Larry and Stretch 14

by Marshall Grover

From the hotel, he sauntered uptown to a saloon, an establishment shunned by Reedsburg’s more discerning topers, but well patronized by the local low-life. The bar was almost deserted when he entered. He kept his head bowed, as he moved across to the counter. His order was given in a muttered undertone.

  The barkeep was heavyset, with bushy brows, bulbous nose and thin-lipped mouth. Automatically, he went through the routine chore of pouring the lawyer a short brandy, and still Milliken kept his head down. The barkeep held out a hand for payment. Milliken gave him a coin, and the note he had written in the hotel lobby. As he raised the glass to his mouth, he muttered,

  “Pretend you don’t know me.”

  “My gosh,” breathed the barkeep. “It’s you!”

  “Softly,” grunted Milliken.

  He emptied his glass, set it on the bar, then turned and ambled out into the sunlight. The barkeep unfolded the note, read the short summons.

  “ROOM 4, HANNIBAL HOTEL,” Milliken had written. “ASK FOR MR DUNSTAN—AND COME AT ONCE.”

  Exactly five minutes later, the heavyset man was entering Milliken’s hotel room. The lawyer was seated at a table, intently studying his watch.

  “Sit down, and listen carefully,” he drawled.

  “Fergus Milliken,” frowned the barkeep, as he seated himself opposite the lawyer. “By golly. I’ve never forgotten you.”

  “You shouldn’t.” Milliken smiled blandly. “When I defended you four years ago, you were a first-class candidate for a hangman’s noose. Monte Nichols—cold-blooded murderer.”

  “Well—hell ...” began Nichols.

  “I bluffed that jury, not to mention the judge,” said Milliken.

  “And rigged evidence,” muttered Nichols, “and bribed a witness.”

  “All very satisfactory, from your point of view,” said Milliken. “Instead of hanging for that murder, you drew a five-year sentence for manslaughter. What a model prisoner you must have been, Nichols. One year off for good behavior.”

  “How’d you know where to find me?” demanded Nichols.

  “Reedsburg has a newspaper,” grinned Milliken, “with an indignant editor. Indignant that an ex-convict should sully this fair city with his unwelcome presence. You’re famous, my friend.”

  “All right, so that’s how you knew where to find me—and now what?”

  Milliken consulted his watch again.

  “There’s time,” he announced. “Just enough time for me to explain a certain situation, and for you to resign your job at that filthy saloon and buy a passage on the next westbound train.”

  “You’re talking about the Special?” challenged Nichols. “Hell, Milliken, I’m broke.”

  “You’ll have ample funds,” Milliken assured him. “Enough for your passage and—uh—various expenses. It may be necessary for you to travel all the way to Bilbow Springs, Wyoming. I say it may be necessary, though I doubt it. More likely you’ll have completed your chore long before the Special reaches the Nebraska-Wyoming border.”

  “You got a chore for me,” prodded Nichols.

  “An important chore,” smiled Milliken. “Yes. Quite important.”

  “Hold on now,” protested Nichols. “I’m clean, and I figure to stay that way. Four years in that stinking pen is all I aim to take.”

  “For a thousand dollars,” drawled Milliken. “I’m sure you’ll do as I ask. As to the risks involved—well ...” He shrugged nonchalantly, “it could be made to appear as an accident.”

  Nichols narrowed his eyes. A nerve twitched at his temple.”

  “It sounds like—like you want somebody put away.”

  “That’s the general idea,” nodded Milliken.

  “You,” breathed Nichols. “A high-born gent—a lawyer—setting up a killing.”

  “I prefer to call it a convenient accident,” muttered Milliken. “Come now, my friend, there’s no time to waste on hesitation. Take it or leave it, but I must have your decision now.”

  “Who’s the party?” frowned Nichols.

  “A woman,” said Milliken. “Are you squeamish, on that account?”

  “You said a thousand?” mused Nichols.

  “In cash,” said Milliken. “Payable upon my receiving a wire from you. You can telegraph me from any town along the route. All you need say is ‘Package delivered.’ Then nominate an address and I’ll forward the money. It’s as simple as that, Nichols.”

  Nichols put a finger on the lawyer’s open timepiece, turned it to study the face.

  “You’re right,” he said. “There’s just time enough for me to pack my grip and buy a ticket. Now—who is this female?”

