Crossfire

by Matt Braun

Pearl answered with her best murderer’s eyes.

  “Got someplace to hide?”

  “Yeah, Sherm. Right here.”

  “That’s no good!”

  “It’ll do just fine,” she argued. “They won’t be lookin’ under their noses right off.”

  Jarrott didn’t answer. He was thinking of the money he had in his safe. Forty-five thousand would make a fresh start up in Montana or somewhere else out of the way. He was smart enough to realize that a rattlesnake like Traber wouldn’t give him one second of consideration if something should happen. He would kill his Wells Fargo Judas and then Jarrott himself. And that would leave Traber in the clear.

  His other option, he thought to himself, was to kill Pearl, but he knew she was as quick as Traber, and that she was probably ready to gun him down if he even looked like he was going to move the wrong way.

  “Best thing we can do, Pearl, is hold still and not do anything foolish,” Jarrott stalled. “You stay here tonight and we’ll find out how the cards are falling before we move.”

  He’d decided he’d kill her the first chance he got.

  “Maybe we can even spend a night like old times,” he added, remembering her lustful ways.

  “This ain’t no time to be playin’, Sherm. We’re in deep shit.”

  Tallman sloshed through the puddles at the side of Traber’s house. At a dark window he listened. At first it was quiet. Then he heard a guttural cry, the sound of someone in pain who’d resigned themselves to the end. It had to be Vivian.

  He scurried to the back door and, as he picked at the simple lock, he heard a voice.

  “Now. Maybe you can tell us what we wanna know,” Hall said with a white pasty drool in the corners of his mouth as he reheated the spoon. “This time I think I’ll seal off that nipple for you. Burn it right off.”

  Vivian cranked her neck, looked at the spoon, which was glowing red. Hall had burned her twice but so far he hadn’t disfigured her. At the sight of the glow she went slack.

  She turned to Traber on the other side of the bed to say something, but saw he was in a trance. His robe was open and he was playing with his hard thick cock, pulling it in long, slow strokes.

  Hall kept heating the spoon with his right hand. “I’ll start with this one,” he said as he pulled hard on her left nipple. “Burn that son-of-a-bitch right off. Bet you think you’re pretty, don’t you, bitch! You’ll be workin’ the sideshow when we’re finished with you, slut. That is, if you’re alive. Right, boss?”

  “Yeah,” Traber groaned as he picked up the tempo of his strokes.

  “One more time, bitch,” Hall growled, his spittle foaming. “Who are you workin’ for?” he said as he removed the glowing spoon from the lamp chimney and positioned it an inch above her nipple.

  Vivian felt the heat and her nipple became warm. She spat in his face, sending a gooey load of spit and bile into his left eye.

  Hall backed up, closing his eyes.

  “Burn her,” Traber shouted as he stroked harder. “Burn her tit, Judd!”

  “Sorry to interrupt your little party,” a voice growled. Tallman filled the bedroom doorway.

  Hall dropped the spoon and went for the Colt he’d stuffed in his belt.

  Before the spoon hit the carpet, Tallman had fired three shots from his .41. The blast from the quicksilver-filled slugs caught the thug in the gut, chest, and Adam’s Apple, sprayed a mist of gore and sent Hall down as if his legs had been chopped away at the knees. He hit with a thud. Though the bodyguard was twitching wildly he was dead.

  “Ash,” Vivian shouted.

  Tallman looked over and saw rage on her face. Then he saw Traber. His eyes widened in disbelief. He was pulling his cock faster than ever as he stared at Hall’s dead eyes and ruptured gut and chest.

  “Kill him,” Vivian shouted as she strained at the chains. “Kill’m.”

  Tallman, taken aback by Traber, hesitated and then unlatched the shackles.

  Traber groaned as his hand moved like the engine connecting rod on a downhill train. His seed shot upward and out, a large glob landing on Hall’s gray cheek.

  Vivian untied her last thong and struggled out of bed. She ran at Traber and kicked him. The top of her bare foot caught him in the balls and lifted him off the floor.

  The skinny kingpin went down like he’d been shot.

  “Vivian,” Tallman said, still at a loss.

  “Slime,” she shouted as she stomped on his face with her heel. “You son-of-a-bitch,” she cried as she scrambled at her clothing, coming up with her derringer.

