Cold-Blooded, page 16
“He looks like he was run over by a Texas and Pacific cannonball,” Talon said.
“I’ll bring in Dr. Bell to take a look at him in the morning,” Jess said. “Now do you want to tell me how a man lying in his sickbed gets savaged by a pack of brush wolves?”
“I don’t want to reveal too much,” Talon said. “That is, if you still want me to be a spy. As it is, I think the convicts are growing suspicious.”
“Yes, I want you to pretend to be one of them. Just tell me what you can.”
Talon sat on the corner of Jess’s desk. “The cons have organized and the top dog is a man named Jasper Dunn, one of the Huntsville fifty. He was serving two score and five for a double murder before he got paroled. Dunn’s aim is to take over Hell’s Half Acre, especially the alcohol and opium trade. He’s pushing morphine users to try a new German drug.”
Jess opened the desk drawer, gauged the level of the Old Crow bottle, then poured a drink for Talon and himself. “And that brings us to Luke Short, huh?”
“Yeah, earlier tonight Dunn forced Short to sign a contract granting him a ninety percent share in the White Elephant. Then he threw him out of a window. Later I found him in the alley playing with his puppy dog friends.”
Jess was stunned. “Luke let himself be railroaded like that? That’s hard to believe.”
“Believe it, Sheriff. After Dunn threw a punch into Short’s bullet wound, the little man wasn’t in any shape to fight back. Dunn grabbed Luke’s limp hand and guided the pen across the bottom of the contract.”
“That won’t stand up in court,” Jess said. “You were there, you can testify to what happened.”
“There was someone else present, a girl. She witnessed Luke’s signature and she’s scared enough to say it was legal and aboveboard. Who is a jury going to believe? A pretty girl or a Huntsville convict? Sheriff, Dunn’s next target will be Kurt Koenig and the Silver Garter. If I testify against him in court, I’m out. I can’t find out when and how the takeover is coming down.”
Jess said, “Kurt Koenig can fend for himself. It’s this new drug worries the hell out of me. That’s why I want you to stay close to Dunn. I have to stop it before it gets out of hand. Who is his supplier?”
“A man named Gideon Thurgood. You met him in the restaurant the day you killed the immortal Hiram Hartline, his hired gun.”
Jess felt the need for a gulp of whiskey. He drank deep, then said, “Where is this Thurgood now?”
“The short answer is back East somewhere,” Talon said. “The long answer is that he had to bury Hartline in unhallowed ground, on account of him being the Second Horseman of the Apocalypse and all. Then after he planted him Thurgood saw Hartline’s ghost and hightailed it out of Texas.”
“I saw that grave,” Jess said. “I didn’t see any boogerman.”
“I guess Thurgood wishes he hadn’t.”
Talon drained his glass. “I have to get going. I’ll be missed.”
“Tell me where Dunn is located,” Jess said.
“Not yet, Sheriff. Go barging into his headquarters he’ll gun you for sure.”
“Then I’ll close down the White Elephant in the morning and cut off the supply at its source,” Jess said. “I’m sure I can come up with some city code violation. If Dunn is there I won’t arrest him just yet. Later, when I have more proof of his guilt, I’ll teach him that he can’t get away with attempted murder and theft of property in the Acre.”
Talon stood. “You think closing down Luke Short’s saloon is a good idea?”
“No, it’s a terrible idea, but it’s the law,” Jess said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Jess Casey would not sleep in the cell he reserved for lawbreakers, preferring the discomfort of his chair to a smelly, flea-ridden cot.
At first light he got to his feet, stretched the kinks out of his battered body and checked on Luke Short. He shook the little gambler and said, “Mr. Short, how are you feeling?”
Luke groaned, opened one startled eye and said, “You! Oh God, I’ve died and gone to hell.”
“Close, Luke,” Jess said. “You’re still in Texas.”
“What happened to me?”
“How much do you remember?”
“Big feller made me sign a contract . . . tossed me out the window . . .” Luke wearily shook his head. “I don’t remember anything after that.”
“You were attacked by coyotes,” Jess said.
Luke was surprised. “Coyotes?”
