McAllister 6

by Matt Chisholm

  ‘Are you trying to get me out of the way? Do you think I never heard about a hired gun before?’

  Wallach waved a studiedly careless hand. ‘Don’t be silly. Of course not. But I could use some fresh coffee. Could you use a coffee, Rem?’

  ‘Sure. That would be just fine, Debbie.’

  She hesitated a moment, then said: ‘Oh, all right, you two. I know when I’m not wanted.’ She went out of the office and they heard her ascending the stairs.

  McAllister said: ‘What was all that about, Lennie?’

  ‘All what about?’

  ‘Getting rid of Debbie. Hell, I’m not going to say anything —’

  Wallach interrupted. ‘I didn’t get rid of her, for God’s sake. Just I could use some fresh coffee. A man can want fresh coffee, can’t he?’ Now he failed to conceal the fact that he was on edge. His voice had risen half an octave and McAllister noticed. ‘So there’s a gun-hand in town. Anybody I know?’

  ‘Maybe. But I doubt he’s here under his own name. Though it’s possible, if he’s up to his old trick.’

  ‘Is he here professionally? I mean does he intend to rub out some respectable citizen?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What did you say his name was?’

  ‘I didn’t. But it’s Brennan. Camden Brennan.’

  Wallach’s right hand went out and gripped the edge of his desk until the knuckles were white. He cleared his throat and tried to keep his voice steady. He tried also desperately to assume a nonchalant air.

  ‘And what’s his usual trick?’

  ‘You must know,’ McAllister said. ‘There’ve been I don’t know how many murder charges against him, but he’s slipped easily away from them all. For the simple reason that the men he kills always have a gun in their hand when they die.’

  ‘Maybe he’s an honest killer.’

  ‘Maybe he’s the fastest man I ever saw with a gun.’ Wallach gave a dry bark of a laugh. ‘And that must be saying something, eh, Rem?’

  ‘Sure is.’

  McAllister heaved himself off the desk. He said: ‘Tell Debbie thank you for the coffee, but I don’t have the time right now, Lennie.’

  Before the newspaper man could say anything more, the tall man was gone.

  When his daughter came in later with a tray with coffee pot and cups on it, she looked around and said: ‘Where did the sheriff go, Papa?’

  Wallach seemed to be very occupied with some work on his desk. Without raising his head, he said: ‘His apologies. He had to go. Busy or something.’

  She put the tray down and crossed the office to her father. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ she asked.

  Still he did not look up.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I’m just fine. Quit fussing. And pour some coffee.’

  She turned away. Then at last he looked up and watched her, and he thought: What in God’s name would I do if anything happened to her?

  Four

  While Lennie Wallach was in a cold sweat wondering if the assassin had seen McAllister come into his office and suspected that he had informed the sheriff of the threat against his life, McAllister angled the street.

  On the far side, on the sidewalk, he stopped and stared into space, thinking about Cam Brennan. If a man was giving you trouble, or was about to do so, experience had taught him that just to stand and muse idly about him sometimes threw up some kind of answer to the problem.

  Nothing came now. A few folks who knew him (as did almost everybody in the county) passed the time of day with him and received no answer. Of one thing McAllister was certain – Cam Brennan never surfaced without a reason, and that reason was invariably the parting of some human being from his immortal soul.

  He must have seen me clear from the hotel window. Does that mean he knows that I know he’s here? Does it matter? He's going to kill somebody quite legally, unless he's changed his technique. And one thing is certain about the criminal fraternity -once they get to like a routine, they don't change it.

  He came to his senses suddenly. It must have been that old instinct of his for a pretty face. He looked up, plumb into the clearest green eyes he’d ever seen in all his life. She sat beside the driver of the buggy and she looked just about one million and one dollars; and in her own style. The second part of his glance told him that she was not just another pretty face. This woman was a whole lot more than that.

  Their glances met, and ceased to be mere glances. Something that should happen to every man and woman once in their lives. Something stronger than magic. Maybe a small miracle. A second of a look like that and a man felt taller and more individual than he had ever done. The pulses raced a little and the world brightened a little. It was good to be alive.

