Ironhorse

by Robert B. Parker

  “Money makes smart men do stupid things,” Virgil said.

  “Especially a half-million dollars,” I said.

  “Especially,” Virgil said.

  “I believed them, based on their relationship with the governor and their prominence, their credentials.”

  “Bigger the credentials, bigger the prospect you’ll find a rat or possum at the bottom of the barrel,” Virgil said.

  “What about the governor?” I said. “You think he had a dog in this hunt?”

  “Be a fool if he did,” Berkeley said.

  “Well, he is a Texan,” I said.

  “That he is,” Berkeley said.

  “And a politician,” I said.

  “Questionable combination,” Virgil said, “but having his family and the Pinkerton agents along, I’d say he was set up.”

  “I can tell you, he was in bad shape when we got him and his wife into the hotel room. White as paper. He just collapsed in a corner chair, closed his eyes as if it were a bad dream.”

  “How do you want to go about this?” I said. “Rousing Lassiter up?”

  Virgil stopped at the bottom of the steps before entering Hotel Ark and looked at Berkeley.

  “Which room is Lassiter’s?” Virgil said.

  “Second floor, top of the stairs on the right, first door on the east.”

  “And Hobbs?”

  “His room is just to the other side of the stairwell, west side. Stairs split the two rooms.”

  “What about the governor?” I asked.

  Berkeley pointed up.

  “Got one room on the third floor. Governor and his wife are there,” Berkeley said.

  Virgil looked at me.

  “You go through Hobbs’ door. I’ll go through Lassiter’s at the same time. No polite knocking or knob turning; needs to be a surprise.”

  “I’ll be right there with you,” Berkeley said, “in case you need backup.”

  We started to move.

  “One thing,” Berkeley said as he pulled a gold-plated watch from his vest pocket and flipped open the lid. “It’s late.” He looked at his watch. “Or I should say early.”

  “They should be sound asleep,” I said.

  “They should,” Berkeley said as he slipped the watch back into his pocket, “but I want you to know, they both got trim . . . So if you would, please be mindful of the merchandise.”

  Virgil nodded slightly with his eye on me, and we entered the hotel.

  60

  WE WALKED INTO the hotel, moving quietly past the pair of black bears that guarded the entrance, and into the main room. A single lamp was burning on a belayed wagon-wheel chandelier hanging low in the middle of the room. Big Burns stepped out of his small room behind the desk, yawning.

  “Need something, Mr. Berkeley?”

  Berkeley put his finger to his lips for Burns to be quiet.

  Burns looked back and forth between the three of us. Berkeley got close to him.

  “Seen anybody come or go?”

  Burns shook his head.

  “No, sir.”

  “Stay put,” Berkeley said. “Make no noise.”

  Burns nodded, looking at the three of us.

  Berkeley retrieved a small cut-glass finger lantern from a low cupboard behind the desk and lit the wick. Once he got the flame going good, we followed him past the bobcats and walked very quietly up the steps to the second floor.

  When we got to the second floor, Berkeley pointed to each of the rooms, identifying first Lassiter’s room and then Hobbs’ room. Then he stepped back, placing his back to the wall at the top of the staircase. I positioned myself with my Colt in front of Hobbs’ door. Virgil leaned the Henry rifle on the wall behind him, drew his bone handle, and got in front of Lassiter’s door. Berkeley pulled out a .38 Smith & Wesson Lemon Squeezer from his belt and nodded that he was ready.

  I kept my eye on Virgil.

  Virgil looked at me and dropped a sharp nod of his chin.

  I moved fast, my shoulder hit Hobbs’ door hard, and in an instant I was in the room. Hobbs was flat on his back, lying naked in the center of the bed. The pretty whore we’d met earlier in the evening was riding him. She had a steady diagonal lope working that was causing Hobbs some toe curling, but she stopped and looked at me as if I was there to borrow some flour or sugar. Hobbs raised his head up like a turtle on its back. What hair he had on his head was pointing in every direction, and his face was beet red.

