The Reluctant Pinkerton Page 6

“I don’t know that,” Roper said, “and I can’t depend on it. I think what you have to do is go home.”

  “Home?” she asked. “Where’s that? I’ve got nothing left in Chicago.”

  “Where are you from?”

  She frowned, almost pouted, and folded her arms.

  “There’s nothing for me there either.”

  “Do you have a place to stay?”

  “I have a hotel room.”

  “Where?”

  “The White Elephant.”

  “Why would you stay there,” he asked, “when you’re trying to blend in here in Hell’s Half Acre? Why do you think I’m staying here?”

  “I—I didn’t think—”

  “And it’s that kind of not thinking that could get you killed. And me!”

  “I’m sorry…”

  “Go home, Dol,” he said. “Go back east anyway. You’re not going to do me or yourself any good here.”

  She just stood there, miserable.

  “Do you have money?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go back to your hotel, get yourself cleaned up, and have a meal. You’ll feel better. Then go to the train station in the morning.”

  She nodded, turned toward the door.

  “And go out the back, the way we came in,” he said.

  She nodded again and left without a word.

  * * *

  Outside the hotel, two men stared up at the single lit window.

  “According to the clerk, that’s his room,” Ed Hague said.

  “Okay,” Dan Giles said, “we’ll wait for it to go out before we go after him.”

  “You sure Nancy’s right?” Hague asked. “This don’t look like a place a fella with money would stay.”

  “She’s a good judge of men,” Giles said. “She says the guy ain’t what he seems to be, that’s good enough for me. She ain’t steered me wrong yet.”

  “What’s your deal with her?” Hague asked.

  “She gets twenty percent,” Giles said.

  “That seems like a lot.”

  “This is your first job with me,” Giles said. “You’ll see that she earns her keep.”

  “I hope so,” Hague said. “I need to have somethin’ that’s gonna pay.”

  “Don’t worry,” Giles said. “This pays.”

  They settled into their darkened doorway and waited for the light in the window to go out.

  * * *

  Dol went out the back door of the hotel, then used an alley along the side to get to the front. She was about to step out onto the boardwalk when she thought she saw something move across the street, in the shadows. She stepped back and waited, and sure enough, saw two men standing in a doorway, looking up at the hotel.

  She had a feeling she knew what they were looking at, so she decided to settle in herself and see what was going to happen.

  11

  After Dol left, Roper sat down on the bed, which was so hard it barely sagged beneath his weight. The girl was lucky she had not already gotten herself killed. He hoped she would listen to his advice and leave Fort Worth.

  He rubbed his hand over his face—actually “Andy Blake’s” face—feeling the unfamiliar rasp of stubble on his palm. Tomorrow he’d have to go ahead and make his contact with the stockyard workers, but maybe he needed to do it at a different saloon, one where a saloon girl had not shown such interest in him. But he’d already put three days of research into this saloon and this group of men; he hated to waste the time.

  He got undressed, doused the lamp, and got into bed. He hadn’t brought anything to read, because it wouldn’t do for “Andy Blake” to have Mark Twain or Charles Dickens in his room, just in case somebody came up to take a look.

  He put his gun on the flimsy night table next to the bed and tried to go to sleep.

  * * *

  “There,” Giles said, “the light went out.”

  “Let’s go,” Hague said, stepping from the doorway.

  Giles grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

  “We have to give him time to fall asleep,” he said.

  “If he’s awake, we can just kill him,” Hague said.

  “I wanna do this without killin’ him if we can,” Giles said. “We’re just tryin’ to rob him.”

  “Killin’ him would be a lot easier.”

  “And it would get the law on our asses,” Giles said. “So far all I’ve done is rob people, and the law just figures that’s the price of doin’ business in the Half Acre. But if we kill him, that’ll change.”

  Hague didn’t appear to like the idea, but he said, “You’re the boss.”

