Роберт Паркер - The Bridge

“Why’d you hire him?” I said.

“He had the credentials I was looking for,” Belle said.

“Which are?” I said.

“He’s intimidating,” Belle said. “He was what I was looking for. He collected for me.”

“You have any idea where he might be?” I said.

She shook her head.

“Not at all,” she said.

“Fair enough,” Virgil said.

“More importantly,” I said, “we are looking for one of your girls who introduced Ballard to one of your clients, maybe Swickey.”

Belle shook her head.

“I don’t know anything about that,” she said.

“This Kim,” I said. “Was she friendly with Ballard?”

“No,” Belle said. “Kim was intelligent and cautious, and she was not close to him that I know. Reason being she was close to me.”

“Was Ballard friendly with one woman in particular here?” I said.

“Don’t think so,” she said. “The girls liked him. Well, they liked to look at him.”

“What do you mean,” I said.

“Good-looking, got that thing about him women want. Silent, strong, but he’s a buck in the rut,” Belle said. “Full on, with the horns and all.”

“Describe him,” Virgil said.

“Well,” Belle said. “Like I say, he’s strong. He’s handsome as hell, a little over six foot, dark hair, full twist longhorn mustache. He sports a bowler with a white feather. He’s kind of flashy, has a pretty flashy smile. But like I tell ya, don’t be fooled, he’s rough company.”

“He just up and left here?” Virgil said.

“No, I told him to leave,” she said.

“Why?” Virgil said.

“He went too far,” she said.

“In what way?” Virgil said.

“He’s one mean sadistic son-of-a-crazy-bitch,” Belle said, nodding.

“What’d he do?” Virgil said.

“The last fella I had him collect for,” Belle said, “he beat him up bad, tied him up, naked, and ransacked his place.”

Virgil thought about that. He looked around the room at nothing and everything.

“How can we find out,” I said, “who this woman is?”

“Be hard?” she said.

“But not impossible,” Virgil said.

“Not impossible, no,” she said. “But you fellas know whores, and getting something outta them won’t be like twisting water out of a wet rag. They like the men they fuck because they pay them well, and they like to keep it that way. Whores are whores because they are whores.”

Virgil looked to me.

“So, like I say, not impossible,” Belle said. “But my girls don’t live here. But you can of course talk to each and every one of them...”

I slid my hand into the pocket of my coat as she was talking and I felt the envelope Séraphine had left for me at the hotel desk. I pulled it out and looked at it.

“Plus,” Belle continued, “since Ballard, I’ve had turnover, too. Whoring ain’t like it used to be. There is no loyalty...”

As Belle went on jabbering, I opened the envelope and read what Séraphine had written.

I looked up to Virgil and he was looking at me.

I looked back to the note. It had but one word written on it. Slaughterhouse.

I shared Séraphine’s note with Virgil when we left Belle and the Back Door whoring establishment.

“By God,” is all Virgil said.

“Yep,” I said.

Virgil just shook his head a little as we walked.

I didn’t say anything as we trudged through the snow-covered street, back down into town.

Virgil didn’t say anything else, either, not for a while, anyway, as he thought about the single word Séraphine left me with.

Then he said, “Slaughterhouse.”

I nodded.

“Beats hell,” he said.

“Does,” I said.

We walked for a bit more without saying anything.

“What do you figure?” I said.

We walked for a bit more.

“Well, given the fact this hocus-pocus fortune-teller lady friend of yours has provided us some pertinent information in regard to the goddamn bridge business we’re dealing with,” Virgil said. “Pertinent information that has come to light, regardless of how she got it, it might be a good idea we pay heed to this, Everett.”

“That’d be my thinking, too,” I said.

“As much as I don’t like it,” Virgil said.

“I know.”

“Don’t got much more,” Virgil said.

“We don’t,” I said.

Virgil and I made our way back to the livery where we stabled our horses.

Salt was feeding the animals when we entered. He looked up at us when we walked in but said nothing as he went about his business.

By the time Virgil and I got our horses saddled Salt came over to us.

He watched us but said nothing.

“How much more of this shit are we going to see, Salt?” I said. “Got to give up sometime soon.”

Salt looked out the open door of the barn and shook his head a little, then looked back to us.

“Pigs are still gathering sticks,” Salt said.

Virgil looked at Salt.

Salt nodded a little, then turned and walked into the livery office.

Virgil and I mounted up and rode out of the livery and headed south.

It was cold. The temperature had dropped even more and it was foggy out.

It wasn’t snowing, but the powder was deep as we moved slowly through the fog.

The road south of Appaloosa cut through solid forest of aspen, spruce, and fir.

In the spring the sides of the road were nothing but riparian, chaparrals, and prickly poppy, but now everything was a powerful and foreboding sea of white.

Just as we did when we made the journey to the bridge with Cox, we rode the same path by the depot, crossed over the covered tracks, past the last few Appaloosa homesteads on the road, past the icehouse and the stockyards.

The landscape seemed like it was from another place in time. The fog hung heavy some twenty feet above the ground, making the woods feel like there was something in the forest waiting, something lurking and unsatisfied.

The only sound was that of our horses, the chomp-clink of bit metal, the leather creak of our saddles, and the breathing of our animals under us, as they moved us forward into what felt like a prehistoric place, void of civilization.

From someplace secluded in the woods a phantom great gray owl hooted his ominous call.

We came to a stop on the road next to the old abandoned slaughterhouse.

The slaughterhouse was a long, low-built post-and-lintel building that was no longer in use since the bigger, newer version had been built to handle the growing cattle business.

The snow-covered slaughterhouse had loading docks on one end and dilapidated corrals and chutes on the other.

We dismounted and tied our horses to a pair of fir saplings near the road and walked through the deep snow toward the building.

The snow was piled high around the structure, and there had been no sign of tracks other than those of deer and rabbits.

When we got to the door of the slaughterhouse we cleared the snow back so we could open the door.

Virgil pulled his Colt and I did the same. Virgil stepped back to one side of the door and I got to the other. Virgil nodded and I opened the door. Instantly we were hit with the smell of death. We waited for a moment, then Virgil peeked inside. He leaned back and looked to me, shaking his head.

“Goddamn, Everett,” he said.

Dim shafts of light shined sideways through missing pieces of siding on the backside of the slaughterhouse.

The light revealed three hanging bodies.

They were clearly the bodies of Sheriff Sledge Driskill and his deputies Chip Childers and Karl Worley.

They were hanging side by side on meat hooks that had been gouged into the men, high on their backsides. Their shoulders and heads slumped forward and their hands were tied behind their backs.