Showdown (27 page)

"Yessir."

Carlos wasted no time. He gave a half-bow and removed himself from the office.

T
he gringos have their laws. Very complicated laws. Neville, he killed Mr. Duncan. He is guilty of murder. By gringo law, I will be guilty of helping him if I lie for him. Gringo law makes provision for that. They have a word for that. Accessory. I could go to prison. Neville, he would not give a damn. Not about me or about my Maria or my three children. When he fires people on a whim, he does not care that they may not find work again for a very long time. Look at Juan. Seven months, and still no job. And when I asked Neville about hiring him back—Juan did nothing; Neville just had one of his stupid hangovers and was in a mood to bully someone—he said that if I ever brought up the subject again, he would fire me on the spot. But he will also fire me if I don't pack his clothes. And lie for him when I bring back Daly and Prine. Blessed Mother, help me to know the right thing to do. The rich gringos, they do not care for us. You and Jesus are our only friends in this terrible world of rich gringos. Our only friends.

By the time Prine reached the sheriff's office, Bob Carlyle was gone for the day and Sheriff Daly was waiting for Harry Ryan to relieve him for the night. Deep shadow and a dusk sky streaked the colors of rose and sunflowers lent elegance to the hurry-home, scurry-home rush of downtown workers. It was just chill enough that even the office coffee smelled good.

Daly was working on paperwork. He looked up and said, "Was wonderin' where you'd got to."

"We need to get out to Neville's place."

Daly put his pen down. "Any special reason?"

"Neville hired Tolan and Rooney to kill Cassie. He's lost a lot of money on bad investments. He needed her half of the fortune."

Daly whistled. "You sure about all this? Because if you aren't, Neville's gonna run out straight up the map into Canada. That is, if he don't decide to shoot us first."

"I just spent forty-five minutes talking to Ellie Duncan. Aaron and Neville burned those three businesses down. Neville was the silent partner I was trying to find."

"Maybe Neville killed Al Woodward, too."

"That's a possibility. For sure."

Daly levered himself up from the desk chair. "Old man Neville's turning over in his grave. You hear him?"

Prine smiled. "Yeah, I hear him."

"Probably should take my shotgun, huh?"

"Probably wouldn't be a bad idea."

R
ichard Neville never knew exactly how much cash he had on hand. There was less than he'd hoped in the wall safe. It didn't even bulk out of the sides of the Gladstone bag he put it in. By his count, he had eight thousand dollars in there. No pittance, to be sure. But not enough for him to retire, either.

He walked to the door of the den and shouted up the stairs.

"As soon as you're done, Carlos, bring that suitcase down here."

"Yessir."

Yessir
. Sometimes Neville wondered if that was the only English word Carlos knew. Mexes in general and Carlos in particular profoundly irritated Neville. He figured they saw themselves—unlike Indians or colored people—as pretty close to white. Which meant they made the best servants but that they were the most difficult to deal with because they thought they were just as good as the whites.

Another irritant was the way Aaron Duncan's corpse had begun to smell. My God, what a coarse, filthy stench. One more reason he'd be glad to get out of here.

Carlos said, "It is ready."

A large leather box was what the suitcase looked like. This was the one Neville took for all his long trips. And this was certainly going to be a long one. Forever.

"Good. Now get the buggy ready and bring it around front."

"Yessir."

There it was again. Yessir. A parrot was what he was. Smart enough to pick up a few words. But not smart enough to pick up anything more.

"And then wait an hour and ride in and tell Daly what happened."

"Yessir."

"You remember what we agreed on?"

"Yessir."

"And quit saying 'yessir.'"

Carlos seemed confused.

"I am not to call you 'sir' anymore?"

"The 'sir' is fine. Just don't put the 'yes' in front of it."

"In front? I do not understand."

Neville cursed. What a ridiculous conversation. He needed to concentrate on getting out of here. Running the buggy as fast as it would go. Picking up the train in the morning and heading out. No way he could catch the train in Claybank. Too easy for Daly to find him if he did.

"What the hell're you standing there for?" Neville snapped. "Get the buggy ready and bring it around."

Carlos vanished from the doorway.

"Y
ou wanted to talk to me about something the other day, remember?" Daly said as they rode at a fast and steady pace to Neville's on the dusty stage road that wound around small hills and stands of hardwood. They both wore their sheepskins. When they talked their breath was pure silver against the shadows.

Did Prine remember? The morning he'd wanted to tell Daly all about the role he'd played in Cassie's murder, his stomach had been so twisted up, his bowels so cold and slithery, and his sweat so hot and dirty—well, he sure as hell wasn't going to forget that for a while.

Prine nodded. "Yeah, I remember. But everything worked out all right."

Even in the moonlight, a tatter of gray cloud obscuring some of the light, Prine could feel Daly's eyes on him.

Daly was a smart old bastard. He might not have known what kind of crisis Prine had been living through. But he'd known it was a crisis and not just some piddling little trivial matter.

"You learn anything from it?"

"Pardon?"

"You learn anything from it? That's the only way you get any better at things. To learn from your mistakes or your problems. Take Hettie over to the saloon."

"What about her?"

Hettie was a vivacious forty-year-old who was woman enough to attract men and rough enough to keep unruly gamblers in their place.

"Couple years ago, she asked me if I wanted to come up to her apartment one rainy night. I think you can pretty much tell what she had in mind."

