Power in the Blood (65 page)

It would not pay to be overly curious; Mr. Jones paid well, and always in crisp new notes. It would have helped, though, to know for whom he was working. Hodge would have liked to be aware of some link between himself and the powerful of the city, even if he had a lingering disapproval for such wealthy types, being himself the son of a shoemaker. He reminded himself that the persons Mr. Jones represented were unlikely to hire him again if he did not produce results, but he could not think for the moment where those results might be found. Could the mistress somehow be involved? There had been no binding contract between herself and her benefactor to cover the possibility of his death and her sudden removal from a position of comfort, according to Mr. Jones, but Hodge felt that maybe he should dig further in that direction anyway. He had certainly drawn a blank with regard to the son’s fay friend.

He heard voices outside in the corridor, and went to the partially opened transom to eavesdrop, but quickly ascertained it was a foolish argument between a drunken man and woman, of no interest or use to Hodge. He had raised his face toward the transom while listening, and as the voices receded around a corner, Hodge noticed a streak of comparative cleanliness along the transom’s lower edge, as if fingers had reached up there a time or two and inadvertently brushed aside a portion of the accumulated grime. He reached up there himself, and felt his fingertips encounter a small metallic object. He lifted it down, and felt his heart begin to accelerate. It was a key, with an ornately scrolled hasp. Hodge knew it would fit perfectly the central French window of Walter Morrow’s study.

He still had not collected payment from Jared, but the excuse seemed reasonable; it was too soon following his father’s death for Jared to have been granted control of the Morrow estate. “A few weeks more,” Tatum was told. He kept a close eye on Jared meantime, to make sure he kept his mouth shut when liquored. Tatum made the point several times that Jared was equally culpable under the law as an accessory to the act. “It was a conspiracy, my dear, and don’t you forget it.” He kept other young men away from Jared, would-be pickpockets who saw him as an easy mark for loans and handouts. Tatum wanted Jared to keep a tight rein on the mountain of cash heading his way, so Tatum alone could advise him on its investment and disbursement. That much money spelled considerable power for whoever controlled it, and Jared was a weakling, uninterested in the actual practice of business. Tatum would guide him, although he himself had no clear idea how fiscal worth was propagated. They would learn together, and Jared would do as Tatum told him.

One evening about a week following the Morrow suicide (Tatum was especially pleased the police had no inkling it had been murder), as Tatum strolled along a quiet street, a coach rolled to a stop alongside him, and an elderly gentleman addressed him through the window. “Sir, do you know anything of medicine? My grandson here seems to have fainted.”

“I’m no doctor, but I’ll look at him.”

The coach door was opened, and Tatum stepped inside past the gentleman’s knees. The blinds were drawn, and he could see no grandson, but there were two burly men, and these grabbed him by the shoulders and hauled Tatum inside as if he weighed nothing at all. Before he could protest, a cloth drenched in ether was pressed over his mouth. Tatum heard the door close behind him, and felt the coach lurch into motion. He wondered, before lapsing into unconsciousness, if it was the police or Jared who had arranged his kidnapping.

“Mr. Tatum? Can you hear me, Mr. Tatum?”

He responded blearily. The room was unfamiliar, a farmhouse by all appearances. The three who had taken him into their coach were facing him. Tatum became aware of the ropes around his wrists and ankles, and the hardness of the chair beneath him. The only lamp burning was behind the elderly gentleman’s head. Tatum could see no one with any clarity. He knew then it was not the police.

“Mr. Tatum, I wish to know who paid you to kill Walter Morrow.”

“I didn’t kill him. He killed himself.”

“A key was found in your room. I don’t need to tell you what key.”

Tatum felt something slip inside himself. He never should have kept the little memento. That had been the act of a fool. The key should have been buried. They had him, and they knew they had him. He could deny it, but the two who had grabbed him in the coach would be happy to beat him insensible. An immediate confession, however, would not ingratiate him to them either. He would have to conduct himself with care.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“That does not concern you. Why did you do it? At whose behest?”

“No one’s. I’m an anarchist. All robber barons should die.”

The gentleman chuckled. “Come now, Mr. Tatum, you are no more an anarchist than my cat. For whom did you do it?”