“Yeah, then Ford Talon saved you and brought you here.”
“The convict?”
“He saved your life, Mr. Short. I reckon you owe him.”
“There isn’t much life left in me to save,” Luke said. “But I’m beholden to him, all right.”
“The man who made you sign the contract and then tossed you out of the window goes by the name of Jasper Dunn,” Jess said. “He now owns ninety percent of the White Elephant”—then a line right out of the law book he’d been studying—“and all properties pertaining thereto.”
“In other words, I’ve been thrown out of my own place,” Luke said.
“Seems like,” Jess said.
“Then I’ll go take it back,” Luke said.
He struggled to get out of bed but Jess, a bigger, stronger man than he, pushed him back into the pillow. “The law will handle it,” he said.
“What law?” Luke said, angry now at his own weakness. “Koenig, the city marshal, would like nothing better than to see me out of business. More for him. And as for you, Casey, well, you got the sand but you don’t have the smarts.”
Jess was stung but didn’t let it show. “I’m closing down the White Elephant this morning for the constant violation of City Ordinance 328, which forbids the throwing of trash from business properties into adjoining alleys.”
“Hell, everybody does that,” Luke said.
“And everybody breaks the law,” Jess said. “Waste in the alleys attracts rats and rats attract coyotes and all sorts of vermin, as you well know, Mr. Short. Coffee?”
* * *
It was Jess Casey’s intent to ask Dr. Bell to attend Luke, and then he would carry out his plan to close down the White Elephant. It would be a setback for Dunn and would stop his new drug from reaching the street—at least for a while.
Luke was as weak as a kitten and wasn’t going anyplace. Jess took a shotgun from the rack, filled his pockets with shells and stepped onto the boardwalk. The day was overcast, ashen and dreary, and the wind from the north bore a cool promise of the coming fall. Main Street was busy as always with massive drays, lighter freight wagons and a few carriages. People, busy as ants, crowded the boardwalks and street vendors loudly hawked their wares. Yellow dust rose from wheels and hooves and slowly covered everything.
The shotgun under Jess’s arm drew a few glances but no questions. A stylish, bustled belle smiled at him and commented on the weather and Jess agreed that it was shaping up to be a gloomy day. One of the sporting crowd, looking pale, made his way home one careful step at a time and smelled of stale whiskey and cheap perfume.
It was still early morning but Hell’s Half Acre was awake and rarin’ to go.
Jess noticed the small, ragged man lounging with his back to the wall of a flower shop, his cloth cap pulled low over his eyes, a matchstick between his teeth. The fellow was unshaven and his thumbs were stuck into the armholes of his vest and Jess dismissed him as just another out-of-work loafer.
It was almost a fatal mistake.
As Jess got close to the man he suddenly lurched off the wall, turned swiftly and lunged with a knife. By no means in a relaxed state of mind, Jess was quick. He moved to his left and the blade, aimed for his heart, raked across his right upper ribs. Not getting the flesh-and-bone resistance he’d expected and off-balance, the would-be assassin stumbled then regained his footing. He swung around, the knife coming up fast. Too late. Jess reached across his body, grabbed the shotgun from under his left arm and smashed the muzzles into the small man’s face. His aim was true. The barrels hit the bridge of his nose, smashing bone, and the man cried out and stumbled back, his hands to his face.
Jess Casey was not in a mood to be polite. He raised the shotgun and said, “Back against the wall or I’ll blow your guts out.”
The little man bent his head and let the blood drop freely to the boardwalk. “Don’t kill me,” he said.
“Who put you up to this?” Jess said.
“I’ll tell you, just don’t—”
Blam!
The rifle shot and the round hole in the middle of the little man’s forehead occurred in the same instant. Jess swung around, spotted a drift of smoke coming from a window on the second story of a tenement opposite, and cut loose with both barrels. Glass shattered and by the time it tinkled onto the boardwalk opposite, Jess was running toward the building, feeding shells into the Greener as he went.
He felt wetness under his armpit, figured it was sweat, then saw blood all over his shirt. It was his best shirt and that hurt.
