Wanted! Belle Starr! (17 page)

“
You mean they haven’t
gone to the hotel?” Penfold yelped.

“
If they have,” the
maitre d’
replied. “They’re
taking a roundabout way to it.”

“
I’ll go and fetch them
b—!” Penfold commenced and started to move forward, but the two
burly men moved until effectively blocking his path.

“
Now I’m not saying’s how it’s
so in your case, sir,” the
maitre d’
interrupted, his manner still icily polite, while
also implying he believed there was a possibility of the bill not
being paid. “But I’ve heard that one before. Only then, none of
them came back. Like I said, though, I’m not allowing that’s what
you’ve got in mind. Only I reckon the best thing for all concerned
would be for you to settle the check before you leave, then go and
see the reverend gentleman about the mistake.”

“
But I let him take away
my wall—!” Penfold began, conscious that everybody in the room was
staring at him. Then a full realization of what he had allowed to
happen struck him. At that moment, he felt the weight of something
in the outside pocket of his jacket. Aware that the longer he stood
arguing, the more time he was granting to the departed couple, he
snatched out the wallet he had found in the hotel. Opening it, he
snarled bitterly, “Tell me how much the check comes to and I’ll pay
it!”

“
That went off smoothly,
‘Parson’,” Belle Starr remarked, as she and the elderly, somberly
attired man who had claimed to be “Pastor Samuel Salford” were
walking away from the Crystal Room Cafe.

“
So it did, my dear, so it
did,” agreed Reginald Higgert, whose physical appearance and the
religious pose he almost always employed when conducting a
confidence trick, had caused him to be given the sobriquet,
“Parson”. Despite retaining something of its harsh timbre, his
voice had become more amiable and even respectful. “I don’t know
about you, but I always find it most satisfying when I’ve taken
down a thoroughly unpleasant mark like him.”

“
So do I,” the lady outlaw
admitted, thinking how vast was the difference between the
apparently austere and forbidding exterior of her companion and his
true nature. The rasp which never left his voice resulted from a
vocal defect, although it was most useful in helping create the
kind of character he most frequently adopted when engaged upon his
chosen field of endeavor. “Going by what I saw of him, he’s the
sort of Christian who always takes a shotgun to church so’s he’ll
be sure to get whatever he’s praying for. There’s one thing I’ll
give you though, Parson. I’ve never seen anybody who can touch you
when it comes to picking the right mark.”

“
Now that, coming from
you, my dear, is what I call a real tribute,” declared the leathery
faced conjuneero. Although a stranger would have noticed little or
no change in his grim expression, he directed what Belle identified
as a glance of delight her way and was clearly flattered by her
compliment. “And I’m in your debt for helping me to pull it off.
Blast it, if I’ve told Alice once, I’ve told her a dozen times
that, if she has to take up with a married man, she should make
sure he doesn’t have a jealous wife nearby who’ll start pulling
hair and have them all thrown into the pokey for disturbing the
peace. Until I happened across you so fortuitously, I thought I
would have to miss out on Penfold and my every instinct told me I’d
not be likely to find anybody better in Fort Worth to set up for
the old ‘Proof Of Trust’ game.”

“
Shucks, I was only too
happy to help you out,” Belle asserted with sincerity, having
learned almost everything she knew about organizing and running
confidence tricks from the man at her side. Then, as she continued,
her voice took on a slightly wistful note. “What brought me to
Cowtown didn’t pan out and I was at a loose end.”

“
I must confess I was
surprised to find you here,” Higgert drawled. “From what I’d heard,
you had a team working the trail end towns.”

“
I was and doing pretty
well at it,” the lady outlaw replied. “But I thought Kansas was
going to become a little mite too hot for comfort.”