  “Vivian!” Tallman shouted as he reached for the small gun that was pointed at Traber’s crotch.

  “Vivian,” he said as he firmly grasped her hand and she moved the gun away from the squirming snake on the floor. “We need him.”

  Vivian loosened her grip and let Tallman take the derringer. She wanted to encircle him with her arms and cry for two hours, but she bit her lip and held strong. Pinkerton agents didn’t cry.

  “Jesus Christ, Viv,” Tallman said as he looked down. Her whole body from her knees to her face was crisscrossed with red welts, several of which were seeping blood. Catching his eyes, she looked down too and cradled her breast and examined the two minor burns.

  “Jesus, Viv. I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll heal. Just be glad you got here when you did. They were about to get rough. He was about to scar me for life.”

  “Traber,” Tallman said as he looked toward the skinny pervert as Vivian began to dress. “You’d better pray you hang. ’Cause if you don’t, I’m going to show you how the Indians can take five days to kill a man.”

  TWENTY

  Oldham opened the door at the Wells Fargo office, and Tallman shoved a humped-over Floyd Traber through the door so hard that he stumbled and fell. Oldham was taken aback by the sight of Tucson’s number-one tough nut cowering on his side. Then he saw Vivian.

  “My God!” he gasped when he saw the raised welts on her neck and upper chest. “What the . . .”

  “Our big man here whips women,” Tallman growled, his tone revealing a willingness to cut Traber’s throat on the spot. “If we didn’t need him, I’d take him into the desert and show him a few Indian tricks I know.”

  “Never mind, Mr. Oldham,” Vivian said, holding up the leather-faced ledger. The prospect of a major arrest on her second assignment somewhat soothed her bruised and scorched skin. “He’ll put on quite a show in front of the courthouse—dancing on air.”

  Tallman had an image of Traber pulling his meat while he strangled, the ultimate orgasm.

  “Hangin’s too good for this joker,” one of the express guards muttered as he unsheathed a large dirk. “We ought to take his balls right now and make him eat them.”

  “He’d probably enjoy it,” Vivian said, remembering his outrageous behavior and forgetting present company. “He’d likely pull his pud while you were cutting.”

  At once, the stage driver, the three express guards, Oldham, and Tallman looked at Vivian with raised eyebrows. Tallman was smiling, remembering his hanging image.

  “What can I tell you! The creep is perverted,” she said.

  They all stood quietly, each momentarily taken with their thoughts of what the lady Pinkerton must have endured earlier that evening and oddly amused at her ability to hang tough at a time when most women and many men would be whimpering with despair.

  Tallman reached down, grabbed Traber’s forearm, snatched the vice boss to his feet, and shoved him backward into a chair, thus breaking the silence in the room.

  “Perry, get that Judas clerk of yours,” Tallman said, keeping his eyes on Traber. “Let’s clear this up.”

  Oldham left the outer office, and Vivian began to carefully examine the well-kept ledger.

  “Well, now, Traber,” Tallman said, tipping back his damp Stetson as Oldham entered with the pale, frightened clerk. “What we have here is someone who’s going to tell the judge that he fed you information you used to rob W
ells Fargo and, more important, information you used to kill five men.”

  “And to shoot another in the nuts,” one of the express guards broke in.

  “I don’t know this man,” Traber insisted. “You’re crazy. And the Tucson sheriff doesn’t cotton to kidnapping.”

  “Don’t be simpleminded, Traber,” Tallman went on. “We have an eyewitness who saw this clerk deliver the time and the type of shipment on this morning’s nine o’clock stage. We’ve already got a signed confession. And your gang is dead!”

  Oldham took the handwritten document and thrust it in Traber’s face.

  “I’ve never talked to this man in my life,” Traber shot back, now hoping only to get to the sheriff’s office alive. He knew Tucson’s top lawdog was in as deep as the rest of them.

  “I gave my information to Hall,” the clerk insisted.

  “And Hall’s dead,” Traber said with a smile.

  “Here it is, Ash,” Vivian broke in. “I already have three entries to a B. Harkins. Five hundred dollars each time. And—”

  “You low-life!” Oldham shouted at his clerk, as he shook the traitor. “I still can’t believe you sold those men’s lives for five hundred dollars.”

  “Easy, Perry,” Tallman said. Then he turned to Traber. “See there, your own little book’s going to put the noose around your neck.” He turned back to Oldham. “Put Harkins back in the closet and bring in Westfall.”