  Giles was the boss. The robberies were his idea, and he was starting to think that maybe Ed Hague wasn’t the best recruit. After this one maybe he’d cut the man loose and look for someone else. Someone not quite so bloodthirsty.

  “Fifteen minutes,” he said to Hague, “we’ll give it fifteen minutes.”

  * * *

  Dol watched the two men, saw one step from the doorway and the other pull him back. They were planning something, something in that hotel. It may have had nothing to do with Roper, but she decided to stick around and make sure. If they were after Roper, maybe this was her chance to prove herself to him.

  She touched the .32 Colt she had tucked into her belt. And hoped when the time came, it would be enough gun.

  * * *

  Giles nudged Hague, who actually seemed to have fallen asleep standing up.

  “Let’s move,” he said.

  “Finally.”

  They crossed the street and entered the hotel. The lobby was empty except for the clerk nodding off behind the cheap, flimsy front desk. There was a threadbare sofa with a cheap table in front of it, but that was it for lobby furniture. The hotel was mostly used by the higher-class whores who didn’t work the streets.

  The clerk looked up as they approached.

  “Room six,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  As they went up the stairs, Hague asked, “How much does he get?”

  “Five percent.”

  “Yer givin’ away a lot of your money.”

  “Yeah,” Giles agreed, “I think maybe I am.”

  * * *

  Dol watched the two men enter the hotel by the front door, then retraced her steps down the alley to the back door and let herself back in. She used the back stairs to get up to the second floor in time to see the men creeping along the hallway. When they stopped in front of a door, she felt sure it was Roper’s.

  She took the gun from her belt and started her own way down the hall.

  * * *

  Giles and Hague drew their guns, and Giles silently indicated to Hague that he should kick the door in. Hague nodded, backed up so that he was flat against the wall, then launched himself at the door. His feet struck it just below the doorknob and the door slammed open.

  There was a flash of light from inside, and a bullet struck Hague dead center in his torso.

  Giles panicked and turned to run, but Dol fired twice, hitting him both times and putting him down.

  * * *

  Roper was a notoriously light sleeper when he was working, and the fleabag hotel had noisy, creaky floorboards. He was aware as soon as the two men began creeping down the hall. When the door slammed open, he fired one shot. He heard the other shots from the hall, and rushed out to see what was happening.

  * * *

  Dol ran down the hall, just as Roper came out his door. For a moment they pointed their guns at each other, then backed off.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I got the other one.”

  “Damn it, Dol!” he said.

  “What?” she asked, wide-eyed. “I helped you out here. I saw them outside and followed them in.”

  “I wanted one of them alive,” he said. “I needed to find out if they were after me, or ‘Andy.’”

  “Who’s Andy?” she asked.

  Roper stared at her and said wearily, “Oh, Dol…”

  12

/>   Roper didn’t have time to properly chastise Dol for what she had done. The truth of the matter was he would have been fine without her help.

  “Get out,” he told her, “before the law shows up.”

  “But—”

  “I don’t want to have to explain who you are,” he said, “because I’m not going to explain who I am.”

  “Oh, all right,” she said, “but—”

  “We’ll talk later,” he promised her.

  “Okay,” she said happily, but he added, “Right before you get on the train to leave.”

  “But—”

  “Go!” he snapped. “And use the back door.”

  A few of the other doors had opened and nervous-looking men had looked out, but Roper said, “Don’t worry. It’s got nothing to do with you.”

  So once Dol left, the hall was empty but for Roper and the two bodies. That made him suspicious. Why hadn’t the desk clerk come running to see what happened? Maybe because he thought he already knew?

  Before long a man with a badge came up the stairs and stalked down the hall. By this time Roper had no gun in his hand and had adopted his “Andy Blake” persona.

  “What the hell happened here?” the lawman asked. He was tall, slender, with the ferret face of someone who never looked happy. In his fifties, the sheriff, Roper assumed, had been wearing a badge for a long time. That could take all the joy out of a man for sure.

