Louisiana Laydown (5 page)

Fargo nodded. “A little,” he said. “We just met today, down on the docks. Her friend Mr. Parker introduced us.” The girl shuddered and did her best to hide it, but Fargo’s experienced eyes could see that she didn’t think much of Parker—or of Hattie Hamilton. “Why do you ask?”

“It ain’t none of my business,” she said, her voice meek. “You just seemed like you knew her is all.”

Suspecting that his earlier thoughts about Parker not telling him everything were accurate, Fargo decided to take the girl into his confidence. “Well, I’ll tell you,” he said. “Mr. Parker—Senator Parker—strikes me as a dangerous man who likes to get his way. He’s asked me to work for him for a few days this week, but maybe I should rethink it a bit. You haven’t said as much, but I can tell . . . you don’t like him much. Him or Miss Hamilton, do you?”

She stared at him, her dark eyes wide with fear. “No, I like ’em both just fine. Don’t say nothing, please.”

Fargo placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “It’s all right,” he said. “Calm down. I won’t be saying a word to either one about you. But I need to know the truth. What am I walking into here?”

She looked at him for a long minute, then sighed and nodded. “Nobody works for Mr. Parker for a few days. It’s like . . . like jail, only worse, ’cause you can’t ever get out. And Miz Hamilton, she acts all nice and pretty and like a lady, but deep down, under the clothes, she’s still just what she was when she first came to New Orleans—a scavenger rat.”

She grabbed him by the arm. “You should just run. Don’t go back! Head west and don’t look back, not even once!”

Fargo gently removed her hand and shook his head. “My name is Skye Fargo,” he said. “I’ve made an agreement with Mr. Parker and I’ll hold up my end, but he’ll get more than he’s bargained for if he tries to double-cross me. That much, I can guarantee you.”

She went quiet for a moment, looking him over, like she was examining something of deep interest. “Just be careful,” she finally said. “You are going into the snake pit. The whole city ain’t nothing but one big den of snakes.”

“I’ll be careful,” Fargo said. He turned back to the Ovaro. “Now, why don’t I give you a ride back to the city? I’m headed that way.”

Her eyes went wide and she shook her head violently. “Oh, no! If Miz Hamilton saw us, I’d get . . . I’d get in trouble for sure. I’m not supposed to even talk to a man without her permission!”

Fargo felt his jaw clench. If what this girl was saying was true, then he knew exactly the type of place Hattie Hamilton was running. Girls stayed on out of fear of retribution or beatings or worse. He’d seen a few brothels out West run that way, and it was never a pretty sight once you got behind the scenes.

“I’ll drop you off when we reach the edge of the city,” Fargo said. He climbed into the saddle and reached out a hand. “You’ve never even been on a horse, have you?”

“No,” she said, her eyes darting left and right. “You promise you won’t tell?”

“I promise,” Fargo said. “And I’m a man who keeps my word.”

She grasped his hand and let him pull her up behind him. “It’s very high,” she said.

Her added weight wouldn’t make any difference to the horse on a trip as short as this. The Ovaro had been through far more difficult challenges. “Wrap your arms around my waist,” he said. “If you’ve never ridden a horse, I want you to have the full experience. ”

“What . . . what do you mean?” she asked, grasping him tightly.

Fargo laughed and put his heels to the horse. The Ovaro responded by leaping into a smooth canter, and turning to take one more run at the open field. “Come on, boy,” he called. “Show her what it is to ride!”

Given his head, the Ovaro ran as though he knew he’d be in a stall for a while. Behind Fargo, the girl squealed in delight and held on even tighter. The trees flashed by on either side, blurs of green leaves and the ruddy brown of bark. They reached the end, and Fargo turned him around, heading him back across the field once more.

“Is it always like this?” she called over his shoulder.

“Like what?” he asked.

“Like . . . flying,” she said. “So free.”

“Always,” Fargo said. “Unless someone’s chasing you. Then it’s a little more tense.”

“I’ve been chased before,” she said into his back. “I don’t mind that none.”

“Were any of them shooting at you, too?” Fargo said, slowing the horse as they found the lane that led back to the city.

