Power in the Blood (114 page)

“What happened to it?”

“I can’t imagine. Perhaps … perhaps the putty has too much moisture in its content.”

“But wouldn’t having no air in there keep it dry?”

“I don’t know. I have no scientific understanding of such things. It could be that the air seal is defective. What a disaster! Smith should be here to share this!”

Smith, having decided he would not take a bath to suit paying customers, was emptying shitcans as usual.

“Why don’t you open it up and see what’s wrong.”

“I suppose I must. This shouldn’t have happened.”

As Nevis unscrewed the air seal he heard the
whooosh
of air entering the casket, so the seal had apparently been adequate. What, then, had gone wrong? He unlocked the clasps and lifted the lid with Winnie’s assistance. The smell of Carlson’s Patented Mortuary Putty was strong, and the emaciated limbs of the Savage, composed entirely of this substance applied to a stick-and-wire frame, was positively weeping moisture.

“He’s crying all over,” said Winnie.

Nevis began wiping the inside of the glass lid with his handkerchief, then began dabbing at the limbs of the Savage. The putty came away like sticky clay, and he stopped before further damage was done.

“No,” he said. “Oh, no … we’re finished. This will never do. One more touch and he’ll crumble. Damn that Pfenning!”

“Don’t blame him. The stuff probably works fine on dead folks; it’s just not right for what you used it on.”

“Winnie, do you … do you happen to have about your person a certain necessary item …?”

“You need a snort?”

“Most definitely.”

Winnie produced a hip flask from beneath her dress.

“Help yourself.”

Nevis’s Adam’s apple bobbed frantically until the flask was emptied.

“Well,” said Winnie, “Brannan hasn’t built his ice plant yet, or put in the shitters like he said. It’s not like you don’t have a job or anything.”

“But this was so important, so unique, or at least I considered it so when we owned the genuine article. Oh, that woman, that false friend …! What a despicable thing to have done! What a crime against comradeship! How could she!”

“She’s a bitch and a rich man’s whore, that’s how.”

“But what does she have against me?”

“Let me tell you, there’s nothing like a whore that finally smells big money. Once it gets up her nose, you better watch out if you ever knew her before, because she won’t give you the wind from her ass, and that’s a fact. She wants you to go away, is my judgment on it. She knows her man’s going to put you and Smith out of business, and she doesn’t want you finding another kind of business that’ll keep you around here. She wants you gone.”

“And she has succeeded brilliantly,” said Nevis, contemplating the sodden ruin before him. It had required four days to build the Savage, and it had all been for nothing. Lovey Doll Pines had killed what was, in all likelihood, his final creative endeavor. Hers had been an unforgivable crime against art, a slap delivered to the smiling face of friendship. Try as he might, he could not forgive her.

The following day, Lovey Doll Pines received by delivery wagon the empty crystal casket. Inside was a note:
This contained a corpse, and does so still.
Lovey Doll did not comprehend Nevis’s intention at all. He had been referring, as he penned the note, to the death of their friendship. Lovey Doll read the note a second time, then screwed it up in exasperation, and asked herself if the casket, quite a beautiful thing in its own right, could possibly be included among the parlor fittings.

Clean-shaven again, Drew did not resemble the man who had passed for Lodi. He boarded a train with the woman he had learned to call Mrs. Brannan; he still called her “ma’am” among company, to protect her from unwanted glances. Omie seemed content to call him Doogle, and had ceased her maraudings among his thoughts.

They were headed for Carbondale, where Lodi had friends. Drew had already dispatched a telegram:
MR. JOHNSON WILL PRESENTLY ARRIVE. INFORM MR. LINDELL
. Johnson was himself, or any other member of the lawbreaking brethren; Lindell was Lodi. The message would be passed on, and when he could manage it, Lodi would come, or else send word to Drew of a location where he could safely rejoin the gang. Mrs. Brannan had thus far been reluctant to share with him the exact nature of the work she wished Lodi to engage in, but Drew was not offended; he owed her too much to allow resentment of any kind to cloud the hours spent in proximity to this highly unusual woman and her even more unusual daughter.

“Show me the wobble trick again, Omie.”