“Why should I tell you anything.”

“John, show Mr. Tatum the wire cutters with which you will remove his fingers one by one until he becomes cooperative.”

A long-handled device was dangled before Tatum’s face. He could smell the earth clinging to its cutting edges, and the smell suddenly made him feel sick.

“Jared,” he said. “Jared told me to.”

“Thank you, Mr. Tatum. What was to be your reward for services rendered?”

“Some money.”

“The sum?”

“No specific sum.”

“Really? You murdered a man without first making a watertight deal? How very unprofessional.”

“I guess that’s because I’m an amateur.”

“Yes, that would explain the key. What do you think will happen to you now?”

“That depends on who you are. You aren’t the police.”

“Oh, no, not the police.”

He chuckled again, and the two larger men joined in. Tatum felt his face burning with humiliation. He had not resisted at all; the wire cutters were too real, too ugly to defy with courage. He was a worm, a coward, a betrayer. Jared himself would have caved in no less quickly. Tatum felt he might vomit at any moment.

“Tell me, Mr. Tatum, just to satisfy my curiosity: did you feel the slightest twinge of conscience as you sent your bullet into the head of a man you never met before?”

“No,” said Tatum, in an attempt to recover his pride.

“Not in the least?”

“Not a jot.”

“Dear me, but you seem somehow to be missing an essential part of the thing which makes us human, Mr. Tatum.”

“Your opinion doesn’t interest me, old man.”

“I do regret that. Now then, what should be the manner of your death, do you think?”

“I should choke on your cock, you old humbug shit fuck.”

“I regret I am not attracted to such acts. John, do you think Mr. Tatum should lose his own cock for such impoliteness?”

John stepped forward again with the wire cutters, and jabbed roughly at Tatum’s groin. Tatum could not accept that they would actually perform such torture on him, and John did seem to be conducting himself in a halfhearted manner that suggested a reluctance to continue.

“Enough,” said the elderly gentleman. “We are all civilized men here; even you, Mr. Tatum. Would a bullet in the head be more to your liking? I see poetic justice in such an end.”

“A bullet is fine.”

“John, shoot Mr. Tatum in the right temple.”

The cutters were dropped, their place in John’s hand taken by a revolver. Tatum felt the muzzle’s hardness against his scalp. The hammer was cocked. Tatum’s mouth became tinglingly dry, and he accepted that he was about to die. Curiously, he had no regret; this way was preferable to bleeding from a stumped cock. He supposed he should be grateful. The hammer fell. Tatum jumped as high as his bonds and the chair would allow. When he realized a trick had been played on him, he felt like weeping. Now he could anticipate nothing, control nothing, even the expression on his features. He realized also that the warmth he now felt in his pants was piss, and his shame was complete. They were laughing softly at his degradation.

“Mr. Tatum, did your life flash before your eyes as they say it does at such a moment?”

“No …”

“A merciful thing. I’m sure a life such as yours is not worthy of review. Are you ready now for the true event?”

“Get it done.…”

“John, proceed.”

The gun was placed again to Tatum’s head, the hammer cocked, the trigger pulled. Again the chamber was empty. Tatum felt rage building in himself.

“Don’t you know how to load a pistol, you moron!”

John hit Tatum across the collarbone with the gun barrel, and the second man stepped forward to punch him hard in the side of the head, so hard the chair tipped over.

“That will do. Set him upright.”

The chair was put on its feet. Tatum’s head and breast roared with pain, and vomit burst from him, to splash across his knees.

“Mr. Tatum, I’ll strike a bargain with you. The terms may not be to your liking. Then again, to a creature unusual as yourself, they might.”

“What … what bargain?”

Tatum hired the surrey himself, and escorted Jared down to the street to climb aboard. He whisked a sheet from the picnic basket placed carefully behind the seat, and said, “I know a fellow who needs cheering up in the great outdoors.”

“Tatie, you’re more thoughtful sometimes than I give you credit for.”

“I agree. I’ll take the reins; you just relax and enjoy the ride, as the king said to the page boy.”

“Tatie, really.”

