Роберт Паркер - Robert B. Parker's Revelation

Driggs dressed, kissed the sleeping princess, and left the room. He checked with the front desk for the best place to get a haircut and shave.

“That would be Mr. Blake,” the desk clerk said. “Just two blocks up Main Street here.”

Driggs tipped his hat and set out to Blake’s Barber Shop. When he arrived he was surprised to see there wasn’t a wait and Mr. Blake got him in the chair right away.

Mr. Blake laid the chair back and dropped a white face towel into a pot of boiling water. He let it soak in the hot water a minute, retrieved it with a pair of tongs, rolled the towel through the roller, then laid it gently over Driggs’s face.

Jut then Driggs heard a tap on the glass door.

“Ah... good morning, Mr. Blake.”

“Oh... good morning, Mr. Vandervoort,” he said.

“I thought I’d get here early enough to be your first,” Vandervoort said. “But I see you have a customer, so I shall return.”

“Okay, Mr. Vandervoort,” Mr. Blake said. “Give me... oh, forty-five minutes.”

“If someone comes before I return...”

“No problem, Mr. Vandervoort, you’ll be next.”

“Very good,” he said. “Thank you...”

“You bet,” Mr. Blake said. “By the way, how was your trip?”

“Hot and muggy, that New Orleans... I will tell you all about it when I return... Oh, that reminds me, I have a gift for you. A gift for my favorite young gentleman in all of Appaloosa.”

“Why, thank you.”

“Something very special for your shop here, from France. I think it will be a fine addition for your place of business, Mr. Blake.”

“Why, thank you,” said Blake.

“Soon as the crates are unloaded I’ll see that it’s delivered.”

“Thank you.”

“See you shortly, Mr. Blake.”

After Vandervoort walked on, Driggs said from under the towel covering his face, “Heard a lot about that man.”

“He’s a special individual,” Mr. Blake said.

“So I hear,” Driggs said.

Driggs made certain Mr. Blake’s grooming procedures were expeditious. The last thing he wanted to do was have a meaningless conversation with a barber in a barbershop.

On his return to the hotel he saw a crowd of people gathered around an ambulance in front of the building where he had the disagreements with Uncle Dave and Sheriff Chastain. When he passed he noticed Deputy Book, who’d asked Wallis if he knew where to find the sheriff and all Driggs could think about as he walked past was that the mystery was over.

The princess was standing in the tub, drying off with a towel, when Driggs entered.

“There you are,” she said. “And look at you. You are so handsome. You got your hair cut.”

“And a shave,” he said.

“You look marvelous,” she said.

“Tonight is the night,” he said.

“The party?”

“Why, yes,” he said with the excitement of a little boy. “The party.”

His eyes were afire with anticipation and he actually paced a bit before he picked up the whiskey bottle from the nightstand and took a swig.

“And I want you in your new yellow dress.”

“Oh, yes, darling,” she said. “It’s perfect.”

“It is,” he said.

He walked to her and scooped her up in his arms and laid her on the bed. He kissed her up and down her body and ended kissing her lips.

“This will be a good evening,” he said. “A lavish engagement fit for a princess.”

“Listen to you,” she said.

“You will no doubt be the most beautiful of all,” he said.

“Oh... kiss me some more.”

Just after sunset Driggs hurried back to the Boston House with the orchid corsage he got from a Chinaman. He thought the ivory color would complement the princess’s sterling blue eyes, dark hair, and new yellow dress. He bounded up the stairs to their room and when he entered someone was just inside, standing to the side of the door, and stuck a gun barrel to the side of his head. Driggs froze.

“Double-barrel,” a deep voice said. “Fancy one. Took it off some Englishman religious fucking chap that was twice your size. He said it was a hunting gun. For grouse and pheasant and the like. Said it was given to him by someone that meant something to him or some shit. Funny thing was I didn’t find no scatter bird loads for it. Just hard knocking double-ought buck is all I found. That’s what this load is. Double-ought buck. Take your head off.”

Driggs eyes turned.

“Easy, cocksucker,” the voice said.

Driggs did not need to see who was holding the shotgun to his head; he recognized the voice but looked anyway to see it was the hulking hayseed Ed Degraw.

“He used funny fucking words. He said things like ‘chap’ and ‘jolly’ and ‘shit.’ Until I stuck the gun up his ass and let go both barrels. You should have seen that. Fuck. The double-ought buck exploded out the top of his head. There was eyes and hair and brains and teeth and all kinds of innards all over the ceiling of the little chapel where it happened. I think he was the pastor or preacher or pope or whatever the fuck you call ’em.”

Driggs just stared straight ahead. He was calm, poised, collected, and breathing easy.

“I know you are wondering how the fuck it is I found you, ain’t you?” he said. “Fuck you, I’ll tell you... Move your ass over there, to the corner, to that chair there, now.”

Driggs moved fluidly and his eyes were steady as he walked slowly to the chair and sat.

Degraw kept the shotgun pointed at him with one hand as he removed an old newspaper article from his pocket with the other. He flipped it open. The paper was yellow and crumbly.

“You ’member this?” Degraw said. “From the Appaloosa Star Statesman ? When we was locked up together you kept reading this goddamn article about the goddamn brick factory here in Appaloosa. That was damn near four fucking years ago and you kept reading it. I know it had to mean something to you. You ’member and I asked you why you kept looking at it and reading it and you said it was none of my goddamn business. But now look it here, it is my business, ain’t it? You read it more than you ever read any of them other newspaper clippings. You read this all the fucking time. The goddamn Vandervoort Brick Factory in goddamn Appaloosa. Then when I get here I see half the town goddamn says that, Vandervoort. And then I think, I know you, Lonnigan. I know what a conniving shit you are and you are up to no good all the time. I knew you had something here up your sleeve... You are a moneygrubber cocksucker thief. So I figured I’d just come and get some of what you was out to get... You ain’t interested in sharing, then I will just fucking turn you in or kill you. Both, I would look forward to doing... I knew it’d be just a matter of time before I found you. I knew you had fucking money and you’d live high. I know you. Know all about you. What you did and how you got out. I figured it all out... I did. I looked at all the other hotels first before this one. But you know what? I would not have found you so easily if it had not been for the little canary... the warden’s wife.”

Driggs’s eyes went to the left and then to the right.

“You can imagine her surprise when it was me and not you coming through the door.”