Spirit Of The Mountain Man/ordeal Of The Mountain Man (Pinnacle Westerns) (11 page)

Smoke Jensen let himself through the swinging gate and advanced on the closed doors of offices along an intersecting hallway. Colt fisted, he threw open each portal, one by one. The result turned out the same at each entry. At the far end, he found an outside exit. The panel stood open a crack. Beyond it, Smoke found an exterior iron stairway, a fire escape. From far below he heard the steady ring of leather boot soles on the metal treads. His anger mounting, he returned to the office.

His hot, stinging words lashed into Jerome Wimple. “You miserable piece of pond scum, you warned him off, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh, but you do. Here’s a little message for you, and for your boss. I’ll be back, and when I come, I will use whatever force is necessary to get straight answers.”

With that he stomped out of the office. It had been a mistake to show the badge. As a lawman, he was duty-bound not to use undue force or to beat suspects. At least not in public. Smoke Jensen consoled himself with one thing. He had not been kidding about returning.

Over the next three days, Smoke Jensen followed a twisting trail that led at last to a large, lavishly appointed brothel. His man, Smoke had been informed, would be spending the evening and night there. Smoke also had a name now—Brian Trask. From the dregs of Denver society, Smoke had learned that Trask and a crew of henchmen carried out the wishes of their boss, one Ralph Tinsdale. The same Tinsdale who dealt in real estate.

Smoke had questioned Martha Tate about the offers she had received. They had come through a lawyer, she insisted. But not the one at Harrison’s service, she added. The first before her husband’s unfortunate accident. Although the police had not been exactly forthcoming with information, Smoke privately believed that Harrison Tate’s death had not been an accident. Tonight he intended to verify that belief.

Brian Trask showed up at the parlor house a little after seven that evening. He was as loud and boisterous as he was crude. Smoke wondered how he had ever obtained a membership in one of the Bay Area’s most exclusive bordellos. The parlor houses, unlike the vulgar cribs and doss houses of the waterfront, boasted private membership, elite clientele and the most discreet of parties and private arrangements. It cost a considerable amount to join, and applicants usually underwent intensive scrutiny. Smoke reasoned, correctly, that someone had bought Trask’s membership for him. Smoke had shamelessly used a club card he found in the wallet of Harrison Tate, suitably altered to read “Junior,” to gain admission. He spent the next two hours observing his target.

Seated in a red leather banquette, with a lovely, young hoyden under one arm, Smoke Jensen watched while Brian Trask teased and fondled several of the inmates of the establishment, and drank prodigiously. Then he consumed a mountainous meal of boiled pig’s knuckles and ox tails, with a mound of sauerkraut, mashed potatoes, fried parsnips, and apple sauce. He downed it all with long quaffs of rich, amber beer. Afterward, Trask washed his fingers in a finger bowl as daintily as any Nob Hill fop. Then he took his pick from among the girls.

Smoke leaned toward the doxie he held in one arm and murmured into her ear. “The auburn-haired one there, what is her name?”

His hostess, who said her name was Vivian, peered across the room to where Smoke had nodded and saw Trask and the girl at the foot of a large, curving staircase. “Oh, that’s Danielle.”

“A lovely girl. But not so delightful as you.” Disliking himself for what he was about to do, Smoke Jensen ordered a bottle of champagne and two glasses be brought to a room upstairs and suggested to the sweet young Vivian, who had all but crawled into his lap, that they adjourn to above floors. The bartender and waiter knew which room she used, so the champagne was there, waiting, when they climbed the stairs to the third floor. Even though the wine was brought up by rope-pull dumbwaiter, a human one was there ahead of them, hand out for a gratuity.

Smoke tipped him a three-dollar gold piece and saw him to the door, every bit the ardent lover. He kept control of his desire by thinking of his beloved Sally, while Vivian removed her outer clothing and paraded before him in her foundation garment. It was a dangerous pink, trimmed in black lace, with long garter belts that suspended black, net stockings.
It might be all hoity-toity downstairs, but in the privacy of a room,
Smoke thought,
a whore is a whore.
He watched her with feigned appreciation—well, not all that feigned—and then turned away from her to pour the wine. Before popping the cork, he deposited in Vivian’s glass the powdered contents of a small envelope he had obtained from the doctor tending Martha Tate. The powerful, tasteless, odorless opiate derivative would induce sleep quickly.

