Ed Gorman - Showdown

"Fine." Prine searched the misty gloom. The lights in The Good Meal Café promised warmth and a full belly and relaxation. He could easily imagine him sitting in there, taking it easy. After this was all over, that would be his first stop.

"All right," Prine said. "And if we don't turn anything up, we meet back here in an hour."

"If we don't turn anything up, I'm going to be damned disappointed," Neville said.

As Neville started to turn away, Prine grabbed the sleeve of his sheepskin and said, "You just remember our agreement. We want to take them back alive. Sheriff Daly'll have a lot of questions for them."

"I'll remember that," Neville said. "And you remember that Cassie was my sister and that I loved her more than I've ever loved anybody." He pushed Prine's hand away from his sleeve. "I'll abide by the law, Prine. But if I find them and they give me any grief, I don't make any promises."

"That's fair enough," Prine said.

And with that, they set off to start searching the hotels.

Prine checked the saloons on his way to the hotels. He didn't see Tolan. He asked the various bartenders but found himself up against the bartenders' code of silence. Prine reasoned that all saloons should have a sign that said "Bullshit Spoken Here" up behind the bar. It would save lawmen, wives, and process servers a whole lot of time.

The one bartender who claimed to have knowledge of such men said that he wanted ten dollars for the information. The sly way he said it told Prine that this man, too, was speaking the universal bartender language of bullshit.

The first hotel he tried had a desk clerk who couldn't quite make up his mind if Tolan was there or not, a twitchy little man in a celluloid collar that left raw chafe marks around his chicken neck.

"The way you describe him," he said to Prine, "it sounds like he could be the man in 201."

"I'll check it out."

"On the other hand, the way you describe him sounds like he could also be the man in 111."

"They look sort of alike, huh?"

"Sort of. But then, the man in 206 also looks a little like the way you describe him."

"Looks like I'm going to be busy."

"But last week—last week we had a man that looked exactly like him."

"Last week Tolan would've been in Claybank."

"Well, I guess I didn't mean exactly , anyway, come to think of it. This Tolan, he doesn't have a limp and a glass eye, does he?"

"I don't think so."

"Well, then it wouldn't have been the man in here last week, anyway. He looked exactly as you described Tolan except—"

"—except for the glass eye and the limp."

"Right. Exactly."

Prine sighed and started checking up on rooms 201, 111, and 206.

The problem was, Prine decided when the door to 201 was opened, the desk clerk shouldn't be so vain about wearing his glasses. Big, thick glasses. And he was apparently so blind that he should wear them twenty-four hours a day. Even when he slept.

The man who opened 201 was a scrawny redhead with a cigar jammed into the corner of his mouth and a half-naked woman on his bed. She was rubbing her crotch. Hard to tell if the rubbing was for pleasure or because she had a disease.

"Yeah?" the man said.

"Sorry to bother you. Looking for somebody else." The guy nodded to the woman behind him on the bed.

"I finally get her to go along and you have to come knockin'?"

"I'm sorry."

"You can stuff your sorry as far as I'm concerned," the man said.

And he slammed the door.

The man who opened the door at 206 was at least fifty years old, bald, and was in the process of hawking up enough phlegm to fill a reservoir.

"What the hell you want?" he snapped between green gooey snorts.

"I must have the wrong room."

"I'm snufflin' my guts up and you have the wrong room? Get the hell outta here."

He caught ill when he went back downstairs.

The man who opened this one was in a wheelchair. He was fortyish, gray-haired, and looked both intelligent and friendly.

"Wrong room, I guess. Sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for. I appreciate the company. My granddad owns this place and just gives me this room. I'm in here all day trying to write a novel. And then at night I just sit at the window and look out at the street. I'd like to be up on the second floor. I'd have a better view."

"I just got the wrong room is all," Prine said, uncomfortable around the man in the wheelchair and feeling guilty because he was uncomfortable. "I'm really sorry to intrude."

"Say, if you're down in the saloon and somebody wants to have a party, send 'em up here."

"Your granddad wouldn't mind?"

"He used to mind when I had parties here. But he hasn't complained since they buried him about four months ago." The man had a big, sad smile on his face.

Not that Prine had any better luck at the next hotel. According to the chunky blond German fellow behind the desk—a very jolly man was he, except for the killer eyes—there had never been, in the history of this particular hotel, anybody who even remotely fit the description of this Tolan man. For one thing, this Tolan man, said the clerk, sounded far too common to stay in a hotel of such obvious prestige. For another thing, this Tolan man would have instantly attracted the attention of Heinrich, the former Pinkerton man who now worked as the hotel detective. And for a final thing, this man would not even have come here because he would've heard that the hotel prices would make it impossible. He said all this with great pride.

Leaving Prine back on the street.

Leaving him to wonder how Neville was doing.

Leaving him to wonder if they'd find Tolan and Rooney in time.

"You go get the sheriff, you think there's gonna be any trouble," the desk clerk told Robert Neville. "There won't be any trouble."

"That's what you say now. How do I know you get up there and there won't be a shootout?"

The desk clerk was a heavyset man who kept a handkerchief on the desk to daub his face with. His face looked as if it had been glazed. His brown shirt was soaked around the collar and in the armpits. "I don't want a shootout."

"That don't mean they won't give you one."

At this point, Neville reached for what he'd reached for all his life. His wallet. He took a considerable number of greenbacks from the wallet and laid them on the counter.

"What's that for?" the desk clerk asked.

"You really don't know what that's for?"

"Look, mister, that money looks nice now. But what about when it's gone and I lose my job? You want to explain that to my wife and three kids? I need a job a lot more than I need that money."

Neville laid more greenbacks on top of the counter.

"You must really want them two."

He kept staring at the money.

"I do."

"You mind I ask why?"

"Yeah, I do mind. It's none of your business." But even as he spoke harshly, he laid more greenbacks on the counter.

"I still think you should go get the sheriff and have him help you."

Four more greenbacks were laid down.

"Pretty soon, I'm going to pick up my money and go home."

The clerk ran a pudgy finger around his collar.

"I could really get in trouble here, mister. I ain't just sayin' that."

"Think how your wife's eyes will light up when you bring all this money home."

The clerk smiled. "Yeah, she'd be happy, all right." A frown quickly erased the smile. "But she'd be scared."

"Of what?"

"Of Mr. Peck findin' out I took this money."

"Maybe I should talk to Mr. Peck."

"Can't."

"Why not?"

"He's in California."

"Then how the hell's he ever going to find out?"

The expression in the clerk's brown gaze altered without any words being spoken. He must've been thinking of making his wife happy again, because he broke into a smile that would win him a smile contest at the county fair.