Silver Lies (53 page)

Inez read the paper again. "This is an agreement witnessed by Joe between Cat and Chet Donnelly, a local prospector. It says that, in return for grubstaking Chet’s efforts last summer, Cat is half-owner of any claims."

Inez looked up. "Grubstaking is common enough. That’s how Tabor made his first million. He gave a couple of prospectors seventeen dollars in provisions and ended up with the Little Pittsburg."

Mattie waved her explanation away. "I know how it works. But Cat DuBois? I can see her running a parlor house, but what does she know about prospecting or mining? And what’s Joe doing in the middle of it all?"

"Joe performed a lot of assays for Chet." Inez stopped. A melody line was forming. It wasn’t clear yet, but she could almost hear it. And she didn’t like the sound.

She stared at the other two pieces of paper, still folded. White, inert, they seemed only to promise insight into disaster. "I’m not certain I want to know what’s on these." Slowly, she unfolded the second sheet.

It was one of Joe’s assaying certificates filled in for the Lady Luck claim. Even to Inez’s untrained eye, the results looked disappointing: a minor amount of silver, no gold. At the bottom, a brief notation indicated Cat had sold her half of the claim back to Chet for fifty dollars. The report was signed by Joe. Inez examined the numbers on the certificate again. She wished she had Joe’s ledger or assaying notebook with her. Had she seen this particular set of assays listed? She couldn’t remember.

Her eyes kept wandering off the numbers to the intricately engraved border surrounding the information like a stockade.

She turned to Mattie. "This is one of Joe’s assay certificates. Looks like Chet didn’t find much on this claim, the Lady Luck. He bought back Cat’s half for what she’d grubstaked him on. Well, let’s see what the coda is."

The last page was crumpled, hastily scrawled. It featured a crudely sketched map. Inez picked out Independence Pass, some directions, an "x" marked "Lady Luck." At the bottom were two signatures: Chet’s and Joe’s.

"Well?" Mattie sounded impatient.

Inez laid the three papers side-by-side, checking the dates. "This last one is dated the day after Cat sold her half of the Lady Luck back to Chet. It shows the location of the claim and states that, upon receipt of eight thousand dollars, Chet and Joe would be equal partners."

Chet’s words from that dark night in the kitchen whispered back at her:
Lady Luck don’t talk to the likes of you.

"Why would Joe buy into a worthless hole in the ground?" Inez said aloud. "It doesn’t make sense. Unless—"

"Shit!" Mattie examined her broken fingernail. "I’m getting a knife. Hold this." She dropped the package in Inez’s lap. Inez was surprised at the weight.
This is far too heavy to be currency, counterfeit or otherwise.

Mattie rummaged through a drawer at the sideboard and returned with a lethal-looking knife. "This should do it."

The thong didn’t stand a chance.

Mattie pulled the wrapping away. "What was Joe doing with these?"

Exposed, in all their glory, were two engraving plates for a United States of America twenty-dollar bill.

999

Mattie handed Inez the metal plates. Inez ran a finger over the reversed figures and numbers, and the fine whorls and curlicues of the border. Then she rubbed the sheen of oil and ink between two fingers.

Claims and counterfeiting. One is the melody, the other the harmony. Together, they form a piece of music. A song without words.

Inez spoke cautiously, "Did Joe ever mention being involved in a coney ring?"

Mattie looked aghast, as if Inez had accused her of running a charity. "Joe? You’re talking about a man who wouldn’t cash in on a free fuck from the best parlor house in the West. Joe never drank, never played cards—"

"Joe changed. He may not have had anything to do with poker, liquor, or ladies of the line before, but Leadville was a different story. And, I’m afraid my husband was partly to blame."

She briefly told Mattie about Joe and Mark’s mutual admiration society. How Mark took on the mannerisms of a respectable businessman, how Joe put on the gambler’s mien.

"That’s not all," Inez said bleakly. "Joe falsified some assay results, and the customer found out. Joe also mortgaged his business to the hilt. God knows where that money went. Maybe he paid Chet with it. Maybe he gambled it away." The plates on her lap seemed to grow heavier. "I also found a stash of counterfeit he’d hidden before he died." She decided to forgo mentioning that he’d been familiar enough with one of Cat DuBois’ women to lose his watch to her.

Mattie sat motionless, her full lips tightly compressed. Inez realized that, whereas she’d seen Joe Rose transform over time and had had a month to uncover, absorb, and accept his sins, Mattie was having to deal with Joe’s disintegration all at once.

Mattie finally sighed, lit another cigarette, and said, "Everyone wants to strike it rich, one way or another. But Joe?" She shook her head and exhaled.

Inez leaned forward. "There’s apparently a coney ring in Denver with ties to Leadville. I must bring these plates to the attention of someone who can help me. Do you know whether Treasury agents are investigating locally? I must find someone I can trust, and I haven’t much time."