  Traber’s jaw dropped.

  “Like you thought, Ash,” Vivian said while Oldham was fetching the mayor. “The sheriff’s on the take too. Matter of fact, looks like half the damn town’s suckin’ on Traber’s teat.”

  “What about Judge Vogt, the federal district court judge?” Tallman asked.

  “Nothing yet,” she said, her eyes still scanning the ledger.

  “I think he’s clean,” Tallman added. “Unless you find otherwise, we’ll drag this sack of snakes over to his place when we’re done.”

  Traber’s eyes fell to his lap and he became acutely aware of his aching balls.

  Next, Tallman confronted Traber with the blubbery Westfall, who, although having no direct knowledge of the stage robberies, was singing like a bird. Then Tallman confronted Traber with an option: “Confess or hang.”

  Hoping for the best and fully aware that he had nothing on the Territorial judge, Francis Vogt, he spilled his guts while Vivian carefully copied the details. Traber signed each page of the confession and Vivian then handed it and the ledger to Perry Oldham, who placed it on the desk next to the confessions of the clerk and the mayor.

  “That’s that,” Vivian said, her wounds becoming more painful in her tight clothing.

  “What about Pearl Bowen?” Oldham injected. “I want that ruthless bitch to hang.”

  “We haven’t forgotten Pearl,” Tallman said. “Jarrott will likely know where she is. Right now, I want you and your men to rope these three bums together and take them to Judge Vogt’s house.”

  “It’s two in the mornin’,” one of the express guards grunted.

  “Judge won’t mind,” Tallman said to the guard. He went on. “Show the judge the ledger and the confessions and explain why we didn’t go to the sheriff. He’ll probably deputize you until he clears things up. Vivian and I are going to visit with Mr. Jarrott.”

  Tallman and Vivian entered the Buena Suerte less than a minute apart. The crowd was thinning and the tables and bar were occupied mostly by an assortment of bums and hard cases who were saturated with pop-skull whiskey. The piano player and the banjo plucker had lost their verve. The bass player was gone.

  “Where’s Sherm?” she asked the bartender as she shook the wet rainslicker she’d borrowed from one of the express guards in order to cover her lash marks.

  The barkeep pointed toward the balcony suite. Vivian looked toward Tallman. They met at the stairs and Tallman unholstered his Colt and dropped another deadly load in the empty chamber.

  Vivian knocked when they reached the door.

  “Yeah. Who is it?” They heard from the room after several moments of silence.

  “Susanna.”

  “Be down in a minute. Doin’ some bookwork.”

  “Traber sent me with a message,” Vivian insisted.

  “Just a minute.”

  The door opened and Tallman, his Colt cocked, brushed past Vivian and leveled his revolver on Jarrott.

  “What the hell!” Jarrott gasped. “Why, you goddamn bitch!” he shouted when he saw Vivian. His first thought was that Tallman had been sent by Traber to silence him.

  “After we have a little talk, Jarrott, we’re going to take a walk over to Judge Vogt’s so you can join the rest of Tucson’s most prominent coyotes.”

  “Who the hell. . . .”

  “Pinkertons,” Vivian interrupted proudly.

  “You goddamn slut!”

  Like a lightning bolt, Tallman reached out with his Colt and hit Jarrott on the chin with his Colt barrel. He’d heard and seen all the abuse of Vivian that he could handle.

  Jarrott shouted another curse despite the deep one-inch gash on his cheekbone. Tallman planted his left palm in Jarrott’s chest and sent him reeling backward into his expensive sofa.

  “You’re expendable,” Tallman said, his voice still showing the renewed rage he felt over Vivian’s ordeal. “Traber, the mayor and the Wells Fargo clerk are all singing a nice melody for Judge Vogt this very minute. So we don’t need you.” Tallman took two steps and put the big-bore barrel six inches from the bridge of Jarrott’s nose. “There’s only one loose end, and that’s Pearl Bowen. She wouldn’t risk going to the cabin. So you tell me where to look, or we’ll save the taxpayers their court costs in your case!”

  “Look over your shoulder, shit-for-brains. You cocksucker, Hoodoo Dunn—or whoever you are.”

  The room went still. Jarrott eyeballed Tallman’s Colt and Tallman turned to see Pearl’s .44 Bulldog pointed at his skull.