  “You’ll find her waiting at the depot,” said Milliken. “The name is Chapman—Miss Adelaide Chapman. Look at this, and memorize it.” He produced a photograph and exhibited it for the killer’s inspection.

  “Don’t worry,” grunted Nichols, as Milliken returned the picture to his pocket. “When the right time comes, I won’t miss her.”

  “I suggest you buy passage to Harristown,” frowned Milliken. “It happens to be the next stop after Bilbow Springs. If you were booked to the Springs or to any town between, it might look a little too obvious.”

  He placed a wad of banknotes on the table. Nichols pocketed the money and got to his feet.

  “I won't ask,” he said, “why you want this female put away.”

  “It’s hardly likely I’d confide my reasons,” drawled Milliken.

  “Sure.” Nichols grinned crookedly. “Hardly likely.” He turned to the door. “All right, Mr. Milliken, you’ll be hearing from me.”

  Monte Nichols arrived at the depot exactly nine minutes before the coming of the Special, and was informed by the ticket-clerk that there was still seating available in the second passenger car. While negotiating the purchase of his ticket, the killer covertly studied the depot-office’s only other occupant.

  Thanks to the photograph, he recognized Addy at once. It was doubtful, however, that Addy’s husband-to-be would have done so. The stolid Noah might have passed her by. She had changed considerably. By the simple process of discarding her bonnet and duster, unknotting her hair and letting it fall to her shoulders, the gentle spinster had effected quite a transformation.

  Chapter Two: “They’re Here!”

  Newspaper advertisements and Sears Roebuck catalogues had given Addy a working knowledge of the fashions now favored by all classes of frontier women. She was an expert dressmaker and, for several weeks past, had been absorbed in the preparation of an entirely new wardrobe to be used during her absence from Elmford. One thing Addy had promised herself.

  “When you board that train, Addy my girl, you won’t be the timid little spinster from Elmford. No, indeed! You’re going to have an absolutely different personality—and an absolutely different wardrobe to go with it. You’re going to be the kind of woman people notice!”

  The bonnet and duster were consigned to her carpetbag. Cool and poised, and well aware of the admiring glances aimed at her by the depot-manager and the ticket clerk, she rose and sauntered with queenly gait to the platform.

  Instead of the bonnet, she now wore a jaunty chapeau, a frivolous confection of artificial flowers, colored straw and flimsy lace. And minus the duster, her well-knit figure won well-deserved attention. Her traveling gown of cherry red was cut to accentuate the shapely contours so long hidden from the eyes of Elmford’s humdrum masculinity—deep at the neckline, snug about the torso and waist.

  Her pulse pounded, as the shrill whistle-blast reached her ears. From the east, the Special, the pride of the Ohio & Western, puffed pompously into Reedsburg, to steam to a halt beside the depot platform. Nichols was standing a few yards behind her, when the conductor descended and doffed his cap. His name was Wilbur Aldworth. He was no bachelor and was well on in years but, by golly, in the presence of such a rare good-looker, he felt twenty years younger. Scrawny and bespectacled, with shaggy gray hair and a scruffy moustache, Wilbur insisted on playing the gallant, accord
ed her a sweeping bow which almost threw him off balance.

  “Welcome, ma’am! The Ohio and Western is honored.”

  “It isn’t ‘ma’am’,” smiled Addy, “It’s ‘Miss.’ Miss Adelaide Chapman.”

  She offered her ticket. Wilbur examined it, marked it, returned it to her, then scooped up her carpet-bag.

  “Your heavy stuff’ll be loaded into the caboose,” he announced. “And now, with your permission, I’ll be proud to escort you to a fine seat in the rear car. This way, Miss Addy.”

  “What about me?” called Nichols, with a jovial grin. “Sorry, friend,” frowned Wilbur. “If there’d teen a hundred passengers waitin’ on this here platform, I swear Miss Addy is the only one I’d have noticed. Let me see your ticket. Uh huh. Rear car for you too. Just tag along.”

  Already, Addy’s new wardrobe was paying dividends. Every male eye fastened on her, as the conductor ushered her into the carriage. Men hastened to make room for her and couldn’t disguise their disappointment, when Wilbur steered her to a seat, a double, half-occupied. The occupant was small, male, elderly and somewhat flashily-garbed, a sprightly little jasper with a tan derby perched rakishly atop his balding dome. He doffed that headgear and favored Addy with a buck-tooth grin.

