Edge: Slaughter Road (Edge series Book 22)

by George G. Gilman

The lobby was caught in the same atmosphere after Spade’s footfalls had ceased to resound between the walls.

  ‘Once!’ the auctioneer croaked, and banged his gavel. ‘One million from Mr. Drew Grover of New Orleans. One million for the second time.’ The gavel head hit the lectern again.

  Spade glanced fearfully back over his shoulder. He saw that the half-breed’s lean features had returned to their normal repose of impassiveness and that the hooded eyes were no longer glinting slits. Edge had canted the Winchester to his shoulder and his other arm had curled under the saddle and bedroll. He rose smoothly to his feet.

  ‘Three times!’ A final thud of the gavel brought the sale to an end.

  Disbelief that a man would pay so much for a single work of art continued to hold the packed ballroom in silence.

  Edge curled back his thin lips to show his teeth in an expression somewhere between a grin and a snarl.

  ‘No hard feelin’s, uh?’ Spade asked thickly. ‘I’m right, ain’t I?’

  A thunder of applause exploded in the ballroom, hand-clapping, cheers and yells vibrating the stifling air and billowing the blue haze of cigar smoke out into the lobby.

  ‘Obliged, feller,’ the half-breed muttered, the softly spoken word of thanks buried under the weight of other sound.

  He spoke through his clenched teeth, so that Spade did not even have a chance to lip-read. But the detective accepted the half-breed’s expression as a grin and smiled in acknowledgement. Then he pushed into the ballroom, against the tide of fast-chattering people who started to throng out.

  Edge was halfway across the lobby by then, heading for the arched doorway on to the enclosed Grand Court of the hotel.

  ‘Goodbye, sir!’ the bespectacled desk clerk called. ‘And good luck to you!’

  The half-breed would have heard the desk clerk had he not been so preoccupied. But he did not, and the clerk scowled towards the departing guest as Edge ambled through the double doors, one of them held open for him by a liveried attendant. Then the clerk breathed a sigh of relief and mopped at his face with a coat sleeve.

  ‘He doesn’t seem like the same man who stayed here all week, does he?’ another, younger clerk said.

  ‘He’s not,’ came the pensive response. ‘I think he is now the man he was before he came here.’

  The younger man blinked, then shrugged. That’s too deep for me.’

  ‘Mr. Edge is a very deep man.’ A shake of the head. ‘And I think we may thank our lucky stars that we do not have to try to understand him.’

  The half-breed did not understand himself as he moved across the Grand Court, zigzagging between the surreys and buggies, gigs and phaetons, buckboards and shays. The smartly uniformed drivers and footmen - awaiting the orders of their rich employers - eyed the shabbily dressed figure with mild interest. They came to the rich quarters of San Francisco only when ordered to by the men and women they worked for. When they were off-duty they haunted the bars, melodeons and dancehalls of the Barbary Coast, Telegraph Hill, Devil’s Acre and other less elegant areas of the city. The places where men such as Edge - rootless drifters across the continent or aimless voyagers of the oceans - were the rule rather than the exception.

  So they watched his progress across the Grand Court and out on to the sun bright street merely for something to do to break the monotony of waiting. If any thought it odd that such a man should leave the hotel by the main entrance, none commented on it. And none looked hard enough at the easily moving half-breed to realize that he might be as different from the customers in the downtown saloons as he was from the wealthy patrons of the Palace Hotel.

  Edge was aware that he was being watched, but knew he could afford to ignore the dull-eyed gazes which followed his route. During the entire seven days he had been in the city - save only for the ‘lost’ period in last night’s card game - his highly developed sixth sense for such things had worked as smoothly as ever. Warning him when he was under open or covert surveillance and, even more important, keeping him informed of the mood of those who watched him. And never once in all that time had he sensed danger.

  Which was a long and, to him, a disturbing respite from the evils of the cruel fate which had ruled his destiny for so many years.

