clint said, “I’ll walk you back myself.”

  “I have a gun.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask you about that,” Clint said. “Can you shoot that thing?”

  “All you’ve got to do is pull the trigger, right?”

  “Have you ever done it?”

  “Sure.”

  “To shoot at what?”

  “Bottle, cans . . . trees.”

  “A man?”

  Temple hesitated, then said, “N-No, I’ve never shot at a man.”