  “Wh-what . . . What’s the meaning of this?” Hobbs said.

  The whore stayed atop of Hobbs, looking at me. A skilled equestrian awaiting instruction.

  “Off,” I said.

  She responded quickly. She pulled back and slung one leg over him. Hobbs grabbed the crumpled bedding and covered his privates. The whore stayed on her knees, looking at me.

  I picked up a crocheted blanket at the foot of the bed and tossed it to her.

  “Who do you think you are?” Hobbs said.

  “You know who I am, Mr. Hobbs.”

  “Damn right I do, and you have no business coming here.”

  “Stop talking,” I said. “I’m gonna let you get your trousers on. You’ll have plenty of time for talking, rest assured.”

  Hobbs groveled, “Now, see here.”

  I raised my Colt a little more toward the center of his eyes, and he stopped talking and shook his head.

  “Oh, for the love of God,” Hobbs said. “Rose, get me my unders and trousers.”

  Without wrapping herself in the blanket, Rose walked to the corner chair like she had a book on top of her head and retrieved Hobbs’ underwear and trousers. She walked back to the bed and handed Hobbs his clothing.

  “Everett,” I heard Virgil call out from the hall, “you got Hobbs?”

  “I do!”

  Virgil stepped into the room, Colt in one hand, the Henry rifle in the other. Berkeley was a step behind him.

  “Lassiter flew the coop.”

  61

  “WHERE’D HE GO?” Virgil said to Hobbs.

  “What?” Hobbs said, looking over his shoulder at Virgil as he pulled on his trousers. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Virgil looked at me.

  “The woman in the room with Lassiter said he told her to stay put till he came back. Said he left as soon as they got upstairs, over an hour ago.”

  Virgil looked back to Hobbs.

  “Where did he go?”

  “He left?” Hobbs said. “I don’t know. I have no idea. Why?”

  Virgil stayed focused on Hobbs but spoke to Berkeley, who was standing behind him.

  “Mr. Berkeley, I need you to get our horses out front. The chestnut and the roan; leave the other two.”

  “Will do,” Berkeley said, and left the room quick.

  Rose picked up the blanket and moved near to me as Virgil walked around the bed and faced Hobbs.

  “Tell me about Wellington?”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t got time for you to dally with my demeanor.”

  “Dally with your . . .”

  Hobbs shook his head.

  “I do not know what you are talking about.”

  “Read the back end of that clippin’, Everett,” Virgil said without looking in my direction.

  I pulled the article from my vest pocket, opened it, and read it out loud.

  Wellington’s crime gained the state’s attention when three prominent Texas attorneys—Stephen Humphrey, William Mills, and James Lassiter—were also indicted after the ill-fated embezzlement scheme went awry. Charges were eventually dropped on the three due to the lack of state’s evidence. Many believe Wellington was the scapegoat for the others, who were heavy with counsel.

  I looked up at Virgil. Virgil was looking at Hobbs.

  “Lassiter and you are partners, law partners.”

  “Our companies merged less than a year ago.”

  “What about Wellington and the trial?”

  “I was on a big case in New York during
that brouhaha. By the time I had returned it was old news. Being an attorney is a nefarious business, and there is often a thin line between right and wrong, Mr. Cole. I never gave the banking trial involving this Wellington a thought. We firms are always caught in the middle between good and evil.”

  “Stealing money ain’t in the middle.”

  Hobbs stood up from the bed.

  “I never knew this Wellington.”

  Hobbs limped slightly to the corner and sat in a chair, where his shoes were on the floor in front of him.

  “Wouldn’t know Wellington if he hit me in the face.”

  “Who had the relationship with the governor?” Virgil asked.

  “You mean who was the idiot who encouraged the governor to invest in the territorial lands, putting him and his family’s lives at stake?”

  Hobbs shook his head as he picked up a sock from inside his shoe. He crossed his leg and put the sock on his foot.

  “That would be me, Mr. Cole; that would be me.”

  Hobbs picked up his other sock.