  ‘Hey, you! That man with the rifle!’ Edge was still deep in thought - a state of mind which was as out of character with his normal behavior as almost everything else he had done or said during the past seven days. He was almost at the ferry slips on the waterfront when the fringe-topped surrey and pair came to a jolting halt at the curb. There was a driver and footman on the front seat and a finely dressed couple of early middle age in the rear. It was the driver who had shouted and now he pointed his whip to confirm it was the half-breed he had singled out from the other people moving along the sidewalk. ‘Mr. Grover’d like a word with you, mister!’ Edge had halted at the same time as the surrey. His eyes, cracked almost closed against the harsh brightness of the California sunlight, raked briefly over the vehicle and its occupants, then roved across a broader field. He did not leave the Palace Hotel after he checked in, so most of the city was strange to him. But he instantly recognized his immediate surroundings, on the corner of Sacramento and Market Streets. His point of reference was a saloon on the other side of Market, called the Royal Flush.

  The poker game he had played in a back room of the place several years ago had been penny-ante compared with those that had engaged him during the past week. But it had been crooked and two men had been blasted into death by angry bullets: the card sharp and a rich kid who had no right to be in the saloon. Many men had died before and many afterwards. Almost always as violently. Edge recalled few of their names. But he could remember going to jail after the guns blazed in a back room of the Royal Flush.

  ‘You’re the man who asked Spade for a job, right?’ Drew Grover asked.

  Edge looked at him now, blotting out ancient memories with those from the more recent past. Grover was closing up on fifty. His build was bulky with a padding of fat that even his well-cut clothes could not conceal. He had a round, deeply tanned face with bulbous cheeks, a couple of double chins and eyes that looked dirty grey in comparison with his gleaming white hair. He was clean-shaven apart from over-long sideburns. His necktie was held neatly in place by a diamond-headed stickpin and there were more diamonds, set in gold, at his shirt cuffs.

  But his wife out-valued him with jewelry, wearing it around her neck, in her hair, at her ears, on the bodice of her dress and on her wrists and fingers. Diamonds, rubies and emeralds, but set in silver instead of gold.

  ‘You change his mind, feller?’

  Grover had been grim-faced from the outset. Now he snorted. ‘Men who want something from me better show some respect if they expect to get it, mister!’ he snarled.

  The half-breed could recall seeing the Grovers around the hotel over the past couple of days. Particularly Mrs. Grover, who had shown more than passing interest in him - while taking pains to make it appear that she was totally indifferent to him. She was about ten years younger than her husband and during the evening could look only in her mid-thirties. Now, despite the shade from the fringed canopy of the surrey, the heat and sunlight showed wrinkles at her throat and around her eyes which placed her on the wrong side of forty.

  But she was still a handsome woman with an oval-shaped face, the pale skin of which was blemished only by the lines of passing years. She had jet black hair, large green eyes and a full mouth. Under her white dress trimmed with black lace she probably wore the most stylish support garments her husband’s money could buy. They served their purpose to show a firm, slender figure, and the dress was expertly tailored to contour her body without displaying whatever aids to nature such a form required.

  She did not look at Edge now and instead stared directly ahead, her well-shaped nose attractively wrinkled against the malodorous hot air drifting in off the bay and across the waterfront piers and moored ships a few blocks north.

  ‘You ain’t
done a thing to earn any respect from me,’ Edge answered evenly.

  ‘You want me to teach this guy some manners, sir?’ the driver asked angrily, glowering at the half-breed.

  He was slightly shorter than Grover’s six feet but looked to weigh about the same - with little fat adding to the bulk.

  The footman, who was in the same early thirties age group, joined in directing a glower towards Edge.

  ‘No scene, please, Drew!’ Mrs. Grover implored. She picked up a fan from the seat and shook it frenetically in front of her face. Her voice had the same deep south drawl as that of Drew Grover. The controlled excitement which had sharpened their tones during the auction was now totally gone.

  ‘I’ll tell you what to do when I want it done, Fisk!’ Grover growled, his eyes flashing danger signals of his rising anger. Then, to Edge: ‘You’re flat broke, mister! Out of a job and a long way from wherever you call home, I’d say.’ He paused and snorted again, ‘Well?’

  ‘I’ve been better,’ Edge allowed.

  Grover sighed. ‘Do you want a job or don’t you?’

  Now Mrs. Grover glanced at the half-breed and her full lips parted to display very white and very even teeth in an encouraging smile. But it was visible for only a moment, before she hid her face behind the fan.

