Black Hats (2 page)

“Sweet gal.”

Hart swallowed. Sighed heavily. Gestured more dramatically than he allowed himself on screen. “I assured her that alienating her affections was the last thing on my mind, and in my heart.”

“That settled her down?”

“Yes. Yes, it seemed to.”

“…How much did the ring set you back?”

“Three thousand.”

Hart had said three thousand like three bucks.

Wyatt shifted squeakily in the leather chair. “Bill, what can I do for you?”

“I’d, uh…like you to find a graceful way out of this entanglement.”

Wyatt nodded. “Have you looked into her past at all?”

He shook his head. “She’s from Chicago, she says. Told me money was no concern—her father was in the meatpacking business.”

“Well,” Wyatt said with a lift of an eyebrow, “that covers a lot of territory. He could own a stockyard or a plant. Or he could be the dub who mops the slaughterhouse floor.”

Hart turned to the fire, its flickery dancing reflections making a mocking movie screen out of his long mournful mug. “I don’t want to hurt her, or embarrass her.”

Wyatt said nothing. The lay of it said the twist intended to do just those things to Hart.

Hart’s gaze went back to Wyatt, painfully earnest. “Use a…a delicate touch.”

Wyatt nearly reminded Hart that as a lawman in Wichita, Dodge City and Tombstone, pistol-whipping troublemakers from behind had been about as delicate as Marshal Earp was known for.

But instead he leaned forward, the fire a little too warm on his face, and said, “Could cost a few hundred. I need twenty-five a day, and information from the cops can run higher than an old warhorse like me.”

Hart waved it off.

“All right.” Wyatt sat back and folded his arms. “Then if money is no object…”

“It isn’t.”

“…I have a suggestion.”

“Go right ahead. By all means.”

The actor had approved the strategy, and now, several days later, Wyatt—standing between a palm tree and a Ford car, raindrops pearling the parchment of his impassive visage—prepared to put his plan into motion, as the light in the window of cabin four finally winked on.

He strode quietly across the graveled courtyard, avoiding puddles. His black “fish” (as Tombstone lingo had dubbed rain slickers, so long ago) had metal snaps and these he undid as the slanting wet trailed him, and the white flashes of lightning did their best to betray him.

For a few seconds he stood on the stoop beneath the overhang outside the cabin door. The path of the rain was such that the overhang provided scant protection, but at least with his back to the spatter of liquid bullets, he could get the lengthwise folded manila envelope from out of his waistband, and the room key out of his pants pocket, in a dry way.

The envelope was in his left hand and the key—which had cost him (or, anyway, Bill Hart) a finif from the motel’s night clerk—was in his right.

Wyatt worked the key in the lock and pushed the door open—a thunderclap accompanied him, but the two in bed would have probably sat up in surprise even without it.

“Stay put,” Wyatt said, shutting the door behind him, keeping his back to it, “and just listen.”

Rain pelted the window behind the curtains, echoed by moisture dripping from Wyatt to the hardwood floor.

The room was nothing special, walls of pale pebbly plaster, with a framed print of desert landscape, heavy on the cactus, over the double bed. A dark-wood chest of drawers at Wyatt’s right, no mirror, and a pair of nightstands, both with yellow-shaded lamps, one on, one off.

Bathroom door open, just past the bedroom area, the sink in sight, the stool not. One of those motel rooms with space enough to walk around either side of the bed, and that was about it.

Millie had been curled up facing the wall, her back to her agent, Phil Gross, who was propped up with pillows against the headboard, smoking a cigar and reading
Variety
—or anyway, had been. The paper had dropped to his lap, partially covering his red-and-white-checkered shorts; he also wore an athletic t-shirt and black socks with garters. The cigar drooped in his mouth like an uninterested pecker.

Wyatt’s pecker managed not to be interested in Millie—he was, after all, a professional—but he could have hardly blamed it, had it perked. Millie, like Gross, was atop the covers and she wore only a lacy off-white chemise that didn’t hide much of her peaches-and-cream complexion and a full figure that a screen vamp such as Theda Bara might well envy.

No wonder Bill had cast her.

Gross was less attractive than his cabin co-star, but Wyatt figured the feller wasn’t bad for an agent—not tall but muscular in his upper torso, with masculine, regular features and dark hair, mussed from recent attention. Hairy arms and legs.

