Robert B. Parker's Blackjack (9 page)

T
he piano player, fiddler, and dancer stopped their performance and turned their attention to Virgil and me standing in the doorway, holding weapons pointed in their direction. Looking down the bores of a double-barrel eight-gauge always altered the atmosphere in a room. For the moment, Truitt was like everyone else in the room, completely unsure what to do, so Virgil spelled it out for him.

“You’re under arrest, Truitt.”

Truitt stood slack-jawed, looking at Virgil. He was lankier and his blond hair was longer than it had been when we last laid eyes on him. He turned his head slightly to the side, eyeing Virgil with a testing look.

“I’ll be damned,” he said.

“That’d be your choice.”

Truitt smiled a little.

“But there are better choices to make,” Virgil said.

Truitt shook his head slowly.

“Virgil Cole.”

“It is . . . And Everett Hitch. You remember Everett, don’t you, Truitt?”

Truitt glared at me but didn’t say anything. Then he looked back to Virgil.

“Under arrest for what?” he said.

“Right now it is attempted murder,” Virgil said. “There is a good chance, though, the man you shot will die, and if that happens you will be charged with murder.”

Truitt didn’t say anything.

“Fella you shot was a policeman,” Virgil said.

“He pulled and I shot him in self-defense.”

“Plenty of witnesses that will testify otherwise,” Virgil said, “so that will be for the judge to decide.”

“That’s bullshit,” Truitt said.

“It’s not,” Virgil said. “You also been helping a wanted man.”

Virgil glanced about the room a little.

“Where is he?” Virgil said.

“Who?”

“No reason to start acting like you are more of a dumbass than you are, Truitt,” Virgil said.

Truitt’s eyes narrowed.

“Who’s the dumbass?” Truitt said.

“What do you think, Everett?” Virgil said.

“I think the more you help us out, Truitt, the better your chances will be.”

“You been with him since you left Appaloosa, Truitt. You show some cooperation here, and I will be sure and let the judge know how helpful you were when we take you in.”

Truitt shook his head and looked around the room at his friends.

“Just two of you,” Truitt said.

“Oh, we have help,” Virgil said. “Wouldn’t undervalue your lack of sense or judgment.”

Truitt looked to the window and leaned a little, looking out the front door. He smiled, then looked around the room at his friends. His teeth were white and straight, and he had a charming, boyish smile. He looked back to Virgil and stopped smiling.

“This is my town, my people,” he said. “You really think the two of you can arrest me?”

“I don’t think.”

Truitt looked around the room at his friends again.

“I guess not,” Truitt said. “Guess you don’t think . . . Not a good idea coming in here, throwing claims around in front of my friends.”

“Speaking of friends, what’s the young fella’s name, Everett, that swore on his granny’s Bible we’d find Truitt here, at this cantina, Ricky what?”

“Ravenfield.”

“That’s right,” Virgil said. “Ricky Ravenfield.”

“He also said you got jumpy and shot the policeman,” I said.

Truitt stared at me.

“Ricky was not too happy you left him.”

“Fuck him,” Truitt said.

“No need,” Virgil said. “Ricky’s dead.”

Truitt stared at Virgil.

“Shot himself,” Virgil said.

“Bullshit.”

“Not,” Virgil said. “Before he did, though, he swore on his granny’s Bible you’d be here, and, well, sure enough, he was right.”

Truitt looked around the room at everyone looking at him, then looked to Virgil.

“You planning on taking on everybody in this room?”

“Not planning on taking on anybody, Truitt,” Virgil said. “But like
I said, whether you go to hell or not is your call. You should just let the judge handle this, go from there.”

Sweat was beading up on Truitt’s face.

“So let’s get on with it, Truitt,” Virgil said.

A big, angular-looking man that was sitting next to Truitt got slowly out of his chair.

“You ain’t taking nobody nowhere,” the man said.

“You must be one of the two Ricky said he didn’t care for so much,” Virgil said.

“Fuck you and fuck Ricky,” the man said.

“You Walt or Douglas?” I said.

The man glanced at me, then looked back to Virgil.

“Truitt,” Virgil said. “Let’s not waste any more of my and Everett’s time.”

“Get on,” the big man said. “We got you outnumbered so you two better get the fuck on down the road or you’ll not live to talk about what will happen here if you don’t.”

Virgil took one step toward the big man.

“There is only one thing for certain, one very sure thing that will happen here tonight if you choose to pull on me,” Virgil said. “And that is you will be dead, no matter.”