  ‘Doing what, feller?’

  ‘Addressing me as sir, for a start!’

  Edge worked some saliva into his mouth and spat noisily into the gutter beside a front wheel of the surrey. ‘Don’t sound like my kind of work.’

  Mrs. Grover gasped as her husband vented an animalistic snarl. As if the exclamation were orders, the driver and footman responded in perfect unison.

  The footman was the closest to Edge. He was shorter and leaner than Fisk - and the more dangerous. For as he lunged off the padded seat his right hand streaked towards his boot and the blade of a knife glinted in the sunlight while he was still in mid-air.

  ‘Don’t be crazy, Joe!’ Fisk yelled.

  His bulk made him slower than the footman and his shock at seeing the drawn knife delayed him another split second.

  So the half-breed could afford to ignore the driver in the first moments of the attack.

  He dropped his gear, turned sideways on to the lunging Joe and started the Winchester falling away from his shoulder. The screams of women and shouts of men were loud in his ears, masking the traffic noise of the busy street.

  Since the opening of the unfriendly conversation, people on the pavement had been giving the halted surrey a wide berth. Now, there was a clear area of six feet in three directions around Edge, as Joe roared an obscenity and hit the ground sure footed, brandishing the knife with strangely graceful gestures.

  ‘Joe, this ain’t Lookout Mountain!’ Fisk shrieked.

  He had halted his forward movement, pulling up short with one foot on the rim of the front wheel. He expressed horror as his eyes raked over the shocked and excited audience, then fixed their stare on the back of the bobbing and weaving Joe.

  ‘You apologize to Major Grover!’ Joe demanded, rage staining his face to near purple and cutting deep lines away from the corners of his trembling mouth. ‘Ain’t no one talks to Major Grover like that!’ Saliva spilled from his lips and seemed to remind him of the greater insult. ‘And you spit on his kindness, you sonofa—’

  ‘Hold your filthy tongue, Pearce!’ Grover bellowed. ‘Just do what you set out to!’

  Edge had the Winchester in a two-handed grip now, left fisted around the barrel, index finger of the right on the trigger and the other three fingers through the lever. The rifle was not cocked and there was no shell in the breech. Every muscle in his body was taut to react instantly. Fear was a tight ball in the pit of his stomach. His hooded eyes were brightly glinting slits of blue in the deep shade of his hat brim. They concentrated intently upon the enraged man with the knife, shifting up and down the length of the constantly moving form. Yet his face showed neither fear nor even interest and there was apparently a kind of careless nonchalance in his stance: until he heard Grover give approval of Pearce’s action, the words spoken in a tone that was almost lustful.

  ‘You want your boy dead, feller?’ he snarled, and pumped the action of the repeater: as he curled back his lips to show an evil grin and became rigid in a half crouch.

  ‘He means it, Mr. Grover!’ Fisk yelled frantically.

  ‘Drew!’ the woman implored.

  ‘Rifle against a knife?’ Joe Pearce taunted. And threw himself forward.

  The knife was in his right hand and he swung it in an upward roundhouse, starting from the waist level and going above his own shoulder height. His target was the side of Edge’s neck. The intent was probably to inflict a bad wound.

  The half-breed’s intention was more lethal. Pearce grinned in premature triumph as his left hand grasped the rifle barrel and it started to turn away from him under the pressure he exerted. The point of his knife plunged through the long hair at the side of Edge’s neck and came within a fraction of an inch of ripping into the leathery skin beneath.

  Over the shoulder of Pearce, Edge saw the faces of the Grovers and Fisk. The driver showed ashen-faced fear of the outcome. Drew Grover was quite literally drooling in anticipation. His wife’s eyes, peering over the top of her fan, expressed resigned sadness.

  Edge timed his actions to the finest degree. Caught between rage and the exhilaration of victory, Pearce began to relax too early. Edge leaned back from the knife as it changed direction from a thrust to a sideways slash. Pearce leaned forward to compensate and vented a grunt of doubt. The Winchester was jerked back, free of his grip. Then Edge powered down into a full crouch, and drove the rifle forward. The muzzle slammed into the centre of Pearce’s belly. The smaller man screamed his agony, the sound rushing out of his gaping mouth on a cushion of hot breath. He started to fold forward from the waist, dropping the knife and swinging both his hands towards the source of his pain.