All of this Wyatt took in, in half a second or so.

“Who the fuck are you supposed to be?” Gross said, eyes traveling from the floor to Wyatt’s Stetson. “Wild Bill Hickok?”

“No. Wyatt Earp.”

Gross, who was still on his back on the bed, raised his eyebrows and the cigar finally tumbled from his lips. He brushed it off of him, sparking, onto the floor.

Millie, not a particularly modest girl, was grabbing on to Gross’s nearest arm, stealing glances at Wyatt as if afraid to allow her eyes to light on him longer than a second.

She was saying, “That’s that gunslinger! That friend of Bill’s from Tombstone!”

Wyatt took a step forward. He held up the manila folder. “Take a look at these.”

He tossed the folder onto the bed.

Gross snatched it up and withdrew the photos. Millie sat on her legs, pretty knees winking at Wyatt as she crowded near her agent, taking in the photos like a kid Sunday morning reading the color funnies. Full breasts under the chemise bobbled, like they were trying to get a look, too.

“These are…” Gross looked up, mildly surprised. His tone was dismissive. “We’re just getting out of the car. Going into one of these cabins.”

“And out,” Millie added, frowning in concentration.

Wyatt said, “I don’t do bedroom photography. But those indicate what’s going on here.” He took one more step, nearing the foot of the bed. He was still dripping. “Those tell the story.”

Millie snatched the photos up and sat like an Indian and studied them some more. Gross, thoughtful, got off the bed, one of his bare feet crushing the forgotten cigar. He was three paces from Wyatt.

“
What
story do they tell, Gramps?”

Gross was maybe thirty, thirty-two. Five nine, five ten. A solid, fairly muscular specimen.

Probably played handball, tennis; maybe even boxed a bit.

“You know what story, son. You’re shaking down Bill Hart, who never did a damn thing to this girl but put her in the motion pictures.”

Thunder shook the sky and the windows.

“These won’t hold up in court,” Gross said, gesturing to the pictures Millie was going over, as if studying her next script. “I’m Miss Morrison’s agent, after all. We might have been having a private business conference, for all those pictures indicate.”

Wyatt granted him a nod. “Might seem that way to a court. Won’t to your wife.”

Gross’s eyes tightened. He took a step forward.

Wyatt raised a hand. “Stay put. Here’s what’s what. You intended to bilk Bill Hart. This child would marry and divorce him, and he would pay through the nose. Plus, her name value in the flickers would benefit from the press.”

“Divorce never benefits—”

Wyatt held the hand up again. “I’m sure she’d have a tale to tell on the witness stand that would curl the hair. How Bill beat her, or maybe forced perversions upon her. She’s a good actress. She could sell that.”

Millie smiled up at Wyatt, as if to say “thanks,” caught herself and remembered to frown at him, which she did.

“Now here’s the deal,” Wyatt said. His words were affable but spoken in a deliberate fashion.

“You get the negatives of those photos…and our word we won’t go public.”

Gross sneered. “
Your
word?”

Wyatt didn’t care for the man’s tone, but he merely said, “If Miss Morrison does not hold Mr.

Hart to his proposal of marriage, we would have no reason to embarrass her…or you, Mr.

Gross.”

The agent thought about that.

Wyatt said to the actress, “And Mr. Hart says you may keep the diamond as a memento.”

Her eyes flashed. “Really? Do I…
have
to keep it?”

“Yours to do with as you will. At your discretion.”

The agent stepped forward—two paces. He was less than an arm’s length from Wyatt now, and smelled of pomade.

“Listen, Mr. Earp,” Gross said, smiling now. If a snake could smile, that was how. “You know and I know that William S. Hart is worth a lot more than that diamond.”

“Yes he is. But you and Miss Morrison are worth considerable less.”

The agent’s eyes widened and his teeth bared and he grabbed Wyatt by the rain slicker and slammed him against the door.

“Listen, old man,” Gross said, and the pomade scent was overpowered by the Sen-Sen on his breath, “you can’t intimidate me. This is blackmail, and you can tell that fart Hart that if he so much as—”

What happened next was so fast, the agent didn’t see it happen—but he felt it. He surely felt it.

The long-barreled .45 came out from under the fish, Wyatt’s right hand jerking it from the holster on his left hip, and the side of the gun met the side of the agent’s head with a sickening
whump
.

