Vendetta Trail

by Robert Vaughan

  “Are you displeased?”

  “What? No no, of course not. I just didn’t expect to find you here.”

  Rachel smiled at Hawke. “You didn’t expect to see me in a place like the Evening Star either, did you?” she asked. “That’s why you didn’t recognize me.”

  “Recognize you?”

  Rachel sighed. “You really don’t remember me, do you, Mason? I kept telling myself that maybe you did recognize me, but just didn’t want to mention it.”

  “Rachel, I don’t know what you are talking about. Are you saying that we met before the Evening Star?”

  “Yes.”

  “I find that hard to believe. I rarely forget a beautiful woman.”

  “Why, Mason Hawke. What a lovely compliment,” Rachel said. She laughed, her laughter sounding like the gentle playing of wind chimes.

  “Well, I can’t really hold it against you,” she continued. “So much has happened since then. But I remember vividly the last time we met. My father held a party for your father’s regiment. You were so handsome in your gray and gold uniform. I was very much in love with you then…though, of course, I was too shy to let you know.”

  “Your father held a party for the regiment? Are you talking about Charles Brubaker?”

  “Yes.”

  Hawke got a confused look on his face. “I don’t remember…”

  “I don’t really expect you to remember me,” she said. “I was only twelve years old then. And although I am Rachel Brubaker, most people knew me then as Angel.” She laughed. “That was my father’s nickname for me, and I assure you, it had nothing to do with my behavior.”

  “Angel? Yes, I do remember you now.” Hawke chuckled. “Wait a minute, aren’t you the little girl who let the mouse go on the dance floor that night? It caused a panic among all the girls, as I recall…they ran around screaming, somebody knocked over the punch bowl, another crashed through the window.”

  “I’m the guilty party,” Rachel admitted with a laugh. “I was upset because my father said I was too young to attend the dance. I wanted some reaction, but I got more than I bargained for.”

  Hawke laughed with her.

  “I knew, from the moment you sat down to play the piano at the Evening Star, that you were the same person I remembered. You haven’t lost any of your skill or talent, I see.”

  Hawke lifted his hand. “Oh, I’m going to have to differ with you there. I’ve lost a lot of my skill, I’m afraid. It’s impossible to maintain skill if you are never challenged, and none of the many jobs I’ve held over the last several years have been particularly challenging.”

  “But you are still playing the piano, and from what I’ve heard for the last couple of months, you are playing it beautifully. I never asked you while you were there…in fact, it would have been inappropriate. But how did you wind up playing at a whorehouse in New Orleans?”

  “Before I came to New Orleans, I was playing at a saloon in Nebraska for a woman named Callie.”

  “Callie? Big Callie?” Rachel asked.

  “Yes, did you know her?”

  “I know who she was. She was Clarisse’s sister. Clarisse used to talk about her. But she was killed, I believe. Wait a minute, were you there when she was killed?”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t know that. Clarisse never talked about it that much. I think it was too hard for her to talk about. So you knew Big Callie. Was she anything like Clarisse?”

  “They were both good women to work for,” Hawke said. “That’s why, when Big Callie was killed, I decided to come to New Orleans, as my own type of memorial to her.”

  “Where else have you been?”

  “I’ve been everywhere in general, nowhere in particular,” Hawke said. “I’ve been in Wyoming, Texas, Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska…”

  “Kansas?” she asked.

  Hawke nodded. “Yes, I’ve played in Kansas.”

  “Do you know Bellefont?”

  “I know Bellefont. I’ve never played there, but I have passed through. It’s a rough town.”

  “That’s where I’m going,” Rachel said.

  Hawke laughed. “I’ve got news for you, Rachel. You won’t get there by riverboat.”

  Rachel laughed as well.

  “I know. I took a train to Caruthersville, Missouri, then transferred to the boat.”

  “Why didn’t you take the train directly to Bellefont? It would have been a lot faster.”

  “The reason I came aboard at Caruthersville was because I knew you were on the boat.”

  “Hmm. Should I be flattered or concerned?”

  “How would you like to play the piano for me in Bellefont?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Will you have a place for me to play?”

  “Yes. I’m going to Bellefont to buy a gambling house called the Queen of Hearts,” Rachel said. “And it’s not just any gambling house. I’m told it is the nicest one in town. When I start the business, I would like for you to play the piano for me.”

  “I appreciate the offer, Rachel, but I’ve got a job. I’m playing piano on this riverboat.”

  “Yes, but you aren’t going to stay with this boat. You know you aren’t.”

  “I don’t stay anywhere very long.”

  “I gathered that. But I would be grateful for whatever time you did stay. You see, it’s my theory that music, particularly beautiful music, has a calming effect and helps in keeping an orderly house.”

  “I don’t know,” Hawke said.

  “You don’t know that music has a calming effect?”

  “Oh, I agree with that. I just don’t know if I want to work for you.”

  Rachel looked hurt. “Why not? I know you have worked for women. You worked for Big Callie and you worked for Clarisse.”

  “That’s different.”

  “What is different? I thought we had already established the fact that I’m not the twelve-year-old anymore.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “What is it, then?”