  “I have known the governor for a long time. We went to college together. I introduced James and the territorial idea to him. That was me; hell, I introduced him to his wife.”

  “Lassiter?” Virgil said. “How long you known him?”

  Hobbs shook his other sock and put it on.

  “Long time, not closely; however, not until our firms merged and we began working together did I get to know James intimately, evidently not intimately enough.”

  Hobbs slowly turned his attention from Virgil to the floor.

  “You believe this is James’ doing, I take it?”

  “And yours,” Virgil said. “You’re his partner.”

  Hobbs shook his head slowly, not so much as an answer to Virgil’s pointed inquiry but rather to the realization of something he had not suspected.

  “It just can’t be . . .” Hobbs said.

  62

  HOBBS WORKED HIS right foot into his shoe and sat back, looking at Virgil, with his elbows resting on the arms of the chair. He slowly shook his head from side to side.

  “I know nothing about any of this,” Hobbs said. “Absolutely nothing.”

  Virgil looked at him steadily.

  “Who hired the Pinkerton agents?”

  Hobbs raised his hand like a schoolboy.

  “Afraid that, too, was my personal blunder,” Hobbs said. “What now, Marshal?”

  “Tell me about Lassiter.”

  “What would you like to know?”

  “What you know.”

  “Well . . . he’s one hell of an attorney. Not married. Divorced. I think. No children that I know of . . . this the type of information you’re interested in?”

  “He in trouble?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Owe people money.”

  Hobbs shook his head.

  “I don’t think so. If so, I have no knowledge of such.”

  Rose was standing close to me. The blanket was draped loosely off her shoulders, barely covering her breasts, and was open down the side, revealing the curves of her naked body.

  “You can go,” I whispered to her.

  “Oh, no,” she said a little too loudly. “I’m enjoying this.”

  Virgil looked at Rose. Then me. Then he looked back to Hobbs.

  “Maybe he’s in debt, I don’t know,” Hobbs said. “He’s a gambler. He gambles a great deal, that I know, cards, the races, everything. He’s a big spender, too.”

  “On what?”

  Hobbs shook his head. “Expensive taste, fine stuff, horses, carriages, clothes, women, everything, guns. I don’t know.”

  “Guns?”

  “He has a huge collection. Civil War and beyond. Works on guns in his spare time, repairing them, engraving them. A fine craftsman—exquisite, actually. Gives them as gifts. He’s a generous man. He gave me a fancy Derringer.”

  Virgil turned the receiver of the Henry rifle in his hands so Hobbs could view the engraving clearly.

  “Like this?”

  Hobbs reached over his shoulder and retrieved a pair of spectacles from the breast pocket of his jacket hanging on the back of the chair. He put them on and looked at the engraving on the rifle and his eyes narrowed. He frowned for a brief moment and removed his spectacles. He looked up at Virgil with a steady gaze.

  “Yes,” Hobbs said, “like that.”

  Berkeley bounded up the stairs and came to the doorway out of breath. His big hands held on to each side of the doorjamb.

  “Son of a bitch stole my black,” Berkeley said.

  He took a big breath.

  “After supper he asked me if I was a horseman. We got into a discussion about bloodlines,” Berkeley said. “Like a fool, I showed him my prizewinner. My Thoroughbred. He was in a corral next to the hotel here.”

  Berkeley took another big breath.

  “But not anymore,” Berkeley said. “The son of a bitch.”

  “Mr. Berkeley?” a voice called sternly from the hall. “What on earth is happening here? What is with all the commotion?”

  Berkeley turned. A man stepped up behind him. He was older, medium height, lean, with intense eyes and a groomed goatee.

  “Governor, sir,” Berkeley said. “Um, we have a situation here.”

  “What sort of situation?” the governor said sharply.

  The governor looked into the room past Berkeley, to Hobbs sitting in the corner chair wearing one shoe.

  “Chet?” the governor said. “What’s happening?”

  The governor moved swiftly past Berkeley and came into the room.

  “What’s the situation . . . ?”

