Ed Gorman - Showdown

Both men gaped. Neither said a single word.

Chapter Five

The horseshoe-shaped drive in front of the plantation-style house allowed room for every expensive, elegant, and remarkable surrey and buggy in the area. Three Mexican servants in red coats, white shirts, and black trousers hastened about helping people with their vehicles, then leading them to the open front doors of the mansion.

Conversation and laughter poured from the doors. Many of the guests had arrived somewhat early and the liquor was flowing freely. Richard Neville was a drinker, even if his sister was not.

Some of the younger guests strolled the perfectly kept rolling lawns on the sides and back end of the house. They were dressed so well they looked, from a distance, like huge flowers in the gauzy half-moon dusk, lilies floating on a stream perhaps.

Prine's first reaction to all this—he was the only person to arrive on horseback—was to flee. He'd grown up poor enough to be intimidated by anybody who seemed connected. He knew that a lot of rich people were stupid, venal, and corrupt—probably just about the same percentage of poor people who were that way—but they had a social edge he couldn't deny. And in the face of them, he always stammered and made foolish statements. As soon as he left the party tonight, he'd think of all the dumb and inappropriate and shitkicker things he'd said. He could get drunk, of course, but that would ensure that his remarks would be even dumber.

He stood just inside the doors, in a vestibule large enough to hold twenty people. The servants didn't seem to know quite how to deal with him. True, he wore his nice new shirt, but all the other men wore suits and cravats.

Finally, Cassie swept up in a navy blue chiffon gown that hinted at cleavage and exposed a span of elegant, fragile shoulder.

"You certainly look handsome tonight."

He gulped, hoping that nobody nearby had heard her. He wasn't good at accepting compliments in public. "You sure look pretty yourself."

She leaned to his ear to whisper. "Don't worry about being shy. I'm the same way. But my brother needs me to play hostess, so I have to force myself to be outgoing." She touched his hand. Pleasure flooded him. He hadn't felt like this in a long, long time. "C'mon, I'll introduce you to Richard. I've told him all about you."

"I didn't think you knew that much about me."

"Oh, I'm a devil, Tom. I have spies everywhere." Her perfume was hypnotic. He followed her through the mansion.

The home managed to feel spacious despite the fact that each room he glimpsed was filled with art and artifacts of all kinds. He didn't know what periods the various furnishings came from, only that the furnishings had been organized to complement the art. One room was given over to French art. He recognized it because he'd happened to see an article about it. The furnishings were all French, too, including a large fireplace whose mantel was covered with a line of music boxes that two women were discussing. The tiny sounds were quaint and fetching in the large room. The paintings were all of girls in ballet poses. He could imagine Cassie in such attire and pose.

The flooring was parquet, the decorative molding and trim on the walls classically Roman. In the halls, huge urns of numerous colors gleamed in the dancing light of carefully placed sconces. Two of the large rooms he saw had verandas off them, crowded verandas. People were everywhere, perhaps a hundred in all.

The music room was large enough to seat everybody. A grand piano sat near open French doors that let in a slash of dramatic moonlight. A rather square-bodied young girl with thick eyeglasses and a moon face and a pink formal sat at the piano, not playing, simply staring, as if she were having a secret dialogue with it. Prine felt sorry for her. He would have preferred—as would most of the people here—that she were a slip of a girl whose ethereal face hinted at a charming and socially acceptable form of eroticism. He felt guilty for not being able to accept her as she was. What the hell, why couldn't a sort of mannish girl play a good piano?

He'd seen Richard Neville around town many times, so he recognized him right away—the handsome, blond man whose size and power made him the focus of any room he walked into. There were men like that. You could say it was their money, you could say it was their looks, you could say it was their cunning. But what you really meant was that there were men—and women—whose magnetism would have been just as strong without any of these things. They were the superior branch of the species, and there was no denying it.

Neville, like most superior people, was holding court. He talked, you listened. This particular portion of his godlike utterances had to do with a short-haul railroad he was thinking of investing in—and that he wanted them to invest in, too.

They waited at the edges of the court until Richard released his charges. "But you didn't come here to listen to me," he said with no hint of modesty in his voice—of course you came here to listen to me!—"you came here to have fun."

And then Neville came forward like a politician sighting a particularly scruffy poor person. "Hello there," he said, pushing forth a wealth of hand that was twice the size of Prine's. At least he didn't try to impress Prine with his strength. Strapping blond gods didn't need to impress people. People knew enough to be impressed without having a demonstration. "You're Prine. You work for Sheriff Daly. Darned good man. I got him elected the first time, and I'll keep right on getting him reelected. And you can tell him that for me. I think he's done a fine job."

He looked around to see if any of his courtesans were nodding in agreement, but, to his surprise, they seemed to have found other interests.

"And my sweet little sister has told me a lot of good things about you, too," he went on. "I'm not always too happy with her choice of friends. Her taste will improve as she grows up and learns to be responsible. But from everything I've heard, you're a start in the right direction, Prine. And I'm darned happy you could be here tonight. Now, if you'll excuse me . . ."

Prine wondered how old Neville had been when he adopted this act. The insolence in his eyes had been expressed only once, in the dismissive, nasty way he'd referred to his sister. Otherwise the act had been without fault. Hail-fellow-well-met and all that businessman bullshit. But Prine knew better. What you had in Richard Neville was an animal who could go dangerous on you in a second. No wonder he'd tripled the value of his father's estate. No wonder he was being talked about as the next governor.

A man Prine didn't know, a man who was probably drunker than he should have been at a recital, bumped into Prine and nearly sloshed his drink all over Prine's sleeve.

"Whatever you do," the man said, overenunciating as drunks do, "don't ever borrow any money from him. He'll never let you hear the end of it. Especially when things're going bad. He just keeps right on you anyway. Like you could help it that things're going bad." The man waggled a finger in Prine's face. "Don't borrow money from him, you hear me?"

Prine smiled. "You've got my word on it."

The man's head rotated as if it were on ball bearings. "And don't you forget it."

The recital was an ordeal.

Before each endless number, the girl would pronounce the name of the composer in very bad halting French—at least Prine assumed it was bad French; for all he knew it might be bad Italian—and then proceed to play the piece. Even Prine could tell she was making a lot of mistakes. He felt sorry for her again. But he also felt sorry for himself. This wasn't his sort of an evening. A couple of beers, a couple of sentimental songs on the player piano in some latrine of a saloon—that was the sort of recital he was used to.