by Jake Logan
“I asked him if he worked for the undertaker,” Slocum said. “I understand what he meant now when he said sometimes.” Pictures of the dead were often the only memory a family had of a small child who died or a patriarch who had lived far past the limits of mortal toil.
“Families are all he does since no outlaws ever come through here. There’s nothing much to steal, except maybe for the cattle rustling.”
“Is there a lot of that?” Slocum asked.
April shivered. Her lack of clothing wasn’t the reason for her sudden chill.
“They get caught and hung fast in these parts. That makes life a whole lot easier for Marshal Dunbar. All he has to do is sit on his fat ass and pay court to that hussy in the café.”
Slocum said nothing but considered this new tidbit. If Dunbar found out about him and Sara Beth Vincent, he would get tossed in the lockup so fast his head would spin. He wondered if Sara Beth encouraged the lawman, or if something more than a beefsteak on a plate in front of him was only a fantasy on the marshal’s part.
“Enough, enough,” Severigne said, clapping her hands. “You will do as Monsieur Molinari instructs, April.” Severigne pointed and two of the other girls hung up a sheet behind April for a background.
“Velvet would be better, but this will do,” Molinari mumbled as he worked to put plates into his camera and draw out metal slides. “Show us some leg. No, no, more of what the men come for. Yes, that’s it,” he said when April more lewdly exposed herself.
Slocum watched and helped, doing whatever Molinari told for more than two hours. Every girl working for Severigne had her picture taken many times, some almost chaste and others downright lewd. Slocum couldn’t figure out what Molinari saw in each, why he chose some poses for one woman and something completely different for another, so he asked.
Inside the parlor was brightly lit, making the windows into mirrors, but Slocum thought he saw movement outside once. Before he could go to investigate, Molinari demanded that he help him with another setup, moving the tripod about for a different angle. After he’d finished, Slocum went to the window, peered out, but saw nothing in the night. He returned to the side of the room, watching and waiting for Molinari to finish.
Molinari shrugged as he put the last of his plates into a special carrying case.
“It’s an artist’s eye, that’s all. Some of them look chaste, so I shoot them nasty. Others have the appearance of a slut, so I try to soften them and make them look like the girl next door. The idea is to entice by giving the viewer something that fights with his preconceived ideas.”
“This will make a good scrapbook,” Severigne said.
Molinari almost sneered when he said, “There will be no ‘scrapbook.’ This will be your catalog, your pictures for the discerning gentleman to choose from.”
Slocum got the idea. Rather than parading the girls in front of every cowboy who came into the brothel, Severigne could show the pictures and let the customer choose that way. Why give them a free look when they could pay for the real thing?
“Help me get my equipment loaded,” Molinari said to Slocum.
“Yes, yes, go with him if he wants you to help him at his studio in town. So, use him as you like, Andrew. He has a strong back,” Severigne said. She looked hard at Slocum, defying him to argue. He didn’t.
He carried the camera out this time, but Molinari refused to allow him to help with the slotted case holding the dozens of exposed photographic plates.
“I do not want to waste more time shooting them again,” Molinari said with some distaste.
Slocum climbed up onto the hard seat alongside Molinari, barely bracing himself before the photographer snapped the reins and got the team moving back to town.
“You in town much?” Slocum asked. “I’ve been here a few days but haven’t seen you around.”
“I spend a couple weeks a month touring the area. I make more than enough off these trips to live on, but small jobs like the one tonight furnish me with . . . luxuries.”
Molinari spoke grandly, as if this were a trip to see the crowned heads of Europe.
“Luxuries? You mean Severigne will let you have any of her girls?”
“No!” Molinari moved away from Slocum as if he had come down with the plague. “I would never sleep with any of them. I do not want to catch a disease. I refer to the finer things. A good wine, oysters, food you cannot usually find in a godforsaken hole like Clabber Crossing.”
“So you’ve done photographs like this before? You seemed to know what you wanted.”
“I know what look in the women that men seek,” Molinari said. “I made a great deal of money during the war selling such pictures to the troops.” He looked down his nose at Slocum. “To the Union troops. I would never sell such artwork to a rebel.”
Slocum was more curious than offended.
“How much would a picture sell for? To a soldier?”
“Ten dollars was my going rate. If I had a truly fine model, twenty dollars was not out of the question.”
Slocum let out a low whistle. That was a princely sum for a blue photograph. He wondered if Molinari would keep any prints for himself to sell. There were army forts peppered all over Wyoming and the men there would as likely appreciate a picture of a half-naked April as any soldier during the war. It got lonely out on the frontier.
“Yes,” Molinari said, “I am sure this seems like a huge sum to pay, but my work is excellent. Taking the photograph is only the first step. Developing the plates and printing them require as much, if not more, skill. A speck of dust in the wrong place will make a photograph unacceptable. If a splotch of my special developing acid lingers overlong on a plate, it will ruin an otherwise perfect shot. There is considerable art necessary to go along with the science of chemistry and physics involved in taking photographs.”
Molinari pulled back hard on the reins and brought the buckboard to a halt at the edge of town. Slocum had seen the building standing off by itself but had paid it no attention since it had seemed deserted.
