Shoot Angel! (4 page)

Threading his way through the
crowd Angel approached the table. The girl, fast realizing that the
elderly cowman wasn
’t going to respond to her performance, began to ease away
from him. As her eyes drifted away from the cowman they came to
rest on the tall figure of a young, travel-stained individual. The
girl’s smile returned. This one looked more hopeful, she thought.
And a damn sight more interesting than the bald-headed old coot
she’d just wasted five minutes on. She wet her full lips with the
tip of her pink tongue and fluttered her long lashes.

‘
Louella?’ the young man said. He had a soft drawl to his
voice that brought a warm feeling alive in the pit of her
stomach.

‘
How
d’you know my name?’ she asked.

Frank Angel smiled easily at the girl.

‘
Got
it from a friend,’ he said. ‘Told me that when I rode through
Liberty to look up Louella. Said it wouldn’t be hard to find you.
Said to look for the prettiest girl with the prettiest red hair a
man was ever likely to see. So here I am.’

Louella sighed.

‘
I
think you and me
are going to be good friends. How about buying me a drink on
it?’

‘
Wasn’t drinking I had on my mind,’ Angel said. ‘Can’t we
find somewhere a little more private?’

‘
Why
sure, honey.’ Louella pouted. She grabbed Angel’s hand and began to
lead him towards the stairs on the far side of the saloon. ‘One
thing I do admire is a man who knows what he wants and just goes
out to get it!’ She prattled on as they climbed the stairs, moving
along the landing. Reaching the far end of the passage, Louella
paused at a door. ‘Well, here we are, honey.’

Angel pushed open the door and
gestured for Louella to precede him. She waltzed ahead of him,
swinging her rounded hips. Angel followed, closing the door quietly
behind him. He watched Louella cross the small room and absently
stroke her hand across the faded cover on the bed. She turned, a
frown on her pale young face when she realized he
hadn
’t moved
from the door.

‘
Something wrong, honey?’ she asked.

‘
No.’
Angel glanced quickly around the room. A thin smile touched his
lips as he spotted the heads of the nails that had been driven
through the lower frame of the window, securing it firmly to the
sill. A simple, but effective, precaution against a dissatisfied
client skipping without paying for his pleasure.

Louella, with all the instincts
of an
alley
cat, sensed there was more to this situation than just a young
cowboy seeking a quick roll under the sheets. She lost her smile
very suddenly and the young face turned hard and cold.

‘
Hey,
what’s going on? Who the hell are you?’

Angel eased away from the door.

‘
Just
someone who wants to ask you a couple of
questions—honey!’

‘
Ain’t
no questions gettin’ asked,’ Louella snapped. ‘Now you just get out
of my way, ’cause I’m leavin’!’

‘
Just
tell me where Harry Culp is, Louella,’ Angel said, and watched her
expression change. Before she spoke he knew Louella had met
Culp—but she was about to deny it.

‘
Who
the hell is Harry Culp? I never heard of him!’

‘
Harry’s an old friend of mine,’ Angel lied. ‘I know you met
him when he came to Liberty. All I want to know is where he got
to.’

Louella
’s eyes flickered around the room.
She wore a trapped, frightened expression. Watching her Angel
realized that there was even more to this situation than he’d first
thought. Just what had happened between Louella and Harry
Culp?

‘
Louella, just tell me where Harry is and I’ll be out of
here before you know it.’

‘
Go to
hell, you bastard!’ Louella yelled. ‘I don’t know anybody called
Harry Culp! Now, just let me alone! I got a job to do and you’re
wastin’ my time!’

Angel took a step towards her.
Louella took one look at him, then started to scream. She had a
powerful pair of lungs to match her more than
ample exterior dimensions. Her
high, seemingly endless screaming filled the room. Angel shook his
head sadly. There was little a man could do against a female in
full voice. He knew too that anyone hearing the sound was going to
assume the worst. If anyone came into the room he wasn’t going to
be given any chance at all to state his side of the argument. He
placed himself in front of her, still shaking his head. His right
fist came up in a swift, restrained arc. He clipped Louella across
the rounded tip of her chin. Her eyes glazed and she fell back
across the bed. Silence descended.

Only for a few seconds. Angel heard a sudden
pounding of footsteps in the passage. Matters were getting very
rapidly out of hand, he decided.

He moved to the window and
peered through the dusty glass. A few feet below the window he
could see the sloping roof of an extension to the main building.
Beyond that lay a dusty alley. Recalling what Jess had said about
the men hired to keep the peace at Jinty
’s Palace, Angel figured it was going
to be wiser to take the quick way out. He stepped back a couple of
feet, hunched his shoulders, and went through the window headfirst.
Above the shattering glass he heard the door crash open behind him,
voices raised in anger. Then he was outside, dropping in a
controlled roll on to the sloping roof. He let his momentum carry
him forward: towards, then over the edge. As he fell clear he heard
the solid crack of a shot. The bullet clipped the edge of the roof,
splitting the weathered wood. The alley rushed up to meet him.
Twisting his body Angel hit on his feet, absorbing the impact in
another roll forward.

He came to his feet quickly,
hugging the wall below the sloping roof as he cut off towards the
street. He didn
’t hesitate but stepped on to the street and walked
straight to where his horse stood at the hitching rail. Calmly he
loosened the reins and led the horse away from the front of Jinty’s
Palace. He was working on the assumption that it was going to take
a couple of minutes for the men up in Louella’s room to got
themselves organized and to follow him. They would probably decide
against following him through the window and across the roof in
case he happened to be waiting for them in the alley. So they would
have to retrace their steps back through the saloon, making their
way through the crowd of customers. And by that time …

~*~

Angel walked his horse on by
the restaurant. He would have liked to stop off for another talk
with Jess but he didn
’t think the time was right. He needed to find a
place where he could sit and think things out. He hadn’t forgotten
about the two deputies either. From what he’d seen of them and the
way Jess had spoken of the local sheriff, Angel ruled out enlisting
any kind of help from Liberty’s law.