  “I reckon you’d as soon sit with Mr. Blake, Miss Addy,” offered Wilbur. “Already guessed you and him are in the same business.”

  “Timothy Jacob Blake,” teamed the little man. “My pleasure, Miss Addy. Here, take my place. Sit by the window and welcome.”

  “You’re very kind, Mr. Blake,” she acknowledged.

  “The heck with the ‘mister’,” he grinned. “Call me Tim.”

  Wilbur stowed her bag on the rack, while Tim Blake made quite a ceremony of changing position and assisting her to sink into the seat by the window. He sat beside her and began talking. The conductor installed Nichols in a seat at the rear of the carriage, then hurried out to the platform for a few words with the railroad's local representatives—and Tim Blake went right on talking. He was, Addy sensed, the gabby kind.

  “On my way home,” he was telling her. “Home bein’ Coyote Gulch, as lively a town as you ever saw—and I’ll bet you've seen plenty. Got me a saloon there. The Prairie Queen.”

  “Coyote Gulch ...” She pretended to be trying to remember where she’d heard that name before. Of course, she never had.

  “In West Wyomin’,” offered Tim.

  “Oh, sure,” she nodded.

  And how easily that retort had been voiced. “Oh, sure.” She could match this verbose, gregarious little man, meet him on his own terms, talk to him in his own language. It seemed incredible, but there could be no doubt that he was treating her as an equal.

  “On my way back from Indiana,” he continued. “Heck of a long way to travel for a weddin’, huh, Addy?” He was already dropping the ‘Miss’. “Well, I just had to go. That sister of mine—Beulah—is my only kin. I swear I never believed she’d trap herself a man, but damned if she didn’t!” He sniggered and nudged her with a bony elbow. “Beulah ain’t what you’d call a looker—not one quarter as purty as you, for instance. Well, this bridegroom sure surprised me. He ain’t no older than Beulah, and a right sociable feller. Yep. A real gent. Took to him right off, I did. Proud to say Sister Beulah’s in good hands ...”

  She was laughing inwardly, but not with derision. Tim Blake had his own peculiar appeal. He was likeable. Her secret mirth was caused by his ready acceptance of her. He seemed shrewd and observant, yet he hadn’t penetrated her disguise. She found it difficult to conceal her elation, when he casually enquired,

  “What saloons you been workin’, Addy? I hear tell things are a mite slow in Illinois. Not much percentage, even for a gal as purty as you.”

  “Good grief!” she reflected. “He really does believe it! He takes me for a saloon-woman!”

  Airily, she drawled her lie.

  “Oh—I’ve been working all over. You know how it is.”

  “Tell me you only work for a percentage,” he grinned, “and I’ll call you a liar. I’ve been in the business a long time, so you can’t fool me. You’re an entertainer. You sing to the customers, huh, Addy?”

  “How’d you guess?” she countered.

  “Like I said,” he chuckled, “I’m an old hand. I can spot a joy-house singer a mile away By golly, Addy, you’d have ’em stampin’ and whoopin’ at the old Prairie Queen. Yes siree!”

  “Maybe you’re exaggerating,” she smiled. “After all, you’ve never heard me sing.”

  “My customers wouldn’t know if you was off-key or on,” he retorted. “They wouldn’t be listenin’ anyway.” He showed her another wink, a sly one. “They’d only be lookin’.”

  Emancipation. Freedom. A gay masquerade—at least for a few weeks. Such were the thoughts that warmed Addy Chapman, as the Special steamed out of Reedsburg and continued its journey west.

  Out of Illinois, across Iowa and on toward the wide Missouri and Omaha steamed the 19th Century version of a luxury train. For every mile of the way, Monte Nichols kept an alert eye on his intended victim, always watchful, always infinitely patient. No opportunity presented itself, so he bided his time. His chance would come.

  On the evening before the Special’s scheduled arrival in Omaha, Town Marshal Tom Gillespie paid an urgent visit to a modest home in the big town’s residential sector. Here in this neat, single-storied dwelling resided a lawman whose authority was somewhat greater than Gillespie’s. Gillespie’s area extended no further than the city limits. Lane Jefford, on the other hand, was a Federal officer, a U.S. Marshal responsible for the maintenance of law and order throughout this entire area of Nebraska.

