The Railroad War (9 page)

Unhurriedly, the man finished wiping the glass, placed it on the backbar shelf, and stepped up to the bar. When he turned to face Ki directly for the first time, his eyes grew wide.

Before the barkeep could speak, Ki put a cartwheel on the bar and said, “Beer, please. And draw one for yourself.”

“Thanks just the same. I got a long night ahead, but if you're in a treating mood, I'll have a cigar.”

Ki nodded, and watched the barkeep inspecting him in the backbar mirror while he filled a big-footed glass stein at the beer taps. He took a cigar from one of the boxes above the till and held it for Ki to see, then tucked it in his vest pocket.

“I'll smoke it later, I just finished one,” the barkeep said, wiping the bottom of the heavy stein on his apron before putting it on the bar in front of Ki.

Ki nodded again. He knew “later” meant that the cigar would be returned to the box and its price taken from the till and put in the man's pocket. The barkeep took the silver dollar to the till, returned, and put on the bar in front of Ki a half-dollar, a twenty-five-cent piece, a dime, and a nickel. When Ki did not pick up either the beer or the change, the man could restrain his curiosity no longer.

“Say, ain't you the one that wiped up on Jug and Slip when they tried to get fresh with your wife yesterday?” he asked.

“I punished a hooligan. But the lady is not my wife. I work for her.”

“That right? Well, all anybody talked about in here last night was the Chinese fellow that put Jug down.”

“I happen to be Japanese,” Ki said quietly.

“Sorry, I was just telling you what they said.”

“I'm not offended. Many people make the same mistake.”

“Everybody was wondering how in hell you could handle Jug.”

Ki shrugged and said, “It was not hard.” Then, looking for information as well as changing the subject, he asked, “Did you work here when Dutch John owned the saloon?”

“No. Cheri hired me.”

“Did Cheri buy the place from Dutch John?”

“No, she just manages it. Funny, I was keeping the bar at the New Ophir in Virginia City, and Cheri was dealing faro. We knew each other, sure, but not all that good, and I was the most surprised man in the world when she got the job of running this place here. She just came up to me and said, ‘Mort, I need somebody I can trust. I'll give you ten a week more than you get here if you'll come along with me.' So I did.”

“Then you're not acquainted with the new owner?”

“I wouldn't know him if I saw him, don't know his name or anything about him. Why?” Mort looked pointedly at Ki's loose blouse and went on, “You ain't dressed like it, but if you're a whiskey drummer or some other kind of peddler, Cheri's the one you need to talk to. When I said she runs the place, I meant it. She might not own it, but she's the boss.”

“What time does she usually get in?”

“She oughta be showing up pretty soon now. The bank closes in another hour or so, and she's got to carry last night's take down there and get the change we need for tonight.”

“If you don't mind, I'll wait for her. But don't let me keep you from your work. I'll call you when I want more beer.”

“You do that. Cheri'll be here pretty soon.”

Mort moved down to the other end of the bar and opened the door of a closet. He loaded one of his arms with unopened bottles of whiskey and began replenishing the backbar stock. He'd worked his way well along the length of the bar, and Ki had half-emptied his glass when the back door opened and a woman came in.

She glanced only casually at Ki. From the businesslike way she moved, and the air of authority she carried, Ki was as certain as though he'd been introduced that she was Cheri. He had not gotten a clear view of her face when she first came in, for she'd passed him too quickly as she went to the bar. When she turned to face the backbar mirror, and Ki could see her face, he almost gaped with surprise. Cheri's eyes were almost as almond-shaped as his own.

Ki lifted his stein to make his stare less obvious while he studied Cheri's face. The Oriental cast of her features was not as pronounced as his, and he guessed that she was either of the same mixture of Oriental and Caucasian blood as himself, or of old-line Hawaiian ancestry.