  Hawke turned away from her and leaned on the boat railing, looking out across the dark shimmering water toward the shore. A large crane stood on one leg in the shallow water near the shore, its white feathers nearly luminous in the full moon.

  “You say you want me there so that my music will have a calming effect,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Somehow…despite my music, I don’t seem to have a very calming effect on people. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.”

  “Maybe that’s another reason I want you to work for me,” Rachel said.

  “What do you mean? You want me to work because I don’t have a calming effect on people?”

  “No. I want you to work for me because whatever happens, I know you will be able to handle it. One of the things I remember about you from my youth—you might even say that it is one of the things that I most admired about you—was that you didn’t let anyone push you around. Some of the boys seemed to think that you were a sissy for taking piano lessons, but if they said it to you, they only said it once.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Oh, word got around. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I want to hire you now. As you said, Bellefont is a rough town.”

  Hawke flipped his cheroot into the river and followed the arc of the tiny red glow until the water snuffed it out. He turned back toward Rachel. “How in the world did you wind up…” he let the sentence hang.

  “A whore?” she asked.

  Hawke sighed. “Yeah,” he said. He held up his hand. “And believe me, I’m not passing judgment on you. Lord knows, I’m the last one qualified to pass judgment on anyone.”

  “It’s a long story,” Rachel said. “I guess it comes as quite a shock to you that a genteel, plantation-raised Georgia girl would wind up in a whorehouse in New Orleans. And now that same genteel girl is going to a town like Bellefont to buy a gambling house.”

  Hawke chuckled. “Well no, what is a shock to me is that the g
irl who let a mouse loose on the dance floor became a genteel, plantation-raised Georgia girl.”

  “Mason, that’s awful!” Rachel said, laughing and hitting him on the shoulder. “You have a cruel streak in you,” she teased.

  “I’m cruel? I’m not the one who turned the mouse loose.”

  “You haven’t answered my question yet. Will you come work for me? I can pay you well.”

  “How well is ‘well’?”

  “I can pay you one of two ways,” she said. “I can either pay you a straight salary, an amount that we can agree upon mutually, or I can give you a cut of the take. It’s your choice.”

  Hawke stared at Rachel for a long moment, studying the expression on her face. Unable to meet his intense gaze, Rachel broke off eye contact.

  “There’s something you aren’t telling me, isn’t there?”

  “Lord, Mason, what could I possibly be holding back from you?” Rachel asked. “You saw me as a whore, I’m buying a gambling house. What could I possibly be holding back from you?”

  “I don’t know,” Mason said. “But I think you had better tell me now.”

  Rachel sighed. “What I really want is for you to protect me.”

  “Protect you from what?”

  “Do you know who the Mafia is?”

  Hawke recalled his run-in with the three shooters in the dark on Dauphine Street.

  “Are you talking about that bunch of Italians back in New Orleans? What were some of the names? Tangeleno was one, I think. And De Luci.”

  “De Luca,” Rachel corrected. “Yes, that’s who I’m talking about. Well, not De Luca. He’s dead. That’s why I’m running.”

  “You’re running because De Luca is dead? You didn’t kill him, did you?”

  “No. But I saw him killed, and the people who killed him know that I saw it. That’s why I’m running.”

  “They are an evil bunch, all right, but you’re not in New Orleans anymore, so I don’t see how they can hurt you now.”

  “Believe me, they aren’t just in New Orleans,” Rachel said. “They have people everywhere. Tangeleno telegraphed ahead to Memphis and a couple of them came on to the train in Memphis to get me.”

  “I take it that Tangeleno was the killer.”

  “Tangeleno, Vizzini, and several others.”

  “How did you happen to see this?”

  “I was at De Luca’s party when Tangeleno’s men came into the backyard with guns. They started killing and they didn’t stop until everyone was dead. Or, at least, they thought everyone was dead. I wound up under a table and some bodies, so they didn’t realize that I wasn’t dead.” Rachel paused for a moment and Hawke saw tears glistening in her eyes. “They killed Fancy, Mason.”

  “For a little Georgia girl who once let a mouse loose on a dance floor, you have gotten yourself into a pickle, haven’t you, Rachel Brubaker?”

  Rachel nodded as she wiped away her tears. “I fear that I have,” she said. “So now you can see why I would like to have you around.”

  “All right,” Hawke agreed.

  “You mean, you will come?”

  “Sure, why not? One place is as good as another.”

  “Oh, thank you! Thank you!” Rachel said as, spontaneously, she leaned forward to kiss him.

  Hawke was surprised by her unexpected action, and before he could respond she had already pulled back. “Bellefont, here we come!” she said with a happy smile. “I’ll get us train tickets as soon as we get to St. Louis.”

  Hawke went back into the salon. Most of the passengers were engaged in private conversations so that there was a constant babble hanging over the room, but it stilled when Hawke returned to the piano and there was a smattering of applause as he sat down.

  Hawke paused for just a moment, then began to play Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto Number 1.

  Chapter 23

  LUCIANO APOLLONI WAS STANDING ON THE riverbank in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. There were at least one hundred others waiting on the levee for the Delta Mist. They weren’t passengers waiting to board the boat, they were just residents of the town, here to celebrate the occasion. The arrival of one of the passenger-carrying steamboats was always a big event in the life of the small river town.