  The buggy swept past with the two blood bays stepping out. The woman began to look back and then stopped herself. But she had made the gesture of interest and McAllister had seen it.

  Somebody halted at his elbow, a man smaller than him, and said: ‘Been looking for you, Rem.’ For a moment McAllister was totally unaware – which was not like him, and Dr. George Robertson knew it. So he waited and watched the big man’s face. He followed his gaze and saw the woman in the buggy, no more than her slender waist and the back of her elegant head. And the good doctor, being no fool, thought: O-ho.

  ‘When you have sufficiently recovered,’ said the doc, ‘and I have one small sliver of your attention, I shall talk business.’

  Slowly, McAllister recovered himself and turned to look at the smaller man. ‘Why, George,’ he said, maybe a mite dreamily, ‘you shouldn’t creep up on a feller that way.’

  ‘I did not creep,’ said the doc. ‘I never creep. My heels ring unashamedly and loudly on the board-walk and the whole damn town hears me coming. Except the ever-watchful, eagle-eyed goddam sheriff.’

  McAllister smiled distantly, a man once removed, living for a moment on his own private and heady plane.

  ‘My thoughts were elsewhere,’ he said, stating no more than the obvious.

  The doctor said in his crisp, businesslike manner: ‘You do not have to tell me that, boy. If they could cease to be elsewhere for a minute, as I have patients waiting for my attention, do you think you could prepare and brace yourself to receive a few official facts?’

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘I have examined Wally Chugg.’

  McAllister brought his eyes back into full focus. The doctor remarked to himself, not for the first time, how like an Indian’s they were. Dark as jet. They could be very hard one moment and quite soft the next.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think he was killed by one knife thrust.’

  ‘It don’t take a doctor to know that.’

  ‘Would it make you a little more receptive to know that Shultz has a consignment of fresh apples just in, and Bertha has apple pie on the menu tonight?’

  McAllister showed definite interest. ‘What’s the first course?’ he said.

  ‘Irish stew. With dumplings and onions whole. She even has a carrot floating around some place. She serves at eight.’

  ‘I’ll be there in a clean shirt, God willing.’

  ‘I thought you would.’

  ‘Now – Wally Chugg.’

  ‘Two knife thrusts. The first clumsy. It hit him, in layman’s language, where the neck meets the left shoulder. Wally must have grasped the blade of the knife with both hands. The fingers on both hands and the ball of the right hand were cut deep and bled a lot. There was maybe a scuffle. Then our killer put the blade neatly through the heart. The knife jammed between the upper ribs and the killer placed one foot on the victim to withdraw the knife.’

  ‘You draw a vivid picture.’

  ‘Poor little drunken bastard. I hope you get the man that did it.’

  ‘Oh, I will.’

  ‘Christ, I wish I had your confidence.’

  ‘You’ve more and of a different kind.’

  ‘You know who did it?’

  ‘I couldn’t prove it in
a court. But I have a good idea. Anything else?’

  ‘I heard from a bar-fly that before he died, Wally had five dollars’ spending money and he spent every last cent of it on booze. As you’d expect. I never knew the time when Wally had five bucks to his name.’

  ‘Me neither. Thanks, George. See you at eight.’

  ‘Who was the beautiful lady?’ asked the medico, just a shade ashamed that he allowed his curiosity to get the better of him.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said McAllister. And he was a little ashamed of having to admit that, because as sheriff he should know every last man and woman who made their way through his town. ‘But I mean to find out.’ And he started back along the street.

  The doctor said to himself: ‘I’ll bet you do,’ and was pleased that for once he had a tasty morsel to tell his wife, Bertha.

  McAllister walked on the shady side now, and halted opposite Lennie Wallach’s office. He could see the proprietor still crouched over his desk and his daughter Debbie busy at the press. If anything was to happen to those two, he told himself, he would never forgive himself.