She giggled. “No. Why would anyone shoot at me? I ain’t nothing but a whore. Not worth the cost of a bullet.”

Fargo laughed deeply. “You’re mistaken,” he said. “I suspect there are plenty of men in the world who would willingly spend the cost of a whole lot of bullets for your company.”

“I don’t know nothing about that,” she said. “Miz Hamilton saves my money for me.”

He pulled the horse up sharply, felt her weight lean into him, warm and small. “She what?” he asked.

“Miz Hamilton,” the girl repeated. “She saves my money for me. She does for all the girls. We just get ourselves an ‘allowance.’ ”

“How much?” Fargo asked.

“A dollar a week,” the girl said, her voice filled with pride. “I save as much as I can.”

A normal working girl got a dollar a turn. A beauty like this, maybe as much as ten,
Fargo thought. He sincerely doubted Miss Hamilton was saving these girls’ earnings. Most likely, she was pocketing the money herself. “I see,” he said, his voice tight. “What’s your name?”

“Fleur,” she said. “I guess it means ‘flower.’ That’s what Miz Hamilton says.”

Fargo shook his head, half turning in the saddle so he could make eye contact. “No,” he said. “What’s your real name?”

“Ain’t nobody called me that since my mama died,” she said. “But my folks named me Mary.”

“All right,” he said. “Mary it is, then. At least as far as I’m concerned.”

He got the Ovaro moving again, keeping his thoughts to himself. Obviously Parker and Hattie had themselves quite a business going. He wondered about this other fellow, Beares, and thought that looking him up before the big poker game would be a good idea.

Whenever he was in strange country—and there was no doubt that New Orleans was such a place—Fargo liked to know the truth of the land and the people in it. There were always good people in such a place, and bad ones, too. The only question in his mind was who was who, and how to protect himself and those who couldn’t protect themselves.

Feeling the warm embrace of Mary in the saddle behind him, Fargo wondered how long she’d been working for Hattie Hamilton and how many other secrets were being kept behind the walls of the Blue Emporium.

If he were to make a guess, Fargo knew the answer would be a whole lot.

And where there was money and power and secrets, there was always death coming.

In his world, no matter where he was, it just worked out that way.

They reached the outskirts of the city and Mary insisted that he let her walk the rest of the way, so he pulled the Ovaro to a halt and gently let her down. Along the way, she’d given him good instructions for reaching both the Blue Emporium and the Bayou Hotel, plus a good livery where he could put his horse and tack at a reasonable price.

“Tell the man that Fleur sent you,” she said. “He will take good care of you and your horse. He’ll treat you like family.”

“And you’re sure you’ll be all right?” Fargo asked, eyeing the rough-looking surge of humanity that crowded the streets.

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Thank you for letting me ride. I won’t be forgetting it anytime soon.”

“Just keep yourself safe,” Fargo said. He tipped his hat to her and rode in the direction she’d told him, feeling like a damn fool. What kind of a man left a beautiful woman like that—even if she was a whore—to walk alone in a city like this? Still, there was nowhere he could really take her, even if she wanted to go.

Despite his misgivings about Hattie and Parker, Mary said that the madam took decent care of the girls. They were fed well, and each had a private room to themselves, and two bathrooms they shared. The customers were usually nice and the Blue Emporium employed several very large, tough men to keep anyone who got rowdy in line. “I got to earn a living somehow,” she’d said. “Not too many folks in this city will give work to a girl like me, less it be on her back.”

Knowing she spoke the truth didn’t make it sting any less. A beautiful woman like that should be cared for, not doing God knows what for a lousy dollar a week. Fargo sighed to himself. If half his instincts about Parker turned out to be true, Mary could prove to be an even more dangerous distraction than Hattie Hamilton.

A woman who knew her own sexual prowess was attractive to a man like him, but there was something even more beguiling in the somehow preserved innocence of a girl like Mary. She’d warned him to pretend he’d never met her if he happened to see her at the Blue Emporium. If it meant keeping her safe, then he’d play along.

The livery she’d sent him to was several blocks from the bordello and the hotel, and as he turned down the street it was on, he saw a large crowd gathered. Everyone was shouting and yelling, and money was changing hands as people bet on whatever event was going on. He urged the Ovaro through the crowd, stepping him up onto a muddied boardwalk at one point, to try to make his way past the mob.

