Vendetta Trail

by Robert Vaughan

  But if they took care of this little assignment he had given them, he was certain that Tangeleno would be very generous, not only with money, but in recognizing the existence of the St. Louis Family with Dominico Dallipiccola as its head.

  There were several hacks drawn up along North Wharf Street, and as Hawke and Rachel approached them, Hawke called out to one of the drivers. Responding to Hawke’s hail, the driver snapped the reins over his horse and pulled out of line, driving up to stop in front of Hawke and Rachel.

  “Take us to the railroad station,” Hawke said as he put the two bags in the hack, then helped Rachel climb in.

  “Yes, sir, that would be Union Station,” the driver replied as he pulled out of the line.

  It had recently rained in St. Louis and the horse’s hooves made a staccato beat on the glistening wet pavement as the driver turned west on to Market Street, then maneuvered the hack through the traffic before bringing it to a stop under the Union Station porte cochere.

  Paying the fare, Hawke and Rachel stepped down from the hack. They took no notice of the private carriage that stopped about twenty-five yards behind them.

  “They will be buying tickets to Bellefont, Kansas,” Dallapiccola said. “Find out which train.”

  “It don’t make no difference which train,” Ned said. “They won’t never get on it.”

  “Nevertheless, find out which train,” Dallapiccola said.

  As Hawke and Rachel went inside the depot, they passed through a golden entry arch, under the mosaic-glass window, then climbed the great staircase to the Grand Hall from whose sixty-five-foot-high vaulted ceiling hung an enormous chandelier.

  The floor of the Grand Hall teemed with humanity: men and women moving to or from trains, children laughing or crying. As the trains entered or departed from the great domed train shed, Hawke could feel the floor rumbling under his feet.

  “Get us tickets to Bellefont on the Palace Car,” Rachel said as she handed him some money. “Oh, and if you don’t mind sharing a roomette with me, it will save money.”

  Hawke smiled. “In the interest of saving money, I will make the sacrifice.”

  Hawke stood in line until it was his turn at the ticket window.

  “The train will depart from Track Number 8 at nine-thirty this evening,” the ticket agent said as he slid the long multi-sectioned tickets across the counter.

  As he walked away from the counter, he looked toward the huge clock that hung on the wall just beside the sign that read: TO TRAINS. It was nearly seven.

  “What do you say we put our suitcases in a locker, then have our dinner?” Hawke suggested after he told Rachel what time the train would be leaving.

  “Why, Mr. Hawke, are you engaging me for dinner?” Rachel asked coquettishly.

  “I am.”

  “I accept.”

  They ate at a French restaurant on Olive, just a few blocks north of Union Station.

  “How is the ham?” Rachel asked.

  “It is quite good, madam.”

  “Then I think I will have jambon et champignons,” Rachel said when the waiter approached their table.

  “Excellent choice, madam,” the waiter said. “The mushrooms are also particularly good. And you, sir?”

  “Is your salmon fresh?” Hawke asked after examining the menu.

  “Oui, monsieur. It comes by train, daily, packed in ice,” the waiter replied.

  “Very good. I’ll have les rillettes de saumon.”

  Rachel laughed as the waiter withdrew.

  “What is so funny?”

  “I had the thought that I would be able to impress you with my New Orleans French,” she said. “But I should have known better. As I recall now, you went to France, didn’t you? Just before the war?”

  “Yes. I must confess, though, that my French is only barely passable.”

  Ned and Luby were in the same restaurant, sitting on the opposite side of the room keeping a close eye on Hawke and Rachel.

  “I tell you what, Ned, I hope we aren’t wasting our time with these two,” one of them said. “What if they ain’t the right ones?” Luby said.

  “You heard what Dallapiccola said, didn’t you? One was a whore, and the other was a piano player.”

  “Yeah, I heard him say that.”

  “You was there when the boat landed, same as me,” Ned said. “And you heard the purser call this fella a piano player, right?”

  “Yeah,” Luby agreed.