“You need a sign advertising your business,” he said.
Molinari snorted in contempt.
“Those who can afford my work know I am here. Why bother drawing the riffraff who might want to gawk but not buy?”
“Why, indeed,” Slocum said dryly. Molinari paid no attention to the sarcasm.
“Get the equipment unloaded and place it in the rack inside to the right of the door. To the right now, nowhere else.” Molinari scooted the carrying case for the exposed plates out of the rear of the wagon and carried them as if he had an armload of nitroglycerin ready to explode. He set the case down, opened his office door, then moved the photographic plates inside. Slocum waited for him to put them wherever he intended before swinging through the door with the long-legged tripod and other equipment.
He saw the rack right away and carefully placed the equipment in it. While Molinari fussed with his precious plates, Slocum looked around the small room. Dozens of portraits hung on the walls. He recognized Clyde Clabber right away. On the opposite wall, as if this defined their relationship, he saw Martin Bray’s photograph—an engraved brass plate readable from across the room attested to the banker’s name. Both men had been posed identically with the same background. He found the combination revealing and wondered if Molinari had done it on purpose.
“You said you’d shot other women like you did Severigne’s girls tonight. You got a book of them I could look at?”
“No.” Molinari spoke coldly. His tone brooked no argument.
“You must have files around, and I won’t—”
“Leave. I have no more use for you.”
Slocum took that to mean several things, and he felt the same way about the photographer. He stepped out into the chilly night and looked down the dark road leading back to Severigne’s. There was nothing more for him to do there tonight. The photographic album had been shot and the ladies were probably enjoying a night without a never-ending stream of
men pouring into the house like ants at a picnic.
A smile came to his lips. He knew the restaurant would be closed at this time of night but maybe there was the chance of a late-night snack. Slocum went to see if Sara Beth might be able to help him with that hunger.
8
Slocum heard Severigne laughing. He moved through the kitchen and looked out into the dining room, where she sat with her coffee cup in both hands, leaning forward to listen to April. The conversation proceeded too low for him to overhear, but the madam found it greatly amusing. He went back to grab himself some food. He and Sara Beth had spent the night in the most delightful fashion and he had not returned to the brothel until almost four in the morning. With sunrise before six, he hadn’t been able to get much sleep and needed the coffee to wake up.
He had worked herds for long hours in his day and knew the tricks to staying awake. With a herd of cattle, a moment’s inattention could mean a stampede and men dying. Staying alert while working as a bouncer in a whorehouse wasn’t going to be as difficult.
“Slocum!” Severigne called out. He put down his coffee cup and went to the dining room.
“You have heard what April has to say?”
“Can’t say I did, but it wasn’t from lack of trying,” Slocum said.
Severigne laughed and said, “This is what I like about you, Slocum. You are honest.”
“I reckoned you saw me, so there wasn’t any point denying what I was doing.”
“Men lie. It is their nature. But you are more clever. You tell the truth and hope that we believe it is a lie. When you then lie, we will think it is the truth. Clever, clever. But this is not listening to all April has to tell. Once more, my dear, once more tell what you have heard in town.”
“From town, not in town,” April said. “I heard it from a bank teller.” She grinned widely. “Martin Bray is sure somebody has been stealing from him. He’s making life miserable for all his employees, but none of them will fess up to it.”
“He and the marshal are in bed together,” Slocum said.
“This is so? I had not heard,” Severigne said.
“No, no, John means they’re in cahoots. Everyone thinks that, but Bray is afraid to go to the marshal because he thinks he might be involved.”
“This is rich,” she said. “The banker’s pet lawman is helping someone steal from him.”
“It gets better,” April said. She looked straight at Slocum and said, “He wants you to work for him.”
Slocum was a few hours short on sleep and wasn’t sure he heard her right. He asked her to repeat what she’d just said, and he heard it the same way.
“I don’t get that. You’re saying Bray wants me to find who’s stealing him blind?”
“That’s what the teller overheard. Bray and his lawyer were arguing, and Bray thought you’d be perfect since everybody in town knows you don’t cotton much to the marshal—and he doesn’t like you.”
“This would mean you and the marshal are not partners,” Severigne said.
Slocum laughed at this and shook his head. He’d sooner see the marshal in hell than be considered his partner. The longer he stayed in Clabber Crossing, the crazier it got. If Dunbar got wind of Slocum spending time with Sara Beth, that would probably win him another night in jail since she said Dunbar was sweet on her. If Marshal Dunbar thought Bray had hired him to stop embezzling at the bank—and that the banker thought the marshal was part of it—that would warrant a bullet in the back.
“I’m not getting mixed up in this,” Slocum said. “If one doesn’t gun me down, the other will.”
“You work for me, Slocum,” Severigne said, “and you will do this thing for Bray.” She duplicated her donkey sound, then laughed uproariously.
“You’re joking,” Slocum said, but he had the gut feeling she wasn’t. “What do you expect to get out of siccing me on Bray?”
“Information. I want to know every little secret Bray is hiding. I would use this against him. He denies me a loan! I will ruin him!”
“You and Clabber? Did Clabber tell you to do this?”