Cheri was a big woman, not fat, but generously and symmetrically proportioned. Her coloring was vivid, her features bold. She stood taller than Ki, her height emphasized by the pouf of raven-black hair that arced above her high forehead. Thin black eyebrows ran in almost straight lines above her large brown eyes. Her cheekbones were high-boned, and Ki's keen eyes could tell that their ruddiness was not from a cosmetic jar, but was natural. Her nose was out of character with her face; it was aquiline, thin, and looked a trifle overlong, tapering boldly above full, pouting lips and a firm, rounded chin.

Cheri wore a shawl, and as she stood talking with the barkeep, she shrugged to let it drape loosely down her back and show the smooth skin of her shoulders. The dress that was revealed when the shawl fell away was cut fashionably low, its neckline swooping in a semicircle to display the twin swells of bulging breasts and the rosy vee between them. Ki tried to guess how old she was, but could not; with her tautly smooth skin, she could have been any age from her mid-twenties to her late thirties.

Cheri's talk with Mort was brief, and Ki was sure the barkeep had told her of his questions, for several times her eyes flicked quickly over him in the mirror. After a few moments, Cheri nodded briskly and started toward Ki's end of the bar, Mort following her on the other side of the mahogany.

Ki had used his beer glass as a shield for his observation, holding it tilted to his mouth while he kept his eyes on the mirror, and it was empty except for a film of clinging suds. He set it down. Both the barkeep and Cheri stopped just before they reached Ki. Mort opened the drawer of the till, took out a canvas sack, and handed it to her. She turned to face Ki.

“I'm Cheri,” she said. Her voice gave Ki no clue to her origin. It was full and deep, a rich contralto.

“My name is Ki.”

“Mort says you want to talk to me.”

“If you can spare the time,” Ki replied.

“I can't right now, I've got to get to the bank. If you'd like to wait for me, I'll be back in about five minutes.”

“I'm not in any hurry. I'll be glad to wait.”

“You might as well have a beer on the house while you're waiting,” Cheri said. As she started for the door, she called to the barkeep, “Mort, draw one for Ki.”

Mort took Ki's stein to the tap and refilled it. When he brought it back and set it in front of Ki, he said, “Cheri's as curious as everybody else about how you put Jug down. I told her you wasn't trying to sell her something. Hope I was right.”

“You were.” Ki sipped from his stein.

“Are you going to tell Cheri?”

“Tell her what?”

“How you was able to put Jug down yesterday.”

“Why are you so curious about that, Mort?”

“Because Jug's a hell of a big man, and you're pretty skinny, no offense intended.”

“I'm not offended. And I used a wrestling hold on Jug, there's no secret about it.”

“Well, you put him out of commission for a while. And the lady hurt Slip almost as bad.”

“We did nothing to bother them. They accosted us.”

“Oh, sure. Nobody but the two of them blames you.”

Mort went back to his interrupted work, leaving Ki wondering whether Captain Tinker could be mistaken about the saloon having become a cartel headquarters, and whether Cheri had given the barkeep orders that Ki be made to feel secure while he waited. He was still wondering when Cheri returned. She gave Mort the canvas bag that she'd taken with her and came to where Ki sat.

Looking at him with undisguised curiosity, she said, “Now. I'm free for a little while. What did you want to talk about?”

Ki looked at Mort, then gestured to one of the tables at the opposite side of the room and said, “Suppose we sit over there?”

Cheri's eyes narrowed as she looked at Ki speculatively. She said, “If you want privacy, you won't get any in here. The place starts coming to life about this time of the day.”

Ki concealed the surprise and suspicion that flashed through his mind, and decided quickly that a chance to learn more outweighed the risk. He replied, “I'm open to suggestions.”

“I live next door. We can talk there without anybody coming in to interrupt us.”

“That sounds like a good idea. Lead the way, I'll follow.” Ki followed Cheri to the back door by which she'd come in, and they went through it into a narrow hall where the scent of new lumber hung heavy. Small rooms, no more than ten-by-ten-foot cubicles, were being built on both sides of the wide back room, a narrow corridor between them. The work was still incomplete, and Ki examined the cubicles curiously as he followed Cheri out the back door into a narrow, bare yard enclosed by a high board fence, which was also new. Ki realized at once that he was at the back of the rooming house whose sign he'd seen from the street.