When the crowd finally parted enough to let him through, Fargo pulled up the horse in surprise. Three men were brawling in the middle of the street, though what it really looked like was two men beating the living hell out of one. The two men were older than the third, and each outweighed the younger man by a solid fifty pounds. Given that there was betting going on, he wondered how the young man—really no more than a kid—had gotten himself into this mess.

He leaned down and tapped one of the spectators, a gray-bearded man with a top hat, on the shoulder. “Excuse me,” he said, trying to make himself heard. “What’s going on here?”

“That young feller is Tommy Anderson Jr. His old man is Tom Anderson—the mayor of Storyville. He comes over this way now and again, has a few beers, talks with folks. A good kid.” The man shook his head. “Guess today those two roughing him up kept pushing him, mouthing off about his dad, till the boy couldn’t take it no more. It all wound up out here with this crowd betting on the outcome.”

The boy, Fargo saw, was giving a pretty good accounting for himself, but for every punch he threw, the other two men landed three or four. It wouldn’t be long until they’d pounded him senseless, maybe even killed him. Believing that coincidences happened for a reason, Fargo made a quick decision. “Hey, mister, ” he said, swinging down out of the saddle. “Hold my horse for five dollars?”

“Sure,” the man said, watching with interest as Fargo unbuckled his gunbelt and put it in a saddlebag. “Just be careful in there. Those two men beating on Tommy have got friends in the crowd and none of them play by the rules.”

Fargo grinned. “Neither do I,” he said.

He started shoving people out of the way, breaking through the crowd just as Tommy went down to his knees. One of the men was shouting at him. “Get up, boy. You ain’t gotten half the ass beating you’re due.”

Stepping into the circle, Fargo said, “I think he’s probably had enough, mister. Why don’t you and your partner there just move along now?”

“Who the hell are you?” one of the men demanded. “We got us a fight going here.”

Fargo chuckled. “This isn’t a fight. Two against one and you men outweigh him by a good fifty pounds each. That’s not a fight.” He let the grin slide off his face, and his eyes turned serious. “On the other hand, if you don’t end this right now, you
will
have a fight. The boy has had enough. It’s over.”

“Go to hell, mister,” the man said. He was heavyset and dark haired, with about three or four days of dark stubble on his cheeks. Other than a swelling beneath one eye, he didn’t look too much the worse for wear. “Mind your own damn business or we’ll give you a taste of the same.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Fargo said, striding forward. “It makes everything a lot easier to explain.”

The other one—a blond-haired, broad-shouldered man missing one of his front teeth—didn’t bother talking. He simply lunged forward, attempting to take Fargo off guard.

Stepping sideways, Fargo brought up his boot and caught the man square in the stomach. The air went out of him with a heavy
whomp
. As he started to go down, Fargo spun and planted a heavy punch right behind the man’s ear. He dropped like a sack of oats and didn’t get up again.

“That about evens the odds,” he said, looking at the other man. “Now, I’m going to ask you one more time to move along.”

The man started to say something, but that was all the time Tommy Anderson gave him. In the lull, he’d gotten a chance to catch his breath and get a second wind. He hit the unsuspecting man from behind, driving him to the ground.

Fargo stepped back to watch, wanting to make sure that the other man wasn’t going to get up and rejoin the fray. As he’d suspected, one-on-one, the kid was a pretty decent fighter. He watched as the two men squared off, and Tommy snapped several sharp jabs into the man’s face, stinging him. He tried to keep his hands up to defend himself, but when that didn’t work, he charged Tommy with the roar of a wounded bear.

But Tommy was faster, and sidestepped the rush, snapping out several more punches that staggered his opponent. In another minute, the fight was over, the larger man splayed out on the ground, holding his head and moaning about his missing teeth.

Tommy moved over to where Fargo was standing and nodded. “Thanks, mister,” he said. “You saved me for sure.”

Fargo peered at the crowd and noticed several of the onlookers were headed their way. “Best save your thanks for later and brace yourself, boy,” he said. “Looks like these other fellers want in on the action.”