"Sure thing, Cass," Cort hollered above Mattie's singing, which earned him dagger-like glares from everyone else in the room. "But you know the rules. Coons cost double."
"Yeah, yeah." Cass flipped the smartass a $20 gold piece. "I'll expect to win that back before you pass out tonight."
"Dream on, grasshopper."
Cort waved to Pug, and Collie stepped inside.
After a detour to the hatcheck counter, Collie stomped into the parlor, sporting a five-day growth of beard. The kid was dressed in his usual denim trousers and buckskin coat, garments that had once belonged to the heavy-fisted moonshiner, who'd been his pa. No one would have guessed those hand-me-downs weren't custom-tailored. Over the last six months, Collie had sprouted like a weed, filling out the coat's shoulders and the once baggy rump of the trousers. Long hours in a saddle had packed muscle on his skinny thighs, and his wrists had lost their bony look, thanks to daily quickdraw drills.
"Three bucks for a bottle?" he groused, banging down his bourbon and swinging a leg over a chair. "That's highway robbery!"
"Nevermind that," Cass retorted, leaning across the table so he could whisper.
Cort and the whiskered dude were headed for the gaming room; the nearest John slumped in his cups. With the symphony booming and Mattie yodeling, Cass figured he was safe to talk business.
"Where's Sadie?"
Collie jerked his head toward his coon. The varmint had scrambled out of Cass's lap—leaving him with a soggy crotch—and was now belly-creeping into the hall.
Vandy was the sneakiest varmint Cass knew. He had an uncanny instinct about people, whom he considered food dispensaries. Somehow, Vandy had figured out that Pug was busy, turning away another John. The coon sniffed his way into the foyer. Whether he was tracking pumpkin pie or patchouli-scented Tiger was unclear, but he did dash under the linen drape of an accent table, topped with a vase of peacock feathers. The table was located outside Mattie's audience chamber.
"Looks like Sadie's waiting for Mattie," Collie whispered dryly, uncorking his Wild Turkey. "She used a letter from Wilma to get inside the brothel."
Cass groaned. He'd forgotten how Mattie owed Wilma a life debt. "You shouldn't have let Sadie come here!"
"You said protect her, not tie her to a chair. Besides. You ever try talking sense into a firecracker?"
Cass didn't commiserate, even if his woman's temper was only rivaled by her tongue. "Did she see Pancake tethered at the hitching post?"
"Oh, yeah." Collie had the audacity to smirk.
Damn. Cass wanted to box the brat's ears. "What's she want with Mattie?"
Collie took a swig of bourbon. "Cort bailed Baines out of jail this afternoon—with Mattie's money."
"So?"
"So Sadie added Baines to her suspect list after a telegram came back from Boston, verifying how he got expelled from Harvard for conduct unbecoming."
Cass hiked an eyebrow. The matchsafe from Baines's pocket had rightfully belonged to Boone. Earlier that afternoon, Cass had met with the freighting baron, and Boone had identified the inscription inside the lid. What hadn't been clear from their meeting was how Baines had acquired the novelty.
"Matchsafes—even nice ones—don't strike me as Maestro's target," Cass mused. "But Boone did tell me that a thief tried to crack his office safe about the same time his matchesafe went missing. The vault was holding a fancy music box, newly arrived for the Rothschild auction. Boone's secretary surprised the thief, and he fled."
Collie grunted noncommittally.
"Speaking of music," the kid said, "you'd best get yourself a pair of opera shoes."
"Why's that?"
"'Cause Beans is beating you at your own game."
"The hell he is."
"Beans invited Sadie to his private theater box," Collie challenged. "How're you gonna compete with that?"
Damn that Yankee prig.
Cass scowled. Sadie adored opera. In her mind, nothing could compare with proscenium-box seating for some highfaluting musicale. Before her dreams of performing had been cut short by her father's murder and her mother's suicide, Sadie had rehearsed daily with a music tutor in the hopes of headlining on a fancy stage.
Cass, on the other hand, couldn't make heads or tails of foreign shrieking—which was how he privately viewed opera. For Sadie's sake, he'd tried to sit through Wagner, once. She'd lured him to the theater with promises of big-busted women wearing chest armor and horned helmets, but he'd fallen asleep during the overture. Needless to say, Sadie had been furious. She'd frozen him out of her bed—like she usually did when she was pissed.
