by Jake Logan
Slocum let him stew in his own juices. He had his own battle to fight, and the album would go a ways toward winning it.
19
“So you think this will end it?” Severigne asked. She stared hard at Slocum, as if she thought he was lying.
“I can’t say, but it’ll go a ways toward keeping him from doing this to any more women,” Slocum said.
“Why do you care? They are whores. Nothing to you. They sell themselves for the pleasure of men like you.”
“I’ve partaken of the charms of a soiled dove or two in my day,” Slocum said, “and I’ve seen how hard it is. This place is paradise compared to some whorehouses I’ve seen.” Slocum tapped the album with Emily Dawson’s pictures. “She was mighty young in this picture. What drove her to such a place in her life that she let Molinari shoot the pictures?”
“Why do you care?”
“I care,” Slocum said, “because it’s not right for anyone to do what Molinari is doing. He’s ruining lives.”
“You are sure Emily killed herself because of the missing picture?”
“No,” Slocum admitted, “but it fits the facts. He showed her the picture when he got into town from traveling around the countryside and saw the new preacher’s wife. She couldn’t bear the notion of what having her past exposed would do to her husband and son.”
“Death was preferable?” Severigne scoffed, but Slocum saw she was agreeing this was an honorable thing to do. Sacrifice for family outweighed life. “How could she know he would not still reveal the pictures?”
“She didn’t, but she finally got lucky. Edgar stole the album and Molinari didn’t have any more photographs of her.”
“But the plates?”
“They’re heavy. He might have left them in Kansas City or sold them or maybe he didn’t even take the pictures.” Slocum explained how other photographers might have worked the blackmail scheme, swapping photographs, and how he thought Molinari left instructions with another photographer where he had hidden his stash of blackmail photos.
“So killing him is not good?”
“Didn’t say that, but at least three women’s reputations stand to be ruined if I cut him down like a mad dog and their pictures are spread around.”
“You do not know what these photos are?”
“Or where they are.”
“Find out. Arrange for this whole sordid matter to go away and you are free of your debt to me. More. I will pay you for those photos.”
Slocum wasn’t going to promise that. But he did say, “If I disappear or get shot down, make sure the marshal knows. Keep his feet to the fire.”
“Pah!” Severigne said dismissively. “I will come for Molinari myself. The law is no good if it allows such as this!”
“Then tell Clabber or Bray—tell both men. Let them decide how to get even with Molinari.”
“That might work. Clabber values the reputation of the town that carries his name, and Bray wants to own it. He would be forever disgraced if Philomena’s pictures were made public.”
“Don’t tell him about his wife,” Slocum said sharply. “He doesn’t need to know more about her past than he thinks he knows now.”
“Go. Do what you must.”
Slocum picked up the album, but Severigne grabbed for it. He kept it from her.
“I need this to get Molinari’s attention. He knows it’s missing. He probably was bluffing after sending Emily the first picture about showing the rest. This will shake him up, and maybe he’ll make a mistake.”
“Go to his hiding place, eh?” Severigne rocked her head back and forth. “It is what you call a long shot. Good luck, Slocum.”
The way Severigne said that, Slocum knew she didn’t expect him to return. As he left through the kitchen, he saw Alice watching him. He had never seen her look so grave. She smiled wanly and blew him a kiss, then hurried up the back stairs. Her clicking footsteps died out, and Slocum felt suddenly alone. But he knew what he had to do. Clutching the photo album, he mounted and rode slowly toward town.
It was getting dark, and he hoped he could catch Molinari in his office. The small building was a trap, as he well knew, but if he worked it right, it would be a cage for the photographer. He didn’t have much of a plan, but without real leverage over the man, Slocum was at a loss how else to proceed. He needed Molinari alive to show him where he had hidden the blackmail photographs, but getting that information was going to be difficult.