Wyatt saw the man’s eyes roll back like slot-machine horseshoes and the agent, right side of his face bloody, dropped at the foot of the bed in an ungainly pile of flesh and underwear.

Millie’s eyes were almost as wide as her mouth; the actress was still sitting like an Indian, with knees cuter than a teddy bear, and the photos were in her lap and hands.

“Can you reason with him?” Wyatt asked her.

She nodded. “I… I… I…”

“You what, child?”

“I never…never
saw
one that big before.”

She meant the gun.

Wyatt put it away.

“You can keep those,” he said, meaning the photos.

Down on the floor, Gross was stirring.

Wyatt knelt to him. The man was conscious enough to understand the words Wyatt had for him, which were these: “You know how to settle the matter with Mr. Hart. That’s one thing.

This is another. If you ever put your hands on my person again, Mr. Gross, you will have to settle with me.”

The agent swallowed; then he swallowed again. “You’ll have no problem with me, Mr. Earp.

Tell Hart…tell Hart his terms are fine.”

Wyatt stood. “Nice doing business with you.” He tipped his Stetson to the girl in the chemise on the bed. He couldn’t resist adding, “Ma’am,” and he stepped back out into the storm.

Two

WHEN THE BLACK TAXICAB ROLLED UP TO THE curb in front of Wyatt Earp’s rented bungalow, the woman rider spoke to the driver as she paid him from the back seat. Then the cabbie came around and held open the door for her and even tipped his cap. The tip must have been good, because the driver returned to his post behind the wheel and waited for her while she made her way up the sidewalk toward the porch where Wyatt sat in a hard chair with a book in his lap and a dog at his feet.

She was dressed appropriately for the cool sunny April afternoon, and very modern—white straw hat, coral silk dress with white polka dots and kimono-style sleeves and waist cinched with a satin sash, black purse fig-leafed before her. White stockings. White shoes.

She was tall enough to carry it off, slender enough, too; but too old by half. Sixty if she was a day. He was just wondering what kind of damn dress-up party this was when he recognized her, half-way up the walk.

The little spitz pooch sat up and, furry tail a blur, studied their approaching visitor with the one eye he had left after fighting two cornered rats at the Happy Days copper mine two summers ago. The pooch’s name was Earpie, and that the animal wasn’t growling was a good sign…

…or would have been, if Wyatt hadn’t felt like growling himself.

“Kate,” he said.

Not greeting her so much as identifying her, out loud.

And she halted.

She should have looked foolish in that get-up, but she was clearly well-preserved, the long oval of her face still smooth and glowing. Hell, she had always had a way about her….

“Wyatt,” she said, in that musical voice corrupted by an accent that she always claimed was Hungarian; did sort of sound like a mouthful of goulash. “May I send the taxi away?”

“No one’s stopping you.”

“I’d like to talk to you.”

“You already are.”

She turned and nodded to the taxi and the driver nodded back and rumbled off hurriedly, knowing no fares would likely be found in this modest residential neighborhood with its stucco-and-frame bungalows and indifferently mowed grass and old men sitting on porches.

When she reached the two wooden steps, Wyatt finally rose. Earpie’s furry tail was twitching, tongue lolling, eyes bright—eye bright, anyway.

Wyatt said, “Sit yourself,” and gestured to the rocker, which was his wife’s.

As if Kate knew that, she asked, “Oh, is Sadie home?”

“She’s gone for the afternoon. Shopping.”

Gambling was more like it. Off to San Bernardino on the Big Red Car, for some backroom poker game at one hotel or another. But that was nobody’s business.

“Pity,” Kate said. “Be awfully nice to see her.”

Wyatt figured seeing Sadie again was about the last thing Kate would have wanted—the two women had never got along—and knew damned well this old gal in young silk was just trying to be sociable.

Coquettishly, Kate climbed the two steps, gathered her dress and lowered herself into the rocker, setting her purse on the wood slats beside her. Wyatt returned to his hard chair, angling it toward his guest.

“I’m surprised you recognized me,” she said.

Hard not to. “Big-Nosed” Kate Elder, the common-law bride of Doc Holliday, had distinctive features, albeit not the big beezer one might expect. She’d also been called “Nosey” Kate, which was more accurate. She liked to stick her nose in, where it had no call to be.