Robert B. Parker's Revelation

by Robert Knott

  Mr. Blake laid the chair back and dropped a white face towel into a pot of boiling water. He let it soak in the hot water a minute, retrieved it with a pair of tongs, rolled the towel through the roller, then laid it gently over Driggs’s face.

  Jut then Driggs heard a tap on the glass door.

  “Ah . . . good morning, Mr. Blake.”

  “Oh . . . good morning, Mr. Vandervoort,” he said.

  “I thought I’d get here early enough to be your first,” Vandervoort said. “But I see you have a customer, so I shall return.”

  “Okay, Mr. Vandervoort,” Mr. Blake said. “Give me . . . oh, forty-five minutes.”

  “If someone comes before I return . . .”

  “No problem, Mr. Vandervoort, you’ll be next.”

  “Very good,” he said. “Thank you . . .”

  “You bet,” Mr. Blake said. “By the way, how was your trip?”

  “Hot and muggy, that New Orleans . . . I will tell you all about it when I return . . . Oh, that reminds me, I have a gift for you. A gift for my favorite young gentleman in all of Appaloosa.”

  “Why, thank you.”

  “Something very special for your shop here, from France. I think it will be a fine addition for your place of business, Mr. Blake.”

  “Why, thank you,” said Blake.

  “Soon as the crates are unloaded I’ll see that it’s delivered.”

  “Thank you.”

  “See you shortly, Mr. Blake.”

  After Vandervoort walked on, Driggs said from under the towel covering his face, “Heard a lot about that man.”

  “He’s a special individual,” Mr. Blake said.

  “So I hear,” Driggs said.

  Driggs made certain Mr. Blake’s grooming procedures were expeditious. The last thing he wanted to do was have a meaningless conversation with a barber in a barbershop.

  On his return to the hotel he saw a crowd of people gathered around an ambulance in front of the building where he had the disagreements with Uncle Dave and Sheriff Chastain. When he passed he noticed Deputy Book, who’d asked Wallis if he knew where to find the sheriff and all Driggs could think about as he walked past was that the mystery was over.

  —

  The princess was standing in the tub, drying off with a towel, when Driggs entered.

  “There you are,” she said. “And look at you. You are so handsome. You got your hair cut.”

  “And a shave,” he said.

  “You look marvelous,” she said.

  “Tonight is the night,” he said.

  “The party?”

  “Why, yes,” he said with the excitement of a little boy. “The party.”

  His eyes were afire with anticipation and he actually paced a bit before he picked up the whiskey bottle from the nightstand and took a swig.

  “And I want you in your new yellow dress.”

  “Oh, yes, darling,” she said. “It’s perfect.”

  “It is,” he said.

  He walked to her and scooped her up in his arms and laid her on the bed. He kissed her up and down her body and ended kissing her lips.

  “This will be a good evening,” he said. “A lavish engagement fit for a princess.”

  “Listen to you,” she said.

  “You will no doubt be the most beautiful of all,” he said.

  “Oh . . . kiss me some more.”

  74

  Just after sunset Driggs hurried back to the Boston House with the orchid corsage he got from a Chinaman. He thought the ivory color would complement the princess’s sterling blue eyes, dark hair, and new yellow dress. He bounded up the stairs to their room and when he entered someone was just inside, standing to the side of the door, and stuck a gun barrel to the side of his head. Driggs froze.

  “Double-barrel,” a deep voice said. “Fancy one. Took it off some Englishman religious fucking chap that was twice your size. He said it was a hunting gun. For grouse and pheasant and the like. Said it was given to him by someone that meant something to him or some shit. Funny thing was I didn’t find no scatter bird loads for it. Just hard knocking double-ought buck is all I found. That’s what this load is. Double-ought buck. Take your head off.”

  Driggs eyes turned.

  “Easy, cocksucker,” the voice said.

  Driggs did not need to see who was holding the shotgun to his head; he recognized the voice but looked anyway to see it was the hulking hayseed Ed Degraw.