  “So we know he’s a piano player. And if what we are lookin’ for is a piano player and a whore travelin’ together, then the woman sittin’ there with him has to be the whore.”

  “What’s the name of that fella down in New Orleans that wants ’em dead? Tangeleno or somethin’ like that?” Luby asked.

  “Hell, I don’t know. Who can pronounce them names anyway?”

  “How come, you reckon, the Italians want ’em dead?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care, as long as Dallipiccola pays us the thousand dollars apiece he promised,” Ned said.

  “Hey, Ned, you think he’ll really pay us?” Luby asked.

  “Yeah, I’ve done things for him before. He’ll pay. For some reason, them Italians is big on honor,” Ned answered.

  Across the room, Hawke and Rachel got up from their table.

  “They’re leaving,” Luby said.

  “Let’s go,” Ned replied.

  Chapter 27

  IT WAS QUITE DARK WHEN HAWKE AND RACHEL left the restaurant and a heavy fog had moved in off the river, making it very difficult to see more than just a few feet.

  “Are you sure we are going the right way to get back to the depot?” Rachel asked.

  “We can’t get lost,” Hawke said. “We came out on Twelfth Street. All we have to do is follow it right back to the depot.”

  “If you say so,” Rachel said.

  As they walked through the dark, foggy night, pedestrians would pop out of the fog in front of them, appearing and disappearing almost as if summoned and dispatched by some great wizard. Carriages drove by on the street, their presence acknowledged only by hoof falls and rolling wheels and the feathery glow of disembodied lanterns that seemed—somehow—to float by.

  Rachel put both hands on Hawke’s arm and held it tight.

  “I don’t mind admitting that I find this entire evening rather spooky,” she said. “If I weren’t with you, I would be frightened to death.”

  Almost as if in answer to her fear, two men suddenly jumped out from an alley in front of them. Both men were brandishing knives and they stood in front of Hawke and Rachel.

  “Well now, Luby, lookie here what we’ve got. Could it be the whore and the piano player?”

  Luby chuckled. “That’s what it looks like to me. But tell me, which one is the whore and which one is the piano player?”

  Both men laughed at Luby’s joke.

  “Did Tangeleno send you?” Rachel asked in a frightened voice.

  “Tangeleno? Hey, Ned, that’s the name you said. You was right.”

  “Yeah,” Ned said. “So, it looks like you can quit worryin’ whether or not we got the right ones. I figure this just proves it.”

  “Oh, Mason,” Rachel said, very frightened now. “Is this nightmare ever going to end?”

  “How many more of you are there?” Hawke asked.

  “How many more? No more. Just Luby and me. What makes you think we need anyone else?”

  Hawke shook his head. “I’m not talking about how many of you are here,” he said. “I mean, after I get rid of you two, who else will Tangeleno send after us?”

  “What do you mean, after you get rid of us? Are you crazy?” Luby asked. He held his knife up. “We’re the ones with the knives.”

  “Yes, but I’m the one with a gun,” Hawke replied with a sardonic smile.

  “You may have a gun, mister, but it ain’t in your hand and…” Ned started, but gasped when he saw what happened next.

  “Oh, but it is in my hand,�
�� Hawke said and, even as he spoke, the pistol was in his hand, the draw so fast that both assailants were caught completely off-guard.

  “What the hell? How did you do that?” Luby asked.

  “It doesn’t matter how I did it. I did it,” Hawke said. “Now take off your clothes.”

  “What?” Ned asked.

  “I said take off your clothes, both of you.”

  “Mister, are you crazy? I ain’t takin’ off my clothes,” Luby said.

  “Don’t worry about whether or not I’m crazy. What you should worry about is whether or not I will shoot you if you don’t do what I say,” Hawke said. He pulled the hammer back on his pistol. “And believe me, I will shoot you.”

  “I believe you,” Luby said nervously. “Ned, I believe him.”

  “I’m glad you believe me,” Hawke said. “Now take off your clothes.”

  “You can’t ask us to do that. There’s a woman here,” Luby complained.

  “You should have thought of that.”