By the time he reached the second floor the killer was gone. The Acre tenements were dark warrens where a man could easily lose himself and then leave by one of the rear exits. The bird had flown and Jess was left to curse his luck.
After a horrified glance at Jess’s bloodstained shirt, a scrawny, gray-faced woman, her collarbones standing out in sharp relief, identified herself as Mrs. McGinty and showed Jess an empty apartment where the rifleman may have holed up. She was right. Jess found an empty. 44-40 shell casing on the rough wood floor, and also a few drops of blood. It looked like nothing serious, but he’d stung the man.
Mrs. McGinty, hands on her bony hips, demanded that Jess tell her who was going to pay for the broken window and said she had eager tenants waiting to take possession.
“Now what do I tell them?” she said.
She also took time to note that Hell’s Half Acre had gone downhill in recent years, that all the decent people were leaving and what if her new tenants, respectable white folks that they were, had been breakfasting at the window, enjoying the view, when an officer of the law blasted them with a shotgun.
“I rather fancy that blown-off heads would be the result,” she said.
Jess placated the woman by offering to pay for the window. “Just get it fixed and have the bill sent to me.”
“Then I’ll do that,” Mrs. McGinty said. “I swear, it’s getting to the stage where the lawmen in this town are just as bad as the outlaws. I’m afraid to sleep in bed with Mr. McGinty for fear that we’ll wake up with our throats cut and just the other day Mrs. Bradshaw was telling me that . . .”
The woman was still talking as Jess left the room and returned to the boardwalk where the dead man lay, surrounded by a gawking crowd.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
A belligerent gent stepped out of the crowd of onlookers and said, “Did you kill this man, Sheriff?”
“No, I didn’t, but he tried to kill me,” Jess Casey said. “Now all of you people stand back and give me room here.” He kneeled beside the dead man. “Anybody recognize him?” he said.
“I’ve seen him around,” a man said. “I think he did odd jobs now and again.”
“Anyone else?” Jess said. His side hurt like hell. He drew a blank on the question and went through the man’s pockets. He found a couple of dusty pennies and two bright, shiny double eagles . . . forty dollars, the price of a man’s life in the Acre. There was nothing else.
Jess got to his feet and immediately had to grab for a wall to support himself. He’d lost blood and his head spun.
“Sheriff, you’d better sit down,” the belligerent man said.
“I’ll take him back to his office.” Big Sal and her assistant, attracted to the sound of gunfire like buzzards to a gut wagon, elbowed their way through the crowd. Sal looked at the dead man. “He called himself Charlie. He wasn’t much. You do for him, Sheriff?”
Jess shook his head and then wished he hadn’t as Main Street cartwheeled around him. “No . . . someone else did.”
Big Sal, wearing men’s pants, bent over and picked up the knife. Her butt was an ax-handle wide. “He get you with this?” she said to Jess, holding up the blade.
“Yeah, but he mostly missed.”
“Looking at your shirt he didn’t mostly miss by much,” the woman said. “Come on, Sheriff, Sal is taking you home.” Then to her assistant, “Barnabas, take care of this. And then tell Dr. Bell to come to the sheriff’s office.”
“Sure will, Miss Sal,” Barnabas said. A tall, lank, gray man, he looked like a cadaver himself and an individual of a nervous disposition might fear that one day Big Sal might bury him by mistake.
“I’ve got a saloon to shut down,” Jess said. “I’ll go on by myself.”
“You’re as weak as a day-old kittlin’ and you’ll do no such thing,” Sal said. “You can go around shutting down saloons when Dr. Bell says you can, and not a moment before.”
“I can manage, Sal,” Jess said. “But thanks for your concern.”
He took a step, another, and then the earth moved under his feet and he frantically reached for the wall, his breath coming in short bursts. Sal glared at Jess from her great height, her arms crossed under breasts that hung like sacks of flour and strained the cotton of her plaid shirt.
“Right, that’s enough,” she said. “If some ranny decides to draw down on you today, you’re a dead man.” Sal took the shotgun from Jess and tossed it to the belligerent man. “You, take this and follow us.”