  “I don’t know, Sheriff,” he said. “These fellas kicked in my door, and I defended myself.” He hoped the man wouldn’t be good enough to be able to tell that one of them had been shot from the hallway.

  The lawman walked to each man, turned him over with his foot, and took a look.

  “Do you know them?” Roper asked.

  “I don’t know this one,” he said, “but this one’s a two-bit bushwhacker, usually has different partners.” He looked at Roper. “He usually targets people he knows have money. Were you flashin’ a roll tonight at one of the saloons?”

  “Not me,” Roper said. “I ain’t got a roll to flash. In fact, I’m lookin’ for a job.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Andy Blake.”

  “What are you doin’ in town?”

  “Like I said,” Roper responded, “I’m lookin’ for a job.”

  “Doin’ what?”

  “Whatever involves cattle,” Roper said. “I done it all.”

  “So you’re lookin’ for a job in the stockyards?”

  “I thought I’d start there.”

  “And you didn’t come into contact with these jaspers tonight?”

  “I never seen either one of them.”

  “Yeah, okay,” the lawman said.

  “What’s your name?” Roper asked.

  “Reynolds,” the sheriff said. “You better talk to the clerk about gettin’ another room. I’ll have some men come up and move these bodies.” Reynolds looked up and down the hall. Roper figured he was thinking about the fact that nobody was sticking their head out to see what was going on.

  “Nobody showed much interest in the goings on, Sheriff.”

  “Naw, they wouldn’t,” Reynolds said. “The fellas in these rooms usually got somethin’ on their minds.” He looked at Roper. “You got a girl in your room?”

  “No, sir,” Roper said. “I was sleepin’.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Reynolds said. “These two ain’t gonna be no loss to anybody. Go get yerself another room key.”

  * * *

  Roper went down to the lobby, which was still empty. Hearing shots in Hell’s Half Acre was nothing new, but he still thought the clerk should have showed some interest.

  The young man watched as Roper approached the front desk, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing.

  “Guess you didn’t hear the shots upstairs,” Roper said.

  “I heard ’em.”

  “Yeah? How come you didn’t come runnin’?”

  “This is the Half Acre, mister,” the clerk said. “You don’t run towards shots, you run away from ’em.”

  “Well, looks like I’ll need another key,” Roper said. “Those two broke my door.”

  “We got rooms,” the clerk said. He turned, grabbed a key, and turned back, handing it to Roper. “There ya go.”

  “I guess when you gave those two my room number, you should’ve given them my key. Then they wouldn’t have had to kick in my door.”

  “Huh?”

  “They knew what room I was in because you told ’em,” Roper said. “Now, when the sheriff comes down here I can tell him that, or I could keep quiet.”

  “Why would ya do that?”

  “Because you’re gonna tell me who you and those two are workin’ with,” Roper said. “Who sent them after me?”

  “I can’t—I’ll get killed.”

  “Okay, then,” Roper said, “I’ll tell you, and you just nod.”

  The young man didn’t move.

  “Go ahead, try it. Nod.”

  He nodded.

  “Okay,” Roper said, “it’s my guess a young lady named Nancy sent those two after me after she saw me in the saloon.”

  The clerk remained frozen. There were footsteps on the stairs.

  “Here comes the lawman, boy,” Roper said. “Am I right?”

  As the lawman appeared at the bottom step, the young man jerked his head in a quick nod.

  “Okay,” he said, then loud enough for the sheriff to hear, “thanks for the key.”

  13

  Roper didn’t get much sleep.

  He stuck the wooden chair beneath the doorknob of his new room, set the pitcher and basin on the windowsill in case somebody tried to get in that way. Then he went to bed fully dressed with his gun beneath his pillow.

  He dozed here and there, but was awake when first light came streaming through the window. He sat, his stomach growling. Killing two men had done nothing to ruin his appetite. They would have killed him for two bits, so they deserved what they got.

