Cold-Blooded, page 20
“Women? Are you sure?” Jess said.
“Sure I’m sure. They were dressed in black robes and veils and crosses on chains and I took them for nuns,” Woodis said. “The wagon had four posts at the corners and there was a horse’s skull on each one of them. Well, the women laid the body in the wagon, real gentle-like, and then the white hoss walked on and the women fell in beside the wagon, two on each side.”
“Then what happened?” Luke said.
“Nothing much,” Woodis said. “They passed me and didn’t even glance in my direction. After a while they were swallowed up by distance and vanished from my sight.” The old man shook his head. “Sure left a rotten smell behind though.”
“What kind of smell?” Luke said.
“Gettysburg,” Woodis said. “It smelled like Gettysburg after the second day of the battle.”
“That’s a mighty strange story, Pleasant,” Luke said.
“Take it or leave it,” Woodis said. “I don’t care.”
Jess said, “It’s easy to explain. Hartline was a mighty peculiar feller so it figures he’d have strange kinfolk. They came back this way to claim his body, is all. And he’d been buried a long time, so his corpse would naturally smell bad.”
“That’s one way of lookin’ at it,” Woodis said. “How did his kin know where his body was buried? And why were they all duded up like nuns? I got no answers for that. My woman knew what was going to happen, and I got no answer for that, either.”
“I recollect Bat Masterson saying that he saw a whole wagon train disappear up Kansas way,” Luke said. “One minute they were there, wagons, people, animals crossing the prairie, and the next they were gone. Strange that.”
Jess poured himself coffee, then said, “Now we’ll agree to let the dead lie, huh? Mr. Woodis, how well do you know this town?”
“I’ve been in and out of Fort Worth from the beginning when the Chisholm Trail first came this way,” the old man said. His eyes became shrewd. “What’s troubling you, Sheriff? I know when a man’s got something stickin’ in his craw.”
“Two young women have been kidnapped and I need to find them before midnight or they will be murdered,” Jess said.
“Did Kurt Koenig have a hand in this?” Woodis said.
“No. Kurt’s woman is one of them.”
“You mean Destiny Durand?”
“Yes, her. And a younger girl.”
“Destiny is a right pretty lady and I like her a lot,” Woodis said. “What can I do fer you?”
“If you wanted to keep two women prisoner, where would you do it?” Jess said.
“Right here in the Acre, fer sure,” Woodis said.
Jess said, “Yeah, but where in the Acre?”
“One way is to stash them in an apartment in one of the tenements,” Luke said. “I’ve heard that folks go into those stinking slums and never come out again.”
“But people talk,” Woodis said. “You couldn’t keep the presence of a high-flying lady like Destiny Durand a secret for long.”
“We don’t have time to search every tenement in the Acre,” Jess said. “That would take us to next year and we only have until midnight.” Jess glanced at the clock. “Eight hours from now.”
“You could lock them up in an abandoned building,” Woodis said. “Plenty of those around, tenements, shut-down stores, even storerooms and warehouses.”
“How long will that take?” Luke said.
“I don’t know,” Jess said. “But the sooner we get started, the better.”
“You can count me in, Sheriff,” Woodis said.
“I’m beholden to you, Mr. Woodis,” Jess said. “We’ll start at 15th Street and head north to 11th. In between we’ll search every abandoned building we can find. I’ll take Houston Street, Mr. Woodis, you take Main. We’ll meet at the Waterman Hotel. Even if you’ve come across a likely place, don’t try to go in alone.”
“And I’ll take Rusk,” Luke Short said.
“Hell, Luke, you’re in even worse shape than me,” Jess said. “You stay right here.”
“The hell I will,” Luke said. “I want my place back and I’m not going to sit on my ass and let other people do the job for me, especially you two rubes.”
Luke, unsuccessfully stifling a groan, got to his feet. He wore a nightgown that left his ankles bare, slippers and the bright red smoking jacket. He tilted the little round cap to a jaunty angle so that the tassel fell over his left ear. Then he shoved the short-barreled Colt Jess had given him into a pocket and said, “Right, I’m ready.”