The man was indignant. “I certainly will not. I have things to do.”
Sal advanced on him, her fists clenched. “Mister, am I going to have trouble with you?” she said.
The belligerent man cringed at the sight of an angry woman standing six and a half feet tall and stoked up hotter than the coals in a stage depot stove. “I’ll make the time,” he said.
“Wise choice,” Big Sal said. She turned, effortlessly picked up Jess in her arms, and her boots pounded on the boardwalk as she headed for the sheriff’s office.
Jess, imprisoned in arms with biceps as large around as nail kegs, gave up struggling and endured a gauntlet of taunts, jeers and downright impertinences.
“Hey, Sal, found yourself a man at last?”
“What’s up, Sheriff, sell your hoss?”
“You gonna bend him over your knee for misbehavin’?”
“Sheriff, it’s you who’s supposed to carry Sal over the threshold.”
“Ride her, cowboy!”
* * *
Jess, shamed beyond measure, had half a dozen faces burned into his memory for a future reckoning by the time they reached his office, where Sal laid him gently in his chair as though he were a baby.
Then a voice from the cell area. “Who’s there? I’m Luke Short and I’m armed and dangerous. Damn it, state your intentions.”
“It’s Sal. I brung in Sheriff Casey after a feller stuck him with a blade. Is that really you, Luke? I heard you got et by coyotes or some such.”
“Damn it, woman, I’m shot through and through and I need a drink,” Luke yelled. “Is Casey still alive?”
“I reckon.”
“Too bad,” Luke said.
* * *
When Dr. Bell arrived he examined the knife cut under Jess Casey’s armpit, declared it a superficial wound, cleaned it with something that stung and applied a bandage. He then changed the dressing on Luke Short’s waist and gave him a salve to apply to the coyote bites.
When he snapped his bag shut, he said, “It looks like a hospital ward in here. Sal, are you taking good care of them?”
“Yes, especially this one,” the woman said. She laid a massive, hairy hand on Jess’s head. “My very own baby Bunting sitting right here behind his desk like a brave little soldier.”
Dr. Bell caught Jess’s eye and said, “We have something to discuss, Sheriff.”
Jess nodded, then said, “Miss Sal, your company is a sweet distraction, but—”
“I know. Men talk.” She smiled. “Jess, remember, as soon as you’re up to it I’ll expect you to come over to my place and we’ll rock the joint to its foundations.”
Jess felt his cheeks redden and Sal said to Dr. Bell, “He’s such a shy little cowboy and I just love him to pieces.” In the close confines of the office, Sal looked like a she-grizzly. “Until later, little darlin’,” she said.
She kissed Jess on the cheek and he felt her mustache scrape his skin.
After the woman left, Jess said, “As you can tell, I have a problem.”
Dr. Bell nodded, “Yes, you surely do. And now I’m afraid that I’m bringing you another.”
Jess saw the serious cast of the doctor’s features and said, “Tell me, Doc.”
“I was called in to treat a girl this morning, but she was already dead when I got there,” the physician said. “I’m certain she died of a drug overdose.”
“A whore?” Jess said.
“No, not a whore, a young lady of good family. Three years ago her father, a retired railroad director, built a large house on Summit Street and that’s where the girl lived. She didn’t have to work and as far as I can tell, lacked for nothing. It seems she was one of Fort Worth’s most fashionable belles and in this fall she and her mother were to embark on a grand tour of Europe.”
Dr. Bell reached into a drawer in Jess’s desk and found nothing.
“The other one,” Jess said. “Nate Levy brought me another bottle. Nice of him.”
The doctor opened the other drawer and produced a bottle of Old Crow and glasses. “How is Nate doing?” he said.
“Just fine. He’s spent a lot of time resting up in his hotel room but now he’s looking around for another prizefighter to replace his boy Zeus.” Jess smiled. “Before your time, Doc.”
“You must tell me about it sometime,” Dr. Bell said. He poured whiskey into three glasses. “By the way, the dead girl’s parents have agreed to let me perform an autopsy. By this time tomorrow I’ll know for sure if she died from an overdose of the new drug.”