  The half-breed squeezed a grunt of satisfaction through his clenched teeth, then went down on to his haunches. The shrieks and cheers from the half-circle of halted strollers rose to a crescendo pitch of shock and excitement.

  Edge glanced briefly at the surrey. Fisk was grimacing, as if he had actually felt the same degree of pain as Pearce. Grover’s look was changing from annoyance to admiration. His wife’s green eyes above the fan showed intense excitement.

  Pearce tried to back away. Edge pushed the rifle further forward, while angling the stock towards the sidewalk. Then he rose, whipping erect and thrusting the smaller man high into the air - as easily as if his victim had been a stunned jack rabbit pinned on the point of a bayonet.

  All this in less than three seconds after Pearce had begun to swing the knife towards Edge’s neck.

  Pearce screamed - fear replacing pain in his tormented mind. His body writhed against the blue sky and shafts of sunlight lanced from behind his flailing arms and kicking legs. His eyes pleaded for mercy as they clashed briefly with the brutally empty gaze directed at him from the upturned face below.

  The crowd sensed the presence of evil, like a chill capsule of space in the blisteringly hot air clamped over the city. Mouths continued to gape and the expressions on the faces of the watchers became frozen. But, for an instant, there was utter silence on the corner of Sacramento and Market.

  Then Edge squeezed the rifle trigger.

  The .44 shell blasted a hole in skin and tissue, then tunneled through the man’s intestines. The fabric of his tunic and shirt smelled briefly of burning. He felt the thud of impact. Then the bullet shattered his lower spine and exploded. The injured nerves tripped an enormous agony in his brain and forced the response of a new scream into his throat. But he was dead from massive shock before he could voice the sound. Blood fountained up from the gory hole at the small of his back. The deformed bullet went much higher before it began to fall.

  Renewed sound burst from the gaping mouths of the watchers. Edge snapped the rifle away from the body as Pearce
became limp. Then took a long, fast back stride to get clear of the tumbling form. More blood spurted briefly from both the entry and exit wounds as the corpse slammed to the concrete pavement.

  ‘He only had the knife!’ Fisk roared, wringing his hands as if in frustration that he had no weapon at all. ‘You didn’t have to kill him after he dropped—’

  ‘Like a picture being worth a million, feller,’ Edge muttered as the driver sprang down from the surrey. ‘Matter of opinion.’

  The danger had passed. Fisk had leapt off the vehicle simply to crouch beside the inert form of Pearce. Edge sloped the Winchester to his shoulder without pumping the action. Runs of the dead man’s blood trickled down the barrel from the muzzle - shiny in the sunlight. Mrs. Grover was fanning her sweat-sheened face vigorously again. Her tongue kept darting out to lick her lips, first the top one and then the lower. High excitement continued to glare in her big green eyes. The cones of her breasts rose and fell rapidly. She writhed her rump against the padded seat. Drew Grover was writing frantically in a small notebook. Edge stooped to curl an arm under his gear and hoist it up.

  The danger was passed, but evil continued to permeate tendrils of intangible ice through the hot air: its presence seeming somehow more palpable than the obvious fact of violent death. And the bystanders backed away, some whirling to retreat at a run.

  ‘Cold-blooded murder, that’s what it was!’ Fisk snarled, tears shining in his eyes as he looked up at the blank face of the tall, lean half-breed. ‘And I’ll see you hang for—’

  ‘If you get asked,’ Grover snarled, ‘you’ll tell it like it was - self-defense in a fair fight!’

  He tore a page from the notebook with an angry gesture, screwed it into a ball and arced it towards Edge. His aim was good and the note lodged in the crook of the half-breed’s arm where it was folded under the saddle. ‘Beat it, mister!’ he rasped, swinging his head to scour the street in all directions. ‘Before the law gets here.’

  Up and down Market and along the side streets which intersected it, witnesses were spreading the story of the shooting. There were no police uniforms in sight yet, but it was obvious this situation would not remain so for long.