“I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong,” Cheri said. “The owner says he's got a crew of workmen coming in here for a job, and he's fixing a place for them to sleep.”

As he followed Cheri toward the door of the house, Ki framed a question to test her. He asked, “Suppose the owner brought in women instead of men, and turned those cubbyholes into a place to work. What would you—”

Cheri did not let him finish. “I'll jump off that bridge when I come to it. I've sold drinks in a lot of saloons, but that's all I've sold. I don't do anything I can't live with, and whatever anybody else wants to do is their business.”

They reached the house, and Cheri took a key from her pocket and unlocked the door. A steep, narrow stairway took them to the second floor, where Cheri unlocked a second door. Light streamed through the doorway when she opened the door. She stepped aside and motioned for Ki to go in.

What he saw made Ki gasp. The room's walls were draped with billowing folds of rosy silk, and white silk formed a canopy beneath the ceiling, from the center of which hung a crystal chandelier. A mellow blue Persian carpet covered the floor. Pillow-strewn divans faced each other at one end of the room, and easy chairs stood here and there, with low tables beside them. There were richly carved cabinets standing against two of the walls. Ki had stopped just inside the door. Cheri closed it and stepped up beside him.

“I didn't fix this place up,” she said. “It goes with the job, and it was like this when I moved in. I'm still not used to it, but I'm sure learning to enjoy it.” She indicated the divans, and Ki sat down on one of them. Cheri sat across from him. She went on, “Well, you wanted to talk, Ki. Go ahead.”

“You haven't been here long, have you, Cheri?”

“A month or so. Mort told me you wanted to know where I came from, and now I want to know why you're interested.”

Ki replied with an excuse he'd used before. “It's part of my job to find out things about people.”

“For that woman you work for?” When Ki didn't reply, Cheri asked, “Why should she want to know about me?”

“When she doesn't confide in me, I don't ask questions.”

“We're in the same boat, aren't we, Ki? I don't ask my boss any questions, either. I don't know him all that well. He was a regular customer at the saloon where I worked in Virginia City, and when he offered me this job, the money was too good to turn down. Not many bar girls get a chance like this, without a lot of strings being tied to it.”

“And you don't have any strings?”

“None that I don't tie my own knots in. And that's what the women of my people do, tie their own knots.”

Ki was already pretty sure, but he guessed, “Hawaii?”

Cheri nodded. “Maui. But I left the islands ten years ago. What about you, Ki? You're part Japanese, I can see that. What's the other part?”

“My mother was Japanese, my father American.”

“That's enough for us to be some kind of half-cousins, and keep us honest with each other. What about your strings?”

“I don't have any, if you're thinking about Jessie. I work for her, like you work for your boss.” Ki stood up. “And if you can't tell me anything about him, I'm going to have to find someone else who might be able to.”

“You don't have to go, you know,” Cheri said quietly, her eyes fixed intently on Ki.

He returned her stare with equal intensity, and asked, “Are you thinking about tying knots?”

“I told you, that's the woman's privilege among my people. A very loose knot, though Ki. And only if you're interested.”

Ki's first thought was that while the knot might be a snare, there was a possibility that having Cheri tie one could prove to be to his advantage. He also trusted his ability to break any string that she might try to wind around him, and from the moment she'd walked into the saloon, he'd been fully aware of her attractions.

“I'm interested,” he admitted.

“I thought you might be.”

Cheri stood up. She stepped over to Ki, and for the first time he was close enough to her to be aware of the scent of her perfume, delicate but sensuous. His eyes were drawn to the deep cleft of her breasts. Bending forward, Ki pressed his face into the warm, narrow valley. He caressed the smooth skin of her ripe bulges with his lips and tongue, and Cheri sighed softly. Ki felt her hands moving up his thighs, and the warmth of her fingers at his crotch. Her breath fanned his cheek softly.