Slocum dismounted some distance down the street and stood in the gathering shadows, watching the photographic studio for any sign that Molinari had laid a trap for him. The door stood open to admit the growing evening breeze and dispel some of the heat from within the building. If Molinari had been taking pictures inside, the room would be hotter than Hades. Every flash added fumes to the air and more than a little heat. After ten minutes, all Slocum saw was Molinari moving around inside.
There wasn’t any sign of his two henchmen. They might have hightailed it after the shoot-out when he freed Sara Beth, but he couldn’t count on it. Not with his own life on the line. Slocum knew failure now meant disgrace for at least three women.
Slocum drew his six-shooter and held it at his side. In his left hand he held Emily’s photo album in front of him to distract the photographer. He kicked the door open all the way so that it slammed with a loud bang against the wall. Molinari jumped a foot, his eyes wide with shock at the sudden noise.
“I’ve got this, Molinari,” Slocum said. “Where’re the rest?”
“Slocum. I thought you were dead.”
“Is that what your gunmen told you?”
“They said they’d run into trouble and had lost a very expensive camera. I hadn’t realized the trouble was you, and that they lied about ambushing you.”
“They’ve tried enough times.”
Molinari recovered some of his aplomb. He smoothed wrinkles from his coat.
“Reach for a hideout gun, and I’ll cut you down where you stand.”
“No, you won’t. You know what I’ll do. If I’m dead, all the pictures will be released.” Molinari pointed to the book Slocum still held in front of him. “Did you like my dirty dozen?”
“What?”
“That’s what I call them. I keep twelve of the most, shall we say, interesting, pictures of each subject. There is something about a dozen that seems so right to me. I can show off the subject from every angle—so anyone looking at the album would fully realize the model’s beauty.”
“One’s missing,” Slocum said. “You sent that to Emily Dawson and that’s why she killed herself.”
Molinari shrugged.
“Probably so. She was so young when those were taken. Hardly sixteen would be my guess. She worked at one of the highest-class brothels in Kansas City, but she thought she was too good for that.”
“You lost track of her when she married Henry Dawson.”
“I didn’t even know she’d married, much less a preacher man.” Molinari moved around and perched on the edge of his desk, one leg swinging. Slocum knew better than to be distracted by such motion when dealing with a snake like Molinari. He watched the photographer’s eyes for any hint of trouble to come. It bothered him that Molinari was relaxing now. He thought he had the upper hand.
Worse, Slocum knew he did.
“Keeping such mementos pays off. As you know. How did you figure out I was blackmailing Philomena Bray?”
“That doesn’t matter. I want all your photographs.”
“Or what?”
“I’ll pay for them.”
“You’re broke,” Molinari said. “But you might have money,” he said, looking thoughtful. “From Severigne? No, not just from her. From Clabber as well as Severigne. He has such a lech for her, but it does no good. He had his balls blown off in the war, you know. His affection for her has its limits. She is such a vibrant woman. She needs more than he could ever offer.”
“Where I get the money’s no concern of yours.”
“Might you
have collected some from Martin Bray? No, I think not. His wife has bled dry his bank. If she had told him about how all that cash flowed from his vault to my pocket, he would disown her.”
“Might be he wants to keep the photographs a secret.”
“She does. He would be outraged. No, your money—if it even exists—must come from Clabber and Severigne. Why?”
“Severigne wants Missy to marry the rancher.”
“Ah, the light begins to dawn. She wants to elbow me aside and take over the blackmail. You have seen the photograph, haven’t you, Slocum? No, you haven’t. Let me show you.”
Slocum tried to hold down his anticipation. He had no idea what pose Missy could have been in to ever drive away Hans Lehrer. When Molinari pulled it from his desk drawer, Slocum knew.
“The two of them in this picture. Both such lovely women, don’t you agree? How would Missy’s prospective hubby receive her if this picture of such amorous Sapphic activity was shown him? Not well.”
“How’d you happen to take that?”
