The Reluctant Pinkerton (10 page)

“A stock detective, yes,” Kalish said.

Roper sat back and took a drink. This was bad. He wasn’t told that there had already been a stock detective killed on the job.

“Was it known that he was a detective?” he asked.

“No,” Kalish said, “that never came out.”

Which didn’t mean that the men who killed him didn’t know who he was.

“All right,” Roper said, “I’m just going to have to be extra alert.”

“For the money I’m paying, I would hope so,” Kalish said.

“Speaking of which,” Roper said, “I need some expense money.”

“Expenses?” Kalish asked. “Like what?”

“For instance, I had to pay to get in here and see you,” Roper said. “I’ve been paying out money since I got here, and I need a bit more.”

He actually didn’t need much more, but he found himself wanting to give this man a hard time.

“How much?” Kalish asked dubiously.

“How much you got on you?”

Kalish put his glass down, balanced his cigar on the edge of the table, and took out his wallet.

“I have several thousand dollars here.”

Roper decided to take it easy on the man and said, “Just let me have a thousand.”

“A thousand?”

“That’s all.”

Reluctantly, Kalish handed over the cash.

“That’s all?” Kalish repeated. “Will I get receipts for the money?”

“Take that up with the Pinkertons.”

Roper stood up and pocketed the money, then finished his drink.

“I’ve got to go.”

“How do I get in touch with you?”

“You don’t.”

“What? Why not?”

“Let me ask you something first. What was his name? The other detective?” Roper asked the question hoping it wasn’t somebody he knew.

“Henderson,” Kalish said, “Walt Henderson.”

Roper breathed a sigh of relief, then felt ashamed. He’d never heard of the man, but being relieved was not the way to react to his death.

“Did you have a way to get in touch with your other detective?”

“Yes, of course,” Kalish said. “Henderson and I—we had a system—”

“And now he’s dead,” Roper said. “So no system, and no getting in touch with me. You’ll just have to wait to hear from me.”

Kalish stared at Roper, then said, “I just hope you are as good as the Pinkertons told me you are.”

“Wait a minute,” Roper said. “I was told you asked them for me.”

“Well,” Kalish said, “we asked about you, and they assured us as to your competence.”

“Mr. Kalish,” Roper said, “don’t worry. I know my job.”

“I hope so, Mr. Roper.”

“Blake,” Roper said, “the name’s Andy Blake.”

“Yes, of course,” Kalish said, “Mr. Blake.”

If the Pinkertons hadn’t been involved, and if he hadn’t already established his Andy Blake identity, Roper might have walked away from Harold Kalish right there and then.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said, and left the room.

Roper left the Cattleman’s Club the same way he got in, through the kitchen. It was apparently Mexican food day, and on his way out, the kitchen worker he had paid to let him in handed him a taco.

“Thanks,” he said.

He went out the back, eating the taco. He was angry, felt like sending William Pinkerton a telegram telling him to go to hell. There was no excuse for not telling him about the other detective. Not knowing could have cost him his life.

But he was into this now. There were people here who knew him as Andy Blake. Hell, there were people who had tried to kill Andy Blake. He’d put too much into this job already.

He finished the taco before he got to the street. It was pretty good. There was a clock tower across the street that told him it was midday. He still had some time before he had to go to the Bullshead. He decided to do some research.

*   *   *

Roper went to the offices of the
Fort Worth Star
and made arrangements to spend time in their morgue. A newspaper morgue had no bodies in it, just copies of old newspapers.

Roper spent the afternoon reading up on some of the problems the cattle business and the stockyards had been having over the past year. He also read where there was a faction in place who wanted to establish plants in town to butcher the cattle on-site, instead of shipping them out. It seemed like all the trouble began after that announcement had been made. Somebody, he thought, wanted to keep the business of butchering the cows out of Fort Worth.

Roper was about to quit and leave the morgue when he had a second thought. He sat back down and looked through the newspapers until he found the one that covered the death of the detective in the stockyards. The story did not mention that he was a detective, and did not refer to him by his real name, Henderson. It said simply that a stockyard worker named Gentry had fallen in the pens and been trampled to death by a herd of steers. Nothing was said about the death being suspicious. Roper looked further, but didn’t find any other stories that matched the facts he’d been given by Kalish. This had to be the one. He filed the name “Gentry” away in the back of his mind, and this time he did leave the morgue, and the building.