  He turned and entered the hotel. He walked down the long entrance hall and was about to enter the kitchen at the rear, when he changed his mind and walked back to the desk near the street door. The battered and fly-blown register lay there. He turned it to face him and looked down the guest list. The name Cam Brennan did not show on it.

  He reversed the register and walked down to the kitchen. There he found a mountain of a woman with a handsome head and face, enveloped in a tent-sized apron and a gingham dress. She turned from the stove and said with a voice as deep and powerful as a man’s: ‘You know damn well I don’t permit members of the public in here, McAllister. If you wish to converse with me, have the goodness to ring the bell in the lobby and I shall come to you.’

  McAllister advanced into the kitchen. He said: ‘Betty, you breathe a word of what I am about to discuss with you, I shall run you down to the hoosegow on a charge of running a disorderly house.’

  He had her hooked and knew it. Her eyes, those mean small eyes, snapped with interest.

  ‘You son-of-a-bitch,’ she said, ‘you know I can’t resist that kind of thing. When you’re my weight and age there’s only two vices left to you. One’s strong liquor and the other’s scandal. And you know I hate the liquor.’

  ‘I was counting on it,’ said McAllister.

  ‘So get to it,’ she snapped.

  ‘Who’s in room Number One?’

  She placed both massive fists on massive hips. ‘That’s me telling you,’ she said. ‘I thought you were supposed to be telling me.’

  ‘Fair exchange is no robbery.’

  Reluctantly and not without a sniff of suspicion, she said: ‘A drummer from Milwaukee.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘As if you didn’t already look at the register. Walter Coulter.’

  ‘Five-eight, hundred sixty pounds, brown hair, heavy moustache, grey eyes, delicate hands.’

  She looked at him with begrudging admiration. She hated to like anybody and she liked McAllister. ‘That’s him,’ she said. ‘What’s he suspected of?’

  ‘Nothing yet, but I suspect I should be suspecting him of something or other. I’ll hire Room Two for a while.’

  ‘Oh, you will, will you? No strong liquor in the rooms and no women. And you ain’t told me one damn single interesting thing. You are operating under false pretenses, just like I suspected. I learned not to trust men before I was eighteen and fat and nothing has happened since to make me modify my opinion.’

  ‘Who’s the dark lady in Mittelhouse’s buggy?’

  Now she was pleased. This was something McAllister really wanted to know. She had him over a barrel.

  ‘You’re chasing women again, McAllister,’ she said, not without malice. ‘It ain’t good for you and I don’t see any reason why I should help you. You made a sucker out of me.’

  ‘Betty, all I do is for the good of the town and ultimately of you.’

  ‘My ass,’ she said. ‘No man ever did one solitary damn thing but for his own selfish means. Now get out of here and leave me get on with my work.’

  ‘Your reward will be in heaven,’ he said and headed for the door.

  ‘So the drummer in Room One is something he did not ought to be and you have the hots for Mittelhouse’s dark lady,’ she said at his retreating back.

  He stopped and turned. ‘Be all heart for once, Betty, for God’s sake,’ he said. ‘Tell me about the dark lady. I’m pining away.’

  ‘That’ll be the day,’ she said. ‘Name’s Rosa Claythorn. She’s a colonel’s widow and I don’t doubt she ain’t no damn better than she should be. One of those soft-talking, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth kind of a dame. They make me puke.’

  He grinned. ‘God bless you, girl, you’re the best man in town.’

  She said a rude word and he departed.

  Out on the sidewalk, he looked up and down the street. He saw Charlie Stellino coming his way. He waited till Charlie came close and said: ‘Do you have a half-hour to spare, Charlie?’

  ‘Time is money,’ said Charlie, never one to miss an opportunity.

  ‘That’s a fact,’ McAllister said. ‘Buy you a drink.’