There had been a not entirely unexpected
repercussion as a result of the way in which Belle had taken her
revenge upon David Icke. Unlike some better-publicized peace
officers in Kansas, Town Marshal Kail Beauregard of Mulrooney was
most competent and conscientious in the performance of his duties.
Already wondering why the playwright had felt it necessary to
employ an alias and to hire bodyguards, he had not considered the
death of the three men as bringing the matter to an end. Instead,
he had made a thorough investigation. In the course of it, he had
learned much which the lady outlaw would have preferred to remain
undiscovered. On hearing of his investigations, having the greatest
respect for his ability, she had concluded a change of location
preferably far removed from his area of jurisdiction was advisable.
Having divided the not inconsiderable profits of their association
with the other members of her team, she had told them to go their
separate ways and promised to notify them when she was ready to
resume operations.

Electing to travel southwards
alone, although Sammy Crane and Blue Duck were going in the same
general direction, Belle had intended visiting her parents at their
ranch in Oklahoma Territory. Learning there could be an earlier
opportunity than she had anticipated for a meeting with the only
man who had ever captured her heart and affections, she had revised
her decision. Unfortunately, on arriving at Fort Worth and making
inquiries, she had discovered Mark Counter was no longer in the
vicinity.
^xx

Due to her sojourn in the trail end towns
having proved so lucrative, although her hopes for a pleasant
rendezvous with the handsome blond giant member of the OD Connected
ranch’s floating outfit had failed to materialize, the lady outlaw
had not meant to indulge in any illegal activities in Fort Worth.
However, having met Higgert at the home of a mutual friend and been
informed of his dilemma, she had offered to play the role of his
‘downtrodden and browbeaten daughter’ as a temporary replacement
for his indisposed regular partner. Not only had she felt indebted
to him for past favors, she had wanted to watch an acknowledged
master of their illicit occupation in action.

As Belle was already aware, for
almost every type of confidence trick to succeed, there must be a
willingness on the part of the intended victim to take what
appeared to be an unfair advantage of somebody else’s misfortune or
difficulties. While giving her instruction in such matters, Higgert
had insisted there was much truth in the premise, “You can’t cheat
an honest man.”
^xxi
As with the other advice she had
received from him, experience had taught her the assumption was all
too frequently correct. It certainly was in the case of Hubert
Charles Penfold the Third.

Despite knowing how best they might make the
acquaintance of their intended victim, the lady outlaw and the
elderly conjuneero were equally aware that the need to make a
hurried departure might arise. With this in mind, they had timed
their arrival at the Cattlemen’s Hotel on the previous day to be
shortly before the clerk in charge of the reception desk was due to
go off duty. Normally, if asked for accommodation by would-be
guests who had no baggage, there would have been a request that
payment in advance for at least one night was given as evidence of
good faith. Taken in completely by the aura of religious
respectability presented by the couple, the clerk had accepted
without question the explanation that their trunks would be brought
from the stagecoach depot as soon as the agent could arrange for
delivery. Nor, being convinced he was dealing with a genuine member
of the clergy, had he thought to inform his relief of the situation
when handing over the desk prior to going home.

Regardless of his belief that Penfold had
the requisite qualities to fall for the deception, Higgert had
taken the precaution of conducting what he claimed to be an
infallible test to ensure he was correct in his assumption. Having
placed the wallet in the passage, he and Belle had kept watch from
their room. Seeing the way in which the young man behaved on making
the ‘find’, the elderly conjuneero had declared this proved he was
sufficiently lacking in scruples to be susceptible. By following
him into the reception lobby, having made sure he had become aware
of them as fellow guests the night before, they had avoided the
suspicion which would almost certainly have been aroused if they
had tried to make his acquaintance elsewhere.

Glancing at the lady outlaw as they were
talking, the elderly conjuneero decided he could not fault the
performance she had given during the main part of the swindle. The
part she had been called upon to play, at short notice, was of
importance in that it helped to create the required impression
where the intended victim was concerned. Despite it having been the
first time she had taken the role, he was willing to concede she
had been at least as effective as would his regular partner. Such
was her histrionic ability that, using only simple make-up and the
unflattering clothing he had provided, she had been able to prevent
even the slightest suggestion of her true personality from showing.
In fact, had he not known her, he felt sure that he too would have
accepted her as what she was pretending to be.