He filled the glasses and watched the powder dissolve, then turned back and handed one to Vivian. They toasted a “night of bliss,” and drank deeply. Smoke poured more champagne and again they drank it off. Smoke removed his coat, unfastened the buttons of his vest and removed it. Then he stepped behind the willing young thing and untied the laces of her undergarment. Over her shoulder he kept close watch as Vivian’s eyelids began to droop.

“Your friend, Danielle? Which is her room?” he asked softly.

Vivian blinked sleepily. She could not understand why she was getting so drowsy so early in the evening. His question puzzled her also. “Wh-why do you want to know?”

“More champagne?”

“Ummm. I just want some happy times, Junior.”

They all knew Harrison Tate, whom they considered a harmless old roue, who came for the food and drinks and the chance to gaze upon lovely young flesh. The arrival of Tate, Junior had them all excited. Vivian considered herself to have made a fortunate catch. She smiled languidly at him, inviting him to the bed.

“Champagne makes for happy times,” Smoke Jensen suggested.

“Jis’ a little bit. I feel fun—funny.”

“Then laugh and enjoy. We have the whole night ahead of us.”

Smoke poured and asked his question again. Through dimming awareness, Vivian dredged up the required answer. “She’s in two-oh-seven. Tha’s right, two—uh—oh—seven. Why d’you want to know?”

“I thought…” Smoke told her, inventing, “that when her friend left, we could slip down and get happy together.”

“Really?” Vivian’s eyes rolled up and her lids closed over the exposed whites.

Smoke helped her to the edge of the bed, removed her clothes and put her under a sheet. He would give it an hour, then head for the room that held Brian Trask.

Brian Trask lay sprawled naked in the satin sheets of a thoroughly mussed bed. In his usual manner, he had rapidly thrust and ground his way to explosive release twice in one hour and promptly rolled onto one side and gone into a deep sleep. As instructed, Danielle had refreshed herself, dressed, and left the room. She had no need to extract her fee from the slumbering man’s pocket; such vulgar matters were handled on the members’ monthly billing. She had barely swayed her way to the stairs leading to the ground floor when Smoke Jensen appeared on the flight above her. He froze immediately and she went her way ignorant of his presence.

When Smoke reached Room 207, he crouched and tried the knob. The door was locked. From his boot top, Smoke took a slim-bladed knife and attacked the bolt. After a couple of tries, it slid back and the thin panel swung inward. Smoke went with it.

Moonlight filtered through the open window, and the curtains billowed inward on a light breeze. The zephyr smelled of sea tang and fog. Smoke Jensen crossed the floor silently to the large, four-poster bed. Silently, he looked down on the naked man who slept there. Silver shafts dappled the pale body, revealing slashes and circles of pink that denoted old wound scars. A tough, dangerous man, Smoke surmised. He turned away, went to the door, and relocked it.

Might as well get on with it,
he thought as he returned to the bed. He bent down and roughly shook Brian Trask by one shoulder. The satiated man grunted and batted at Smoke’s arm as though at a fly. Smoke shook him harder.

“You want more, honey?” Trask muttered.

“Wake up, Trask.”

Smoke Jensen’s bass rumble shocked Brian Trask to muddled wakefulness. “Wha—who—how’d you get in here?”

“Say I am a magician,” Smoke told him. Trask reached for the sheet to cover himself. “No. Leave it.”

“A man’s got a right to his dignity,” Trask growled resentfully.

“Not in this case. I’ve found that a feller in your present condition is more inclined to cooperate.”

“I’m not cooperating with nobody,” a truculent Brian growled.

“Oh, I think you will be. I want to know where I can find Tinsdale, your boss. Remember him?”

“I don’t know nothing.”

Smoke jammed a stiff thumb into a sensitive nerve ganglia in the man’s armpit. Trask squealed like a stuck hog. “Again. Where is Tinsdale?”

Trask had drawn up into a tight ball. “I don’t know. He’s out of town.”

“Where out of town? You are his chief enforcer, aren’t you?”

“So what?” Brian asked after he stopped gagging. Smoke had put that same hard thumb to a nerve center under his right ear.

“So you know. Where is he?” A hard backhand to the exposed cheek of Brian Trask stung his eye and straightened him out.

“He’ll kill me if I tell you anything,” Trask babbled.

Smoke Jensen leaned in and dug the offending thumb into a complex of nerves an inch below the navel of Brian Trask. “I’ll kill you if you don’t.”

When his squealing cut off, Brian Trask gasped and sobbed for air. “Yer a Marshal, you can’t kill an unarmed, naked man.”

“I’ve only been a marshal for a short while. I can easily forget about ever being one. Now, talk.”

