Showdown (3 page)

"Not at all. We just check sometimes on people who stay in Claybank for a while."

"He done something, didn't he? He hurt somebody? Is that it? He hurt somebody?"

"Ma'am, listen. I'm telling you the truth. We run checks on people passing through just in case something does happen. That's all, and that's a fact."

"Uh-huh. You boys with the badges think you can get away with anything. I'll tell you one thing, though. He gives me any trouble—tries to molest me or kill me—I'm gonna sue this town for every penny it's got. You know right now that he's a rapist or a killer. Or maybe both. But you won't tell me, will you?"

"I appreciate your time, Mrs. Chambers. Thank you."

As he was walking down the front steps, she said, "You remember what I said. I'll sue this town for every damned penny you've got, you hear me?"

T
here was an empty lot directly across the street from Mrs. Chambers's. Just after dark, Prine climbed up in the large oak on the far edge of the lot, moving fast so she wouldn't see him, and waited for Karl Tolan to come home. He had to take a chance that Tolan wasn't already home.

The autumn leaves were just full enough to hide him well. The only way he could pee was to lean forward and splash it down the back side of the tree.

Several times, he wanted to roll a cigarette but decided he'd better not. At one point, a couple of teenage boys came along. Wouldn't it play hell if they decided to climb the same tree he was in?

What they did was sit under the tree and share a corncob pipe and argue about which girl at school had the biggest breasts. They both had favorites and they were both adamant about those favorites. (Kids determined to indulge in the forbidden pleasures of the pipe are oblivious to such things as a thirty-two-degree temperature. The debate went on for some time, during which Prine froze his balls off.) The argument ended when one of the boys decided to throw faces into the mix. He might concede that his friend's favorite had bigger tits by a smidgen or two, but if you figured faces into the mix—big tits and a pretty face—well, then, there was no contest, was there? His friend had to agree, though he did say several times that we were talkin' about tits here and you had to go and throw in faces. After about half an hour of this, they got up and went home, each in a different direction, each calling goodnights to each other in the chilly darkness.

Karl Tolan got home around ten o'clock.

He weaved a little, indicating he'd been drinking. He went up the front steps and disappeared inside.

The voices erupted shortly thereafter. Mrs. Chambers was screaming at him. Prine couldn't hear the words, but he could pretty well imagine them.
Lawman was here askin' about you, but I got a pretty good idea what you're wanted for. Rape and murder. And I ain't about to have no rapist or murderer under my roof, you can bet on that.

A few shouts from other boarders.
Shut up! Tryin' to sleep!

Followed by one of those silences that are angrier than any words could be. Feet stomping up the second-floor stairs—presumably Karl Tolan—a door banging shut. Presumably him going into his room and packing things up. No shouts from the boarders for obvious reasons. Karl Tolan was nobody to rile.

Footsteps stomping down the stairs. Mrs. Chambers's last self-righteous statement: "Ain't safe no more for decent people! Not even in their own homes!"

Shrill in the night.

And then Karl Tolan appeared, tromping off toward town. If he was drunk when he got home tonight, the argument must have sobered him up. He wasn't drunk now. He was mightily pissed off. He swung a swollen carpetbag as he stomped along.

Prine dropped down from the tree and followed Tolan back to town.

The man took a room in The Majestic, a remnant of the boom days when even a prison cell of a room brought a formidable rent for the owner. The place was so vile that a couple of town council members had tried to have it torn down.

Prine waited a half hour across the street. Then he went home, to bed.

N
ext morning, after a quick and early breakfast at The Friendly Café, Prine rode out to the Neville spread where Cassie and Richard Neville lived and oversaw their beef empire. An idea had come to him, a plan really. Maybe making the acquaintance of a rich woman—and a damned fine-looking one at that—wasn't out of the question at all.

He tugged his horse into a copse of birches about a quarter mile from the entrance to the ranch. Even from here, he could see the house. Hard to miss. It was built of native stone and wood, with three long wings off the central house. It reminded Prine more of an institutional building than a home. It was compelling, but coldly so. Even the shade trees around it had been planted with military precision, so that you were more impressed by the landscaping than the trees themselves.

Prine had brought his field glasses this morning. He had no trouble spotting the man who rode past him and pulled his horse into a copse of jackpines not far from Prine.

This man wore a derby and a nice suit and looked like a businessman. But as soon as he pulled his railroad watch out, checking the time, and then the small notebook from his back pocket, Prine realized that the man was working the same thing Karl Tolan was.

Twenty minutes later, Cassie appeared in his fringed buggy, heading for town. She was the prettiest sight on a morning of pretty sights.

The man gave her a ten-minute head start and then directed his horse out from behind the jackpines and started back to town himself. Prine, in turn, gave the man the same amount of head start and then he, too, took off to town.

P
rine did his work. He had a court appearance, he had some possible minor rustling he checked out, and he had some paperwork to catch up on.

He spent the last hour of the day going through three stacks of old Wanted posters. Some of them were long out of date. Those he pitched. A few of the posters made him smile. The descriptions of the wanted men sounded like dime novels. "Maybe the fiercest man to draw breath since Billy the Kid." Since the man was described as fifty-three years old with one blind eye and a bum leg, Prine had his doubts.

He came upon a poster for Karl Tolan just before quitting time.

He was wanted on two charges of fraud. Several posters later, Prine found the man he'd seen following Cassie Neville this morning. Ted Rooney. Same charges as the Tolan character. Fraud. Not too difficult how the division of labor went with these two. Tolan the brawn, Rooney the brains. He was surprised their legal charges weren't more severe. But all that meant was that they hadn't been caught for other and more serious crimes.