  Suddenly Ned made a sudden lunge toward Hawke and Hawke fired. The bullet hit Ned’s hand and he dropped his knife. It clattered as it fell to the cobblestone-paved street.

  Luby dropped his knife as well and put up his hands.

  “Neither one of us is armed now,” Luby said anxiously.

  “Take off your clothes,” Hawke said again. “I figure if you two are wandering around St. Louis naked, you aren’t as likely to get into trouble again.”

  The two men continued to glare at Hawke, but neither of them made an effort to comply with his demand.

  Hawke pulled the trigger, and, with a yelp of pain, Luby put his hand up to his left ear. When he pulled it back, he was holding a little piece of flesh.

  “You…you son of a bitch! You shot off my ear!”

  “No, I didn’t,” Hawke said easily. “I just shot off a piece of your ear. But if you don’t take off your clothes right now, I’m going to start carving pieces off both of you.” He cocked the pistol and raised it up to point directly at Ned.

  “No!” Ned said, holding out his hand as if, by that action, he could stop him. “No, don’t shoot us no more!”

  “Take off your clothes,” Hawke ordered again.

  Quickly, Ned and Luby slipped out of their clothes, then began piling them on the ground in front of them.

  “No, not there,” Hawke said. Using a wave of his pistol, he indicated a storm sewer on the curb. “Drop them down there.”

  “What the hell, mister? If we drop them down that hole, we never will get our clothes back,” Luby said.

  “That’s right,” Hawke said. “Maybe you should have thought of that before you came after us with knives. Do it.”

  Grumbling, Ned and Luby carried their discarded clothes over to the storm sewer and dropped them. Then they stood there in their long-handled underwear, glaring back at him.

  “Take that off too,” Hawke said.

  “What?” Ned shouted angrily. “No, wait a minute. If we do that, that’ll make us naked in front of the woman.”

  “I’m a whore, remember?” Rachel asked, laughing now at their plight. “You don’t have anything that I haven’t seen before.”

  A minute later both Ned and Luby were totally naked. They stood in front of Hawke and Rachel, holding their hands over their private parts.

  “Now, you go that way,” Hawke said, pointing off into the fog. “And we’ll go this way. If I ever see you again, I will kill you on the spot.”

  Rachel laughed out loud as the two men ran off into the fog.

  “I know I have no right to be laughing, I know Tangeleno is trying to kill me, but that was just too funny,” she said.

  “I’ll give Tangeleno this,” Hawke said. “He is persistent.”

  “How is he able to know where I am?” Rachel asked. “It’s almost as if he knows where I’m going.”

  Because of the darkness and the fog, Ned and Luby were able to avoid being seen, simply by staying close to the buildings, moving through alleys, and stepping into doorways when necessary.

  “This way,” Ned said, pointing up one of the alleys.

  “What do we want to go that way for? We live that way,” Luby replied, pointing in the opposite direction.

  “The Gandy Dancer is this way,” Ned said.

  “The Gandy Dancer?”

  “That’s a saloon where railroad workers hang out.”

  “I know what it is,” Luby replied. “But I don’t know why you want to go there. Are you plannin’ on us just walkin’ in there, butt-ass naked and orderin’ a drink? Which, in case you ain’t noticed, in addition to being naked, we also don’t have no money.”

  “Have you ever been to the Gandy Dancer?”

  “Yes, sure I have.”

  “Have you ever stepped out behind it to take a piss or something?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you see back there?” Ned asked.

  “What do you mean, what did I see back there? I seen the privy.”

  “What else?”

  “I didn’t see nothin’else except…,” Luby replied, then he stopped in midsentence. “Drunks,” he said. “I seen drunks.”

  “Drunks who are wearing clothes,” Ned added.

  Luby laughed. “Yeah, that’s pretty smart, Ned. We can roll a drunk for his clothes, then we won’t have to be goin’ home butt-naked.”

  “We won’t be goin’ home. We’re goin’ to finish the job we started out to do.”

  “The hell with that,” Luby said. “Let them damn Italians do their own killin’.”