Brian Trask talked. Then Smoke forced the head gunhawk to dress and frog marched him out of the parlor house. When Smoke left the room, he not only knew who had killed his friend Harrison Tate—a gutter thug named Wally Quade—but also why. And what Tinsdale had in mind.

Ralph Tinsdale planned on capturing the entire center of Denver and exacting a fortune out of rentals. He also intended to do the same with every burgeoning city in the West. When Tinsdale met with resistance, he had the objecting land owner killed and dealt with the bereaved widow. Smoke had the name of the corrupt lawyer Tinsdale used and where to find him.

And where to find the criminal mastermind. Now, it was only a matter of time.

Baldwin & Fiske, Attorneys at Law, had offices in one of Denver’s most attractive and expensive office buildings. A fashionable men’s haberdashery store occupied the ground floor. The impressive edifice had its own carbide gas generating plant in the basement, along with a coal-fired, steam radiator heating system. Even at night, the stark whitish radiance of gas lights illuminated several windows in the upper stories. In the rapidly growing, bustling metropolis, business went on around the clock. After booking Brian Trask into jail as an accessory to murder, Smoke Jensen went directly there. He had no difficulty setting foot in the Babcock Building by the grand, polished granite-faced main entrance.

At the rear of the lobby, Smoke found another modern convenience. An elevator had been installed when the facility had been constructed. Operated during the day by an attendant, who used a large rope pull to raise and lower the open car, the device now stood vacant. Smoke Jensen studied the conveyance awhile and worked out how it functioned. Baldwin and Fiske had offices on the fourth floor. Smoke had fully expected to have to climb the stairs to reach his immediate goal. Now he entered the cage of the elevator and reached for the rope. He gave it a yank, but the car did not move. He crossed to the opposite side of the open platform and pulled again. With a creak and groan, the floor rose under his feet.

A young man appeared suddenly from the lobby attendant’s cubical and waved at Smoke. “Here, sir, let me do that for you.”

“Thank you,” Smoke replied with forced politeness, impatient to reach the office of the lawyers, and to do so unseen.

High-stepping to get onto the elevator, the muscular youth took up position and heaved on the three-inch rope. “We have a lot of tenants who work at night.” He frowned slightly and paused before hauling again. “I don’t recall seeing you here before, though.”

Inventing rapidly, Smoke Jensen answered him calmly. “I was asked to come here tonight on a business transaction. To see one of your occupants on the third floor.”

That information erased the frown. “Oh, yes. That would be Henning Mining. Old Mr. Harvey came in not an hour ago.”

“Yes, that’s it. But Mr. Harvey asked that our meeting be kept in strictest confidence.”

Pausing in his attention to the rope, the young man laid an open palm on the center of his chest. “I assure you, I am the soul of discretion.”

“Thank you, my man,” Smoke responded with a heartiness he did not feel.

On the third floor, Smoke Jensen tipped the operator handsomely, stepped off the elevator, and turned in the direction indicated by an arrow on a directory. He walked along the hallway toward Henning Mining until out of sight of the elevator. Then he waited until it started down and headed for the stairs. He climbed slowly, careful not to make any betraying sound.

Up on the next level, he located the offices of Baldwin and Fiske. Smoke paused outside the door, listening. A light shone through the pebbly, frosted glass pane in the main entrance. No sound came from within. Cautiously, Smoke tried the knob. It turned, but did not release the latch. Again, Smoke resorted to the thin-bladed knife in his boot. The bolt gave on the third try. Smoke entered and relocked the door behind himself. Now all he had to do was wait.

While he went about that, Smoke decided, he might as well learn what he could from the files. A quick search of the outer office proved fruitless. No reference to Ralph Tinsdale or Tinsdale Properties, Ltd. Halfway down a corridor, brass lettering on a stout oak door announced the office of Lawrence Baldwin, Esq. Typical of lawyers—who were suspicious of everything, including their own shadow—it was locked.

Smoke Jensen forced entry and went to a rank of three head-high file drawers. He soon found them to also be locked. To his surprise, it took even more effort to slip the latch on the first set and slide open the drawer. He found the “T” section, but no file for Tinsdale. The second down yielded nothing also. Smoke began to suspect that he had been lied to. In the third drawer, he came across his first nugget of gold. A thick file bore the label
Tinsdale Properties, Limited.
It consisted mostly of real estate contracts, with a small bit of correspondence as well. Not wishing to advertise his presence, Smoke took the letters out to the reception area and read them under the night light.