*   *   *

Roper showed up at the Bullshead before dusk. It looked as if some of the stockyard workers had already joined the crowd, and the place was in full swing. Somebody was pounding on the piano badly, arguments were going on at the gaming tables, and the girls were expertly avoiding the groping hands of the customers, both sober and drunk.

He paused inside the batwings, looking around for the Fixx brothers, but didn’t see them anywhere. Figuring they’d show up later, he made his way to the bar. It was not as easy as it had been earlier, but he finally managed to make a space for himself and get a beer. The bartender was not the same one he’d spoken to earlier about Nancy.

He turned his back to the bar and looked around, didn’t spot Nancy working the floor. He decided to remain at the bar, making it easy for the Fixx brothers to find him when
they arrived. Also, he’d be able to see the whole floor from there and would know when Nancy came down for work.

*   *   *

A paunchy man with gray stubble and a sweat-stained hat spotted Roper at the bar, crossed the room, and went up the stairs. Nobody paid him any mind as he got to the top and knocked on Nancy’s door.

“Come!” she said.

He opened the door and entered, his hat in his hand.

“What is it, Weaver?” she asked. She was seated at her dressing table, applying her makeup.

“He’s here.”

She looked at him in the mirror.

“Are you sure?”

“You described him to me, Miss Nancy,” he said. “It sure looks like him.”

She stood up, grabbed a robe, and put it on over her gold-and-red gown. She crossed to the door, went outside, and managed to peer down at the bar without going right up to the railing. She saw Andy Blake standing at the bar with a beer in his hand, then she went back into the room. She removed the robe and sat back down at the dressing table. In the mirror Weaver could see the plunging cleavage of her gown and couldn’t take his eyes off the pale globes of her breasts.

“All right,” she said, reaching up to do something to her hair. The move made her breasts swell, almost spilling out of her dress. Weaver swallowed, wanted to look away, but could not. “Is Manko here?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Point out Blake to him, and tell him it’s time,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And Weaver?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Tell him not to be stupid and try it alone,” she said. “We want this to work.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Weaver turned and moved toward the door.

“Weaver?”

“Yes, Miss Nancy?”

“Is Mr. Bonner in his office?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Weaver said. “As far as I know.”

“All right.” She turned back to the mirror. “Get out.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

After he was gone, she sprayed some perfume in the air to dispel the scent of the old rummy, then went back to her makeup.

A few hours after speaking with “Andy Blake,” Harold Kalish was sitting in a leather armchair in the Cattleman’s Club, drinking brandy and smoking a fine cigar. The time of day was between lunch and dinner, and the room he was seated in—one of several such rooms in the building—was sparsely occupied. There were three other men seated, each alone, scattered about the room.

Kalish enjoyed this time of day. His business forced him to interact with others all day long, and he enjoyed moments like this, when he could sit alone and enjoy a drink and a good cigar without having to make conversation. He also enjoyed these moments because he knew they wouldn’t last.

To illustrate that, another man entered, walked slowly around the room, then came over and sat across from Kalish. He was a portly man in his fifties, wearing a three-piece gray suit and sporting a potbelly, which caused his white shirt to show at the bottom of his vest. A waiter appeared immediately.

“Sir?” he said.

“What are you drinking, sir?” the man asked Kalish.

“Brandy,” Kalish said.

“I’ll have the same,” the man told the waiter.

“Yes, Mr. Arnold.”

As the waiter walked away, Adrian Arnold took a cigar from the box on the table next to him, snipped off the end with a tool he also took from the box, and then lit the cigar, drawing until he had the tip glowing properly. By the time he was done, the waiter had returned with his brandy.

“Thank you,” Arnold said.

“You’re welcome, sir.”

The waiter withdrew.

Arnold sipped his brandy and said, “I got your message. You saw him?”

“Yes,” Kalish said, “I saw him today. Just a few hours ago, in fact.”