  When the boat came into view, the Cape Girardeau city band began playing. The boat answered with several blasts from its whistle, then it started putting in.

  As Apolloni stood on the bank with the others, he checked the telegram again.

  Rachel on Delta Mist Stop with Piano Player Stop Do Both Stop Tangeleno

  Because the message was rather cryptic, it would not mean that much to the telegraphers who transmitted it. But Apolloni knew exactly what the word “do” meant. He knew, also, that if he killed both of them, he would be well rewarded.

  Apolloni put the telegram in his pocket, then took the ticket he had bought for his own passage and walked down to the edge of the river.

  “Sir, please step back until the boat has fully landed,” one of the workers said.

  “Yes, of course,” Apolloni replied with a friendly smile. He did not want to do anything that would cause someone to remember him.

  When the boat landed, its pilot added power and the stern wheel whirled rapidly, beating the brown Mississippi River water into a boiling froth. That had the effect of pegging the boat against the shore, holding it there while a big black deckhand stood at the bow and tossed over a rope that was as thick as a man’s wrist. Workers on the shore took the rope, then wrapped it several times around a stanchion.

  Not until secondary lines were thrown over and looped through a series of rings did the engines stop. Now the boat sat securely tied against the riverbank, a multitiered white edifice that looked like a floating hotel. Wisps of steam drifted away from the relief valves and a black ribbon of smoke curled up from the twin chimneys, indicating that the fireman was keeping the steam up. A sign was stretched between the two stacks. The name of the boat was written in red, outlined in gold and black.

  DELTA MIST

  PORT OF NEW ORLEANS

  CAPTAIN E. P. ST. CYR

  After that, the gangplank was lowered and a man, his wife, and two young boys came down the bouncing board. When they reached the bank, an elderly woman rushed forward to embrace them.

  The boat purser came to the head of the gangplank and looked around for a moment before yelling down at the worker who had ordered Apolloni to step back.

  “How many passengers are we picking up, Greg? And where bound?”

  “Seven, for all points north,” Greg called back.

  “You got ’em all ticketed?”

  “Aye.”

  “All right,” the purser replied. “Start ’em up. We may as well get loaded.”

  Raising a megaphone to his lips, the boat official on the ground called out loudly.

  “Passengers holding tickets for Ste. Genevieve, Perryville, St. Louis, and all points north may board now!”

  Apolloni moved into line with the other six boarding passengers, climbed the gangplank, then handed his ticket to the purser.

  “Welcome aboard, Mr. Apolloni,” the purser said, reading the name on the ticket. “You’ll be in Cabin E-4. Any questions?”

  “I heard this boat has a piano player,” Apolloni said. “Is that true?”

  The purser looked up in surprise.

  “Well, yes, it is true,” he replied. “But how did you hear about him? We just put him on a week ago, down in New Orleans. This is his first trip upriver.”

  “I received a telegram from a friend who said that you had hired a good piano player. I thought it might make the trip to St. Louis more pleasant if we had some good music to listen to.”

  “Well, I don’t think you will be disappointed. He is an outstanding piano player,” the purser said. “But don’t just take my word for it. You can judge for yourself when you have dinner tonight. He always plays in the salon for the evening meals.”

  “Good, good,” Apolloni said. “I shall look
forward to hearing him.”

  Apolloni went to his room, took out his knife, and began to sharpen it. The first thing he would have to do is identify the woman named Rachel. Once he had her located, he would wait until nightfall, find the opportunity to slit her throat, then drop her over into the river.

  It was early evening, and the boat had just resumed its trip upriver after stopping at Perryville. Apolloni was in the back of the salon eating his dinner and listening to the piano music when the purser happened by his table.

  “Ah, Mr. Apolloni, I hope you are enjoying the music,” he said.

  “Yes, I am,” Apolloni replied.

  “Would you like to meet him? He’s not only a talented pianist, he is also very gracious to our passengers.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “He’ll probably take a break after the next song. That would give you an excellent opportunity to meet him. I’ll introduce you. You won’t be imposing on him,” the purser said.

  “No!” Apolloni said more sharply. Then, when he saw the way the purser reacted to his reply, he softened it with a smile. “I mean, I’m very shy around new people. I’d rather just sit back here and listen. I hope you understand.”

  “Of course I understand,” the purser said, mollified by Apolloni’s smile and explanation. “My wife is the same way. You just sit here and enjoy your meal and the music. And if there is anything I can do for you, just let me know.”

  “Thank you,” Apolloni said.

  As the purser walked away, Apolloni went back to his dinner. He had to admit that the pianist was very good. He was so good that it would be a shame to have to kill him. But Tangeleno’s telegram had been very specific. He was to “do” both of them, and business was business.

  When this piece was finished, several of the diners went up to talk to the piano player. One of the diners was a very beautiful young woman, who fit the description of Rachel. Apolloni noticed that while the others returned to their tables or left the salon entirely, she hung around. There seemed to be a connection of some sort between them.

  The purser happened to walk by the table again and Apolloni called out to him.