Tatum drove them into the mountains, along little known trails, and eventually announced that they had arrived. Their destination was high enough to see Denver below, and the plains beyond. Jared pronounced himself well content with the place, and ravenously hungry. Tatum spread a blanket and unpacked the basket. While they ate, he teased Jared over his hangdog behavior of late.

“Tatie, I can’t help it. My papa has died, you know.”

“No need to bring up unpleasantness, Jarie. What’s done is done, and will forever stay done. You have a life of your own now, not some feeble arrangement that gave you what you wanted only by kind permission of your great and wonderful papa. Am I correct?”

“Yes, but … I don’t know. I just feel so guilty over all this. He could have treated me much worse.”

“And much better too. Spilled milk, Jarie—it never tastes as good as champagne. Present your glass, sir.”

When they were done with eating and drinking, they lay beside each other, smoking cigars while they watched eagles soar above them. It was unusual for either man to be silent for so long when in each other’s company.

“Jarie, do you want to?”

“Want to what?”

“Be mine, in the way you like to be mine?”

“I might be persuaded.”

“I had hoped to hear that, sweet. What a happy fellow you can make me sometimes.”

“My pleasure, Tatie.”

“I’m sure, and mine too.”

Jared laughed as Tatum took his thigh in a tight grip.

When they were done with each other, Tatum asked, “Was that a fine end to the day?”

“The day isn’t over yet.”

“True, but the best part is behind us. Does that make you sad at all?”

“I feel too content to be sad. You do that to me, Tatie, when you’re in the mood. You should be that way more often.”

“I’ll make it my duty to be so. But do you agree the best has come and gone for this particular afternoon?”

“If you insist, yes, I guess it has.”

“And you are content?”

“I am.”

“That makes me happy too, my friend.”

“Good.”

“Did you ever see so big a bird?”

“Where?”

“Directly above us. What a wingspan!”

Jared tipped back his head and squinted into the sunlight. Tatum drew from his boot a six-inch ice pick and drove it deftly into Jared’s throat, at such an angle as to penetrate the brain. Jared’s body stiffened convulsively, as it had just minutes before under Tatum’s thrusting, then was still. Tatum left the ice pick there; very little blood seeped out around the wooden handle.

Tatum picked up his friend and took him back among the trees. The hole he had prepared the day before was as he had left it, a shovel still jammed into the mound of fresh earth. He flung the body into its waiting grave and began covering it, humming one of Jared’s favorite tunes as he did so. When the task was completed, the mound patted down and strewn with leaves, Tatum packed up the picnic dishes and climbed into the surrey for a return to town.

The dismay she had felt at Walter’s death was one thing, but to learn that his son had now disappeared without any trace set Lovey Doll’s mind to wondering. That the two things were linked was obvious. The newspaper reports were lurid in their imaginings, with a different plot laid out for each day that Jared refused to show himself. Lovey Doll had never met the boy, but had formed the opinion that Walter was disappointed in him somehow. Could the source of the disappointment have been a suspicion that young Jared coveted his father’s riches, and was not inclined to wait and receive them in the fullness of time? Hints to that effect had been published, but the disappearance of Jared Morrow well in advance of his legal acceptance of Walter’s wealth had sent the rumormongers scurrying in twelve different directions for a motive or scenario that would explain the facts as they were known; certainly no one in Denver now accepted the notion that Walter had committed suicide. Lovey Doll had said as much herself when interviewed by the police detectives, and when they returned to question her regarding the vanishment of Jared, she told them it was not her job to solve such mysterious goings-on, and would they mind very much wiping their muddy boots before entering a clean house in future.

The question Lovey Doll truly wanted answered concerned her financial position now that Walter was gone. He had bought the house outright, but never told her if the deed was in her name or his. If the former, she was secure for the moment, but would eventually have to find work; if the latter, she was in trouble. Lovey Doll had never known permanent security in her life, and so was inclined to expect the worst.

Her expectations were confirmed when Tatum came to call. Lovey Doll was impressed by the elegant appearance of the slim young man at her door, and allowed him in when he presented a card stating that he was an employee of Walter’s bank, an institution Lovey Doll understood from the newspapers was in a state of limbo, pending an outcome to the search for Jared Morrow. She seated Tatum in the parlor and asked sweetly what brought him to her home.