“Actually, Missy suggested it when I was working in Fort Smith. She enjoys women as much as men. More so, is my thought. But Lehrer could never bear such disgraceful behavior. Such unnatural behavior.” Molinari laughed, and Slocum almost pulled the trigger.
“What about Anna?”
Molinari’s laughter died and anger replaced it. He balled his fists.
“She was a stupid bitch. She thought she would defy me.”
“So you killed her?”
“She killed herself with drugs. I only helped her along. Rather, my stupid assistant did. She—”
“She knew something about you and had to be killed.”
“My idiot assistants should have killed you a long time ago.”
“That,” Slocum said, “would mean you couldn’t sell all your photographs for a very large sum.”
“Ten thousand dollars. I’ll sell them for ten thousand.”
“Five,” Slocum said reflexively. He knew if he didn’t dicker, Molinari would know he was bluffing. The bartering went on for what seemed a lifetime to Slocum until Molinari finally agreed on a sum.
“Eight thousand is a fair price for my dirty dozen. Or should I say, dirty dozens, since each album holds that many revealing poses.”
“Anna’s, too.”
Molinari’s anger flared again, then he settled down. From the glint in his eye, Slocum knew he was going to lie.
“Very well. Anna’s will be included. But only Missy, Philomena, and Catherine’s photos.”
“Burn this.” Slocum tossed Molinari Emily’s album. “You don’t need it anymore.”
“As a show of good faith,” Molinari said. “Very well.” He went to the stove at the end of the room and built a small fire that turned the room into an oven. One photo at a time went into the fire until all were gone. “The book, too? Oh, yes, why not?” The photographer added the album to the dancing flames turned to greens and blues by the photographs.
“Where are the photographs you’re selling?”
“Where’s the money?”
Again they negotiated. Molinari finally relented and reluctantly said, “Very well. I will show you my precious dirty dozens but no more than a look until I have the money. And you have to put that hogleg into its holster and slip the thong over the hammer so you can’t throw down on me. I suspect you’re quite a gunslick, Slocum. Am I right?”
Slocum holstered his pistol and knew he was risking his life. Molinari would never agree to simply show him the photos without having at least some of the money in sight.
“I’m not like your partners,” Slocum said.
“Ah, well, they had a checkered career before coming to me. They were both road agents until I showed them ways of making money that didn’t require using a gun.”
“I just got to town when they tried to kill me.”
“Sometimes wild animals that have been tamed revert to their feral ways,” Molinari said, grinning. “Can you blame them? You were far too interested in Anna’s death.”
Slocum knew what they had done to Sara Beth and probably others, all at Molinari’s orders. He could blame them.
“Let’s get on with it. Where are your files?”
“Not here, as you undoubtedly know. It was you who searched the place and shot it out with one of my assistants, wasn’t it? I thought so.” Molinari looked shrewdly at Slocum. “The gunfight destroyed valuable chemicals, and replacing them is going to be both time-consuming and costly.”
“You’ll have the money to buy all the damned chemicals you want,” Slocum said.
“Ah, a flare of impatience. That surprises me. I had you pegged as a man of infinite patience. I see you like the mountain lion, lying on a tree limb above a game trail, choosing carefully which of the animals passing below to have for dinner. Not the first or even the second. They might be too scrawny. No, you’ll wait for the one that suits you most perfectly, then you’ll pounce.”
“Enough,” Slocum said. “The photographs.” He reached for his pistol, but Molinari held up his hand.
“All right. You know I don’t have them here. No loose floorboards. You would have checked. The plates are difficult to store but the photographs, even in albums, are not any more problem than putting a book or two on a shelf.”
Slocum swept the room looking for a shelf holding books. He would have noticed before and this cursory examination revealed nothing.
“Not here. I have a secure spot outside town where I stored everything after your prior trespass.”
“Close enough so we can walk?”
“You really don’t trust me, do you? Yes, but it is a hike uphill. In fact, the storage place is quite close to the Bray house. I find that something of an irony.”