“You look a sight,” Jess said.
“And so do you,” Luke said. “Now let’s go hunt up some trouble.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
What was to be the last summer thunderstorm roaring in from the Gulf hit Fort Worth at the same time Jess Casey took to the street, adding to his misery.
There were many abandoned buildings in Hell’s Half Acre, from burned-out little stores to tenements and warehouses, and checking each one was a chore, especially for a man with bad knees and wearing high-heeled boots.
The homeless denizens of such run-down premises did not appreciate a visit from the law and made their displeasure clear.
One man, bearded, dirty and belligerent, who had made his lair in the back shop of a former dry goods store, went so far as to pick up a club and tell Jess that he was going to “bash his damned brains in.”
The triple click of a cocking Colt convinced him otherwise. The man cursed and dropped the club but got a swift kick in the butt from Jess just the same.
The store was the fifth desolate building Jess had checked. He’d dodged missiles thrown by illegal tenants, been spooked by enormous rats and had torn a shirtsleeve on a projecting rusty nail in a doorway. Twice the stench of filthy places forced him to quit breathing until he feared his lungs would burst.
And now when he stepped outside he was welcomed by hissing rain and growling thunder, as though even the heavens resented his presence on Houston Street.
Jess thought about Luke Short in his nightgown and smoking jacket and smiled. By this time he must be as wet as the bottom of a stock tank and mad as a bobcat in a mudhole. If he ran into any belligerent tramps with clubs, there would be dead men on the ground.
Rain drumming on his hat, Jess passed 14th Street and then searched Battles Cotton Yard. He found nothing. A search of Charlie Feather’s mattress factory also drew a blank.
“You’re wasting your time looking at businesses, Sheriff,” Feather said. “I’ve got workers walking around all the time and they’d have spotted two women in distress by this time.”
“Call me desperate,” Jess said.
“Keep to the warehouses, that’s my advice,” Feather said. He was a good-looking man with fine brown eyes. “A few of the older ones have basements and if I was hiding somebody that’s where they’d be.”
“How many of those?” Jess said, the passage of time weighing on him.
“I don’t know, Sheriff,” Feather said. “I guess you just got to keep looking. Here, hold on a minute.” The man took an oilskin from a row of similar coats hanging from hooks. “I keep these for men who need to go out into the yard. You can return it later.”
“Thanks,” Jess said. He shrugged into the oilskin. “It almost fits,” he said.
“Made for a big sailorman, I guess,” Feather said. “Well, Sheriff, good luck.”
“Yeah, you, too.”
* * *
There was a disused warehouse just north of the Germania boardinghouse on 13th Street. It was set back from the road, surrounded by waste ground, but the place had not been abandoned. All the doors were padlocked and the windows shut. Jess tried peering inside, but saw nothing but darkness, dust and the occasional rat. It looked as though nobody had entered the building in a long time.
Jess sheltered under a corrugated iron awning and built a cigarette. He now faced the possibility that the women were somewhere west of the Trinity, locked up in a remote cabin. If that was the case it would take a regiment of cavalry to find them before midnight and he didn’t have one of them. He smoked as the rain ticked from the awning and the sky flashed. The day had taken on a gray gloom and Jess consulted his watch. It was almost six o’clock . . . time was speeding by.
Jess’s face frowned in concentration. Well, what of it? What was the worst that could happen? Come midnight Kurt Koenig surrenders the Silver Garter and Green Buddha to Jasper Dunn. He gets his women back and lights a shuck for greener and less dangerous pastures. Dunn then floods Fort Worth with his new drug, a perfectly legal product, and grows rich and powerful off the proceeds . . . even as his vile poison addicts and kills people.
Jess tossed his cigarette butt into the teeming rain, his mind made up. He could not accept the worst. To allow what he had come to regard as his town descend into anarchy would be failing in his duty as a peace officer. No, Dunn had to be stopped and he had to be stopped tonight.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Hell’s Half Acre kept no secrets. Everything was out in the open. From brothels to opium dens, no shady business was conducted behind locked doors and when confronted by accusations of wickedness and depravity, the standard answer from its citizens was, “Hell, I don’t give a damn.”
