Роберт Паркер - The Bridge

Virgil scanned the room, then met my eyes.

“You good?” he said.

“I am.”

Virgil nodded. He didn’t smile, but I could tell — inside — he was smiling a little.

“Hal fill you in?” I said.

“He did,” Virgil said.

Virgil looked to Grant and Elliott sitting next to each other.

“This them?” Virgil said.

“They are,” I said.

“You boys okay?”

“We are,” Grant said. “This just shook us up, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

Virgil looked at me.

“The fella doing the shooting?” Virgil said.

I nodded to the back room of the office.

“Doc’s working on him now,” I said. “Skinny Jack’s in there making sure he don’t try nothing more.”

Virgil walked to the back-room door. I opened it.

Skinny Jack, a deputy with a scruffy goatee, was seated in the corner with a Winchester across his lap.

He stood up when he saw it was Virgil.

“Oh, Marshal Cole, sir,” Skinny Jack said.

Bolger was lying facedown on the table as round-faced Doc Crumley stitched his exit wound. He looked up over his spectacles at Virgil as he pulled the thread tight.

“Hey, Virgil,” Doc said.

“He gonna live?” Virgil said.

Crumley straightened up, stretching the ache out of his back some.

“Oh, yes,” Doc said. “’Fraid so. He’s drunk as a skunk at the moment.”

“Regardless,” Skinny Jack said, “I got my eye on him, Marshal, in case he wakes and tries to get shitty.”

Virgil nodded.

“You seen him around before, Skinny Jack?”

“We have,” Skinny Jack said. “He’s been picked up a few times drunk. Heard bad things about him, but we’ve not experienced nothing serious, not until now, anyway.”

Virgil nodded and looked back to the partners sitting on the sofa. I closed the door to the back room and Virgil faced the men.

“This is Grant Minot and Elliott Warshaw,” I said.

“I’m Territorial Marshal Virgil Cole.”

“We’ve heard all about you, Marshal,” Grant said. “Your reputation precedes you.”

Elliott nodded.

“What happened here?” Virgil said.

“That beast of a man in there tried to kill us, for God sake,” Grant said.

“I’ve been apprised of what went down,” Virgil said. “Why don’t you tell me why he tried to kill you?”

“Bolger, um, Mr. Orsley,” Grant said, “came into our office with a gun, demanding pay.”

“Pay he’s owed?” Virgil said.

“Well, yes,” Grant said. “But, well, it’s complicated.”

“Why don’t you uncomplicate it for me?”

“It’s a commerce issue, really,” Grant said.

Elliott put his hand on Grant’s hand.

“Let me explain,” said Elliott.

Grant nodded, smiling pleasantly at Elliott.

“Bolger and his brother, Ballard, worked for us,” Elliott said. “They delivered goods for us.”

“Goods?”

“Yes,” Elliott said. “We supply the Rio Blanco crews with food and Bolger is, well, was our driver.”

“The bridge?” Virgil said.

“That’s right,” Elliott said.

“Where’s the rub?” Virgil said.

Elliott turned his head to the side and looked to Grant.

“The problem,” Grant said, providing the meaning of rub to Elliott.

“Oh. Well, Bolger and Ballard had been making delivery runs to the camp twice a week,” Elliott said, “and for two weeks consecutive we’ve not been paid and therefore we were unable to pay Bolger and Ballard.”

Elliott glanced to Grant. Grant bobbed his head a little.

“Where’s Ballard?” Virgil said.

“We don’t know,” Elliott said. “He’s a mean man, and when he hears about this, he will become even meaner, I’m sure of that.”

Grant nodded.

“With him loose we will need protection,” Grant said. “I can tell you that.”

“I assure you we did everything in our power to pay what we owed. This is a new business for us,” Elliott said. “We were both employed as tailors previously. We wanted to start our own business and heaven knows cash flow is a necessity for a new enterprise. We certainly don’t blame Bolger or Ballard for being upset, but, well, there was simply nothing we could do.”

“You can imagine how we felt,” Grant said. “I think perhaps Bolger was drinking.”

“Inebriated is more like it,” Elliott said with a huff. “Both of them are drunks. We didn’t know that when we got into business with them.”

“One thing you should know about Ballard,” Grant said.

“What’s that?” I said.

“Well, I know Bolger talks about him like they are close but Ballard was very mean to him,” Grant said.

Elliott nodded.

—

One day, the last delivery, actually,” Elliott said, “they got into a bad fight and Ballard hit Bolger, told Bolger he was no longer part of the business.”

“We haven’t seen Ballard after that,” Grant said.

“Or the buckboard,” Elliott said.

“Ballard took the buckboard?” I said.

They nodded.

“He did,” Elliott said.

“Bolger, however,” Grant said, “kept coming around, asking us for money.”

“Then he came with the gun,” Elliott said.

“We tried to reason with Bolger,” Grant said. “Thank God Elliott pushed him when he was standing over me with the gun in my face.”

“He stumbled and we took off running,” Elliott said.

“Who’s supposed to be paying you that ain’t paying you?” Virgil said.

“We’re the middlemen, so to speak. Our deal is with a grocer in town,” Elliott said. “The contractor pays them and they pay us.”

“Grocer claims it’s the contractor,” Grant said. “That is why I stated it was a commerce issue.”

“Why’d he try and shoot you, Everett?” Virgil said.

“Bad weather, I reckon.”

Before we left Doc Crumley’s office Virgil opened the door and looked into the back room again. He instructed Skinny Jack and Book to take turns keeping an eye on Bolger.

“Get him locked up as soon as the doc says he’s okay to be moved,” Virgil said.

“He’s not hurt. He’ll be walking easily on his own accord by morning,” Doc said.

“Keep the door locked and be ready if this brother of his wants to show up and lend a hand.”

“Will do,” Skinny Jack said.

Virgil nodded and moved to Grant and Elliott. They were watching him like trained lapdogs awaiting instruction.

“You boys want to press charges, I imagine?” Virgil said.

Grant looked to Elliott and Elliott looked to Grant. They looked back to Virgil and nodded in unison.

“We do,” Elliott said.

“Most certainly,” Grant said. “We need him to be unable to get to us.”

“Yes,” Elliott said. “He should be locked up.”

“Indeed,” Grant said. “But what about Ballard?”

“You got no idea where he is?” Virgil said.

They shook their heads.

“Know where he lives?” Virgil said.

“No,” Elliott said. “We have no idea.”

“When we first hired them they were so nice, polite, and clean actually,” Grant said. “But then, after a few runs up to the river bridge, they were always dirty and smelled of liquor. All the time. Elliott said something to them about drinking on the job and oh, my. That’s when we knew we had hired degenerate dregs.”

“They turned on me,” Elliott said. “And I thought they were going to kill me right then and there.”

Virgil looked to deputy Book.

“Get these fellas to fill out a full report, Book,” Virgil said. “Get it to the office and we’ll get it processed in the morning.”

“Yes, sir,” Book said.

Virgil looked back to Grant and Elliott.