  “He used funny fucking words. He said things like ‘chap’ and ‘jolly’ and ‘shit.’ Until I stuck the gun up his ass and let go both barrels. You should have seen that. Fuck. The double-ought buck exploded out the top of his head. There was eyes and hair and brains and teeth and all kinds of innards all over the ceiling of the little chapel where it happened. I think he was the pastor or preacher or pope or whatever the fuck you call ’em.”

  Driggs just stared straight ahead. He was calm, poised, collected, and breathing easy.

  “I know you are wondering how the fuck it is I found you, ain’t you?” he said. “Fuck you, I’ll tell you . . . Move your ass over there, to the corner, to that chair there, now.”

  Driggs moved fluidly and his eyes were steady as he walked slowly to the chair and sat.

  Degraw kept the shotgun pointed at him with one hand as he removed an old newspaper article from his pocket with the other. He flipped it open. The paper was yellow and crumbly.

  “You ’member this?” Degraw said. “From the Appaloosa Star Statesman? When we was locked up together you kept reading this goddamn article about the goddamn brick factory here in Appaloosa. That was damn near four fucking years ago and you kept reading it. I know it had to mean something to you. You ’member and I asked you why you kept looking at it and reading it and you said it was none of my goddamn business. But now look it here, it is my business, ain’t it? You read it more than you ever read any of them other newspaper clippings. You read this all the fucking time. The goddamn Vandervoort Brick Factory in goddamn Appaloosa. Then when I get here I see half the town goddamn says that, Vandervoort. And then I think, I know you, Lonnigan. I know what a conniving shit you are and you are up to no good all the time. I knew you had something here up your sleeve . . . You are a moneygrubber cocksucker thief. So I figured I’d just come and get some of what you was out to get . . . You ain’t interested in sharing, then I will just fucking turn you in or kill you. Both, I would look forward to doing . . . I knew it’d be just a matter of time before I found you. I knew you had fucking money and you’d live high. I know you. Know all about you. What you did and how you got out. I figured it all out . . . I did. I looked at all the other hotels first before this one. But you know what? I would not have found you so easily if it had not been for the little canary . . . the warden’s wife.”

  Driggs’s eyes went to the left and then to the right.

  “You can imagine her surprise when it was me and not you coming through the door.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She looked really nice,” he said. “Little canary. So do you. You look like you’re ready for a party . . . and, a goddamn flower? Goddamn, Lonnigan, you’re a regular dandy.”

  “Where is she?”

  Degraw rubbed his crotch.

  “She was just as I imagined she’d be,” he said.

  “What’d you do?”

  “What else?” Degraw said.

  Driggs stared at him without an ounce of emotion.

  Degraw grinned.

  “Have a look for yourself,” he said as he nodded to the armoire.

  Driggs looked to the tall, mirrored wardrobe cabinet, then looked back to Degraw.

  “Go on,” Degraw said, “I think you will like what you see. You won’t be disappointed.”

  Driggs rose out of the chair and walked to the cabinet. He reached out and opened the door. He stared motionless at what he found inside.

  “She was . . . good,” Degraw said. “I knew that Bible bullshit she brought around was a bunch o
f bullshit. She was just like all the others, nothing but a fucking whore.”

  The princess was hanging inside the tall cabinet from a cord around her neck. Her eyes were wide open. Her purple tongue protruded from her lips. Her yellow dress was split all the way up the front, as was her body. She’d been split open from her crotch all the way to her chin with the straight razor that was lying at her feet.

  Degraw leaned just a bit to get a closer look at Driggs’s face.

  “Is that a fucking tear?” Degraw said.

  Driggs did not look at him.

  “It is,” Degraw said with a laugh. “I’ll be goddamn. Donnie fucking Lonnigan . . .”

  Driggs turned his head slowly and looked to Degraw. Tears were running down his cheeks.

  Degraw laughed again, harder this time, and when he did Driggs quickly dropped and lunged just as Degraw pulled both triggers. The shotgun’s double-barrel explosion was loud, but the shots missed. They went just over Driggs’s head and blew through the top of the armoire door as Driggs’s shoulder hit Degraw in his midsection, slamming him hard against the wall.