No wonder then that the presence of Jess Casey on the street, searching abandoned buildings and even active businesses for missing women, was noted and passed along with whatever other gossip was currently making the rounds.
Inevitably, Jess’s quest reached the ears of Jasper Dunn, carried by Loco Looper, who heard it in a saloon from a man who heard it from a friend who worked in Charlie Feather’s factory.
“Strange that,” Dunn said when he heard the news. “Has Kurt Koenig decided he doesn’t want to play my game and got the sheriff involved?”
“Or Casey is doing it on his own, boss,” Looper said. “He’s a damned interferer.”
“Mr. Talon, give me your opinion,” Dunn said. “Could Casey find our cozy little basement and cause trouble?”
“I guess he could if he looks hard enough,” Talon said.
Dunn rubbed his temple as though he had a sudden headache. “Do you think Koenig asked him to do this?”
“Hard to say,” Talon said. “From what I’ve heard about Koenig he’d do it himself.”
“My thought exactly,” Dunn said. “That man Casey has become a growing irritant. Mr. Topper, Mr. Turner, the sheriff is on Houston Street, busily searching rat-infested hovels. Find him and kill him.”
Looper grinned. “Consider it done, boss.”
And Jim Turner, as mean and treacherous as a snake, said, “I’m in the mood to kill a lawman.”
“Then let’s go get it done,” Looper said.
“Take your slickers, boys,” Dunn said. “I don’t want you to get wet and catch a cold.”
* * *
Jess Casey passed Frank’s Saloon at the corner of Houston Street and 12th, and just beyond was a crumbling tenement that looked promising. The building was not fully abandoned. About half its apartments were occupied, but it was a tumbledown, rat-ridden wreck of a place and Jess wondered if Destiny and Joselita could be in one of the vacant rooms. It seemed unlikely, but something told him that this could be a possibility. Besides, it was an excuse to get out of the rain.
He decided to start at the top and work his way down. A littered passageway led to a rickety wooden staircase that led to the upper two floors. He looked into every filthy, smelly room and wondered how human beings could once have lived in there. The Acre had no secrets, but much of its misery was hidden from view.
After thirty minutes of searching, the crown of Jess’s hat gray with spiderwebs, his boots sticky with stuff from the floors, he gave up and walked down the creaking stairs again . . . into more trouble than he could handle.
* * *
Two men stood facing him, blocking the hallway. Both wore slickers that they’d swept back from their holstered guns. The taller one had crazy eyes, the other the eyes of a rattlesnake. Both were smiling but their intent was obvious. They were there to kill him.
The oilskin covered Jess’s gun and he’d be painfully slow on the draw and shoot. And that would be his death. He played for time. He played for a miracle.
“Jasper Dunn sent you,” he said.
“You got that right,” Loco Looper said. “You’ve lived too long, mister.”
“Mr. Dunn says it’s high time he cut your suspenders, lawman,” Turner said.
“Let me drop this oilskin, boys,” Jess said. “Give me an even break.”
“No breaks,” Looper said. He drew his Colt and thumbed back the hammer. “You get it right between them bonny brown eyes.”
Jess heard a crash of thunder, as loud as a cannon in the hallway.
Looper seemed to explode, as though everything that was inside his body burst through his belly and chest. So great was the devastation to Looper’s lanky frame that Jess, standing five feet away, was splattered with his blood.
Beside him, though he was unhurt but his face covered in gore, Jim Turner screamed in sudden terror and swung around to face this unexpected and horrific threat, his Colt coming up fast.
Pleasant Woodis, familiar with the ways of the Holland & Holland elephant gun, had already reloaded and he let Turner have both barrels. The man was almost blown in half and was supping brimstone broth in hell before he hit the ground.
Jess watched Woodis come toward him, reloading again. The little man said something but Jess was as deaf as a post and stunned by the concussion of the big gun. Woodis took Jess by the arm and led him out onto the street and the falling rain.
The little man’s mouth moved again but Jess couldn’t hear him. “Huh?” he said.