  “You’re that willing to turn your back on a thousand dollars, are you?” Ned asked. “Because if you are, I’ll kill both of them myself and keep your share of the money.”

  “No,” Luby said. “I was just talkin’ is all. I’ll come with you.”

  “I thought you might.”

  “We goin’ to have to get us a couple of knives too,” Luby said.

  “To hell with that. We’re goin’ to use guns this time.”

  “Where we goin’ to get guns?”

  “Sikes Hardware store sells guns.”

  “Sikes ain’t open now. They done closed for the day.”

  “Yeah, well, after a store is closed is the best time to shop if you don’t have any money,” Ned said.

  “Yeah,” Luby said. He laughed. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  Chapter 28

  DOMENICO DALLIPICCOLA WAS WAITING AT THE depot for Ned and Luby to come back and tell him that they had accomplished their mission. When they didn’t come back to claim the money he had promised them, he knew that they had failed. Then, to his surprise, he saw Hawke and Rachel, obviously unharmed, get on the train.

  Angry and frustrated, Dallipiccola bought a ticket on the same train. The old adage was right. If you wanted a thing done, it was best to do it yourself.

  When he attempted to board the train, though, he was turned back at the gate.

  “It’s not time to board yet,” he was told.

  “I’ve seen others board this train.”

  “They’re first-class passengers,” the gate attendant said. “They are allowed to board early. Don’t worry, you’ll be called in plenty of time.”

  Grumbling, Dallipicolla returned to the waiting room to wait until it was time for him to board.

  Inside the Palace Car the lanterns were all at their brightest as Hawke, Rachel, and the other first-class passengers prepared for the overnight trip across Missouri. Hawke and Rachel entered the car, passing a young mother, who was holding her baby in one hand while trying to put a hatbox in an overhead rack. She stretched as much as she could, but it was beyond her reach.

  “Allow me,” Hawke said. He smiled graciously at the lady and reached up to put the hatbox in place.

  “Why, thank you, sir.” Then, looking at Rachel, the young mother said, “Your husband is most kind.”

  “Yes, isn’t he?” Rachel replied with a smile of her own.

  Rachel and Hawke
took a seat halfway back on the left side of the car. Hawke had bought a newspaper in the depot and, comfortably settled now, he began to look through it.

  As Hawke read the paper, he happened to glance outside, where he saw two men walking between this track and the next track over. They were wearing the same kind of coveralls as the railroad workers, and he started to return to his newspaper when one of them just happened to turn his face so that Hawke could see it clearly.

  It was Ned!

  He looked again, just to make certain, and saw that it was indeed Ned and the other one was Luby. The same two men who had accosted them after dinner this evening were now walking alongside this very train. Somehow, they had managed to find clothes again, and not just any clothes, but the clothes of track workers, allowing them free access in the train shed.

  Damn, Hawke thought. I should have killed both of them when I had the chance.

  Hawke stood up. “You stay here,” he said to Rachel.

  “Where are you going?” Rachel asked, her voice showing her concern.

  “I saw something outside that I need to check on,” Hawke answered. He didn’t give her any more information than that because he didn’t want to alarm her. He smiled reassuringly. “I’ll be right back,” he promised. “Here, read the paper.”

  Rachel nodded, then began reading the paper as Hawke left the car.

  Once he was outside, Hawke started walking alongside the train, carefully looking all around. He walked all the way up to the front of the train until he reached the engine, but the search proved fruitless. He didn’t see the two men.

  The engineer, the fireman, and the conductor were standing just outside the engine. The engineer had small chin whiskers that stuck, like a red flag, straight forward from the bottom of his chin. He was examining one of the driver-wheel bearings and the other two were looking over his shoulder.

  The fireman had little circular scars on his face and neck. Hawke knew they weren’t pox marks but were the result of tiny red-hot embers that, over the many years and miles of railroading, had blown back into his face and neck.

  The conductor was the oldest of the three, clean shaven and with a head of snow-white hair. It was the conductor who noticed Hawke first.