To his disappointment, they provided nothing useful. He returned to the office and replaced everything as it had been. The search continued. Smoke drew blanks on the last two drawers. He closed the files and smiled to himself at the click that sounded when the sprung lock snapped back into place. On to the next.

Nothing, until the fourth drawer. There, under a warning label in bold-faced red letters that read:
MOST CONFIDENTIAL,
he found his reward.
Tinsdale Correspondence,
it was labeled. Smoke took the whole file out into the light. What he learned at first amazed, then angered him. No question that Tinsdale and Baldwin were in cahoots in the land swindles. Tinsdale wrote candidly of using intimidation, extortion, and murder to acquire parcels of land in the heart of Denver. On one, dated the day after the death of Harrison Tate, Smoke found the most damning evidence.

“Lawrence,” the letter read. “A man named Quade will be coming by later today to see you. You are to give him five hundred dollars out of the Special account, and arrange a chair car ticket on the first train out of Denver, headed west. San Francisco would do fine. As always,” and it was signed
Ralph.
There was a postscript that washed cold fury through the veins of Smoke Jensen. Wally Quade had been the name given him by Brian Trask the night before.

“P.S. I am sure the Tate property will be available soon. You might send Trask around to see the widow about it, eh?”

Smoke removed that from the file and dutifully read through the remainder. Nothing else came so close to sealing the fate of Ralph Tinsdale. Routinely, he searched the remaining file drawers, found nothing significant and settled in to wait for the arrival of the crooked lawyer.

He had prudently stopped off at a small street-front eatery on the edge of Chinatown and stocked up on an assortment of dim sum, bite-sized, portable foods that could be eaten as enjoyably cold as hot. They were in a woven sea-grass bag Smoke had carried into the building. He sat now behind the desk of Lawrence Baldwin, boots propped on the unmarked mahogany surface and reached in for a sample of the Chinese appetizers. Baldwin would be in about eight the next morning, Smoke estimated. Then he could remove another link in the chain.

Lawrence Baldwin, Esquire, respected and admired member of the Colorado Bar, confidant of the mayor of Denver, member of the Pioneers Club—an exclusive residence club for charter residents, who had come to Colorado before it became a state, and their male descendants, provided they all had and maintained enough money to be eligible—had a routine day in mind when he entered the outer reception area of his offices. He surely did not expect anything untoward today, and certainly did not have in mind what he discovered when he opened the door to his inner sanctum.

“What are you doing here?” The man to whom Lawrence Baldwin addressed that question looked large and dangerous. “How—how did you get in here?”

“Shut up and close that door,” the darkly scowling stranger demanded.

In spite of his inclination to the contrary, Lawrence Baldwin found himself doing as told. Once the heavy oak panel clicked into place, he leaned back on it for support, his knees suddenly weak, his bluster vanished. It had at last registered upon him that the unknown visitor had backed up his commands with the ugly black muzzle of a very large Colt revolver. It had been pointed at his minute lawyer’s heart. Fear sweat popped out on his brow and upper lip, oily and cold.

“Come over here and sit down,” came the order from behind Baldwin’s desk.

Lawrence Baldwin started his habitual route that took him to the place the stranger now occupied. He cut himself short and took one of the large, leather clients’ chairs. His growing apprehension caused him to sag into it. With considerable effort, Baldwin found his voice again.

“Now, could you possibly tell me who you are and what you are doing at my desk?”

“It’s Judgment Day, Mr. Lawyer Baldwin,” Smoke Jensen told him in sepulchral tones.

Baldwin really began to sweat now. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

“Tinsdale Properties, Limited. Ralph Tinsdale. A man named Brian Trask, and another named Wally Quade. That’s what I’m talking about.”

Ghost-white in an instant, Lawrence Baldwin swallowed hard and fought the urge to bolt and run. He drew a deep breath, held it, let it out slowly. Took another. “Ralph Tinsdale is a client of mine. And I do represent his company. What business is that of yours?”

“Are you also his bag-man, to pay his hired killers?”

Had it been possible for Lawrence Baldwin to turn any whiter, he would have done so. “I won’t dignify that with an answer. It’s impertinent of you. There is a thing called lawyer-client confidentiality, you know.”

“No, I didn’t. But it doesn’t matter in this case. I don’t think this case will be going to trial anyway.”

That didn’t sound good, for several reasons. “What…case?”

“The People of Colorado versus Ralph Tinsdale, Lawrence Baldwin, Brian Trask, Wally Quade, et al. The charges: murder, conspiracy to commit murder, extortion, fraud, coercion, conspiracy and any others I can think up.”

