Ed Gorman - Showdown

Chapter Six

When the mail came in the morning, Sheriff Daly looked through it, as usual, and then dropped an envelope on Prine's desk.

"You have room in that busy social schedule to do a little job for me this morning?"

Daly and Carlyle had been joshing Prine all morning.

"I suppose," Prine said. "Just as long as I don't have to get my hands dirty."

"A charmed life," Carlyle said.

"You won't have to get your hands dirty," Daly said, "but you'll probably wear out some shoe leather. Guy's probably off on a bender somewhere, or shacked up with a whore—or both. But we need to check it out."

Dear Sheriff Daly,

A week ago one of our freelance investigators went to Claybank to work on an arson investigation. His name is Allan Woodward, and from long experience we know him to be a sober, steady worker.

He ordinarily keeps us informed via telegram as to how his investigation is going. We received two telegrams from him in the first three days. But since then we've heard nothing. He told us he'd be staying at the Empire Hotel.

Would you or one of your deputies please check with the hotel and see if he's still registered there? If he's not, could you ask around town and see if anybody knows where he might be. We haven't told his wife about this. But we are concerned. Al isn't the sort to just disappear.

Sincerely,

Evan Ramsdell

Vice President

Nationwide Insurance Company

"Anybody want to bet he's on a bender?" Prine said.

"Why bet? I'd just lose." Carlyle grinned. "He probably met one of Miss Evie's gals and fell in love."

"Miss Evie keeps telling me she and her gals are 'harmless,'" Daly said. "But every once in a while one of her gals ruins a marriage."

"In the arms of love," Prine smiled, quoting the beginning of a bawdy poem that was a saloon favorite.

He stood up, cinched on his hat, waved the envelope for Nationwide Insurance at the others, and walked out the door.

Karl Tolan didn't like confined spaces, so the root cellar was something he wanted to get into and out of as soon as possible.

Once he got the lantern lighted—the flame dull in the eleven A.M. light through the window—he opened the trapdoor and proceeded to climb down the ladder.

The dirt walls and floor and the subterranean chill put him in mind of a grave. What else would it put him in mind of? That's what the damned thing was, wasn't it?

A grave where you stored fruits and vegetables to keep them fresh. But a grave nonetheless.

He needed to set it up so that it was just right.

He'd already moved down an extra lantern, a chair, and a military cot for her. There was even a heavy quilt. He'd dug a small latrine, lugged down half a gallon of water plus a glass, and laid in a healthy supply of fruit and bread. When the authorities checked it out, they'd be able to see that the whole operation had been thoroughly planned and that she'd been thoroughly taken care of.

He didn't like to think of her. She was clean—physically clean—in a way that only added to the sexuality she radiated. She was the type of girl a man like him could never have. They would literally rather die than give in to somebody like him.

He tried not to think of that night in Dodge City.

Stumbling back to his hotel, drunk and angry at something he could no longer remember. Seeing the lady. Older than he liked them, forty maybe. But proper. Out trying to find her drunken husband, as things turned out.

He could not control himself. He came up behind her, got his hand across her mouth, and then dragged her into an empty sale barn. He hit her just once, hard enough to scare her into submission. My God, he could still feel that flesh. So tender. So clean. So . . . proper.

He'd ripped her clothes off in a frenzy. She had decided to lie back and simply let him have her. She spoke only once, and that was to ask him not to hit her again, that she was afraid.

He could also recall in humiliating detail dropping down between her spread legs and feeling her juicy, hot center. And then reaching down and . . .

And nothing.

He had just assumed that he would be hard and ready for her. But his sex was soft, unwilling, unable, or both.

She must have sensed how he would ultimately respond to this humiliation, for she tried to help him, first with her knowing hand and then with her knowing mouth. But neither helped.

He remained—unable.

And man did he beat her then.

Beat her the way he would a man. Blamed her, of course. Should never have tried it with one of these snotty bitches who always put on such airs around men like him.

Beat her until her shrieks started to sober him up—

He stole the first saddled horse he could find and rode away from Dodge City. You do what he'd done to a proper woman like that, they'd put you in prison for a long, long time. In the wrong town they'd lynch you, even though you hadn't killed her.

He had no money. He had a Colt. That was it.

He went all the way to Montana on a succession of stolen horses and meals in churches where they fed the poor.

He ended up in Butte, which was where he met up with Mac Rooney, which had been his hope. Rooney had never run a scam in Butte. He considered it his "safe" town, where the law regarded him as a good citizen.

Tolan had tried to live on his own for a year and it hadn't worked. Much as he resented Rooney, he needed to collect himself, eat well, sleep well, start making some money again. He hadn't been able to do any of these things on his own. . . .

And now he was in a grave, the cold and the smell of the cold spooking him. He had a fascination for stories about being buried alive, which were much in the news.

He did his rodent search again. He'd smashed a couple of rats with the shovel that lay near the ladder. There was a way you could get them on the head at just the right angle and their brains would explode. It was funny to see. Rooney told him to check each time he came down here. He didn't see any rats today.

He started toward the ladder, wanting to get out of here. Someday he'd be spending a long, long time in an underground place just like this one. Except it'd be a lot narrower. And there wouldn't be any ladder leading out.

"Nope, haven't seen him for three days," the desk clerk at the Empire Hotel said. He had a pencil-thin lady killer mustache, a soiled celluloid collar, and bulging blue eyes. "We've been getting sort of curious ourselves. He seems to be a reliable sort. No women up in the room. A beer or two before bedtime in the saloon over there. Very friendly to everybody. And then, all of a sudden, we just don't see him. And he isn't the type who'd skip out on a bill. I can practically guarantee you that."

"He make friends with anybody here in particular?"

"I'm not sure. I do know he was working on that Pentacle fire."

"Pentacle Mattress Company?"

"That's right. He mentioned that, and then he mentioned that he was an insurance investigator. So I figured maybe something was funny with the fire."

"Arson?"

"Don't see what else it could be, do you? Him being an insurance investigator and all." He nodded to the saloon in the hotel. Here they called it a gentleman's room. Which meant that the drunks didn't puke on the floor, they went outside; and the brawlers tried never to actually kill anybody on the premises. They took that outside, too. "Verne, he's the night man, he usually rolls in here about four o'clock in the afternoon. Verne, he could tell you a lot more about Mr. Woodward than I could."

"You got a home address for Verne?"

The desk clerk smiled. The smile was as oily as his hair. "How about you walk up those stairs over there and try Room D-2? He should be gettin' up just about now. It's an awful long way to go. But I think you can make it."