Taking everything into account, Higgert felt
considerable satisfaction over the way in which the beautiful young
woman he regarded as something of a protégé had turned out.
Although their paths had crossed several times over the years,
after he had given her lessons in the conducting of various
confidence tricks, they had not previously worked together. Having
done so, he concluded that she had absorbed all the advice he had
passed on to her. What was more, he decided she justified the
claims regarding her expertise which he had heard made by other
members of their very specialized illegal profession. He also
wished that, competent as she was, his regular partner possessed an
equal amount of talent.

“
Unless I miss my guess,
my dear,” the conjuneero remarked, the code of conduct by which he
and his companion lived preventing him from asking what had made
Kansas become ‘a little mite too hot for comfort’, “young Penfold
is deciding to order something else and have it added to the
check.”

“
I wouldn’t want to bet
against him doing it,” Belle replied. “And I’d dearly love to see
his piggy little face when he finally gets around to realizing
that, not only are we not coming back, but he’s going to be stuck
with paying for the meal. It’s just a pity he’ll be able to use the
money from your wallet to do so.”

“
Rather him than me, my
dear,” Higgert declared, with a frosty grin which gave an
indication of his far from somber and humorless true nature. “While
they will pass muster unless most closely scrutinized, those bills
in the leather I put out for him to find weren’t printed by the
Government of the good old U.S. of A.”

“
Do you think you were
wise to dump ‘queer jack’ on him, Parson?” the lady outlaw
inquired. “He’s going to scream like a fattening shoat being
knife-stuck for butchering when he finds out how he’s been taken.
It isn’t likely the town marshal would call in the Rangers for a
simple confidence game, he’s not that important. But they’re almost
certain to be brought in when it comes out there’s counterfeit
money involved.”

“
That’s true,” the elderly
conjuneero conceded, but showing no sign of finding the possibility
of investigation by the Texas Rangers disturbing. For all that, he
knew the reminder had been given with his interests at heart and
not through fear of being involved personally, so he was grateful
to his beautiful companion for her concern. Wanting to alleviate
this, he continued, “However, I doubt whether anybody, unless
sufficiently experienced in such matters and having reason to be on
the look-out for them, would detect they aren’t the real thing. By
the time this is discovered, even if it should happen hereabouts,
I’ll long have shaken the dust of Fort Worth from my heels. In
fact, my dear, I have fond expectations of making good my departure
even before our friend back at the Crystal Room realizes he’s been
taken for a sucker.”

“
Are you going without
Alice?” Belle wanted to know, satisfied there would be no immediate
repercussions as a result of employing counterfeit money in the
trick.

“
We never travel together,
at least not as ‘father’ and ‘daughter’,” Higgert replied. “But,
even if to do so would be most injudicious, I have no intention of
leaving her to languish in durance vile. Annoying as some of her
habits can be, saving only your good self, she’s the best back-up
I’ve had in many a year. So I’ve made arrangements to secure her
early release, left the necessary finances and instructions for
where to join up with me. What’re your plans, my dear?”

“
There’s nothing to hold
me in Cowtown now, so I’m figuring to be on my way as soon as I’ve
changed clothes. Like you always taught me, I don’t stick around
after I’ve helped pull a game.”

“
It’s a good policy. But
would it be indiscrete of me to inquire in which direction you’ll
be travelling?”

“
Not at all,” Belle
answered. She knew her companion only wanted to avoid finding
himself in a location where she was engaged upon some kind of
confidence trick and perhaps, inadvertently, interfering with, or
even spoiling, the scheme. “I haven’t worked here in Texas for a
fair spell and thought I’d drift down to Austin to find out whether
it has anything to offer. Not that I’m thinking of starting back to
work just yet, unless something good comes up that I can handle
lone-handed. My team have scattered and will want to do some
spending before we get together again. So, after I’ve looked things
over around Austin, I’m figuring on visiting with my folks for a
spell of peace and quiet.”