Билл Пронзини - The Bags of Tricks Affair

“Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “I know I look a fright, but I’m not at death’s door yet.”

He managed a small smile. “Of course you’re not. You’ll be fine after a few days’ rest.”

“John... what are you going to do about Gaunt?”

“Find him, as fast I can.”

“He’s not in the city. He had no reason to stay. I think he went back to Grass Valley to be near Lady One-Eye.”

“Yes. So do I.”

“So you intend to go up there after him. And then what?”

Quincannon said carefully, “That depends on him.”

“You mustn’t shoot him down in cold blood. I don’t want that kind of vengeance.” Her eyelids fluttered, closed, as the sleeping draught took effect. “Promise me, John.”

He didn’t have to promise her, for in the next few seconds, consciousness left her. Just as well, because the promise would have been one he was not at all sure he’d be able to keep.

Before leaving, Quincannon told Dr. Jorgensen that a pressing business matter would prevent him from returning for at least two days. There was no need to impart this information to Sabina when she awakened, he said; she would know where he’d gone and why. Payment for the physician’s services was not mentioned. Jorgensen’s fees were reasonable, and he knew that Quincannon, like Mr. Boggs, was scrupulous in honoring his debts.

He drove to the United Carriage Company’s stables on Eighth Street, where he relinquished the rented horse and buggy. Without objection, he paid an extra fee for what the dour hostler referred to, after a brief examination, as “undue wear and tear” on both animal and equipage. Then he hired a cab to take him to his flat.

Although he had no appetite, he hadn’t eaten a bite in twenty-four hours — a sandwich quickly consumed during his Sunday-night rounds. And Sabina’s weakened condition was a sharp reminder of the need for sustenance. He kept little enough in the way of provisions at the flat, taking most of his meals in restaurants and Hoolihan’s Saloon, but he found a wedge of cheese and half a loaf of stale bread and forced down another sandwich.

Rest was another necessary commodity, the more so for what lay ahead of him on the morrow. He packed a few things into his traveling valise, among them extra cartridges for his Navy Colt, then crawled into bed. As weary as he was, sleep came easily enough — but not before he set his reliable internal clock for five A.M.

With Sabina for company, time had passed swiftly enough on his previous trips on the eastbound Southern Pacific train into the Sierras. This one dragged interminably. He couldn’t seem to sit still, got up from his seat every few minutes to pace through the cars.

When they arrived at last at Colfax, his patience was further tested by a thirty-minute wait for the next Nevada County Narrow Gauge train. By the time that slow conveyance, with its numerous passenger stops, traversed the three miles from Nevada City to the Grass Valley station, it was after three o’clock and his patience was gone, his temper short, and his simmering anger near the boiling point.

Waves of sticky heat assailed him as he made his way up East Main to the city jail. Back and forth the past week from sweatbox to summer chill to sweatbox — bah! Now all he needed was for Sheriff Hezekiah Thorpe to be away from his office.

But he was spared that, at least. Thorpe was present, seated at his desk under a sluggish fan, sweat glistening on his seamed and side-whiskered face. He blinked his surprise at seeing Quincannon come marching in.

“What in tucket brings you back here?”

“Jeffrey Gaunt.”

“Gaunt? Didn’t you get my wire?”

“That he’d left Grass Valley for parts unknown, yes.”

“Not that one,” Thorpe said, “the one I sent yesterday afternoon.”

“No, I didn’t.” It must have come in after he’d left the agency offices to pay his call on D. S. Nickerson. “What did it say?”

“That Gaunt’s back. Seems he went down to Sacramento to arrange with a lawyer to represent his sister at the trial.”

The devil he did! “He tell you that himself?”

“When he came in to visit her. I sent the wire right afterward.”

“Where can I find him?”

Thorpe, a shrewd old bird, sensed the tension and anger in Quincannon. “What do you want with him? You got some kind of bone to pick?”

Quincannon was not about to confide his purpose, not yet. The sheriff would either try to talk him out of it, or demand to join forces with him, and Thorpe had no more legal standing than he did, Sabina’s abduction having taken place in San Francisco. No matter how it played out, this was between Quincannon and Gaunt and nobody else.

He said shortly, “Personal business. Where is he lodged? The Holbrooke?”

“No. Same place he’s been staying ever since Amos McFinn evicted him. Lily Dumont’s cottage.”

“What? You mean with her?”

“No. She packed up and made herself scarce right after you and Mrs. Carpenter left,” Thorpe said. “Afraid of what Glen Bonnifield might do to her, I reckon. He was keeping her, all right. And damn mad when he recovered. Went and talked to Gaunt, or vice versa — I never did get the straight of that — and they worked up an arrangement.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know if Gaunt is at the cottage now?”

“Nope. He came in to see Lady One-Eye earlier, but where he went after that I couldn’t tell you.” The sheriff paused; his gaze held steely glints. “This personal business you have with Gaunt. Must be pretty important to bring you all the way up here now, with the trial only a few days off.”

“It is. Very important.”

“Won’t jeopardize the case against Lady One-Eye, will it?”

“On the contrary,” Quincannon said. “One way or another, it’ll ensure that she’s convicted.”

“One way or another? You want to elaborate on that?”

“Not now, Sheriff. Later, after I have my talk with Gaunt.”

“You listen here now, I don’t want any more trouble in my town—”

But Quincannon wasn’t listening. He was already on his way out.

Gaunt was not at Lily Dumont’s cottage.

Quincannon rattled his knuckles loudly on the door several times before subsiding. What now? It was too blasted hot to chase around hunting his quarry; Gaunt could be anywhere in Grass Valley, or in Nevada City at Bonnifield’s Ace High Saloon. On impulse Quincannon tried the door latch. Locked, naturally. He could pick the lock, or the one on the rear door as he’d done that night the previous week, and wait inside to catch Gaunt by surprise. But that was a mug’s game, the disadvantage outweighing the advantage. Illegal trespass would not mitigate in his favor with Sheriff Thorpe no matter how the confrontation with Gaunt played out.

A pine tree grew close to the far end of the porch, and a tall oleander shrub grew around the corner in front; together they created a patch of deep shade. And drawn up against the railing there was a cane-bottom chair. As good a place as any to do his waiting, he decided. He positioned the chair so that it would be hidden from the street and most of the front walk. Gaunt wouldn’t see him until he reached the porch steps and started up.

It was a fairly long wait. Now that he was here, now that the meeting with Gaunt was imminent, enough of Quincannon’s patience returned to make the waiting tolerable. The shade helped, too, holding off the sweltering heat so that his face and hands remained more or less dry. He sat quietly, his coat thrown open, now and then fingering the handle of the Navy.

His thoughts, when he thought at all, were of Sabina. In his mind’s eye he could see her as she came stumbling wraithlike out of the fog; and later, as she lay small and pitiable in Dr. Jorgensen’s ward bed. He could feel, too, despite the heat here, the trembling of her wet and chilled body as he carried her to the buggy and when she pressed against him during the long, jouncing ride into the city. The visual and sensory memories added fuel to the hate that bubbled inside him.