  Driggs pulled on the gun but Degraw held it from him. Then Driggs grabbed Degraw by the hair and pulled hard, banging his head into the remaining jagged mirror of the armoire door, slicing Degraw across the face.

  Driggs got Degraw in a headlock, then spun and charged toward the room door. The door shattered and splintered free from the doorjamb and fell into the hall followed by the big men. Driggs landed on top of Degraw and he twisted Degraw’s head to the side. Degraw screamed in pain, as his neck was about to snap. Degraw rifled three elbows into Driggs. Driggs was momentarily stunned and Degraw put the shotgun to Driggs’s throat. But Driggs pushed back as the two men powered back up, getting back on their feet. They were locked arm to arm with the gun held by both as they stumbled back into the room. Driggs jerked Degraw hard and they slammed into the wall, busting through the lath and plaster. Degraw pulled back, then pushed hard on Driggs and drove him across the room, snapping the post from the footboard of the bed, as the muscled men smashed hard into the opposite wall. The two powerful men turned and turned again, going back out into the hall. Then Driggs picked Degraw up off his feet and charged back into the room with him and crashed out through the window. They landed, striking hard on the shingled porch overhang and instantly started to slide, and within a moment they rolled off the fifteen-foot-high roof. There was a short silence as they fell. When they landed on the hard-packed street Degraw gasped—his wind knocked out of him. Driggs was on top of him. Looking down at Degraw’s eyes staring up at him. Driggs put his large hands on Degraw’s head, and with a dominant twisting crack, he snapped Degraw’s neck.

  Driggs stared at Degraw for a long moment, then glanced up and looked around. There was a crowd of people on the boardwalk that had come out of the Boston House Saloon who had just witnessed what happened, including Wallis.

  “Mr. Bedford?” Wallis said.

  Driggs pushed back his hair and tucked in his shirt.

  “My God,” Wallis said,

  Off in the distance the whistle blasts of the evening train coming into Appaloosa echoed through the streets.

  “Are you okay, Mr. Bedford?” Wallis said.

  Driggs straightened his coat and tie as he looked to Wallis.

  “Yes,” Driggs said. “I’m fine.”

  Driggs looked to dead Degraw. He reached down, scooped up the double-barrel shotgun. Then he rifled through Degraw’s pockets and found some shotgun shells.

  “Are you sure?” Wallis said.

  Driggs rose back up and broke open the double-barrel and slid in two new shells then looked to Wallis.

  “I’m perfectly fine, Mr. Wallis, perfectly fine,” Driggs said. “I have a party to attend.”

  Driggs snapped the break-over shotgun closed with a loud click and started walking off toward the Vandervoort Town Hall.

  75

  The train pulled into the Appaloosa depot at just past eight o’clock in the evening and Book was waiting there for us on the platform. When we approached, he removed his hat and looked down to his feet.

  “Hey, Book,” I said.

  Book raised his head kind of slow-like and looked up to Virgil and me. He had tears in his eyes.

  “I got some real bad news,” he said with a quivering bottom lip.

  “What is it, Book?” I said.

  “Sheriff Chastain has been killed,” he said. “Murdered.”

  “Goddamn,” I said.

  Virgil looked to me.

  “By who?” Virgil said.

  “Don’t know.”

  “Well, how do you know?”

  “He was found.”

  “Where?”

  “In a building that was being built over on Main Street.”

  “How was he killed, Book?” Virgil said.

  “I’m not real sure.”

  Book shook his head and looked away, fighting back tears.

  “What do you know?” Virgil said.

  “There is a building over there, the corner of Main and Third, that is under construction. Two workers found him there dead . . . along with another man.”

  “Another man?” Virgil said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Who?”

  Book shook his head a little.

  “I got no idea who he is . . . was. I might have seen him around, but I’m not real sure.”

  “And you’re not sure how Chastain was killed?” Virgil said.