“Clabber is not to know. Keep this between you and me. Between us,” Severigne said, looking hard at April. The other woman tried to look innocent and failed. April hadn’t been innocent in ten years.
“What’s it worth to you?” Slocum asked. “This could be dangerous.”
“You are no stranger to this danger,” Severigne said. A tiny smile danced on her lips. “You owe me two months.”
“Six weeks,” Slocum said. “I’ve already put in two weeks.”
“I will give you back the month for bail money,” Severigne said. “Wait! No argument. Accept it or not.”
Slocum knew it was loco but something appealed to him about this, and he wasn’t going to pass up the chance to win back four weeks of his servitude.
“Done.”
“You will not slack off your work here. This is in addition,” Severigne said. “The town will be readying for the rodeo, and so must we.”
“That’s why you wanted the catalog of the girls,” Slocum said. Things fell into place now. Severigne wanted to streamline the process of moving men through her house when the cowboys all crowded into town in a couple of weeks.
“You do not concern yourself with my business or that of this house.”
“Might be I’d have to poke around the bank after hours,” he said, thinking that Sara Beth need not be lonely on those nights. “Scouting for a trail can’t be predicted, and there’s no telling where it might take me.”
Severigne looked hard at him, then agreed. From her suspicious expression, she knew Slocum had some action going on in town that had nothing to do with either the bank or the marshal. Finding Bray’s secrets and using them against him appealed more to her than getting the most work possible out of Slocum.
For a man just come to town, Slocum found himself being mighty popular.
“Do you deposit your receipts in the bank?” Slocum asked. Severigne’s outraged look was all the answer he needed. He remembered that she had said Anna’s belongings were stored in the bank, so it figured that every penny generated by the brothel was also on deposit in Bray’s bank for safekeeping. She might think he was a jackass but he provided the only banking service to be had in town. “I’ll need a reason to stop by the bank, then. Something that doesn’t seem out of the ordinary.”
“Take this to the teller,” April said, hastily scribbling a note. “The cute one.” When Slocum just stared at her, she added, “The one with all his hair. He’s the only one working for Bray who isn’t bald.”
“Should I know what’s in the note?” Slocum held it up. Both April and Severigne looked shocked.
“You would not read this note?” Severigne asked. She threw up her hands. “What am I to do with an honest man?”
“I know of a lot of things I’d like to do,” April said. She winked at Slocum, bumped hips as she left, then called out to Severigne about getting fresh linens before the men showed up that night.
Slocum opened the note and quickly scanned it. All it said was, “Tonight after closing.” He didn’t need to know more than this. April was seeing the teller off the clock and not charging him for her charms.
He finished what chores he had and set off for town, approaching the bank with some caution. After their run-ins before, he wasn’t certain Bray wouldn’t open fire the instant he stepped into the bank, claiming he thought a robbery was occurring. April hadn’t shown herself to be unreliable but Slocum had to consider her profession. Seeing the way she and Severigne were constantly maneuvering for information, for some gain, made him wary about getting involved.
Slocum wasn’t inclined to beat around the bush. He opened the bank door and stepped inside to the cool, close lobby. Dark wood paneling on three walls made the interior into a cave. The tellers’ cages stretched directly in front of him, with a desk off to the left where Martin Bray pored over a stack of books with a pen in hand. He squinted hard and didn
’t notice Slocum as he stepped up to the middle teller’s cage.
“You’re the only one with hair,” Slocum said, startling the young man.
“I—” The teller looked to the men on either side of him and nodded. “You want to open an account because I have all my hair?”
“I don’t care if the Arapaho scalp you, but April likes your hair.” He passed over the note. The teller blushed a beet red when he read it. “You got an answer?”
“What is this? This isn’t the Western Union office. No fraternizing,” Bray called from his desk.
“Tell her yes,” the teller said in a hoarse whisper. He dropped his eyes to the stack of money he had been counting, pretending to be hard at work on bank business. Slocum saw that he simply riffled through the money, his mind somewhere else.
It didn’t take much to guess where that might be. After closing.
“Bray, I got every right to be in here. I was just—”
“Slocum, get your ass over here. Now!” The bank president stood and pointed to a chair across the desk from him.
“Go to hell.” Slocum wanted to see if April’s information was right. As he started for the door, Bray let out a choked sound behind him.
“I want to have a word with you.”
Slocum turned slowly and saw how Bray looked as if he was going to pass a stone. The only reason he wouldn’t have come across the lobby and slammed the door behind Slocum was that April had heard correctly.
“Sit down,” Bray said gruffly, but the look in his eyes bordered on panic.
“I’m not opening an account in your bank,” Slocum said loud enough for the tellers to overhear. “And maybe I should tell Severigne to close hers. A mason jar buried in the back-yard is a damned sight friendlier.”
“I, uh, yes.” Bray cleared his throat and dismissed the two nearest tellers, ordering them to lunch in spite of it being hours before a reasonable mealtime. In a low voice Bray said, “I find myself in a terrible situation, Slocum. I want to pay you to help me out of it.”
“You want to hire me? There’s not enough tea in China for that.”