Mattie stood and went to the window. She caressed the maroon velvet drape, gazing out at the black and white garden where sticks and bare trunks slumbered until the sun’s warmth could call them back to life.

She finally spoke. "Gus Brown. He’s posing as a drummer, selling paper to printers, engravers. I think he would be interested in the plates and whatever you have to say. I’ll write down the address of his hotel."

She turned, blue eyes the color of spring. "Don’t tell him I sent you."

Inez finished her tea while Mattie found a blank sheet of paper, a pen, and a bottle of ink in another drawer of the bottomless sideboard. As she wrote, she said, "So, your husband’s a gambler. Mine too. George Silks. Last I heard, he was in Leadville. Ever come across him?"

An image flashed through Inez’s mind: A tall, dark man with cavernous eyes and long mustaches. A dealer at the Board of Trade Saloon. "Hard to say," she said cautiously.

Mattie gripped the pen so tightly, Inez could see her knuckles through the skin, white on white. "He took off to make good on the silver rush without so much as good-bye. I don’t give a damn. I’ve got a man now who’s better than he ever was or will be."

Inez paused, then said, "My husband disappeared last May. I’ve…indications…that he might be in Denver. Does the name Mark Stannert sound familiar?"

Mattie waved the paper in the air to dry. "Can’t say it does." Her eyes revealed nothing. Poker player’s eyes. "If I hear something, should I send you a message?"

Inez hesitated.

"Sometimes," Mattie said, folding the paper, "when they get lost, it’s best not to find them."

The morning of New Year’s Day, Inez and Joey rode the horse-drawn streetcar through downtown Denver. Joey eyed the closed candy shops with disappointment. Inez eyed the gray shroud hanging over the distant mountains with dread. The weather window for clear travel to Leadville was closing rapidly. She hoped Gus Brown had received the note she’d left at his hotel the previous day:

Mr. Brown,

A mutual friend told me in confidence that you are a paper expert. I have some unusual samples that may be of interest. I suspect they are not genuine but require someone of your expertise to say for certain. I’ll be in the dining room of the Wentworth Hotel at one tomorrow afternoon. Look for a tall woman in gray and a young boy with dark hair. Mrs. Stannert

She’d decided not to mention the plates. They were her ace in the hole, and she would not play them unless absolutely certain about Gus Brown.

999

Noon found Inez and Joey outside the Helt Brothers Assaying Office. Inez ignored the "Closed" placard in the window and opened the door. They entered a world of dust motes and sharp chemical smells. Helt appeared from the back, wearing a sooty leather apron. His sleeves were, once again, rolled up, but this time he didn’t bother to unroll them. He was wiping his hands on a rag. "Finished up early and figured I might as well get started on another set since I’m here." He slipped the apron off and straightened his functional worsted waistcoat.

He went to the desk and opened the top drawer, remarking, "I’ve got to give you my usual speech about assay results on small samples, Mrs. Stannert. An assay’s usually considered to be representative of a ton of ore on a given orebody. With small samples like yours, I’ll not go on record saying that’s the case here. So, I noted on your assay certificate that the results apply only to what you brought in. Now, all speechifying aside, I believe I understand why you’re in such a hurry."

He set an assay certificate on the counter. "Seven hundred and forty-nine ounces of silver per ton, no gold, and fifty-two percent lead. Trace of copper." He leaned back against the desk, crossed his arms, and grinned. "Tell Mr. Stannert to dig up some more tonnage and get it assayed. If it proves out anywhere near these numbers, he’s a rich man."

999

"Are you rich now, Auntie?" Joey spooned vanilla ice-cream into his mouth.

"No more so than I was before. Considering all I’ve spent here in Denver, I’m probably a good deal poorer." Inez glanced about the hotel’s dining room. The baritone rumble of the mostly male clientele filled her ears.

"Then why did Mr. Helt say you were?"

Inez sighed and looked over at the ornate wall clock by the dining room’s entrance: one-thirty. "Those samples weren’t mine, Joey, so neither’s the fortune."
It might be Emma’s if I can find proof that Joe gave Chet eight thousand dollars. And that the samples came from the Lady Luck.

She stirred her lukewarm soup.

A square-set man hesitated at the entrance, eyes sweeping the crowd.

Inez sat up straighter.
If this is Gus Brown, he fits his name.
Brown suit, shoes, overcoat, derby hat. Middling brown hair streaked with gray and a mustache to do a walrus proud. His gaze crossed Inez’s, then came back. He waved the maitre d’ away and approached her table.

"Mrs. Stannert?" His eyes were the color of copper pennies. He lifted his hat and bowed slightly, a question in his voice, ready to apologize and retreat if necessary.

"Mr. Brown." She indicated the empty chair. "I was afraid you wouldn’t show."

"So sorry. Business at the other end of town slowed me down." He sat and removed his hat, patting his hair as if he wanted to be sure it was still there. He turned toward Joey, and the weather-beaten skin of his face pulled into a smile. "This is?"