Beauty And The Bounty

  ROBERT J. RANDISI

  Beauty and the Bounty

  LEISURE BOOKS NEW YORK CITY

  Sweet Revenge…

  Jackman saw Decker heading for the dining room with another woman. He knew he was going to have to move now. Jackman cleared the roulette table, and drew his gun from his shoulder harness.

  The heavyset man at the faro table saw the movement and knew what was going to happen.

  “Hey, pal!” he shouted.

  Decker heard the shout, and pushed Annie Tucker away from him with his left hand. With his right, he dug into his jacket for his gun.

  Jackman fired.

  Decker felt the bullet hit him in the left shoulder as he pulled his gun free. He dropped down, hoping to avoid being hit a second time, and turned quickly. The man was just starting to fire again when Decker pulled the trigger of his gun. His shot struck the man in the throat, killing him instantly.

  To Loren D. Estleman

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Sweet Revenge…

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Epilogue

  Praise

  Other Leisure books by Robert J. Randisi

  Copyright

  Prologue

  I

  Kenner’s Junction, Nevada

  Hannah Brown could only be described as mousey—unless a man was discerning enough to look beyond her obvious physical flaws.

  Her flaws included reading eyeglasses and wearing her hair wound tightly on her head in a bun. Her posture left much to be desired and she had difficulty making direct eye contact.

  As far as anyone could tell, she was mousey little Hannah Brown.

  Except for Willis Holden.

  Holden was the manager of the bank where Hannah Brown had worked for the past three weeks, and Willis didn’t think she was mousey.

  Willis was unhappily married to a shrewish woman who took great pleasure in whining at him day and night. It was no wonder that he was able to look “past” Hannah Brown’s faults, seeing only her attributes.

  Willis—in his present state of need—saw a woman who was actually quite pretty, if you took off the glasses and loosened her hair. She had a good figure—her breasts well rounded and firm—which made her especially appealing.

  Willis took Hannah under his wing from the very first day she started working in the bank. He was kind to her, even when it was obvious that she was a slow learner. He was patient, even when she made mistakes totaling receipts. He was understanding when she came up short at her window at the end of the day.

  Willis Holden was after Hannah Brown, but he didn’t think anyone noticed.

  Only Hannah Brown did.

  Hannah Brown had been playing Willis like a big fish at the end of a hook. She was hauling him in, but not fast enough to frighten him, or lose him.

  She constantly went to him with questions, and then was so appreciative—and impressed—when he came right up with the answers.

  “Oh, Mr. Holden,” she’d say, “you’re just so intelligent.”

  “Oh, Mr. Holden, how do you know so much?”

  And then later…

  “Oh, Willis, I don’t know how to thank you!”

  As the fourth week of her employment at the Bank of Kenner’s Junction, Nevada, they were “Willis” and “Hannah,” and she knew he was on the verge of asking her either to dinner, or to work late.

  As it turned out, Willis was so anxious that he asked her to work late.

  And she agreed.

  That evening, after the other employees had left and Willis Holden had locked the door, he beckoned to Hannah and they entered his office.

  “You know why you’re here, don’t you, Hannah?”

  She was a little surprised by his boldness, but managed to hide it well.

  “I think so, Willis.”

  Willis smiled at her benevolently. He was a short man with a round belly, but he believed himself to be quite handsome. Hannah, on the other hand, thought he was a comical little man, and was surprised that it had taken her this long to get him alone in the bank.

  “I’ve been watching you since you started working here, Hannah.”

  “You’ve been very helpful, Mr. Holden.”

  “Willis,” he said, “I thought we had settled on Willis.”

  “Yes, of course,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I’m a little nervous.”

  “Nervous?” Willis asked. “There’s nothing to be nervous about, Hannah.”

  He moved behind her chair and put his hands on her shoulders.

  “Nothing at all.”

  Abruptly, she stood up, turned, and threw herself into his arms. With her lips on his neck she said, “Oh, Willis, I’ve waited so long for this!”

  Willis Holden was thrown off balance both by her boldness, and the force with which she had thrown herself into his arms. He staggered back beneath her weight, but managed to steady himself.

  “Hannah…” he said, and she pressed her lips to his.

  “Willis…” she said, and pressed his lips tightly to hers.

  “Oh, Willis, not here…” she said moments later, pushing herself away from him.

  “Why not…darling?” he asked breathlessly.

  “Oh…I just wouldn’t feel right.”

  “We…we could go to a hotel.”

  “Oh no!” she said. “What if your wife should find out. I’d have to leave town and I’d never see you again. I—I couldn’t bear that!”

  “Then where, darling,” he said, groping for her, “where?”