Omie placed a pencil on the floor of the car, and caused it to balance on its point despite the lurching and swaying of the train, then made its chewed end wobble in a circle while the point remained where it was, and then, to amuse Doogle to the fullest, she lifted the pencil into the air without physical assistance of any kind. Drew was fascinated.

“How can you do things like that?”

“I just can,” said Omie, with a smugness Zoe found exasperating.

“Don’t brag so, dear. Mr. Bones may think less of your gift because of it.”

“No he won’t.”

“Really, Omie, you try my patience sometimes.”

“It’s all right, ma’am. I enjoy seeing the things she can do. I never saw the like, really.”

“Well, so long as she doesn’t become tiresome.”

“No, ma’am, she couldn’t do that.”

Zoe had noticed that Omie’s face shone when she was in Bones’s company, and the mother did not resent it. Leo once had elicited that kind of adoration, and betrayed them both with his foolishness as time went by. Zoe intended never to remarry, once her vendetta with Leo was done with, but it would not have displeased her if a likable (despite his trade) and forthright young man such as Bones gave Omie the simple enjoyment of his closeness, his genuine friendliness. A male of character and integrity should figure in the life of every female, Zoe reasoned, and vice versa. The time for such opportunity with regard to herself was past, she truly believed, but Omie’s life had barely begun. Let her be coy and brazen and demanding of the young man seated opposite; he was no enemy, no cruel deceiver, and his delight in such tricks and stunts as Omie could create for him was in itself a wonderful thing to see, even if Zoe had to hide her feelings of satisfaction behind a mask of rectitude and propriety. She was who she was, and could not change now.

“Mr. Bones?”

“Ma’am?”

“Wait, Mama, I want to spin it.…”

Her pencil spun up to the ceiling, hit the stamped tin and fell back to the floor. Zoe looked around to see if such doings had been observed by other passengers, but they had not; the nearest was several seats away, half asleep.

“Omie, kindly desist. Mr. Bones, I believe I may trust you. I have, perhaps, caused you to think I place my trust in no one but your friend Lodi.”

“I’d call him my boss, ma’am, rather than my friend.”

“Regardless, I know you, and not him, and so I wish to share with you the purpose of my actions.”

“Ma’am, I’m listening.”

Zoe took from her bag a newspaper clipping, and handed it to him. Drew read the article and handed it back.

“Ma’am, that’s a piece of goods that’ll be surrounded by more guns than they had anywhere since the war.”

“I am aware of that, Mr. Bones, and there lies the challenge, don’t you agree?”

“Challenge is one word for it, I guess. My own word, ma’am, would be suicide.”

49

Clay had to laugh. He was drunk, but he would have laughed even if he’d been sober. The newspapers were filled with it; the law had captured Lodi at last, then found out it wasn’t him, then even lost the fellow they did have, and couldn’t explain how it happened. He was glad, in a way, that he did not work for the official forces of law, not if they made fools of themselves like that.

He poured himself another drink. The bar was one of Denver’s lowest, and he felt quite at home there. He had lived in a room upstairs for more than a week. Meals were sent up, and liquor, and he sometimes came down to the bar to drink some more. He had run up a considerable bill, and was unable to pay it, but Clay was not bothered. Since walking out of the desert down in New Mexico he hadn’t cared about very much at all. He supposed his life was effectively over and done with; all he needed to do now was drink himself into the grave and find some peace.

“Mr. Dugan?”

The large man before him was unknown to Clay.

“No,” he said. “Go away.”

“I believe I’ll sit, Mr. Dugan.”

“This is my table.”

“It’s the hotel’s table, and you’re drunker than he said you’d be.”

“Who said?”

“My employer.”

“Well, he’s right; now go away.”

“He sent me to find you so I might make a proposition, Mr. Dugan. I don’t know why he’d want a drunk on the payroll, but that’s his choice.”

“You tell him you couldn’t find me, all right?”

“That’d be a lie, Dugan. I’m not lying for you.”

“Then say I turned it down, whatever it is.”

“Don’t you want work? You’re broke.”

“I’m not.”

“Sure you are, and you owe money right here in this pisspot hotel. You take the job that’s offered, you can pay your way out of here.”

Clay contemplated his drink. “What job?”

“Lodi.”

“Say again?”

“You know the one.”

