Showdown (22 page)

"I was thinking of that, too," Prine said. "But what if they change their minds and decide to go on horseback? We'd be sitting in that railroad station a long time."

"Well, since there are four hotels, you take two and I'll take two. How's that?"

"Fine." Prine searched the misty gloom. The lights in The Good Meal Café promised warmth and a full belly and relaxation. He could easily imagine him sitting in there, taking it easy. After this was all over, that would be his first stop.

"All right," Prine said. "And if we don't turn anything up, we meet back here in an hour."

"If we don't turn anything up, I'm going to be damned disappointed," Neville said.

As Neville started to turn away, Prine grabbed the sleeve of his sheepskin and said, "You just remember our agreement. We want to take them back alive. Sheriff Daly'll have a lot of questions for them."

"I'll remember that," Neville said. "And you remember that Cassie was my sister and that I loved her more than I've ever loved anybody." He pushed Prine's hand away from his sleeve. "I'll abide by the law, Prine. But if I find them and they give me any grief, I don't make any promises."

"That's fair enough," Prine said.

And with that, they set off to start searching the hotels.

P
rine checked the saloons on his way to the hotels. He didn't see Tolan. He asked the various bartenders but found himself up against the bartenders' code of silence. Prine reasoned that all saloons should have a sign that said "Bullshit Spoken Here" up behind the bar. It would save lawmen, wives, and process servers a whole lot of time.

The one bartender who claimed to have knowledge of such men said that he wanted ten dollars for the information. The sly way he said it told Prine that this man, too, was speaking the universal bartender language of bullshit.

The first hotel he tried had a desk clerk who couldn't quite make up his mind if Tolan was there or not, a twitchy little man in a celluloid collar that left raw chafe marks around his chicken neck.

"The way you describe him," he said to Prine, "it sounds like he could be the man in 201."

"I'll check it out."

"On the other hand, the way you describe him sounds like he could also be the man in 111."

"They look sort of alike, huh?"

"Sort of. But then, the man in 206 also looks a little like the way you describe him."

"Looks like I'm going to be busy."

"But last week—last week we had a man that looked
exactly
like him."

"Last week Tolan would've been in Claybank."

"Well, I guess I didn't mean
exactly
, anyway, come to think of it. This Tolan, he doesn't have a limp and a glass eye, does he?"

"I don't think so."

"Well, then it wouldn't have been the man in here last week, anyway. He looked exactly as you described Tolan except—"

"—except for the glass eye and the limp."

"Right. Exactly."

Prine sighed and started checking up on rooms 201, 111, and 206.

The problem was, Prine decided when the door to 201 was opened, the desk clerk shouldn't be so vain about wearing his glasses. Big, thick glasses. And he was apparently so blind that he should wear them twenty-four hours a day. Even when he slept.

The man who opened 201 was a scrawny redhead with a cigar jammed into the corner of his mouth and a half-naked woman on his bed. She was rubbing her crotch. Hard to tell if the rubbing was for pleasure or because she had a disease.

"Yeah?" the man said.

"Sorry to bother you. Looking for somebody else." The guy nodded to the woman behind him on the bed.

"I finally get her to go along and you have to come knockin'?"

"I'm sorry."

"You can stuff your sorry as far as I'm concerned," the man said.

And he slammed the door.

The man who opened the door at 206 was at least fifty years old, bald, and was in the process of hawking up enough phlegm to fill a reservoir.

"What the hell you want?" he snapped between green gooey snorts.

"I must have the wrong room."

"I'm snufflin' my guts up and you have the wrong room? Get the hell outta here."

He caught ill when he went back downstairs.

The man who opened this one was in a wheelchair. He was fortyish, gray-haired, and looked both intelligent and friendly.

"Wrong room, I guess. Sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for. I appreciate the company. My granddad owns this place and just gives me this room. I'm in here all day trying to write a novel. And then at night I just sit at the window and look out at the street. I'd like to be up on the second floor. I'd have a better view."

"I just got the wrong room is all," Prine said, uncomfortable around the man in the wheelchair and feeling guilty because he
was
uncomfortable. "I'm really sorry to intrude."

"Say, if you're down in the saloon and somebody wants to have a party, send 'em up here."

"Your granddad wouldn't mind?"

"He used to mind when I had parties here. But he hasn't complained since they buried him about four months ago." The man had a big, sad smile on his face.

Not that Prine had any better luck at the next hotel. According to the chunky blond German fellow behind the desk—a very jolly man was he, except for the killer eyes—there had never been, in the history of this particular hotel, anybody who even remotely fit the description of this Tolan man. For one thing, this Tolan man, said the clerk, sounded far too common to stay in a hotel of such obvious prestige. For another thing, this Tolan man would have instantly attracted the attention of Heinrich, the former Pinkerton man who now worked as the hotel detective. And for a final thing, this man would not even have come here because he would've heard that the hotel prices would make it impossible. He said all this with great pride.

Leaving Prine back on the street.

Leaving him to wonder how Neville was doing.

Leaving him to wonder if they'd find Tolan and Rooney in time.

"Y
ou go get the sheriff, you think there's gonna be any trouble," the desk clerk told Robert Neville. "There won't be any trouble."

"That's what you say now. How do I know you get up there and there won't be a shootout?"