  She gave him a sly look and said, “Do you know what excites me?”

  “What? What?” he asked, anxiously.

  “Oh,” she said, looking away, “you’ll think I’m wicked.”

  “I won’t, I swear!”

  “The vault,” she said.

  “The vault?”

  “Making love,” she said, “in the vault, with all that money around us.”

  “The vault,” he said, again. “We could do that.”

  “Oh, could we?”

  “Of course,” he said. “I’m the manager of the bank, after all.”

  “Oh, Willis,” she said, throwing her arms around his neck, “let’s.”

  “All right, dear,” he said, “come with me.”

  Willis led her out of his office and to the vault, which he proceeded to open. It was one of those new walk-in vaults, and it had only been in the bank for three months.

  He used the combination which he knew by heart and opened it.

  “Oh
, Willis…” Hannah said, with just the right amount of breathless anticipation in her voice. “Do you know what I’d like now?”

  “What…my sweet?”

  “I’d like you to…to—I’d like to watch you undress.”

  “But, of course,” he said, and quickly began stripping off his clothes. Clumsily, he tried to take off his pants before removing his shoes, then realized he had to take off the shoes first. He almost fell getting the second one off, and then almost tripped when his pants fell down around his ankles.

  Finally he was naked, and Hannah was not impressed.

  “Do you know what I’d like to do now, Willis?” she asked, her hands held up in front of her breasts, almost as if she were going to caress herself.

  “What?”

  “I would like to…clean out this vault, and run away with the money.”

  “Oh, Hannah,” he said, “I would love to run away with you—”

  “No, not us, Willis,” she said, her right hand reaching behind her back as if to undo her dress, “just me.”

  Suddenly, there was a small gun in her right hand and it was pointed at Willis Holden.

  “Hannah…sweet—”

  “Save it, Willis,” she said in a hard-edged, nononsense tone. “Move back against that wall and pick up one of those sacks.”

  “Hannah, darling—”

  She cocked the hammer back on the small gun and pointed it at his head.

  “Do it, Willis.”

  Startled and more than a little frightened, he did as he was told.

  “Now start filling the sack with money—large bills, only.”

  “But…but most of this money is the payroll for Mr. Kenner’s men—”

  “Mr. Kenner’s men will have to wait a little longer for this month’s wages, Willis. Start filling the bag.”

  Willis obeyed, wondering frantically how he was going to explain this to his depositors—and Mr. Kenner! My God, and his wife!

  “Hannah—”

  “Keep filling, Willis dear.”

  He watched the gun in her hand as he filled the sack, and when it was almost too heavy for him to handle he said, “It won’t take any more.”

  “That’s quite enough,” she said. “Give it to me.”

  “It’s very heavy—” he started to say, but she quickly grabbed the sack from him.

  “All right, Willis, now sit down on the floor.”

  He obeyed, jumping up a bit when his bare butt came into contact with the cold floor.

  “Are you going to kill me?” he asked.

  “Heavens, no,” she said. “I’m just going to leave you in here for a little while.”

  “You mean, lock me in?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But…I’ll die.”

  “Nonsense,” Hannah said. “There is plenty of air in here for you until someone comes in and lets you out.”

  “But Hannah—” he babbled, “how can you—I mean, we were—going to—”

  “No, Willis,” she said, “we weren’t going to—not ever!”

  With that she slammed the vault door shut so violently that her glasses fell off her nose. She left them on the floor. She opened the sack of money, dropped the gun inside, then grasped it with both hands and lifted it up. She had a buggy waiting outside the back door, and carried the sack to it, depositing it on the front seat. She climbed up onto the buggy and sat next to the sack, pressing her hip against it, enjoying the solid feel of the money inside.

  This job had taken her somewhat longer to set up than usual, and she hoped that when she counted the money, it would be worth it.

  If it wasn’t, she would have to go back to stagecoaches. There wasn’t nearly as much time involved setting up the theft. All she had to do was pose as a passenger, and once they were out in the middle of nowhere, rob it.

  She wondered if she should try a train next.

  When Hannah Brown reached the horse she had left earlier that day, she stepped down from the buggy and unhitched the other. Next she separated the money from the canvas sack into two saddlebags, which she tossed on her horse’s back after saddling him. Next, she set about getting rid of “Hannah Brown.”

  First, she let her hair down. She longed to wash her auburn hair, because she knew once she did it would take on its true luster. She undressed, discarding “Hannah’s” frumpy clothes, and put on a shirt and jeans that did little to hide her lovely figure. She pulled on her boots, making sure that the two-shot derringer she kept in the right one was easily accessible.

  When she mounted her horse and readied to leave Nevada for good, “Hannah Brown” was dead, and Julie Landan re-emerged as a wealthy woman.