  ‘That’ll do for a start,’ said Charlie. They turned down the sidewalk and headed for the Last Chance Saloon. Charlie had to hurry some to keep abreast of his friend. He did not like this because mentally he was a big man and physically he was a small one. He was forced to take such long strides that he was likely to do himself a mischief. He wore high heels and tall hats in an effort to make himself taller, but there was no real need because Charlie was one of those men who, no matter how small he might be, he would never appear small. He had a lot of character. He had sharp, good-looking facial features, and his bald head was never revealed to the general public if he could help it. He was a physically tough and hard-riding individual who ran his own small cow-spread south of town and helped out local cattlemen and farmers through the season. He was always short of money and trying to find some way of making more. He had a wife and two kids and never bought his own drinks if he could help it. To do so, in his opinion, would be to rob four hungry mouths.

  They reached the bar of the Last Chance and faced Mark Tully, who weighed three hundred pounds and, in spite of his profession, did not exhibit one ounce of spare fat. He was in his middle years; he loved good horses, women and books in about that order. He had ridden herd on the trail in his earlier years and was reputed to be the best pistol-shot in the county.

  Polishing his shining bar, he said with his usual philosophical air: ‘When I see you two come in here for a drink at this time of day, I know there’s something cooking, I don’t want any part of and don’t even want to know about.’

  McAllister said: ‘Set up the mixture as before and then I’ll tell you about what you’d hate me for if you didn’t know about.’

  Charlie said: ‘Rem’s buying.’

  ‘That’s something you don’t have to tell me,’ Mark said. He filled two beer schooners and put a bottle of whiskey and two glasses on the bar-top. He leaned his elbows on the bar and looked around to see who was near. A man snored in the far comer. A fly buzzed. Such was the high life of Black Horse at that moment.

  McAllister poured two whiskies. Mark Tully brought out another glass from below the bar and poured himself one.

  McAllister said: ‘If you’re drinking it, it can’t be as bad as usual.’

  ‘Want to bet?’ Mark snarled. The three of them shot the liquor to the backs of their throats, and Mark shuddered. ‘Christ, it’s awful. I don’t know why you fellers drink it. You could go blind, I shouldn’t wonder. Now, sheriff, what lies do you have to tell me?’

  ‘Not just you,’ said Charlie. ‘He’s lying to me too.’

  ‘A horse race,’ said McAllister.

  He stayed silent, watching the other two.

  Their faces stayed the same, but a light showed in the
ir eyes. It never failed. McAllister glowed a little. It was nice to know that others suffered the same brand of insanity as himself.

  Mark asked: ‘Are you entering one, organizing one or fixing one?’

  ‘Maybe all three,’ McAllister replied.

  ‘You were never one to do anything by halves. What’re you conning us two for?’

  ‘Just thought you’d like in on it.’

  Tully looked cautious. ‘How much is it going to cost me?’

  ‘It ain’t going to cost me a single solitary cent,’ said Charlie.

  ‘We banked on that,’ said Mark.

  ‘To start off with,’ said McAllister, ‘all I want is a little conversation with Charlie here in Room Two down at Betty’s place. Which ain’t bad in return for a couple of drinks.’

  ‘Three drinks,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Three drinks.’

  ‘What about?’ asked Mark Tully. ‘The horse race?’

  ‘Right first try. Now you listen, you two, and you listen good.’ They listened for three drinks. Mark Tully found himself drinking with the other two almost against his will. He knew that he was hooked. He should have known he would be when he saw those two walk in. When he was through, McAllister said: ‘Well?’

  Mark Tully said: ‘That don’t sound like much for three measly drinks.’

  ‘You speak for yourself,’ Charlie said. ‘Make it four and I really throw myself into it heart and soul.’

  ‘You get the fourth after you deliver,’ McAllister told him.

  ‘The boy’s all heart,’ Charlie said bitterly to Mark Tully.

  ‘The boy’s a conniving son-of-a-bitch,’ said Mark. ‘I’m interested in hearing what he ain’t told us.’

  Five

  Camden Brennan was nothing much to look at, but there was nothing particularly unpleasant about him. Never having experienced a moment’s guilt over his numerous killings, none of his viciousness showed on his face. However, he did have the look of a bachelor about him – his hair could have used a trim, and his suit, while being of good broadcloth, did suggest that once or twice it had been slept in.