  Rose took an abrupt step back, stepping on the blanket, and it dropped to the floor, leaving her standing buck naked.

  The governor looked to Rose, then to Virgil, then to me, then back to Hobbs.

  “What in the hell is going on here?” he said.

  63

  AFTER WE SEARCHED the whole of Half Moon Junction and found no sign of Lassiter or anyone who might have seen him, the governor, Hobbs, Berkeley, Virgil, and I collected in the main room of Hotel Ark just as the sun was coming up. Burns came in from the saloon with a pot of coffee and set it on the front desk next to the pair of mounted mallards.

  “Anything else, Mr. Berkeley?” Burns said.

  “No,” Berkeley said. “Thank you, Burns.”

  Burns went back into his room behind the desk and closed the door. The governor had not said much to us since he had previously entered Hobbs’ room. What little he did have to say let Virgil and me know right away he was not part of the unfolding plot of thievery.

  The governor was angry with Hobbs, and at the moment was pacing. Not just a little bit angry but a lot. His knuckles were on his hips, holding back the flaps of his jacket, as he moved back and forth in front of Hobbs. Hobbs was seated in a tall-backed chair next to the bobcats. Virgil and I stood leaning on each side of the foyer arches. The black bears were behind us, just inside the hotel’s entrance. Berkeley perched on a stool by the reception desk. A single shaft of morning sun peeked through one of the windows and lit up the hen and drake mallards sitting on the reception desk like a theater spotlight. After a wave of uncomfortable silence, the governor spoke.

  “My God, Chester,” the governor said.

  Hobbs looked at him, but the governor did not look at Hobbs.

  “How could you?” the governor said. “Are you mad?”

  Hobbs said nothing.

  “How in the hell could you have dragged me and my family into this?”

  Hobbs looked at the floor and shook his head.

  “I asked you if you evaluated the security of the situation,” the governor said, “and you assured me this was a sound business proposition and we’d be safe! My girls, my wife! My God! I trusted you!”

  The governor stopped talking for a moment and paced quietly, trying to let off some steam. Following a bandy of turns, he stopped and looked at Virgil.


  “And for what?” the governor said. “They did not even get the money they were after!”

  “What?” Hobbs said as he looked up from the floor. “Well, where is it?”

  The governor turned on Hobbs like a badger and slapped him so hard blood instantly came to his nose.

  “My daughters have been abducted!”

  Hobbs grabbed his bleeding nose and just looked at the governor.

  “God knows what will come of this, and you have the audacity to ask: Where’s the money!”

  The governor stood over Hobbs with his fists clenched at his sides—as if Hobbs would even think of retaliating—but Hobbs just remained seated, looking up at the governor as his nose bled.

  “Why did you ask me about where I was carrying the money?” the governor said.

  “What?”

  “Goddamn you, Chet! Why? You asked me more than once. Why?”

  Hobbs looked down at the floor again, and blood dripped off his chin onto his shirt.

  “Lassiter wanted to know,” Hobbs said. “I thought for security, I’m sorry—”

  “Sorry? Damn right you’re sorry!”

  “I was the one who got the Pinkerton agents,” Hobbs said.

  “Yes! You are the one who got the Pinkerton agents! You got the Pinkerton agents killed!”

  The governor jerked a handkerchief from his pocket and slung it at Hobbs.

  “Goddamn you, Chet,” he said.

  64

  THE GOVERNOR WAS sure enough angry and certainly distraught. He was doing his best to remain composed, but he was not doing a very good job of it. He resumed pacing but avoided looking at Hobbs. He spoke to Virgil and me as he moved.

  “Even with the Pinkertons on guard, I was not so stupid to carry that amount of money in my possession,” the governor said. “Or in the freight safe with guards. God knows how many payrolls have been absconded from train safes.”

  Continuing shafts of sun slanted across the room as Half Moon Junction was waking up. Outside, a skinner hawed a team of mules as they rounded the corner of the hotel and drove north up the street. After a moment more of pacing, the governor stopped in front of the snarling bobcats and turned to face Virgil and me.