  Roper didn’t know if the desk clerk had told Nancy the saloon girl what had happened. He also didn’t know how many other men she had on a string. The clerk was worried about getting killed, and Roper doubted the girl did her own killing.

  He’d decided to stick to his plan about approaching the stockyard boys in the saloon, but that meant having it out with Nancy first. And lying awake that night, he had come up with an approach for that.

  But first he wanted breakfast.

  * * *

  The café looked dubious from the outside, but Roper—as “Andy Blake”—could not be choosy. Most of the clientele was dressed as he was, so he went inside and got a table. He ordered bacon and eggs, and resisted the urge to clean the silverware while he waited. The waiter filled his coffee cup before Roper could inspect it to see what was at the bottom.

  While he was eating breakfast, Sheriff Reynolds came walking in. The lawman stopped inside the door, looked around, spotted Roper, and walked over. Along the way, longshoremen and stockyard worker averted their eyes, preferring not to attract the attention of the law.

  “Mr. Blake,” Reynolds said. “Mind if I join you?”

  “You’re the law,” Roper said. “You ain’t gonna harass me, are ya?”

  “That ain’t what I’m here for,” Reynolds said.

  “Yeah, okay, sit down.”

  He didn’t want to appear very comfortable talking to a lawman.

  “What’s on your mind?” Roper asked.

  “I checked at the stockyards,” the lawman said. “You ain’t applied for a job.”

  “Did I tell you I did?”

  “Yeah, you did,” Reynolds said. “That’s what you said.”

  “That ain’t what I said,” Roper replied. “I said I was lookin’ for a job and thinkin’ about the stockyards.”

  “So where have you looked?”

  Roper put his fork down and stared across the table at the lawman the way a lot of men had stared at him in the past.

  “I’m gett
in’ my bearin’s, Sheriff,” he said. “You know a man’s gotta know where to drink and where to eat.”

  “This is the place you picked to eat?”

  “Closest place to the hotel,” Roper said. “How did you find me here?”

  “Like you said,” Reynolds answered, “closest place to the hotel.” He looked around. “And you fit in here.”

  The lawman had no idea what a compliment he had just played the disguised detective.

  “You mind if I finish eatin’?” Roper asked. “I got a big day ahead of me.”

  “Big day of what?”

  “Job huntin’.”

  Reynolds stood up.

  “I’m gonna be keepin’ my eye on you, Blake.”

  “Why? Because two jaspers broke into my room? How is that my fault?”

  “Just a word to the wise,” Reynolds said, and walked out.

  As the lawman cleared the door, some of the other diners turned and looked at Roper, who contrived to look as if he was talking to himself, shaking his head and going back to his breakfast.

  Most of the other diners went back to their meals, but two men seated together stood up and walked over to Roper’s table, carrying their coffee cups.

  “Mind if we join ya?” one of them asked.

  Roper looked up at the two men. They were both in their thirties, with long, lank hair and the same rangy, saw-boned build. Roper quickly figured they were brothers.

  “I don’t know you,” Roper said.

  “Well, we can take care of that,” the other one said. “I’m Stan Fixx and this is my little brother, Larry.”

  Larry, the “little” one, was actually a few inches taller than his brother.

  “We heard you tell the law you’re new in town, and lookin’ for a job,” Larry said. “We thought maybe we could help.”

  “Why would you wanna do that?”

  “Well,” Stand said, “anybody who’s on the wrong side of the sheriff is okay with us.”

  “We just wanna welcome you to town,” Larry said.

  Roper looked up at the two men then said, “Yeah, okay, have a seat.” He had expected to make contact with somebody in the saloon, not this morning in a café, but this could work.

  “So, what did you do to get on the wrong side of Sheriff Reynolds?” Stan asked.

  “Two fellas broke into my room last night,” Roper said. “They were either gonna rob me or kill me.”