  Gillespie’s urgent pounding brought Marshal Jefford to the front door, curious and a mite impatient, but hospitable.

  “Come in, Tom,” he offered. “Glad to see you. Wilma and I are just finishing supper.”

  “Lane,” frowned Gillespie, “this ain’t a sociable call. It’s business. I need your help—and I need it right now!”

  Jefford raised his eyebrows. He was a tall, well-built man in his mid-forties, with premature gray showing in his thick, dark hair, and in his well-clipped moustache. His town suit was conservative, his demeanor characteristic of a bank manager, and Gillespie found time to reflect that appearances could be deceptive. Lane Jefford had come up the hard way and, in any crisis, could still hold his own against the toughest outlaws, the fastest gunslicks, the most hardened killers. In his presence, Gillespie always felt like a raw, tyro badge-toter, though he was only ten years Jefford’s junior.

  “It isn’t often you need to ask my help, Tom,” said Jefford. “Henry’s a good deputy, isn’t he?”

  “At this very damn-blasted moment,” breathed Gillespie, “Henry is feeling no pain.”

  “You mean drunk?” blinked Jefford.

  “I mean sleeping on the boardwalk outside the Casino de Paris,” growled Gillespie, “with a bruise on his jaw.”

  “Lane ...?” The marshal’s wife emerged from the dining room, eyed him enquiringly, then accorded the visitor a smile. “Good evening, Marshal Gillespie. So nice to see you.”

  “My respects, ma’am,” nodded Gillespie, “and my apologies for busting in on you this way.”

  She was thirty-eight and had been Mrs. Lane Jefford for less than a year. The Federal lawman had been, until his first meeting with this impressive lady, a confirmed bachelor. They were admirably suited to each other and knew only one regret; it was too bad they hadn’t met earlier in their lives. But better late than never, as the sedate, hazel-eyed Wilma was wont to remark.

  “You’ll join us for coffee, marshal?” she politely enquired.

  “No time for it,” muttered Gillespie. “Thanks anyway, but we have to be getting along.”

  “To where?” demanded Jefford;

  “The Casino de Paris!” Gillespie gestured nervously. “It’s a riot, Lane, as wild a hassle as I’ve ever seen.”

  “Surely you exaggerat
e,” protested Wilma. “Why, the Casino is one of Omaha’s most refined establishments. Only the best people gamble there.”

  “Right now,” Gillespie grimly informed her, “Favelle’s place doesn’t look so all-fired refined. Unless that brawl is stopped—and quick—the Casino will be nothing but a wreck. The fight started upstairs in the main poker parlor but, by now, I’ll bet the whole house is getting torn apart.” He clasped a hand to his brow. “Maybe I should blame myself. Somebody tried to warn me. I didn’t pay any attention to that warning—and now—they’re here!”

  Jefford’s next question was automatic.

  “Who are here?”

  “Valentine,” groaned Gillespie, “and Emerson!”

  The names meant nothing to Wilma, but the same couldn’t be said for her husband. He reacted, and briskly.

  “Sorry, my dear. I won’t be gone long—and don’t worry about me ...”

  He was finishing that speech while hustling through the front doorway and donning a black Stetson. Gillespie had to run to keep up with him, as they went down the walk to the street. A buckboard awaited them there. As he gestured for Jefford to get aboard, Gillespie confessed,

  “I don’t even know who owns it—just grabbed the first rig I could find and came over to fetch you.”

  “Climb up fast,” ordered Jefford, “I’ll drive.”

  He was turning the team while Gillespie was still scrambling up beside him. At speed, he drove up the tree lined road toward Omaha’s main stem.

  “You should excuse my ignorance,” muttered Gillespie, “but I’d never heard of them before.”

  “I suppose that’s possible,” frowned Jefford. “Although, heavens knows, their reputation has spread far and wide in the past fifteen years.”

  “You’ve already run into 'em?”

  “No—but I know them by reputation. Most Federal officers do, and that goes double for the Pinkertons, the Remingtons and the United States Army—not to mention the government of Mexico.”

  “Hell's bells! Are they wanted everywhere?”

  “They aren’t wanted, Tom. At least, not at the moment. They've never been popular with the law. On the other hand, they can’t be regarded as lawless.”