He was already getting a sense of what they were likely up to. He was surprised, in fact, that it hadn't been tried before.

He folded the posters neatly and put them in his back pocket.

T
hat night, he sat alone at a table in a saloon, drinking slow beers and sketching out quick ideas of how the thing would actually come off.

Kidnapping had become one of the staple crimes in the New West, as the editorial writers now liked to call their frontier states. There was risk involved, of course, but from the criminal's point of view, the odds were in their favor.

You take a kid and make damned sure he or she is treated well in your custody, then send a note to the robber baron or would-be robber baron detailing just how much money you want and where you want it placed. You say that if these things are done right, the kid will be dropped off at so-and-so a place at such-and-such a time.

Now, for sure the local law will want to try and grab you, but in most cases the parents will say no, let's pay them. They look at you like these vile wild animals capable of anything. You try and cheat on them, they know damned well you'll kill their child. You think they want to be responsible for you killing their child?

That's where this kind of operation really falls down. Doing something to the kid—that is, killing, accidentally or on purpose, him or her. If the kid gets returned sound of mind and limb, they'll come after you, but only with measured zeal. You kill the kid, they'll spend every cent they have hiring bounty hunters and assassins to hunt you down. Mexico? Canada? No matter. Plenty of lean and hungry bounty hunters and assassins there, too. If you want to live on this continent, they're going to find you. One New York millionaire sent a pair of killers to France to find the murderers of his small daughter. The avengers did as they were told. They castrated the murderers, poured oil on the open wounds, and then set them on fire.

All the same rules would apply to twenty-two-year-old young women, too. Keep her safe. Return her in good fettle. And, in this case, resist the temptation to rape her. They won't come after you quite as hard for rape as they will for murder. But they'll still come after you.

Karl Tolan didn't necessarily look bright enough to know all these things—subtle wasn't a word that came to mind when you looked upon the angry, busted visage of Karl Tolan—but his partner Rooney gave the impression of being bright and competent.

Prine had three beers in all. He went home and slept well, feeling rested and ready when the rooster announced the day.

K
arl Tolan said, "I just want to get it over with."

Rooney said, "That's your trouble, Karl, you always just want to get it over with." He smiled. "I sure hope you're not like that with the ladies. They appreciate a man who takes his time."

The Skillet was a café next to the railroad roundhouse. They usually met there a couple times a day.

Tolan frowned. Always with the little digs, Rooney. If Rooney wasn't insulting him about his looks, his clothes, his body odor, his lack of education, he was reminding him that Tolan wouldn't ever make a dime without Rooney to guide him.

"I take my time, my women got no complaints," Tolan said.

"That one you gave a black eye had a few complaints, as I recall," Rooney said with a wink in his voice. "What'd you use on her, a club?"

"She called me a name."

"What name?"

"You know. A dumb bastard. Bitch."

"You went a little overboard, my friend. She could've preferred charges. And if she'd done that, Sheriff Daly would've taken a real serious interest in you. And then he might have been able to figure out what we were doing here."

"You would've hit her, too, Mac."

"No, I wouldn't've, Karl. I know how to control myself. Like that time near Cheyenne when you went all crazy on me. If I hadn't kept myself under control, you would've gotten us both hanged." Rooney had paid the woman two hundred dollars not to turn Karl in. Karl had never even said thank you.

Six kidnappings in three years. Each successful. But the fourth one, the nine-year-old boy in the closet of the tiny house they were renting, a deputy came to the door and Karl grabbed his rifle and was about to start pumping bullets through the wood.

Thank God Rooney had been smart enough and fast enough to prevent their undoing. He grabbed the barrel of the gun and yanked the rifle from Karl. Then he whispered for Karl to go over and sit down and shut up. Karl could see how pissed Rooney was. He decided he'd better do exactly as Mac said. He went over and sat down. Mac answered the door. The boyish deputies had some questions about their next door neighbors' son. A couple people on the block said the kid was a regular hellion. Had Rooney found that to be the case? No, sir, I haven't. Few times I've seen him, he's been very polite and well-behaved. Well, thank you, sir, appreciate your time.

Nice little palaver with a hayseed deputy. Harmless as all hell.

Where dumb frantic Karl would've been blasting the shit out of the deputy through the door for no good reason at all.

"I'd like to get out of this town. Place spooks me. Why can't we do it tomorrow?" Tolan said.

"We can do it tomorrow. We can do it anytime we want. But there's one problem."

"What's that?"

Rooney gave him his best arrogant smile. "Think real hard, Karl. I think you can figure it out for yourself."

P
rine counted six cockroaches and numerous rat droppings, and found evidence of lice. This was when he'd been in Tolan's room for less than two minutes.

The room was less than the size of a jail cell. The bedclothes on the cot had so many different colors of stains on them, it resembled a Navajo rug. The air was rancid with the perpetual odors of chamber pot, cigarettes, vomit, assorted illnesses, and terrible food. But how could you gag down food in a room that smelled like this? Eating next to a latrine would be easier.

There was no bureau, no closet. Tolan's earthly goods were all packed into a grimy carpetbag, which Prine dumped out on the cot.

Two shirts, one pair of trousers, three pairs of gray socks that had once been white, long johns that not even bleach could help, a comb, a jacket, a cap, a hand mirror, a Bowie knife, and six photographs of buxom naked ladies flaunting their privates.