  “Not for certain . . . Looked like he was . . . was in a fight and he maybe was strangled. His neck was swollen and caked in blood.”

  “What about the other man?” Virgil said.

  Book shook his head.

  “Looked like the same thing, I guess.”

  “What’d the other man look like?”

  “Oh, older . . . I say mid-fifty-something, sixty, maybe. Kind of a hefty fella. Dressed sort of normal, bowler. None of us deputies for sure knew who he was, but some of the others said they thought they’d seen him, too.”

  “Where are they?” I said. “The bodies?”

  “Undertaker.”

  “Nobody saw nothing at this building?” Virgil said. “Any witnesses?”

  “No.”

  “When the workers find them?”

  “Today, this morning . . . they were down behind a door under the floor.”

  “What?” Virgil said.

  “There is an opening to the building’s floor. The substructure, there was a door in the floor. They, both Sheriff Chastain and the other man, had been dumped there.”

  Virgil looked at me and shook his head.

  “Nobody knows but us deputies,” Book said. “I told everybody to keep shut about this . . . I told them you two was coming back and that you needed to know first and we’d go from there.”

  “Get our horses,” Virgil said. “Come to the Boston House.”

  “Boston House?” he said.

  “Yes,” Virgil said.

  Book nodded and started off.

  “And Book?”

  Book stopped and looked back to Virgil.

  “I’m sorry, son.”

  Book nodded a little, then moved on.

  Virgil and I walked directly and with some pace to the Boston House. When we rounded the corner onto Main Street there was a crowd of people standing on the porch of the hotel and an ambulance was sitting out front.

  When we arrived, Doc Burris was standing behind the ambulance, watching as a body was being loaded into the back. He turned, seeing Virgil and me.

  “Hey, there,” Doc said.

  “What have you got here, Doc?” Virgil said.

  He shook his head.

  “Dead man,” Doc said. “Nobody seems to know who he is.”

  Virgil and I looked inside the ambulance. I turned to the driver.

  “Let me have one of your lamps there,” I said.

  The driver handed me the lamp and I raised it up some so Virgil and I could have a l
ook at the man in the back.

  When the light shined on his face, Virgil looked to me.

  “That ain’t Driggs,” I said.

  We studied the man’s face for a long moment.

  “I’ll be goddamn, Virgil,” I said. “Think that is . . . Ed Degraw?”

  Virgil tilted his head a little, looking at the dead man with the wide nose and frizzy hair and nodded a little.

  “I do,” he said.

  76

  “Virgil, Everett,” Wallis said. “Thank God you are here.”

  We turned to see fat Wallis. He walked as quickly as his big body would move down the steps and over to the ambulance.

  “You know what happened here, Wallis?” I said.

  Wallis nodded. He was out of breath and his eyes were wide.

  “Damnedest thing . . .” he said, then inhaled followed by blowing the hair that was hanging in his eyes. “There was a loud boom, gunfire, upstairs. The whole saloon went quiet as hell. Then we heard awful banging around up above here and then two men, the dead man there, and another, Mr. Bedford, crashed out the upstairs window.”

  Wallis turned and pointed up the window.

  “Any law here?” Virgil said. “Been up there?”

  Wallis nodded.

  “Just got here. Not seen Chastain or Book, but two of the young deputies is here, they went up there.”

  “You said the other man was Bedford?” I said.

  “Yes, Mr. Bedford is a guest here. Him and that dead fella in the ambulance there busted out the window and landed here in the street. Then Mr. Bedford killed him. He snapped that man’s neck, broke it with a crack. Right there in front of us. We watched the whole thing. Hell of a deal I have to say . . . Mr. Bedford has been staying here for a good while. Hell, nice man, served him here near every day. Goddamnedest thing I ever seen.”

  “This Bedford?” I said. “Big strong fella?”

  Wallis nodded.

  “Was a woman with him?” I said.

  Wallis nodded.

  “Been a woman with him the whole time he’s been here, a beauty, I might add, but she was not with him, not when he walked off.”