Clay laughed. “You want me to catch him? There must be a couple hundred laws after Lodi, and they can’t do it.”

“The pay’s good. Interested?”

“You didn’t say your name.”

“John.”

The office Clay was ushered into that afternoon was elegant, yet strangely bare. The gentleman behind the enormous desk seemed elderly and frail in appearance, yet he exuded the distinct aura of power.

“Please sit down, Mr. Dugan.”

Clay lowered himself into a wing-backed chair.

“My name is Jones. I have been interested in you for some time.”

“Why?”

“You’re an interesting man, Mr. Dugan. Your career fits no usual pattern. Your calling, if that is the correct word, is for rounding up criminals, but you have never sought the sanction of a federal badge. I wonder why that is.”

Clay offered no explanation.

“Are you a steady drinker, Mr. Dugan? Sobriety is important on work such as this.”

“I can stop.”

“Good. My colleague has told you what it is we require?”

“The moon. You want the moon, and you’ll get it before I get Lodi.”

Mr. Jones laughed dryly. “You’re too modest, Mr. Dugan, and you also exaggerate the invulnerability of the man. Lodi can be had, like any outlaw. The trick is to get close enough.”

“It’s been tried plenty of times. There’s nobody more suspicious of strangers trying to wriggle their way into a bad outfit than the men who run that outfit. You’ve got to have credentials, be known for doing what they do, then they’ll trust you.”

“Quite so, and you will have your credentials.”

“I don’t see how, being that I’m on the other side.”

“Fakery, Mr. Dugan, playacting, if you will. And you’ll have an ally.”

“What ally?”

Mr. Jones rang a silver bell at his elbow; the door behind Clay opened and closed, and a young woman stood beside him.

“Sit down, my dear. Mr. Dugan, meet Miss Torrey.”

She sat in a wing-back several feet from Clay’s and gave him a brief nod, which he did not return.

“Jones, I’m not doing anything with a woman along.”

“Allow me to explain certain matters first. Miss Torrey has recently had contact with the outlaws that concern us; in fact her mother is their chief cook and bottle washer.”

“Is that right?” Clay asked her.

Fay said, “She’s with them.”

“Miss Torrey left just hours before the gang’s hideaway was approached by federal marshals. A young man who has since gained some notoriety was captured in the ambush that followed.”

“The one who said he was Lodi.”

“The same.”

Clay turned to Fay again. “You sold them out?”

“No, but they must think I did.”

“Miss Torrey’s brief visit with Lodi coincided, unhappily, with a plan hatched some time before by federal authorities. Lodi purchased property near Cortez under the name of Sampson, and an alert land agent recognized the name as one of Lodi’s many aliases. That is how the attack was launched, but as Miss Torrey says, Lodi will certainly believe it was she who betrayed him.”

“I don’t see how that puts her or me close to him.”

“She will seek him out to make her case for innocence. Would a guilty party attempt anything so foolhardy?”

“It’s a stretch, but he might fall.”

“There is another card to play. Miss Torrey is romantically involved with Bones, the young man who so recently was spirited away from the Leadville jail. That gives her story further credence.”

“Maybe, but if she’s in love with Bones, why would she want to bring Lodi down? Bones’ll likely take the drop alongside him.”

“Mr. Dugan, I have not made myself sufficiently clear. I have no intention of delivering Lodi or Bones or any of the gang to the law.”

“Then what the hell do you want? Pardon me, miss.”

“What” I want are the woman and child who took Bones from Leadville.”

“What woman and child?”

“Believe me, Mr. Dugan, that was the rescue team—a one-armed woman and her daughter.”

“I didn’t read anything about that.”

“Nor will you. The story is too embarrassing for publication, but sources tell me that is how Bones was taken from custody.”

“Who are they, this woman and girl?”

“Their name is Brannan. She’s the wife of Leo Brannan.”

“What’s a woman like that doing springing someone like Bones?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Dugan. I should like to hire you to find out, and when you have done so, I should like you to bring them both to me. If that proves impossible, bring only the girl. Her name is Omie, and she is an unusual child.”

“She’s the one you want, not Lodi?”

“You have it.”

“Why do you want her?”

“That does not concern you. Omie is worth five thousand dollars, Mr. Dugan.”