“What gives you the authority to make any charges?”

Smoke Jensen reached into his vest pocket and took out his U.S. Marshal’s badge. He tossed it casually toward Lawrence Baldwin. It fell short, onto the top of the desk, and cut a long, deep gouge in the pristine surface as it skidded to a stop. Baldwin winced.

“I am a United States Marshal. And I have proof of your criminal activity in collusion with Ralph Tinsdale.”

The lawyer in Baldwin took flame. “Whatever evidence you have has been gained illegally. You have no case.”

Smoke shrugged. “Like I said, I don’t think this case will go to trial. Now, tell me, where is Ralph Tinsdale?”

Baldwin correctly read the meaning of those words in the eyes of his visitor. Lips quivering, he tried once more to bluff his way out of it. “It won’t go to trial because you obtained your evidence without a warrant.”

“No. It’s because of the most obvious reason a case cannot come to trial. A dead man cannot be tried for any crime.” When Smoke said that, Baldwin shuddered. “Of course, if you give evidence for the prosecution, testify against the others, I’m sure something can be worked out.”

For all his earlier pomposity, Lawrence Baldwin deflated rapidly. “All right, all right, what is it you want to know?”

“I have the general idea already. What I want is where I can find Ralph Tinsdale.”

Baldwin swallowed with obvious effort, shook his head. “I’m not positive, understand? He—he’s trying to expand his land empire. He’s gone out to Dry Gulch Canyon. He wants to gain claim to as many working gold finds as possible. He’ll be some—somewhere in there.”

That verified what Trask and Quade had told him. Smoke gave him a nasty smile. “See? That wasn’t too hard, was it?”

Baldwin hung his head, features bland and pallid. “I feel dirty.”

“As well you should, considering what you’ve done. Now, let’s get out of here.”

“Wh-where are we going?”

“To jail.”

“But you said…”

Smoke smiled nastily. “You underestimate me. I’m not so stupid as to let you run around free, knowing what I know about your operation with Tinsdale.”

Baldwin’s mouth fell open, yet before he could frame a reply, Smoke Jensen came around the desk in a swift, fluid motion, yanked the corrupt lawyer to the soles of his shoes and gave him a rough shove toward the door.

Dry Gulch Canyon, famous a few years ago for a fabulous gold rush, lay to the west of Denver. In the high mountain country, it could not be seen from any point except directly from above on the peaks surrounding it. Tons of ore had been mined and more tons of stream bed run through sluice boxes, producing hundreds of thousands of dollars in gold. Now only half a dozen mining companies operated here.

Modern and efficient, they each yielded better than 300,000 dollars a year. Ralph Tinsdale, in his dreams of empire, wanted to own it all. He had been advised against it by Lawrence Baldwin. The intricacies of mine ownership made impossible Tinsdale’s usual tactic of killing off those who refused and coercing their heirs into selling out. Tinsdale, bloated with success, would hear nothing of it. He had been in the canyon only three days and already he had learned only how correct his lawyer had been. He sat in a dreary drizzle of rainfall, crouched over a ground-cloth-sheltered fire, in a side canyon. Three of his lackluster underlings were with him.

So despondent had he become that he did not hear the clop of a horse’s hooves as a newcomer splashed through the puddles into the campsite. He barely looked up when the rider halted ten feet from him. Slowly he blinked when he recognized Wally Quade.

“What are you doing here? I thought you had been sent out of town.”

“I didn’t want to go. And then I got arrested, Mr. Tinsdale. For killing that old codger who wouldn’t sell to you. Some U.S. Marshal. Name of Jensen. Captain Yardley let me out this morning. Trask, too. And your lawyer.”

Stunned, Tinsdale could only gape and stammer. “Th-th-this can’t be. How—how could he know who to go after?”

Quade shrugged his shoulders. “The thing is, it happened. Lawyer Baldwin said this marshal was comin’ after you next. You best make ready. That Jensen is meaner than a wildcat with his bung sewed shut.”

Galvanized into action, Tinsdale came to his boots. “You hear that, men? We’ve got a lawman coming after us. We’ll make it his last manhunt.” Tinsdale spun around on one heel, looked over their camp, the terrain to all sides. His decision made, he gave quick instructions. “Chances are he will come right before nightfall, or first thing of a morning. Only we won’t be here. Fix up your bedrolls to look like there is someone in them, then pick a spot where you can cover all the open ground. We’ll let him get in here, thinking he’s right among us, then cut him down.”