Ed Gorman - Showdown

Neville said, "Carlos, I'm asking you to help me. I have a very important meeting I need to attend. A great deal depends on this meeting. Your job included. Do you understand?"

"Yessir."

"So I need you to do exactly as I say. All right?"

Carlos, too, had apparently decided that challenging his boss was not the best way to proceed. "Yessir."

"I need the three suits I had made in Chicago packed right away. With all the appropriate shirts and cravats and so on. Just as if you were packing for me on an extended trip. All right?"

"Yessir."

"And I need you to do it now. Right now."

"Yessir."

Carlos wasted no time. He gave a half-bow and removed himself from the office.

The gringos have their laws. Very complicated laws. Neville, he killed Mr. Duncan. He is guilty of murder. By gringo law, I will be guilty of helping him if I lie for him. Gringo law makes provision for that. They have a word for that. Accessory. I could go to prison. Neville, he would not give a damn. Not about me or about my Maria or my three children. When he fires people on a whim, he does not care that they may not find work again for a very long time. Look at Juan. Seven months, and still no job. And when I asked Neville about hiring him back—Juan did nothing; Neville just had one of his stupid hangovers and was in a mood to bully someone—he said that if I ever brought up the subject again, he would fire me on the spot. But he will also fire me if I don't pack his clothes. And lie for him when I bring back Daly and Prine. Blessed Mother, help me to know the right thing to do. The rich gringos, they do not care for us. You and Jesus are our only friends in this terrible world of rich gringos. Our only friends.

By the time Prine reached the sheriff's office, Bob Carlyle was gone for the day and Sheriff Daly was waiting for Harry Ryan to relieve him for the night. Deep shadow and a dusk sky streaked the colors of rose and sunflowers lent elegance to the hurry-home, scurry-home rush of downtown workers. It was just chill enough that even the office coffee smelled good.

Daly was working on paperwork. He looked up and said, "Was wonderin' where you'd got to."

"We need to get out to Neville's place."

Daly put his pen down. "Any special reason?"

"Neville hired Tolan and Rooney to kill Cassie. He's lost a lot of money on bad investments. He needed her half of the fortune."

Daly whistled. "You sure about all this? Because if you aren't, Neville's gonna run out straight up the map into Canada. That is, if he don't decide to shoot us first."

"I just spent forty-five minutes talking to Ellie Duncan. Aaron and Neville burned those three businesses down. Neville was the silent partner I was trying to find."

"Maybe Neville killed Al Woodward, too."

"That's a possibility. For sure."

Daly levered himself up from the desk chair. "Old man Neville's turning over in his grave. You hear him?"

Prine smiled. "Yeah, I hear him."

"Probably should take my shotgun, huh?"

"Probably wouldn't be a bad idea."

Richard Neville never knew exactly how much cash he had on hand. There was less than he'd hoped in the wall safe. It didn't even bulk out of the sides of the Gladstone bag he put it in. By his count, he had eight thousand dollars in there. No pittance, to be sure. But not enough for him to retire, either.

He walked to the door of the den and shouted up the stairs.

"As soon as you're done, Carlos, bring that suitcase down here."

"Yessir."

Yessir . Sometimes Neville wondered if that was the only English word Carlos knew. Mexes in general and Carlos in particular profoundly irritated Neville. He figured they saw themselves—unlike Indians or colored people—as pretty close to white. Which meant they made the best servants but that they were the most difficult to deal with because they thought they were just as good as the whites.

Another irritant was the way Aaron Duncan's corpse had begun to smell. My God, what a coarse, filthy stench. One more reason he'd be glad to get out of here.

Carlos said, "It is ready."

A large leather box was what the suitcase looked like. This was the one Neville took for all his long trips. And this was certainly going to be a long one. Forever.

"Good. Now get the buggy ready and bring it around front."

"Yessir."

There it was again. Yessir. A parrot was what he was. Smart enough to pick up a few words. But not smart enough to pick up anything more.

"And then wait an hour and ride in and tell Daly what happened."

"Yessir."

"You remember what we agreed on?"

"Yessir."

"And quit saying 'yessir.'"

Carlos seemed confused.

"I am not to call you 'sir' anymore?"

"The 'sir' is fine. Just don't put the 'yes' in front of it."

"In front? I do not understand."

Neville cursed. What a ridiculous conversation. He needed to concentrate on getting out of here. Running the buggy as fast as it would go. Picking up the train in the morning and heading out. No way he could catch the train in Claybank. Too easy for Daly to find him if he did.

"What the hell're you standing there for?" Neville snapped. "Get the buggy ready and bring it around."

Carlos vanished from the doorway.

Chapter Twenty-six

"You wanted to talk to me about something the other day, remember?" Daly said as they rode at a fast and steady pace to Neville's on the dusty stage road that wound around small hills and stands of hardwood. They both wore their sheepskins. When they talked their breath was pure silver against the shadows.

Did Prine remember? The morning he'd wanted to tell Daly all about the role he'd played in Cassie's murder, his stomach had been so twisted up, his bowels so cold and slithery, and his sweat so hot and dirty—well, he sure as hell wasn't going to forget that for a while.

Prine nodded. "Yeah, I remember. But everything worked out all right."

Even in the moonlight, a tatter of gray cloud obscuring some of the light, Prine could feel Daly's eyes on him.

Daly was a smart old bastard. He might not have known what kind of crisis Prine had been living through. But he'd known it was a crisis and not just some piddling little trivial matter.

"You learn anything from it?"

"Pardon?"

"You learn anything from it? That's the only way you get any better at things. To learn from your mistakes or your problems. Take Hettie over to the saloon."

"What about her?"

Hettie was a vivacious forty-year-old who was woman enough to attract men and rough enough to keep unruly gamblers in their place.

"Couple years ago, she asked me if I wanted to come up to her apartment one rainy night. I think you can pretty much tell what she had in mind."

"Did you go?"

"Damned right I went."

"Your wife ever find out?"

"Yeah."

"Somebody told her, huh?"

"Yeah, me."

"You? Why'd you tell her?"

"Because I owed her the truth, Prine. I went up there, all right. But as soon as we started drinking, Hettie crowded up next to me on the couch. And I crowded her right back. But just as I started to kiss her, I stopped. I thought of how this one night was going to change my whole life. The wife and I have always been honest with each other. But I couldn't be honest about this. Not ever. There'd always be this one lie, this one secret between us. And I couldn't do it. I learned right then that my wife was the most important person in my life and that I'd be a damned fool to step out on her this way. I went home and told her, and we had a couple of drinks and a good long laugh about it and then we picked up just where Hettie and I'd left off."

"That sounds like a Bible lesson."

Daly laughed. "Yeah, but I doubt a preacher man'd ever let you know that he was up in Hettie's apartment."