Making a face, Cass poured himself a shot of Jose Cuervo. "Better Beans than me," he told Collie.
"What's the matter with you? If you took Sadie to the opera, she'd forgive you, and we'd all get back to normal!"
"Too soon. She needs to spit and claw awhile longer."
"So you're letting Beans win?"
Cass tossed back his shot. At the moment, he didn't have a choice. Even if he'd wanted to take Sadie to the opera, all of Dolce's performances were sold out.
"What part of, 'Beans is taking her to the opera,' don't you understand?" Cass retorted.
Collie shook his head. "Wailing and whining. That's all you did for three lousy months after you thought that woman had died in a brothel fire—"
"I did not wail."
"Well, you sure as hell whined! You were like a big noisy mosquito in a Stetson! For 96 days, you yapped, yakked, and jawed our ears off. That's right," Collie added loftily, "me and Vandy counted. So go make peace with your woman. We're sick and tired of your boo-hooing."
"Since when does Vandy get a vote?"
Collie wiped his sleeve across his mouth. "When's the last time I slugged you? It seems like you're due."
Cass's amusement was fleeting. "Sleeves aren't for wiping. How many times do I have to tell you that? No wonder you can't talk your way into a high-stakes poker game. Or a classy brothel."
"Shows how much you know. Vandy does my talking. He gets me free drinks and casino credits anytime I want."
"Vandy didn't get you free anything tonight. I had to pay your entry fee."
Collie smirked. "You think on that again, Snake Bait."
A slow heat rolled up Cass's neck. He didn't know whether to be annoyed or amused by Collie's humbug.
"I sent you to protect Sadie so she could teach you some manners, you crazy corn-cracker."
"Manners?" Collie scoffed. "That skirt curses like a muleskinner."
"Good. Then the two of you found something in common."
Collie rolled his eyes. "Yeah. You drive us both to drink." He belched like a foghorn.
"Tarnation, boy! Were you born in a barn?"
"Worse." Collie's dimples peeked.
"Quit bragging." Honest to God, teaching that boy charm is like teaching an alley cat how to fetch. "Has Sadie gotten an appointment with Fowler yet?"
"Are you kidding? Rebekah can sniff out patchouli from a mile away."
Cass frowned. Rebekah was a tad zealous about managing Fowler's appointment schedule. She'd told Cass the waiting list was as long as Father Time's beard. But then, Cass dressed like a cowboy, not a tycoon. Rebekah probably thought he was too poor to fleece.
"Sadie's supposed to be rich," Cass said. "Rebekah's supposed to be raking in money for Fowler. What's the problem?"
"You mean, besides Rebekah being a few pecans short of a fruitcake?"
Cass shot him a withering glare. "I found her perfectly cordial."
"Sure you did. You're the Rebel Rutter. Your sweat don't stink! But Rebekah told me, if I lived in Arabee, I'd get my hands chopped off, my tongue ripped out, and my eyes gouged!"
Cass hiked an eyebrow. "That's a bit harsh."
"You're tellin' me!"
"Maybe you shouldn't always let Vandy do the talking," Cass said dryly.
"Vandy was a perfect gentleman!"
Cass let the irony of this assessment pass. "In my experie
nce, a young woman doesn't make threats unless she has good reason. So what did you do to her?"
"Nuthin'! I was standing in the hallway, just as nice as can be. When she got off the elevator, I tipped my hat and said, 'Howdy.' She's off her freakin' nut, I'm telling you. She cursed Vandy with a plague of locusts!"
Cass smirked. "Somehow, that makes sense."
Collie flipped him off.
"So let me get this straight." Cass was trying to keep a straight face. "You were standing in the hall earilier this evening?"
"Yep." Collie nodded. "On the fourth floor. Keeping a lookout for Sadie."
"And while you were getting bullied by a 14-year-old girl," Cass taunted, "what was Sadie doing?"
"Crawling out Fowler's window, I expect."
"What?!" Cass was pretty sure the blood drained to his toes.
"It's not like she never did it before," Collie said sheepishly. "Remember Galveston? And Lampasas?"
