McAllister Justice (4 page)

McAllister called: “Sime, you drinkin' on credit?”

Sime said: “Sure, who ain't?”

“Want to make your credit good?”

“Show me how.”

“Help me with these two. From here on out, you're a deputy-marshal.”

“Yes
sir
,” Sime said and helped him with the prisoners and twenty minutes later was sworn in as first deputy with the chance of earning five dollars per arrest. McAllister explained the situation to him and introduced him to Miss Mann. Sime said he didn't like the proposition at all, but he'd take the job, he reckoned. Bums couldn't be choosers.

“Right,” McAllister said when Miss Mann had retired to the sick-room and the two of them were finishing off Diblon's whiskey. “There's more than enough trouble in this town for two men. Try and choose your men carefully. Men with no money can't pay fines and we can't do a thing with
them if they can't. For them, a short sharp lesson. Ones with cash are welcome guests here. We play this fair and square and we bring in the man who shot Joe Diblon.”

Sime re-filled his glass and declared: “I'm your man.”

McAllister was lucky in Sime and knew it. He was honest (well, as honest as a man can be expected to be where there's little law and plenty of temptation). He was tough and he wasn't afraid of much – though he could scare enough to show he had some sense. He could shoot straight with a hand-gun and could buffalo a man as good as anybody in the business.

Finally, McAllister asked him how come he was down and out in this God-forsaken hole.

“I come up the trail with a Jackson County herd. Three thousand head. Some drive. Most of it belonged to old Ridgeway Lovenight. Abe Conway trail boss. Abe and some of the boys reckoned on gambling the sale-money, winning and getting a stake for a start back home. Give the old man his money back and nobody the wiser.”

“And they lost.”

“Sure, whoever heard of anybody winning that kind of game? So I can't go home. The old man'd think I was in on it.”

“He knows you, Sime.”

“I tell myself that, but I can't get convinced.”

McAllister finished his whiskey and rose.

“Let's go and take a look at the town.”

Sime pushed his long fair hair back and slid his greasy hat onto his head. He looked old for twenty-five and McAllister felt sorry for him. They went out together and headed for Main, looking for trouble.

They found it.

They found seventeen men who objected to the law bringing peace and security to a troubled city and those seventeen men did not come willingly to the confines of the jail. Baulked, as most of them were, of the wide-open Indian country, they did not care whether they fought each other or two outnumbered marshals. Only the marshals' experience in such brawls and the prospect of ten dollars per head fines beat them.

While the word went around that there were two tough marshals in town and the saloon areas quietened down, McAllister went the rounds to find out who owned the Smith and Wesson that had been used to shoot down Joe Diblon. He exhausted the saloons and himself and was about to call it a day (it now being an hour past midnight, though the drinking was still going full blast), when Mike O'Donnell of the Lucky Lady saloon suggested that Kate McMichael might be able to help him. Every man that went into her house shucked his gun in her lobby and she would know her regular clients' guns like she knew the garter on her leg.

McAllister hesitated to brace that formidable and lovely lady a second time that night, but duty pressed him.

The bouncer opened the door to him, took one pace backward and said: “Aw, no, mister, not again.”

“I'd like a word with Miss Kate.”

“Mister, she said if you come here again, I was to call the marshal.”

“Call him. He's on your doorstep.”

The man peered closer and saw the badge. That seemed to finish him. He stepped aside and McAllister walked in. The man ran off and a minute later, Kate McMichael herself appeared. She was smiling and McAllister didn't much like that.

“Is this official?” she asked in soft tones.

“Sure.”

“Come into my office.”

She led him through a curtained doorway into a room that could have been a banker's office. Heavy furniture and no frills. A round-bellied stove warmed it. She turned at the roll-top desk and said: “Drink?”

“No thanks. All I want is information.”

“Joe Diblon?”

“Yeah.” He wondered how she knew. Taking the Smith and Wesson from his pocket, he placed it on the desk. This brought him near to her and he had to admit, cat-house madam or not, she was surely a fine-looking woman. Smelled good, too.