Slocum remained silent. He was getting fed up with Molinari. When the photographer reached into his pocket and looked at his watch, Slocum knew he was walking into a trap but had no choice. Molinari would never have agreed to show the entire set of photographs without a stack of money close at hand. That glance meant the trap was already set, his two gunmen in place to cut Slocum down where the shots wouldn’t be heard.
“Let’s be off. The sooner you are convinced I have what I claim, the sooner you will give me your money,” Molinari said.
As they left, Slocum tried to move the leather keeper off his Colt, but Molinari kept too close an eye on him to be able to do it without being seen. Slocum walked along, alert for a trap, but the shadows held only phantoms. After ten minutes of hiking, Slocum knew the ambush would be at the spot where Molinari claimed the blackmail photographs were hidden.
Whether they were there or not didn’t matter. Slocum wanted the trio of blackmailing, kidnapping thieves all together so he could deal with them. He was tired of chasing them down, but he had to keep Molinari alive, at least for a while. Even if the photographer didn’t come right out and tell him where the photographs were hidden, he could get clues from the way the man acted. Molinari was the kind who liked to boast. He’d hint and dance around the actual hiding place, thinking he was playing a game and was smarter than Slocum.
He might be smarter, but he wasn’t more determined.
“Up ahead, up there!”
Molinari pointed at a woodpile a few yards distant. Both men jumped when someone noisily ran through the brush to their right side. Molinari turned around, stared at the woodpile, and yelled.
“Kill him now, you fools. You’re letting him get away!”
Slocum slid off the leather loop and had his six-shooter out and firing when the first of Molinari’s henchmen showed himself. Slocum hit him twice in the middle of the chest. It didn’t kill him but put him out of action. The second gunman opened fire from the far side of the woodpile, shooting over it. The foot-long tongues of orange flame betrayed his position. Slocum focused his fire on the spot where a man would look down a rifle barrel. His fourth shot—the last in his six-gun—hit flesh. He heard a grunt and then there wasn’t another sound.
“You fools. You fired too fast. He might have hit the plates.” Molinari had dropped to his knees and threw cut wood back like a gopher digging a hole. “Where are they? You—”
Slocum walked toward Molinari, reloading as he came.
The photographer let out a yelp, clutched a large, heavy box to his chest, and bolted like a frightened deer. Slocum finished reloading, lifted his Colt, and emptied the cylinder at Molinari’s fleeing figure. Then the photographer was swallowed by the dark of the forest. Slocum strained to hear footsteps but there was none. The gunfire had frightened the nocturnal animals and even the wind had ceased, as if it, too, were listening.
He went to the woodpile and saw where Molinari had stashed the box. Slocum frowned as he looked at the cavity formed by carefully stacking the wood. He dropped down to examine a space about the length of his forearm, from the elbow to the tip of his trigger finger. Peering closer, he saw two separate impressions in the damp earth.
One was the size of the case Molinari used for the photographic plates. From the way he had stumbled and staggered as he ran off, whatever he carried had been heavy.
The other indentation in the soft ground was shallow, hardly a quarter inch. Slocum pressed his finger down gently until he applied enough pressure to make a similarly deep dent. The size and weight were enough for the strongbox. But Molinari had carted off only one box. A heavy one.
The strongbox might have been weighty enough to make him struggle, but Slocum had heard Molinari cry out that he couldn’t find something.
If he had the plates, where were the photographs?
Slocum suspected they had been spirited away by the shadowy figure that had ruined Molinari’s ambush.
He reloaded, tucked away his pistol, and went to fetch the photographs. Molinari and the plates could wait. For a while.
20
Slocum sat in the dark, listening to the wind gently rustle the leaves. In the distance a coyote howled but nearer, perhaps at the foot of the tree, he heard small animals moving. A fox or a rabbit scurried about, hunting for food or being hunted and trying to avoid being another’s food. He leaned back against the rough bark and closed his eyes. He felt tired but kept every sense alert.