"Those windows were on the second story! Fowler's room's on the fourth! Sadie could have broken her fool neck!"
"What did you expect her to do? Exit through the hall door and flash her badge? If Vandy hadn't chased his ball under Rebekah's skirts, she would have caught Sadie rummaging through Fowler's drawers!"
Cass struggled with his outrage. As much as he would have liked to pommel Collie for his poor judgment, Sadie's adventure hadn't ended in catastrophe—this time. "Did she find anything, at least?"
"A chunk of quartz, a corncob pipe, a pewter goblet—"
"Anything to incriminate him?" Cass amended impatiently.
"How about peyote?"
"It's not illegal, if that's what you mean."
"Then she didn't find squat. But if you ask me, Rebekah's the one you should really be worried about."
"Rebekah's a child. And even if she wasn't, she's not Maestro. Look at how she dresses. She isn't interested in pretty rocks."
Collie shrugged. "That doesn't mean she's not dangerous. She found out about Sadie's sister, didn't she? That's not common knowledge."
Cass frowned. Collie did have a point. But the real problem wasn't Rebekah. The real problem was how Fowler would respond, if the child convinced him Sadie was a threat. "Tarnation, boy, that's why I told you to stick to Sadie like a tick on a hound! If anything happens to her—"
"Yeah, yeah. Quit your whining. Sheesh. She's better armed than I am, with all her detective gadgets. 'Sides. What can go wrong? She's just on the other side of this wall, ain't she?"
Not for long, Cass thought grimly.
But before he confronted Sadie, he had another matter to settle with Collie. "Hand over Beans's timepiece."
"Huh?"
"You heard me."
The kid stiffened. "Vandy stole that watch fair and square!"
"Vandy's not supposed to be stealing anything, deputy. Besides, I need an excuse to reconnoiter Greyfell Manor."
Collie hiked his chin. "What happened to all that Coyote Charm that's supposed to open doors for you?"
"Charm doesn't work on Dobermans."
"So you're going to wave that watch in the air, and put the hounds in a trance?"
"How 'bout I wave my fist in the air, and put you in a trance?"
Collie snorted. "I'd like to see you try it, Snake Bait."
"Do you want to be a lawman or not?" Cass snapped.
The boy scowled. Thanks to Sera's influence, Cass knew that Collie didn't want to end up like his old man: drunk, reviled, and lynched. The kid was sweet on Sera. She was quite possibly the only person in Collie's universe who had the power to lift him to higher moral ground. He wanted to be the kind of man some future Sera would deign to marry. But before the boy would admit to such a thing, he'd have to be doused with kerosene and lit.
"I liked it better when I was a thief," Collie grumbled, gulping another swig of bourbon.
"Now who's whining?"
"Fine. You want the watch so bad? You can have it for 40 bucks."
"Forty bucks?! It wasn't worth that much new!"
"That's your problem. And don't bring me any worthless greenbacks, either."
Cass gaped. "Wait a minute. You're serious?"
"Hell yeah. I want gold pieces."
"I don't have any gold pieces!"
"Then you'd better win me some," Collie retorted loftily. "It's the least you can do while I have to stay sober enough to protect your woman."
* * *
Alone in Mattie's audience chamber, Sadie paced the fancy carpet. She'd been unceremoniously abandoned 20 minutes earlier. Now she could hear some woman belting out her pirated ballad, Pansy Primrose. That wasn't a good sign, Sadie mused. It meant at least one of the musicians from Dodge City's Long Branch Saloon had migrated to Denver—and worse, that he'd be able to identify her if he saw her unusual eyes.
Sadie cursed her luck. She'd figured she could avoid Cass, simply because he was upstairs, whoring, but the musicians were another matter. She would have had to walk past the bandstand to get to any other room in the house—except this one. That's why she'd insisted on a private meeting with Denver's reigning madam.
Mattie's audience chamber was fit for a queen. Red-velvet and gold gilt adorned the furniture; tinkling chandeliers scattered rainbows across the ceiling; the Persian carpet practically sucked Sadie's feet into the pile. Near the heavy bombazine that draped the window, a small table had been cozily set for two. Decanters with golden liquid beckoned from the sideboard. Sadie was tempted, but she restrained herself. Four years ago, during her first assignment as a "man," she'd made a pact with herself never to drink in the field—at least, not real liquor. Guns and gadgets could fail. The only things standing between her and the Angel of Death were a clear mind and a swift kick.