“Somebody shot Joe and dropped that beside him. Who owns it?”

Her smile was taunting, beguiling and just a little mad. “You don't ask too nice,” she said.

McAllister's grin was like a slap in the face. “I don't have to. Now whose gun is this?”

“You should ought to know better'n to ask a lady in my position a question like that.”

McAllister thought it would be nice if he wasn't on duty and still better if he wasn't a marshal. The fighting and the whiskey had left him feeling pretty healthy.

“A lady in your position don't make an enemy of the law –if she knows her business.”

She considered him smilingly and picked up the gun.

“Joe ain't dead. Why the fuss?”

How did she know that Joe wasn't dead?

McAllister said: “He could die. Any day.”

She turned the gun over in her hands and the face went dead. When she looked up he was surprised to see that her eyes were frightened. The hands holding the gun shook.

“I never saw this gun before,” she said.

McAllister took the gun and dropped it in his pocket. He waited, watching her. Her eyes dropped.

“The man that owns that gun,” she said suddenly as if
coming to a decision that surprised her, “didn't do the killing. Else why should he leave it behind so you can trace him?”

“Maybe I just look stupid,” McAllister said. “Are you going to tell me whose gun this is?”

She hesitated and a white hand rested on the bare full contours of the upper parts of her breasts.

“I don't know.” He looked at her hard for a moment, then turned abruptly to the door. When he turned the knob, she said with forced gaiety: “Stay and have some fun. My girls're the best in town.”

“Sure,” he said, “but how could I look at one of them after seein' you?”

She looked for the smirk on his lips, but there was none. His face was grave. He thought that she blushed, but that was crazy. Whoever saw a whorehouse madam blushing. He went out onto the street and walked, heels thumping, along the sidewalk, thinking.

He was still deep in thought when he reached the office and found Sime trying to quieten the angry prisoners. McAllister told them if they didn't simmer down, he'd be in there with a club and beat 'em quiet. That got results.

Back in the office, he said to Sime: “You know this town pretty well, huh?”

“Sure. I been bummin' here a month.”

“Who's close to Kate McMichael? Anybody run her?”

“George Paston. Owns the Golden Cow.”

“Anybody else?”

Sime raised his eyebrows. “With George around? Don't make me smile.”

“Like that, huh?” McAllister went out and headed for the Golden Cow. He found it on Fremont not far from Kate's.

The set-up there showed that George had either arrived in town early and had had time to make money and grow or he had come with money in his pockets. It hadn't reached the stage when it could boast of a carpet, but it had a real oak bar, four busy bartenders, a couple of giant mirrors, two chandeliers and a naked lady painted behind the bar. She was
the answer to the warmest prayers of women-starved men. Brass spittoons shone and there were even tables at which men could drink or gamble, a luxury not yet common in town.

McAllister asked a man to point out Paston to him if he was present and was directed to a well-dressed ox of a man who stood at the bottom of a flight of stairs that led to the gallery that overlooked one end of the big room. He had a weather-beaten face and a pearl in his necktie that looked as big as a bed-knob.

Somebody else wasn't starving in a world of want.

McAllister was ready to dislike the man, but he disappointed himself. As soon as Paston talked, he showed himself likeable.

“Yes, sir,” Paston told him, “I'm the man you want. How can I serve you?”

A Texan,
McAllister thought.
This is the Ben Thompson kind.

“What I have to say might be better said in private.”

Paston stared at him levelly and for a moment McAllister thought he would be told to go to hell. But Paston said civilly enough: “Come up to my room, marshal, and have a drink.” Turning he led the way upstairs.

His room was plainly furnished with the bare necessities - a bed, table, two chairs and a large and very old desk. Paston produced a bottle and poured for them both. McAllister reckoned he was putting away more whiskey in a night than he had in a month past. Paston handed him a glass and said: “This don't come over the bar. My own bottle.”