"Did you go?"

"Damned right I went."

"Your wife ever find out?"

"Yeah."

"Somebody told her, huh?"

"Yeah, me."

"You? Why'd you tell her?"

"Because I owed her the truth, Prine. I went up there, all right. But as soon as we started drinking, Hettie crowded up next to me on the couch. And I crowded her right back. But just as I started to kiss her, I stopped. I thought of how this one night was going to change my whole life. The wife and I have always been honest with each other. But I couldn't be honest about this. Not ever. There'd always be this one lie, this one secret between us. And I couldn't do it. I learned right then that my wife was the most important person in my life and that I'd be a damned fool to step out on her this way. I went home and told her, and we had a couple of drinks and a good long laugh about it and then we picked up just where Hettie and I'd left off."

"That sounds like a Bible lesson."

Daly laughed. "Yeah, but I doubt a preacher man'd ever let you know that he was up in Hettie's apartment."

Carlos was just hefting the suitcase into the shallow bed of the buggy when he heard riders approaching.

He ran to the edge of the grass for a better look. Two riders limned by moonlight, dust the color of fading ghosts as they turned in toward the estate.

One of the men jerked his carbine from his saddle scabbard, the barrel gleaming in the moonsilver.

He turned away and ran back into the house.

P
rine, carbine ready, said, "I'm going in the house."

"You in charge now, are you?" Daly said. He sounded amused.

"I can move faster."

"That you can," Daly said as they reined up. "I'll work my way around back. In case he tries to get out that way."

Prine dropped from his horse, leaving him ground-tied.

He moved fast, crouched down.

Something white moved on the shadows of the front porch.

"Come out of there," Prine snapped.

"He killed a man in there, Deputy. I am afraid to go back in."

"Carlos? Come out here where I can see you." Carlos came up, his arms stuck straight up above his head. His white serving jacket rode up to his ribs. "Where is he?" Prine said.

"Getting ready to leave. The den, I think."

"Now tell me about what happened in there. Who'd he kill?"

S
heriff Daly made his way around to the back of the house. It was like walking around a stadium in a big city. A man could lose some weight just making the trek.

Weight wasn't his only problem, Daly thought. He had arthritis, bursitis, and neuritis. He probably had all the other itises, too, if he ever bothered to go back to the doc. He'd busted his knee once, so he hobbled a bit; and he needed new eyeglasses, so he squinted a bit; and he was fighting a mild case of shingles, which kept him in minor, but constant pain. He was one hell of a specimen, he was, and he was damned glad that Prine had suggested going in first.

Daly took up his position at the back door, next to the screened-in porch. Either way, Neville wasn't going to escape. He'd protected the Nevilles for twenty years. But no longer. He was now—at last—an emancipated white man.

P
rine moved carefully through the house. He remembered from his single visit here where the den was.

He stood to the side of the door and said, "Neville, this is Prine. I need you to come out with your hands up.

For a time, the only sound was the tocking of a grandfather clock and the relentless pounding of his own heart. He was oily with sweat. He was trembling.

"Neville. Make this easy for both of us."

"How's it feel, Prine? You get to come into the mansion and arrest the richest man in the valley."

"If you're so rich, why did you have to burn down those three buildings and then have your sister murdered by Tolan and Rooney?"

The silence again.

"If you were sensible, we could talk about this."

"I'm not sensible, Neville. So don't even bother to try and pay me off."

The shotgun blast packed the air with buckshot and a roaring echo. A large chunk of the solid oak den door was torn out.

"You try to get in here, Prine, you know what you'll be facing. I keep a lot of ammunition in here."

Prine was worrying a plan. If he could quickly try and kick the door open, kick it back on its hinges so he'd have a clear shot, and then fall to the floor where Neville would have a difficult time seeing him for a moment or two—maybe he could get a shot off that way. He wanted to take Neville alive. He wanted to attend the hanging.

He needed to make Neville nervous. Silence was his ally. He began to make his move, walking on tiptoe, moving himself in position to try and kick in the door and then dive for the floor in case Neville was standing on the other side with his shotgun ready.

Apparently, Neville was practicing silence too. Trying to unnerve Prine. Not a sound in the den.

Prine took a couple of deep breaths. Everything depended on timing. If he was caught in the center of the door on this side, Neville would have no trouble killing him.

He moved. There was no thought process now. No time for it. He acted strictly on instinct and a terrified need to survive.

He brought his boot up and kicked at a place just above the doorknob. The door swung backward with such force that it sounded as if an explosion had just taken place.

This was where Prine expected the shotgun to erupt. He didn't doubt Neville's word that he had a lot of ammunition.

He dropped to the floor, his Winchester ready to fire.

A sound. But not of a shotgun. A faint squeaking noise—something being opened.

As he lay there on the floor, ready to belly-crawl inside, he pictured the den. The large desk, globe, the immensity of built-in bookcases—the mullioned windows.

That was the sound he'd just heard.

The huge, palace-like mullioned windows being opened.

An easy way for Neville to escape.

No wonder there hadn't been the sound of a shotgun. Or Neville shouting at him.

Neville was no longer in the den.

He was just jumping to his feet when the brutal charge of the shotgun troubled the autumn night. Then—a cry. Somebody shot. Somebody down.

Prine ran to the back of the house, not knowing exactly how to find the back door. A couple of false turns before he found the steps next to the pantry leading down to the landing and the back door.