He found a dingy, run-down
hotel up at the north end of town. It was close to the complex of
cattle-pens that had been built during the early
years of Liberty’s
existence. A toothless old Mexican waited with inborn patience
while Angel unstrapped his gear and took his rifle. As Angel kicked
dust from his boots on his way inside the old man led the horse
away to the stable at the rear of the building. Wrinkling his nose
at the stale air inside the stuffy lobby Angel banged his rifle
butt against the scarred top of the desk. A listless figure levered
itself from the shadows in back and shuffled into the dim
light.

‘
You
want a room?’

‘
They
do tell me that’s what these places are for,’ Angel
said.

The desk clerk sneered, the closest he could
get to a smile, and fished a key off the board behind him.

‘
You
stayin’ long?’

‘
Maybe.’

‘
Two
dollars a day.’

Angel paid for a couple of days.

‘
You
let me know when that runs out,’ he said.

The clerk nodded.
‘Up the stairs.
First door on the left.’

Inside the shabby room Angel dumped his
belongings on the bed. He turned and locked the door. He crossed
the room and spent a couple of minutes fighting the warped window,
eventually getting it to open.

There was a washstand leaning
against one dirt-streaked wall, with a chipped mirror hanging above
it. The water in the big jug had a film of dust
on its surface. Angel poured
some into the basin and rinsed his face. He peered at himself
through the mirror, stroking his face. He turned to his saddlebags
and pulled out a rolled towel. Inside the towel was his razor and a
cake of soap. He spent long minutes working up a lather with the
cold water, then carefully shaved. When he’d finished he took off
his dirty shirt and pulled on the remaining clean one from his
saddlebag. He unbuckled his gun belt and draped it from the corner
of the tarnished brass bed head. Then he stretched his long frame
out on the worn blankets. Somewhere in this town was the answer to
his question: what had happened to Harry Culp? Angel had
established beyond doubt that Culp had stopped off in Liberty. He
wasn’t so certain now that the man had ridden on. If that was true
then where was Harry Culp? And where was the $75,000 the man had
been carrying with him? Had somebody found out about Culp’s money?
It could be a reason for his apparent disappearance. Men had
vanished for a lot less than $75,000. Even killed for less. Angel
didn’t rule out the possibility. He decided to wait until it was
dark and then make another try at getting Louella Brill to talk. He
was sure she knew more than she was prepared to admit. He wanted to
know what she’d done to earn the fifty dollars Jess had overheard
her mention. Angel wanted another chance to talk to Jess too. There
were things he wanted to find out about Liberty and its
law.

He let himself relax. He had a
few hours before nightfall. A chance to catch up on some of the
sleep he
’d
missed over the past few nights. He couldn’t go on forever without
some rest and now was as good a time as any. He didn’t realize how
tired he was. How much in need of sound sleep.

He didn
’t see the afternoon shadows
lengthen. Nor was he aware of the softening light, the setting sun
bathing the town in muted orange tones. He slept through the dusk
as lamps were lit against the approaching darkness, and only
stirred restlessly at some near-at-hand noise. At first it didn’t
register … and when it did he fought against the drug of sleep,
clawing his way to consciousness … but he was too late.

They came at him out of the
shadows, harsh whisperings reaching his ears. Angel lunged up off
the bed, snatching for the Colt, but he didn
’t have a chance to reach it.
Hard, brutal blows smashed at his body, caught his face. He was
thrown back across the bed, stunned, wild with anger. He lashed out
with booted feet, satisfaction surging hotly as he felt flesh
connect with the hard leather. A man yelled obscenely. Hands caught
hold of Angel, dragging him from the bed, He grunted in agony as a
crippling blow took him in the stomach. He stumbled to the floor.
Someone kicked him, pain flaring across his ribs. Now he could
taste blood in his mouth. Christ, he thought, they’re going to kill
me! The thought flashed a warning across his mind, and he made to
reach for one of the slim-bladed throwing knives concealed in the
tops of his boots. There was no chance. A great weight smashed down
across his skull, driving him face down on the dirty floor, and he
knew no more.

He woke to throbbing pain, his
body reacting to the savage beating. He lay on the hard, cold floor
of the shadowed cell, staring through the iron bars. At the far end
of a short passage he could see lamplight showing beneath a closed
door. At last Angel sat up, groaning against the brutal swell of
pain. There was a dull ache over his ribs and the left side of his
face felt swollen and pulpy. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom
Angel found he could make out the shape of a low cot. He struggled
to his feet and staggered across the cell. He lowered himself on to
the cot, pulling the thin blanket around his body. He lay there and
waited for something to happen. There was little else he could do.
He
’d taken a
sound beating and it was going to be a few hours before he was
recovered enough to handle any coming situation.

One way and another he seemed
to have upset a few people in Liberty. He was curious to see what
they might do next. Whoever they were. He was
pretty certain that Liberty’s
law was involved. The why of it would explain itself in
time.

Angel reached beneath the
blanket, fingers searching the tops of his boots. A thin smile
touched his bruised lips. At least they hadn
’t found his pair of knives.
The slim, deadly Solingen steel blades, concealed in sheaths that
had been incorporated in the linings of his boots, had pulled him
out of trouble on more than one occasion. And there was always the
thin wire garrotte secreted in a shallow groove in his leather
belt. They were the tools of Angel’s trade. If the need to use them
ever arose he wouldn’t hesitate. It was a lesson Angel had learned
early: in a life or death situation there was no room for
hesitation.