A heavyset man to my right had been slowly inching his way more to my side the whole time we’d been in the room. I was watching him, just like Virgil had been watching him out of the corner of his eye. Virgil saw everything.

“Far enough,” Virgil said, without looking directly at the heavyset man.

The heavyset man scoffed a little, and because he was to our side he thought he had the speed, the snap. He reached, but Virgil shot him in the chest before he could get his revolver out.

The big man next to Truitt thought this was his chance, too. He
moved fast, flipping the table in front of him, and pulled his revolver. But just as he went down behind the wooden tabletop, Virgil’s second shot hit him in the forehead and blood splattered across Truitt’s face.

“Goddamn,” Truitt said.

Truitt stood with his hands up a bit and away from his sides, making sure we didn’t suspect he was going to go for his sidearm.

Virgil stood steady, and for the moment the only thing in the room that moved was the lingering gun smoke.

Virgil nodded slightly.

“Anybody else?”

N
obody else dared to move.

“Where is he?” Virgil said.

“Hotel,” Truitt said, nodded in that direction. “Just across the square here.”

“Had to hear the shots,” I said.

We quickly disarmed Truitt, hustled him with us across the plaza to the hotel.

The hotel was a small two-story place with a narrow room on the first floor with a desk, a few dining tables, and a door to a back room.

A heavyset Mexican man was standing at the front window watching us, then looked over to us when we entered. He stared at us with a startled expression, then raised his arms a bit at the sight of my eight-gauge. He knew right away what we were doing there, even before Virgil showed his badge. He pointed out the rear door.

“He’s gone,” he said. “I come out when I heard the gunshots, and in a second he was down the steps here and gone.”

We moved quickly out the back side of the hotel and found nothing but a small empty corral with a feed shed and an open gate.

“Where to, Truitt?”

“How would I know?”

I grabbed a handful of Truitt’s collar and shoved him five full steps back until his head hit the adobe wall of the hotel.

“You remember Skinny Jack Newton don’t you?”

“What?”

I slapped him.

“You know him?”

“Newton? Fuck. Yeah, I know Skinny Jack. Not seen him, though, in years. Shit, why?”

I slammed his head again against the wall.

“He was shot and killed by Ricky Ravenfield is why.”

“What?”

I slammed him again.

“That’s right, Truitt, Ricky shot and killed him, and for that you are equally responsible.”

“Me?”

I slapped him hard a few times before Virgil got his hand on my shoulder and eased me back from Truitt.

Normally when push came to shove it was me that was the one who took the temper out of Virgil. The memory of Skinny Jack looking up at me as he took his last breath, however, was a memory that was not welcome, one I could not forget, and one that had left me boiling mad.

“Truitt,” Virgil said. “We been after you and Bill Black for a good while, you know that. And so far, besides the lawman you shot, you’ve got five men killed, so you better cooperate before we are forced to see you become the sixth.”

“I really don’t know where he went, or where he’s planning on going.”

“Bullshit,” I said.

He shook his head hard from side to side.

“I got no idea,” he said.

“You came here with intention,” Virgil said.

“Nothing other than I didn’t know where else to go.”

“And he just came with you?” Virgil said.

“He did.”

“Truitt,” Virgil said, “I’m gonna ask you a few simple questions and I want you to give me a few simple answers.”

He looked back and forth between us.

“How is it you was with Bill in the first place?”

“We been friends for a while and he hired me to work with him.”

“Friends from where?” Virgil said.

“New Mex,” he said. “Las Vegas.”

“What’s in Vegas?”

“What ain’t in Vegas?” he said. “I mean, I been there for a while, was living there, and I met him there at the Double Nickel next to the Harvey House. We played cards when he come through and, hell, I got to know him and, well, we was friends, that’s all.”

“But why Appaloosa?”

“I hadn’t seen him in a while and he came in and offered me a job, well, me and Ricky. He met Ricky and he said he could use a few hands.”

“When was this?”

“Three weeks back.”

“Why?”

“Well, shit, Bill was always normally in the money and I’m always normally in need of money, so I come along to Appaloosa.”

“With Ricky?” Virgil said.

“Yeah, Ricky was the reason he wanted to hire me in the first place.”

“Why’s that?”

“’Cause Ricky is . . . was . . . was a gun hand and Bill needed a gun hand.”

“What do you know about Black being a wanted man?”

“All he told me was there was a good chance someone would be looking for him and he was not about being caught.”

“So the two of you were Black’s bodyguards?” I said.