“Well, finally,” Arnold said. “Did he say why he’s late?”

“Actually, he’s not late,” Kalish said. “He’s been in Fort Worth for three days, but he has spent that time establishing his identity.”

“Which is?”

Kalish simply stared at Arnold, sucked on his cigar, and kept silent.

“Yes, all right,” Arnold said. “I don’t need to know that.”

“I’m the one he’s supposed to be in contact with,” Kalish said.

“Right, right,” Arnold said. “So, what did you think of him?”

“I can see why he and old Allan Pinkerton never got on,” Kalish said. “He’s his own man, doesn’t kowtow to anybody.”

“Is that good?”

“I think so,” Kalish said. “I don’t need a lot of ‘yessir’ and ‘nosir.’ I need a man who can get this job done.”

“And can he?”

“He says he can,” Kalish said.

“And you believed him?”

“Actually,” Kalish said, “I did.”

“And he’s still in the dark about…certain things?”

“He’s still in the dark,” Kalish said, rotating his cigar in his mouth, “about certain things, and he has to stay that way.”

“Of course,” Arnold said. “As long as we get what we’re paying for.”

“Right.”

“You send a telegram to Mike Hurley?”

“Not quite yet,” Kalish said. “I thought we’d talk first.”

“Well,” Arnold said, “you better get that sent then. We want to make sure we keep the president of the Union Stockyard Company happy.”

“Yes,” Harold Kalish said, “yes, we do…very happy.”

“These are desperate times, Harold,” Arnold said. “I don’t have to tell you that.”

“No,” Kalish agreed, “you certainly do not,” but he doubted Arnold had heard him.

“We need to find whoever’s behind all this bad business,” Arnold went on, “before everything blows up in our faces.”

“Don’t worry, Arnold,” Kalish said. “I truly believe Mr. Roper is the man for this job.”

“Well, I hope you’re right, Harold,” Arnold said. “I certainly hope you’re right.”

Roper finished his first beer and got a fresh one. Still no sign of the Fixx brothers, or Nancy. He was considering going up to her room again when somebody jostled his arm, and he spilled beer on himself.

“Hey, watch it, friend!”

He turned to look at the man who had bumped into him. He was big, over six feet, wearing trail clothes and a gun on his hip. Not a stockyard worker, because from what Roper had been able to see so far, they didn’t wear guns.

“Whatsamatta, Manko?” another man asked.

“This feller bumped me,” Manko said, “got beer on me.”

Roper studied the man, didn’t see any wet drops on him.

“Looks to me like I got the worst of it, friend,” Roper said. “Sorry.”

He turned to put the mug on the bar so he could dry himself off when the man, Manko, did it again. This time the bump was obviously deliberate.

“Goddamnit, ya did it again!” Manko swore.

“Now, look,” Roper said. “I don’t know who put you up to this—”

“You bumped inta me!” the big man snapped.

“I think it was you who bumped into me,” Roper said, “and on purpose. Now what’s your game? Who put you up to this?”

“You callin’ me a liar?” Manko asked.

“He called ya a liar, Manko,” a third man said from down the bar. “I heard him.”

“Me, too,” said the second man.

Three of them, Roper thought, at least. First they sent two after him, now three. Unless there were more in the crowd.

This had to be Nancy’s work. She knew he was coming back. She must have set this up.

“Now look, friend—” Roper started, but the big man wasn’t having any of it.

He put his big paw on Roper’s chest and pushed.

“I think I need ta teach you a lesson,” Manko said.

Normally, Roper would have tried to talk his way out of this, but now he was forced to act as Andy Blake would.

Before he could move, though, Manko grabbed the glass of beer and dumped the contents on Roper’s shirtfront. It dripped down and wet his trousers as well.

“Hey, look, Manko,” the second man said, “it looks like he wet hisself.”

“Yeah,” the third man said, “you scared him so bad, he wet himself.”

Damn it
, Roper thought, but it was Andy Blake who threw the punch.

Roper was wearing a gun, as were the other men, but it did not occur to him to draw it. This did not yet seem to him to be a life-or-death situation. It seemed as if they were simply goading him into a fight, and Andy Blake certainly would have been goaded.