Robert Parker - Ironhorse

“I do!”

Virgil stepped into the room, Colt in one hand, the Henry rifle in the other. Berkeley was a step behind him.

“Lassiter flew the coop.”

“Where’d he go?” Virgil said to Hobbs.

“What?” Hobbs said, looking over his shoulder at Virgil as he pulled on his trousers. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Virgil looked at me.

“The woman in the room with Lassiter said he told her to stay put till he came back. Said he left as soon as they got upstairs, over an hour ago.”

Virgil looked back to Hobbs.

“Where did he go?”

“He left?” Hobbs said. “I don’t know. I have no idea. Why?”

Virgil stayed focused on Hobbs but spoke to Berkeley, who was standing behind him.

“Mr. Berkeley, I need you to get our horses out front. The chestnut and the roan; leave the other two.”

“Will do,” Berkeley said, and left the room quick.

Rose picked up the blanket and moved near to me as Virgil walked around the bed and faced Hobbs.

“Tell me about Wellington?”

“Who?”

“I don’t got time for you to dally with my demeanor.”

“Dally with your...”

Hobbs shook his head.

“I do not know what you are talking about.”

“Read the back end of that clippin’, Everett,” Virgil said without looking in my direction.

I pulled the article from my vest pocket, opened it, and read it out loud.

Wellington’s crime gained the state’s attention when three prominent Texas attorneys — Stephen Humphrey, William Mills, and James Lassiter — were also indicted after the ill-fated embezzlement scheme went awry. Charges were eventually dropped on the three due to the lack of state’s evidence. Many believe Wellington was the scapegoat for the others, who were heavy with counsel.

I looked up at Virgil. Virgil was looking at Hobbs.

“Lassiter and you are partners, law partners.”

“Our companies merged less than a year ago.”

“What about Wellington and the trial?”

“I was on a big case in New York during that brouhaha. By the time I had returned it was old news. Being an attorney is a nefarious business, and there is often a thin line between right and wrong, Mr. Cole. I never gave the banking trial involving this Wellington a thought. We firms are always caught in the middle between good and evil.”

“Stealing money ain’t in the middle.”

Hobbs stood up from the bed.

“I never knew this Wellington.”

Hobbs limped slightly to the corner and sat in a chair, where his shoes were on the floor in front of him.

“Wouldn’t know Wellington if he hit me in the face.”

“Who had the relationship with the governor?” Virgil asked.

“You mean who was the idiot who encouraged the governor to invest in the territorial lands, putting him and his family’s lives at stake?”

Hobbs shook his head as he picked up a sock from inside his shoe. He crossed his leg and put the sock on his foot.

“That would be me, Mr. Cole; that would be me.”

Hobbs picked up his other sock.

“I have known the governor for a long time. We went to college together. I introduced James and the territorial idea to him. That was me; hell, I introduced him to his wife.”

“Lassiter?” Virgil said. “How long you known him?”

Hobbs shook his other sock and put it on.

“Long time, not closely; however, not until our firms merged and we began working together did I get to know James intimately, evidently not intimately enough.”

Hobbs slowly turned his attention from Virgil to the floor.

“You believe this is James’ doing, I take it?”

“And yours,” Virgil said. “You’re his partner.”

Hobbs shook his head slowly, not so much as an answer to Virgil’s pointed inquiry but rather to the realization of something he had not suspected.

“It just can’t be...” Hobbs said.

Hobbs worked his right foot into his shoe and sat back, looking at Virgil, with his elbows resting on the arms of the chair. He slowly shook his head from side to side.

“I know nothing about any of this,” Hobbs said. “Absolutely nothing.”

Virgil looked at him steadily.

“Who hired the Pinkerton agents?”

Hobbs raised his hand like a schoolboy.

“Afraid that, too, was my personal blunder,” Hobbs said. “What now, Marshal?”

“Tell me about Lassiter.”

“What would you like to know?”

“What you know.”

“Well... he’s one hell of an attorney. Not married. Divorced. I think. No children that I know of... this the type of information you’re interested in?”

“He in trouble?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Owe people money.”

Hobbs shook his head.

“I don’t think so. If so, I have no knowledge of such.”

Rose was standing close to me. The blanket was draped loosely off her shoulders, barely covering her breasts, and was open down the side, revealing the curves of her naked body.

“You can go,” I whispered to her.

“Oh, no,” she said a little too loudly. “I’m enjoying this.”

Virgil looked at Rose. Then me. Then he looked back to Hobbs.

“Maybe he’s in debt, I don’t know,” Hobbs said. “He’s a gambler. He gambles a great deal, that I know, cards, the races, everything. He’s a big spender, too.”

“On what?”

Hobbs shook his head. “Expensive taste, fine stuff, horses, carriages, clothes, women, everything, guns. I don’t know.”

“Guns?”

“He has a huge collection. Civil War and beyond. Works on guns in his spare time, repairing them, engraving them. A fine craftsman — exquisite, actually. Gives them as gifts. He’s a generous man. He gave me a fancy Derringer.”

Virgil turned the receiver of the Henry rifle in his hands so Hobbs could view the engraving clearly.

“Like this?”

Hobbs reached over his shoulder and retrieved a pair of spectacles from the breast pocket of his jacket hanging on the back of the chair. He put them on and looked at the engraving on the rifle and his eyes narrowed. He frowned for a brief moment and removed his spectacles. He looked up at Virgil with a steady gaze.

“Yes,” Hobbs said, “like that.”

Berkeley bounded up the stairs and came to the doorway out of breath. His big hands held on to each side of the doorjamb.

“Son of a bitch stole my black,” Berkeley said.

He took a big breath.

“After supper he asked me if I was a horseman. We got into a discussion about bloodlines,” Berkeley said. “Like a fool, I showed him my prizewinner. My Thoroughbred. He was in a corral next to the hotel here.”

Berkeley took another big breath.

“But not anymore,” Berkeley said. “The son of a bitch.”

“Mr. Berkeley?” a voice called sternly from the hall. “What on earth is happening here? What is with all the commotion?”

Berkeley turned. A man stepped up behind him. He was older, medium height, lean, with intense eyes and a groomed goatee.

“Governor, sir,” Berkeley said. “Um, we have a situation here.”

“What sort of situation?” the governor said sharply.

The governor looked into the room past Berkeley, to Hobbs sitting in the corner chair wearing one shoe.

“Chet?” the governor said. “What’s happening?”

The governor moved swiftly past Berkeley and came into the room.

“What’s the situation...?”

Rose took an abrupt step back, stepping on the blanket, and it dropped to the floor, leaving her standing buck naked.

The governor looked to Rose, then to Virgil, then to me, then back to Hobbs.

“What in the hell is going on here?” he said.