He nodded.

“From what?” I said.

“Black . . . got wind a bounty was on his head and that there would be bounty hunters coming.”

“How did he get wind there was a bounty on his head?”

“Don’t know.”

T
he two men that Virgil killed in the Socorro cantina were in fact the men Ricky had warned us about. That night we locked up Truitt in the Socorro jail and we spent the following morning seeing if we could get some kind of idea as to the whereabouts of Bill Black. But by noon we came up with nothing, so we collected Truitt from the jail and we set out for Appaloosa.

It was a three-day ride back. The journey was without incident or much in the way of conversation with Truitt. He was quiet and sullen, and damn sure not interested in being in the situation he was in.

We arrived just after midnight and I slept on the bunk in the cell next to Truitt. In the morning, as the sun was coming up, I found Virgil waiting on me to tell Chastain, Book, and the rest of the deputies the story of Skinny Jack’s murder.

“Not gonna be easy,” I said.

“No,” Virgil said, “it’s not.”

We sat quietly on the porch and drank coffee as Appaloosa started coming to life, and within an hour, Chastain, Book, and the remaining deputies had heard the story of Skinny Jack’s demise.

After Book and three deputies left Appaloosa with a buckboard to collect Skinny Jack from the shallow grave behind Ray Opelka’s place, Virgil and I sat on the porch with Chastain and he got us caught up on what had taken place since we’d been on the hunt.

“I’ll be damned,” I said. “Messenger is still with it?”

“Still hanging on, but he ain’t with it, not at all,” Chastain said.

“Figured he’d be dead,” I said.

“Doc said considering the amount of blood he’s lost that if he does come back he’s likely to not be right in the head.”

“What about the Denver police?”

Chastain nodded.

“Oh . . . they showed.”

“The unit,” I said.

“Two detectives. One older fella, Claude . . . Lieutenant Banes is his name. He’s a senior with the department, nice enough, but the one that did all the talking was a younger fella . . . A little smart kind of guy, his name is King, kind of full of shit. Made a point of introducing himself as a detective . . .
Detective Sergeant
King.”

“What’d they have to allow?” Virgil said.

“Questions about Roger Messenger.”

“Like what?” Virgil said.

“Wanted to know if we talked with him, how long he was here, if he was alone, who he came in contact with, what happened. The details ’bout the shooting and so on.

“When I started asking questions, the young fella said that this case, the details about it were . . . confidential.”

“Confidential?” Virgil said.

Chastain nodded.

“That’s what the smart-ass shit, the young
detective
told me . . . confidential.”

Virgil looked at me and shook his head.

“Maybe Messenger was acting on his own, without the department’s knowledge,” I said.

“Might be,” Virgil said.

“So you don’t know anything about the murder of Ruth Ann Messenger? How or when it happened or the evidence that was found?” I said.

“No. They shared nothing, really. All I can really say is they had more goddamn questions than they did answers.”

“When did they arrive?” I said.

“Afternoon train, yesterday . . . Soon as they got off the train they stopped to see me.”

“What other questions?” Virgil said.

“’Bout Bill Black, of course.”

“What did they want to know?” Virgil said.

“Same thing everybody wants to know.”

“Where is he?” I said.

“Yep,” Chastain said. “Now there is three thousand dollars on his head. Where the hell is he.”

“What did you tell them?” Virgil said.

“I told them you were after him but had no idea where you were or if you’d caught up with him.”

“I don’t guess you know anything about who put the money on Black’s head?” I said.

“Don’t know, they didn’t say . . .”

“They say anything else about Messenger and how he was related to the victim?”

“No, but they was anxious to get to him, to see him. I pointed them to the hospital, so they could go see him.”

“And?” I said.

“Well, hell,” Chastain said as he got the coffeepot and topped off our cups. “I told them that all they could do was see him, have a look
at him. I told them he was in bad shape, but they wanted to see him anyway . . . They might as well have been looking at drying hay.”

“Now what?” I said.

“Got no idea,” he said.

“They say what they were planning on doing here?” I said. “By staying here?”

“No, but I suspect they’re interested in seeing how the two of you fared.”

Chastain walked to the edge of the porch and poured his cold coffee in the street, then filled his cup with some hot coffee from the pot. He stood with his back to us, looking out at the street with his cup in one hand and the coffeepot in the other. He stood silently for a moment, then spoke to Virgil and me without turning to face us.

“Gonna miss that boy . . .” Chastain said. “He was like a son to me. I’m sure gonna miss him.”