  II

  Evanville, Wyoming

  Decker finished his breakfast and ordered a second pot of coffee. While he was waiting he took out the two posters and laid them on the table in front of him.

  The first poster was for a man named Bill Lutz, who was wanted for bank robbery and assault. The reward was one thousand dollars.

  The second poster was more interesting, not only because it was a woman. It was interesting because there were drawings of four different women on it, with four different names—but it was believed that they were all one and the same. This mysterious woman was something of a master of disguise, and used her talents to get into a bank as a teller, or into the employ of a wealthy rancher as a secretary. Sometimes she would run a church raffle and then make off with the money, or con a wealthy woman out of five thousand dollars, with a promise that she could bring the woman’s husband back to life.

  So this woman was a master of the con, and that interested Decker much more than going after just another bank robber.

  He refolded the poster on Bill Lutz and tucked it away for another day.

  Over his second pot of coffee he studied the drawings on the woman’s poster. Whoever the artist was, he was good. He had worked from witnesses’ descriptions and yet, to Decker’s practiced eye, there was something similar about all four. The way the eyebrows arched, or the shape of her face. In each case, however, if you did not look as carefully as Decker did, you would swear that the drawings were of four different women.

  According to the poster, her last con had been pulled in a place called Kenner’s Junction, Nevada, where she had gotten herself hired as a teller, and then robbed the bank.

  Decker finished his coffee, put the woman’s poster in a different pocket than the other, and left the cafe.

  Outside, he headed for the livery when a young man stepped out into the street, directly in his path.

  “Are you Decker?”

  “I’m Decker, but I don’t know you,” Decker said. “What can I do for you?”

  “You arrested my brother.”

  “I don’t have the authority to arrest anyone, mister,” Decker said.

  “Well, you brought him in.”

  Decker frowned, studying the man.

  “Are you Wesley Fairburn?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Ah. You’re Henry’s brother?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, Henry had a price on him, Wes, and I brought him in. What’s that mean to us, right now?”

  “I’m gonna kill you.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  He could see by the look in the man’s eyes, and the way his hand shook, that he was scared.

  “I’m gonna gun ya, like you gunned my brother.”

  “I shot your brother in self-defense, friend—and besides, he didn’t die.”

  “That don’t matter.”

  “Sure it does. You see, your brother was wanted alive, and if I had killed him, I wouldn’t have collected the bounty.”

  “So?”

  “Well, as far as I know, Wesley, there’s no price on your head.”

  “So?”

  “So, that means that there’s no sense in me trying to keep you alive. If you go for that gun, I’m going to kill you, pure and simple.”

  A drop of sweat m
ust have dropped in Wesley Fairburn’s eyes, because he flinched and blinked, then wiped his sleeve across his eyes. If Decker had wanted him dead, he could have had him just then, easily.

  “You better draw your gun before you blink again, son,” Decker said. “If you blink again, you’re going to die—that is, unless you walk away right now.”

  “I…I can’t,” Fairburn said. “I promised my brother.”

  “You love your brother, huh?”

  “S-sure.”

  “Enough to die for him? For no good reason? I mean, he did what he was wanted for, didn’t he?”

  Fairburn didn’t answer.

  “Take my word for it, son, he did it, and he deserves whatever he’s going to get. Now I don’t know you, but somehow I don’t think that you deserve to die just because your brother was stupid. What do you think, Wesley?”

  Fairburn looked at Decker and saw a tall, slender, cold-eyed man who was completely at ease. He wasn’t even sweating!

  “Come on, son, make up your mind. I’ve got places to go.”

  Wesley Fairburn stared at Decker a little while longer then suddenly lowered his eyes to the ground. Decker then continued to walk, and as he passed the man he muttered, “Smart decision,” and went on by.

  He heard Wesley Fairburn move, then, and as his own hand streaked for his gun he went into a crouch. He was not a fast gun, but he knew exactly what he was doing.

  Fairburn was so nervous that even when he tried to shoot Decker in the back it didn’t work. Decker had crouched, but Fairburn’s shot was hurried and off the mark, anyway.

  He never got a chance to fire again.

  “You’re free to go.

  Sheriff Sam Tucker handed Decker his gunbelt and stood by while he put it on.

  “Guess you got ‘em both, Decker.”

  “Yeah, but I only collected for one,” Decker said. “I don’t like killing a man for nothing.”

  “Rather do it for money, huh?”

  Decker put the sheriff’s remark down to the normal lawman’s dislike of bounty hunters. It was not meant as anything personal.

  “I don’t like killing at all, Sheriff,” Decker said. “You’ve got Henry in one of your cells, which proves that.”