Woodis made a motion with his hand, telling him to stay right where he was at. Jess nodded and the little man stepped back into the tenement. He was gone for a long time. When he returned he said, “Can you hear me now?”
Jess could and nodded, though his ears still rang.
“Both dead,” Woodis said. “Big gun like this can make a mess of a man. When Big Sal gets here I hope she’s brung a shovel.”
“My gun was under the oilskin,” Jess said. “I couldn’t reach it.”
“You don’t need to make excuses to me, boy,” Woodis said. “I saw the fear in your eyes and knew what was coming down. My woman makes me wear moccasins, and that’s all to the good when you’re trying to get the drop on a feller.”
Woodis took the makings from Jess’s trembling fingers and built the cigarette himself. “Here, lick that,” he said. After Jess licked the paper the little man sealed the smoke shut and stuck it in Jess’s mouth. “Come back into shelter,” he said. When he and Jess were in the hallway, Woodis thumbed a match and lit the cigarette.
“How did you know where to find me?” Jess said.
“I didn’t, but I seen them two fellers walking on 11th Street and figured they was up to no good. The rannies looked like they’re on the prod and I figured the chances were good they were after you and I was right.”
“They were Jasper Dunn’s men,” Jess said. Then, “Mr. Woodis, when you first saw those two did they look like they’d been walking for a spell? I mean were they real wet?”
“Well, they was wearing slickers, but come to think on it when I first saw them they looked pretty dry.” Woodis thought for a few moments then said, “Yeah, I figured they didn’t look like you do now. I mean like a drowned rat.”
“Then when you saw them they hadn’t walked far,” Jess said.
Woodis frowned as he considered that, then he said, “I’m catching your drift, sonny. They must have come from somewhere on 11th Street and closer to Houston than Rusk.”
“Did you see Luke Short?” Jess said.
“Neither hair nor hide. Maybe Luke decided to get in out of the rain. He was always a man who liked a saloon roof over his head.”
“Mr. Woodis, show me where you first saw those men,” Jess said. “I think we might be getting mighty close to Jasper Dunn.”
“What about them two?” Woodis said.
“They’re not going anywhere. I’ll have Big Sal pick up the pieces later,” Jess said.
CHAPTER FIFTY
To the delight of passersby, Luke Short, soaked to the skin and in ill humor, sheltered on the front porch of the Waterman Hotel on 11th Street and moodily watched the rain fall and the sky grow darker.
The earliest of the sporting crowd had stirred and a few of Luke’s old customers passed in the street and called out sundry pleasantries.
“Hey, Luke, you been walking in your sleep?”
“The coat goes well with the nightgown, Luke.”
“Where did you get the hat, Luke?”
“Hey, Luke, is it really you or a Chinaman?”
Well, that was about all Luke Short was going to take. He pulled his Colt and roared, “The next man who passes a smart remark gets a bullet in his guts! Especially you, Watson. I’ve got my eye on you.”
One of the teasers, not trusting Luke’s temper, fled west along 11th Street and almost ran into Jess and Pleasant Woodis as they turned the corner from Houston.
“Oh thank God,” Watson said. “Sheriff, Luke Short is standing outside the Waterman Hotel. He’s got a gun and is threatening to shoot folks, especially me. And me who just got up from a sickbed.”
“I’ll go talk to him,” Jess said. “He won’t do you any harm.”
“But he’s lost his mind, Sheriff,” Watson said. “He’s all dressed up like a Chinaman and he’s hunting trouble.”
Jess patted the man on the shoulder. “Luke will be just fine. He’s always been a little high-strung.”
* * *
“Where the hell have you been, Casey?” Luke short yelled. “I’ve been stood here for an hour as wet as a rooster under a drain spout. And where did you get the damned oilskin? You didn’t tell me you had an oilskin. That’s because I don’t count anymore, huh?”
“Luke, I think I know where Jasper Dunn is at,” Jess said.
But Luke was still boiling mad and unreasonable. “Like I give a damn. I’m shot through and through and liable to get pneumonia. I’m going to be dead anyway.”
