Роберт Паркер - Robert B. Parker’s Blackjack

“And what was the instruction?”

“There was the painting and a note detailing what I was to do with it.”

Callison shook his head again.

“What is your profession?”

“I’m an actor,” he said.

Callison’s eyes got big.

“My God,” he said. “A thespian?”

“Yes,” he said.

“In Saint Louis?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you receive this letter?”

“At the theater,” he said. “In Saint Louis. The Saint Louis Theater.”

“Explain,” Callison said.

“I was doing a play,” he said. “And after an evening performance I went back to my dressing room and I found the letter, with the money.”

Callison turned and looked to us and shook his head slowly from side to side, then looked back to him.

“Where did you have this gambling debt?”

“All over town, really,” he said. “I would borrow money, and I just kept borrowing, and I thought I would get ahead, but I didn’t. For a while I was in very good favor, but then my debt got bad and I was kicked out of most places.”

“Did you gamble in the casino that was opened by Mr. Black?”

“Yes.”

“Yet you did not know Mr. Black?”

“No, I never met him. He was gone from Saint Louis before I ever went into the place.”

“You say you were in good favor? What do you mean by that?”

“I had a credit line, but then it was called and I was barred from going into most places, including Pritchard’s place.”

“And you did not go to the police, I take it?”

He stared at Callison.

“No.”

“You are in serious trouble,” Callison said. “You understand this, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he said.

July Fourth was a day of celebration. Judge Callison sat in his office with Virgil, Bill Black, Juniper, and me, and reviewed Black’s history. He listened patiently and without expression to Juniper’s exceptional but long-winded oratory regarding Black’s wrongful incarceration, persecution, and sufferings.

When Juniper finished, Judge Callison stared at him for a long moment, then gazed out the window. Then he looked back behind his chair as if he heard something. After a few seconds he turned back to Black. He stared at Black for an enduring amount of time before he said anything.

“To say there is a litany of wrongdoing on your part, Mr. Black, would be a gross understatement.”

Black sat, stoically looking at the judge.

“What you have done,” Callison said, “what you have left in your wake cannot be reversed. Though I cannot hold you directly accountable for everything that has happened in your wake, I can, of course, not dismiss the direct disregard you have shown to the law and to the sanctity of the law and of this courtroom. So I find you guilty of destroying city property and charge you with a fine in the amount of however much it will cost to replace the bars you pried from the windows of the jail and the bed frame you ripped out of the floor... fair enough?”

“It is, Your Honor,” Juniper said.

“I was not talking to you,” Callison said.

Black held his head upright, smiled, and said, “Thank you.”

That afternoon, I walked with Allie to the hospital to get Daphne.

“You’re smitten,” Allie said.

“You think?” I said.

“I do,” she said.

“I like her.”

“Like her,” Allie said with a grin, then elbowed me in the ribs. “You’re smitten.”

“Maybe a little.”

“I know she likes you.”

“What’s not to like,” I said.

“That’s true,” she said. “You’re a pretty fair catch.”

We were approaching the hotel, where the chief was sitting on the porch with Detective King.

“Good afternoon,” the chief said.

“It is,” I said.

“Word?” he said, then scrutinized Allie a little and offered a crooked smile.

I glanced to Allie.

“Oh... go ahead, Everett,” she said. “I want to get some clothes for Daphne, anyway. I know she’ll appreciate it.”

The chief watched as Allie walked up the steps past him and into the hotel, then leveled a harsh look at me.

“So the sonofabitch got off the hook?” the chief said.

“Obviously should have never been on the hook,” I said.

“It’s bullshit.”

“Not.”

“Oh, bullshit,” he said. “If he did not do it. Then who the hell did?”

“I could ask you the same question,” I said.

“And you think I would have an answer?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Do you?”

“He tricked you,” the chief said.

I looked off down the street, smiled a bit to myself, then looked back to him, but didn’t say anything.

“He can’t fool me,” the chief said.

“No?”

“No,” he said. “I don’t care what happened with the fella that lied about what he saw.”

“That seems apparent.”

“He won’t get away with this.”

“Judge commuted his sentence,” I said.

“So.”

“So?”

“It’s bullshit.”

“No,” I said with a smile, “it’s not.”

“It goddamn sure is,” he said, getting to his feet aggressively.

Detective King got quickly out of his chair and put his hand on the chief’s chest as a precaution to keep the chief from physically attacking me, which he was close to doing.

“Look,” I said, “I know you lost your son and daughter-in-law, and I’m sorry for your...”

“She was nothing but a goddamn tramp,” he said with red face. “A goddamn tramp.”

Allie came out the door with a suitcase in her hand, looking at me like she had just seen a ghost. She glanced to the chief briefly and came down the steps in a hurry.

She hooked her arm in mine and said, “Come on, Everett.”

I moved off with Allie as she practically dragged me away from the chief and Detective King.

I looked to her as we crossed the street in a hurry and tears were running down her cheeks.

“What is it, Allie?” I said. “What’s wrong?”

Allie pulled me around the corner and we walked a ways farther until we got to an alley. Then she pulled me into the alley.

“What is it, Allie?”

She let go of me and continued to walk in the alley, and when she was ten feet in front of me she turned on me and said, “She did it.”

“What?”

“She killed the woman in Denver.”

“What?”

“Daphne,” she said. “She did it, Everett.”

Allie dropped to her knees and opened the suitcase. Inside the case were tubes of oil paints, brushes, and a tintype photograph of Bloom’s Inn.

Though it was not direct proof, it was proof enough that Daphne was in part responsible for the death of Ruth Ann Messenger. Allie did not accompany me to the hospital, nor did I go with Virgil. I went alone. I wanted to go alone. When I entered her room she was sitting up in bed smiling, and sitting with her, with his back to the door, was Bill Black. He turned and smiled at me.

“Howdy,” Black said.

I nodded a bit.

“Everett,” she said, “I’m so happy to see you today. Happy Independence Day.”

Black’s big frame blocked Daphne’s view of the suitcase I held in my hand.

“Guess what?” she said.

“What?”

“Bill has asked me to marry him,” she said.

Black nodded and looked back to me and smiled.

“I was stupid enough to let her get away before,” he said. “Not this time, though.”

“And you have accepted?”

She smiled.

“I have,” she said.

I moved into the room, and when I did she saw the case in my hand. She stared at it as if I were holding something dead.

“No,” she said, and shook her head.