  “Well, I’ll be damned. If it ain’t Momma. Surprised you’re not back suckin’ and fuckin’ your kiddies!” Tallman said, hoping insults would delay her obvious intentions. “Oh, that’s right—they’re all dead. Damn, I bet it’ll take a while to find three more dimwitted peckerwoods like them.”

  “You shut up, asshole!”

  “ ’Course if you can’t get a man any other way. I guess you do what you have to.”

  Vivian saw the blood in Pearl’s eyes and knew she could shoot Tallman in the head without one twitch of her eyes or the slightest remorse.

  “Say goodbye, Pinkerton,” Pearl growled.

  Vivian screamed and dove for the floor behind Jarrott’s desk, clawing for the derringer strapped to her thigh.

  Distracted, Pearl fired. Her slug splintered the top left corner of the desk. Tallman spun away from Pearl’s sights, seeing from the corner of his eyes that Jarrott’s hand was going into his jacket.

  Before Tallman could level his .41, Pearl had thumbed another chamber into place.

  Going for broke, Vivian popped up with her derringer and fired one shot into Pearl’s left breast. The quicksilver-filled lead exploded in her chest, jolting the wide-eyed killer from her feet. She fell in a heap, her mouth gurgling like she was drowning.

  An instant after the explosion, Tallman, still spinning away, dove for the floor. Jarrott’s small-caliber vest gun cracked and Tallman felt suddenly like he’d been kicked in the thigh by a wild horse. Vivian turned toward the sharp report of Jarrott’s hideout gun and fired her second barrel, hitting Jarrott in the side just before his small revolver cracked again. Tallman heard Jarrott’s second slug thunk in the wall behind his head just as he fired his Colt, slamming three deadly rounds into Jarrott’s vest. The casino owner’s body jumped on the couch in a macabre dance as each slug found its mark.

  Then the room was quiet except for Pearl’s labored breathing, her lungs pumping red-purple bubbles on her blood-saturated shirt. The air was thick with the acrid odor of gunsmoke and the sickening stench of blood.
>
  “Ash,” Vivian groaned, when she saw the puddle of bright red blood under his leg. Suddenly aware of his wound, she rushed to his side.

  “Nothing to brag about,” Tallman said of the pumping wound.

  Vivian fumbled for Tallman’s boot knife. Then she cut his pants and ripped a piece from the hem of her wet and wrinkled dress. “In and out,” she said when she saw the clean small wound in the fleshy part of his thigh. The exit wound was worse than she’d let on.

  Then she sighed with relief after stopping the blood with a tight wrap, and slumped against the wall. Both of the Pinkertons were, at once, acutely aware of the devastation that lay at their feet. Then, a sound at their right caused Tallman to instinctively point his revolver. It was Pearl. As her leg flexed up and down, she turned her glassy eyes on the detectives. She moved her mouth as if to curse them both, but nothing came out. Then her leg went straight and she began to gasp and spit blood. Air whistled through the hole in her chest in a final long breath. Her legs went stiff and then slackened as one bootheel drummed four rhythmic beats on the wood floor. The smell of urine permeated the air.

  Vivian turned away from the dead woman only to see Jarrott upright in the sofa, his mouth drooping open, his glasses askew, and his eyes focused on infinity. She would have started to cry over the gross deaths, her own throbbing wounds, and her bloody partner, but the fear-stricken floor manager crashed through the door with a double-barreled scattergun, tripped over Pearl’s body, dropped his shotgun, and went careening toward the sofa and landed in Jarrott’s lap.

  When she saw the absolute horror in the eyes of Obie Stallybrass, she fell victim to a state of unchecked morbid laughter.

  “Do me a favor,” Tallman said nonchalantly to the horror-struck casino manager. “Think you can quit pitchin’ woo to your boyfriend there long enough to go fetch Judge Vogt? He’ll understand! And get me a doctor.”

  Vivian’s tearful laughter was infectious, and Tallman began to shake with belly-cramping hilarity as the bugeyed Obie Stallybrass dashed from the absurd scene.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Tallman squinted in the bright sunlight as he stepped down from the hansom cab and turned to take Vivian’s outstretched hand. Chicago’s Washington Street was crowded with finely attired ladies under parasols and expensively suited men of all descriptions.