The desk clerk was a heavyset man who kept a handkerchief on the desk to daub his face with. His face looked as if it had been glazed. His brown shirt was soaked around the collar and in the armpits. "I don't want a shootout."

"That don't mean they won't give you one."

At this point, Neville reached for what he'd reached for all his life. His wallet. He took a considerable number of greenbacks from the wallet and laid them on the counter.

"What's that for?" the desk clerk asked.

"You really don't know what that's for?"

"Look, mister, that money looks nice now. But what about when it's gone and I lose my job? You want to explain that to my wife and three kids? I need a job a lot more than I need that money."

Neville laid more greenbacks on top of the counter.

"You must really want them two."

He kept staring at the money.

"I do."

"You mind I ask why?"

"Yeah, I do mind. It's none of your business." But even as he spoke harshly, he laid more greenbacks on the counter.

"I still think you should go get the sheriff and have him help you."

Four more greenbacks were laid down.

"Pretty soon, I'm going to pick up my money and go home."

The clerk ran a pudgy finger around his collar.

"I could really get in trouble here, mister. I ain't just sayin' that."

"Think how your wife's eyes will light up when you bring all this money home."

The clerk smiled. "Yeah, she'd be happy, all right." A frown quickly erased the smile. "But she'd be scared."

"Of what?"

"Of Mr. Peck findin' out I took this money."

"Maybe I should talk to Mr. Peck."

"Can't."

"Why not?"

"He's in California."

"Then how the hell's he ever going to find out?"

The expression in the clerk's brown gaze altered without any words being spoken. He must've been thinking of making his wife happy again, because he broke into a smile that would win him a smile contest at the county fair.

"You're right," the clerk said, sweeping the money on the counter up with a massive hand. "Now, you promise no rough stuff?"

"No rough stuff."

"And you promise no gunplay?"

"No gunplay. Just give me the room numbers," Neville said with increasing impatience, "and let me get on with my business."

With an important sigh—the things I have to do to make a living, the clerk's sigh said—he leaned forward, took a blank sheet of paper, a No. 3 lead pencil, and wrote down the two room numbers.

Neville hitched up his holster and set off for the stairs.

"I
t ain't gonna work," Tolan said.

"What isn't going to work?" Rooney said.

"You think I'll get drunk and pass out and then you'll take all the money and run."

"Our train'll be here in two hours or so. That wouldn't be enough time to get you that drunk."

They were in Tolan's room. Tolan had checked Rooney for weapons before letting him come in and sit down. Rooney had brought a bottle of rye with him. It had sat, unopened, for nearly an hour now.

Tolan nodded at the bottle. "That's a nice bottle."

"I figured we'd have ourselves a nice little drink before we left. We've been friends a long time, Tolan."

"We've never been friends, Rooney. You're too selfish to have friends. You even left me behind when I was wounded."

"You would've left me."

Tolan eyed him and shook his head. "That's the funny thing, Rooney. I wouldn't have. I would've been dumb enough to find you a horse and take you with me."

Rooney smiled that cold, cold smile. "You're a sentimental man, Tolan. Nobody'd think you were, if they just met you and all." The smile vanished. "But it's dangerous, Tolan. Being sentimental like that. It gives other people a weapon against you."

"You left me, and even so I took up with you again."

"Nobody forced you, Tolan."

"And you kept on screwing me every way you could. A little bit here and a little bit there. But it all added up."

"I thought we'd have a friendly drink before train time, Tolan."

"I'm like that poor old collie we had on the farm. The old man'd get drunk and try and teach it tricks, but the dog never picked up on 'em very good. And so the old man'd beat her and beat her with his razor strop. He'd draw blood. He even put one of her eyes out. My little sister 'n' me'd cry and beg my old man to stop hitting the dog. But he never would. He'd go beating her until he got bored and turned on one of us. The funny thing was that we were just like that collie. No matter how much the old man'd beat us, we'd forgive him. We loved him. There wasn't any reason to love him. But we loved him just like that poor old collie did. I guess that's what you mean by sentimental, huh, Rooney?"

But Rooney's mind was elsewhere. He'd never taken any interest in Tolan's trouble, and he clearly wasn't about to start now.

Without warning, Tolan picked up the bottle of rye and tossed it to Rooney. Rooney caught it with his crotch. He laughed. "You could've caused some permanent damage there."

Tolan didn't smile. "You take the first drink."

"Tolan, God Almighty, you think I put something in this drink."

"I sure do."

"You're too smart for something like that. I wouldn't even try it."

Tolan sat up on the bed, pointing the six-shooter at Rooney's head.

"Take a drink, Rooney."

"I just had a full meal. Don't really feel like drinking right now."

"You don't take a drink there, Rooney, I'm gonna kill you on the spot."

"Now, that wouldn't make a lot of sense, would it?"

"Sure it would. I'm pretty dumb, but I can sure make it look like you fired at me first. I might spend a night or two in a cell. But a good lawyer'd get me off. And I'd still have plenty of money left to go to California." Tolan pulled the hammer back. "Now, go on, Rooney, and take a drink."

"Aw, shit," Rooney said. Then he laughed—almost giggled, in fact, like a tyke who'd been caught stealing something from his old man's coin box. "I might as well admit it."

"Yeah. You might as well."

"I queered the rye."

"You prick. I knew that's what you done." Rooney pitched the bottle on the bed.