She halted before the mirror over the sideboard. Raising her blue-tinted spectacles, she studied her reflection, critically inspecting the putty on her freckled nose and the graying muttonchop whiskers that swallowed the lower half of her face under her beaver top hat. She was hunting for signs of cracking or peeling. Even though Wilma's letter had carefully omitted all reference to gender, Sadie didn't really expect to fool Mattie with black worsted swallowtails and a satin-lined opera cape.
The clock on the mantel chimed 11:30 p.m. Sadie muttered an oath. Had that blockhead of a waiter forgotten to pass Wilma's letter to Mattie? Sadie had never expected to wait this long. She wondered if she should call her Pinkerton escort inside. Pryce was posing as the driver of her hansom cab, mostly to guard the horses. If Mattie delayed much longer, Sadie was going to find a man-shaped icicle in the alley!
But as she headed for the hallway to rescue her colleague, she was surprised by the sound of a sliding door. Prepared to trigger her .32, she turned.
A tawny-haired devil stepped out of the rich, cherry wood paneling beside the fireplace.
Sadie scowled. "You!"
Cass grinned. "What a smashing chapeau, old chap. Have we met?"
Hilarious. He knew damned well who she was. In fact, Collie had probably told him where to find her.
Sadie watched Cass hang his lantern over a hook in the passage before letting the panel slide closed. As usual, the reprobate was dressed in his mouth-watering black. She was quick to notice that all his buttons and buckles were properly latched, which made the pain of seeing him in a whorehouse slightly less acute.
"What are you doing here? No, wait," she amended acidly. "Never mind. I can guess."
Ignoring her blistering glare, he strolled closer. The smoking sapphire of his gaze trailed leisurely over her disguise. "Sandalwood soap, nice touch," he drawled. "Muttonchops? Not so much."
"I was expecting Mattie." She kept her tone clipped, as businesslike as possible.
"Mattie's singing your song."
That explains a lot. "Good," Sadie snapped. "While I'm here, she can pay me royalties."
His grin turned lopsided. "That might clue her you're not a man."
Sadie ground her teeth. Right now, she didn't feel like a man, thank
s to Cass's sultry heat, lapping over her skin. She struggled to ignore her traitorous female parts. "What's the matter? Afraid you won't get the chance to betray me again?"
Undaunted by her taunt, he let his wicked gaze drop below her belt. "You can't seriously expect Mattie to think you're a John."
Annoyed by her libidinous flush, Sadie turned on her heel and stalked for the door.
"Aw, c'mon, Tiger." He caught up with her, preventing her escape. "You know you're not safe here. If you were, you wouldn't have worn a disguise."
"Get out of my way," she growled.
"I have a better idea. Why don't you let me do the snooping?"
"Because I'm not talking to you."
His dimples peeked, boyish and endearing. "You just did."
"Only because braining you with this walking stick would be illegal."
"Sounds like another good reason not to wear a badge," he quipped.
"So sass is your idea of helping me?"
He backed her into the door, all sizzle and sin with a dastardly dash of incorrigible thrown in. "It could be worse. I could tug off your whiskers. Or steal your codpiece."
She hiked her chin. "And that's supposed to make me trust you?"
"Aw, c'mon, Sadie. You know I'm on your side."
She sniffed. "You sure have a lousy way of showing it."
"Truce?" he murmured, his lips parting hypnotically above hers.
She had to fight her screaming, female instincts—the ones that wanted him to forget her beard, drop her drawers, and prove why he'd earned the nickname, Rebel Rutter.
"Hell, no," she rallied. "What do you take me for?"
"I'll take you forever, if you let me."
Pain lanced her heart. Sadie knew he hadn't meant the words the way they'd sounded—like a marriage proposal. He was Coyote Cass, after all. He'd always been good at word games.
She shoved his chest, forcing him back a step. "Go spin your lies for some dewy-eyed virgin. I'm done being your—"
Dance to the Devil's Tune (Lady Law & The Gunslinger Series, Book 2) Page 9