They raised their glasses and drank.

McAllister let the deceptively smooth whiskey steadily burn its way down before he spoke.

“You're right,” he said. “Money couldn't buy that in this town. Now - to business.” He reached into his coat pocket and brought out the Smith and Wesson. He placed it carefully on the desk, watching the man.

Paston stared at it, went pale and then quickly red. He looked mad.

“My God,” he said. “What the hell is this?”

“That's what I'm here to find out.”

“You know goddam well that's my gun.”

“I didn't, but I do now.”

The Texan unobtrusively pulled back the right skirt of his coat and revealed the twin of the gun on the desk holstered high on his right hip.

“So?”

McAllister pulled up a chair and sat, relaxed. Paston stayed tense, not taking his eyes from him. This man had faced new broom marshals in towns like this before. McAllister searched through his mind, wondering if he had ever heard of him before. He also wondered if he was good with a gun. Certainly he didn't look the kind to be scared by loud bangs or lawmen.

“So nothing,” McAllister told him. “What's wrong? Your gun's found and I'm returnin' it to you.”

Paston stabbed a finger in the direction of the gun on the desk. “That gun was found by Diblon's side after he was shot and you know it.”

“Only one person could have told you that.”

Paston went cold. His pale eyes were deadly. “Leave her out of it.”

“Sure. Well, there's your gun.”

The Texan put his hand out for it, withdrew it, hesitating.

“You tyin' me in with the murder?” he asked.

“Why should I?”

“I've known lawmen go off half-cocked at less than this.”

“Not this one.”

Paston thrust forward his chin and demanded: “How much does it cost me?”

McAllister smiled. He stood up, still smiling and looked down at the man that stood three inches shorter and several inches broader than him. “Don't spoil the start of a beautiful friendship by bein' sordid. I overlook guns by cut-down marshals, but bribery, that upsets me all the way to hell. And why tell a silly lie to make me think that you think Diblon's dead. If she told you about the gun, she told you Joe was
alive.” He was heading for the door, but he stopped short and turned. “Yeah, it will cost you somethin'.”

“What?”

“Information. How come you lost the gun?”

“I lost it in a bet.”

“Who to?”

“I forgot.”

McAllister opened the door and leaned idly against the jamb.

“Maybe I should beat it out of you,” he suggested.

Paston grinned wickedly. “You couldn't never do that.” After a long pause, he added: “Sonny.”

McAllister said: “Don't count on it,” and walked out.

Back at the office, McAllister found Sime cleaning a rifle and singing a song in praise of the Rebel cause. It was as well he omitted the words, because they were coarse and highly uncomplimentary to all Yankee sons-of-bitches. McAllister told him to take his badge off, go into town and forget he was a marshal for a while. He was after information: who did George Paston make bets with regularly? Or better still: who won Paston's gun in a bet?

Sime dropped his badge into a pocket and went out onto the street.

Five minutes later a drunken man came in with a gun in his hand and demanded the release of his brother whom McAllister had in the cells. McAllister nearly broke his wrist with his club and put him inside to keep his brother company. Later in the night, the two brothers started to fight and McAllister had to beat them apart. All the time, Jenny Mann stayed discreetly with her patient and did not show her face, for which McAllister was a little sorry, for the sight of a pretty face was like a tonic to him.

About a couple of hours before dawn, Sime returned slightly drunk, showing a black eye and bearing information.

George Paston was one hell of a gambler and would bet fifty dollars on where a fly would land. He'd won his saloon on the cut of a single card.

Who, McAllister demanded, had won the Smith and Wesson?

A man named Peck O'Grady, Sime told him.

McAllister asked: “Where does he hang out?”

“He's dead.” O'Grady had had his throat cut for a few ounces of gold he had carried in his poke. Two days back. McAllister wanted to know what this O'Grady looked like. “I didn't think to ask,” Sime confessed. “He's dead. I thought
that kind of ruled him out. All I know is he was a runty guy.”