Sleuths (6 page)

"I don't see that Barstow is a much better choice for him. Unless . . .

"Unless what?"

"Is he the kind to take a hostage?"

Quincannon shifted position on his seat. Even though this was October, usually one of the cooler months in the Mojave Desert, it was near-stifling in the coach; sweat oiled his skin, trickled through the brush of his freebooter's beard. It was crowded, too, with nearly every seat occupied in this car and the other coaches. He noted again, as he had earlier, that at least a third of the passengers here were women and children.

He said slowly, "I wouldn't put anything past Evan Gaunt. He might take a hostage, if he believed it was his only hope of freedom. But it's more likely that he'll try some sort of trick first. Tricks are the man's stock-in-trade."

"Does Mr. Bridges know how potentially dangerous he is?"

"There wasn't time to discuss Gaunt or his past in detail. If I'd had my way, the train would've been held in Needles and Gaunt arrested there. Bridges might've agreed to that if the Needles sheriff hadn't been away in Yuma and only a part-time deputy left in charge. When the station agent told him the deputy is an unreliable drunkard, and that it would take more than an hour to summon soldiers from the fort, Bridges balked. He's more concerned about railroad timetables than he is about the capture of a fugitive."

Sabina said, "Here he comes again. Mr. Bridges. From the look of him, I'd say he's very much concerned about Gaunt."

"It's his own blasted fault."

The conductor was a spare, sallow-faced man in his forties who wore his uniform and cap as if they were badges of honor. The brass buttons shone, as did the heavy gold watch chain and its polished elk's-tooth fob; his tie was tightly knotted and his vest buttoned in spite of the heat. He glanced nervously at Evan Gaunt as he passed, and then mournfully and a little accusingly at Quincannon, as if he and not Gaunt was to blame for this dilemma. Bridges was not a man who dealt well with either a crisis or a disruption of his precise routine.

When he'd left the car again, Sabina said, "You and I
could
arrest Gaunt ourselves, John. Catch him by surprise, get the drop on him . . ."

"He won't be caught by surprise—not now that he knows we're onto him. You can be sure he has a weapon close to hand and won't hesitate to use it. Bracing him in these surroundings would be risking harm to an innocent bystander."

"Then what do you suggest we do?"

"Nothing, for the present, except to keep a sharp eye on him. And be ready to act when he does."

Quincannon dried his forehead and beard with his handkerchief, wishing this was one of Southern Pacific's luxury trains—the
Golden State Limited
, for instance, on the San Francisco-Chicago run. The
Golden State
was ventilated by a new process that renewed the air inside several times every hour, instead of having it circulated only slightly and cooled not at all by sluggish fans. It was also brightly lighted by electricity generated from the axles of moving cars, instead of murkily lit by oil lamps; and its seats and berths were more comfortable, its food better by half than the fare served on this southwestern desert run.

He said rhetorically, "Where did Gaunt disappear to after he spied me with Bridges? He gave me the slip on purpose, I'm sure of it. Whatever he's scheming, that's part of the game."

"It was no more than fifteen minutes before he showed up here and took his seat."

"Fifteen minutes is plenty of time for mischief. He has more gall than a roomful of senators." Quincannon consulted his turnip watch; it was nearly two o'clock. "Four, is it, that we're due in Barstow?"

"Four oh five."

"More than two hours. Damnation!"

"Try not to fret, John. Remember your blood pressure."

Another ten minutes crept away. Sabina sat quietly, repairing one of the grosgrain ribbons that had come undone on her traveling hat. Quincannon fidgeted, not remembering his blood pressure, barely noticing the way light caught Sabina's dark auburn hair and made it shine like burnished copper. And still Evan Gaunt peered out at the unchanging panorama of sagebrush, greasewood, and barren, tawny hills.

No sweat or sign of worry on
his
face, Quincannon thought with rising irritation. A bland and unmemorable countenance it was, too, to the point where Gaunt would all but become invisible in a crowd of more noteworthy men. He was thirty-five, of average height, lean and wiry; and although he had grown a thin mustache and sideburns since their previous encounter, the facial hair did little to individualize him. His lightweight sack suit and derby hat were likewise undistinguished. A human chameleon, by God that was another reason Gaunt had avoided the law for so long.

There was no telling what had brought him to Needles, a settlement on the Colorado River, or where he was headed from there. Evan Gaunt seldom remained in one place for any length of time—he was a predator constantly on the prowl for any illegal enterprise that required his particular brand of guile. Extortion, confidence swindles, counterfeiting, bank robbery—Gaunt had done them all and more, and served not a day in prison for his transgressions. The closest he'd come was that day eight years ago when Quincannon, still affiliated with the U.S. Secret Service, had led a raid on the headquarters of a Los Angeles-based counterfeiting ring. Gaunt was one of the koniakers taken prisoner after a brief skirmish and personally questioned by Quincannon. Later, while being taken to jail by local authorities, Gaunt had wounded a deputy and made a daring escape in a stolen milk wagon—an act that had fixed the man firmly in Quincannon's memory.

When he'd spied Gaunt on the station platform in Needles, it had been a much-needed uplift to his spirits: he'd been feeling less than pleased with his current lot. He and Sabina had spent a week in Tombstone investigating a bogus mining operation, and the case hadn't turned out as well as they'd hoped. And after more than twenty-four hours on the
Desert Limited
, they were still two long days from San Francisco. Even in the company of a beautiful woman, train travel was monotonous—unless, of course, you were sequestered with her in the privacy of a drawing room. But there were no drawing rooms to be had on the
Desert Limited
, and even if there were, he couldn't have had Sabina in one Not on a train, not in their Tombstone hotel, not in San Francisco—not anywhere, it seemed, past, present, or future. Unrequited desire was a maddening thing, especially when you were in such close proximity to the object of your desire. His passion for his partner was exceeded only by his passion for profitable detective work; Carpenter and Quincannon, Lovers, as an adjunct to Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, would have made him a truly happy man.

Evan Gaunt had taken his mind off that subject by offering a prize almost as inviting. Not only were there fugitive warrants on Gaunt, but two rewards totaling five thousand dollars. See to it that he was taken into custody and the reward money would belong to Carpenter and Quincannon.

Simple enough task, on the surface; most of the proper things had been done in Needles and it seemed that Gaunt was indeed trapped on this clattering, swaying iron horse.

And yet the man's audacity, combined with those blasted fifteen minutes –Quincannon tensed. Gaunt had turned away from the window, was getting slowly to his feet. He yawned, stretched, and then stepped into the aisle; in his right hand was the carpetbag he'd carried on board in Needles. Without hurry, and without so much as an eye flick in their direction, he sauntered past where Quincannon and Sabina were sitting and opened the rear door.

Close to Sabina's ear Quincannon murmured, "I'll shadow him. You wait here." He adjusted the Navy Colt he wore holstered under his coat before he slipped out into the aisle.

The next car back was the second-class Pullman. Gaunt went through it, through the first-class Pullman, through the dining car and the observation lounge, into the smoker. Quincannon paused outside the smoker door; through the glass he watched Gaunt sit down, produce a cigar from his coat pocket, and snip off the end with a pair of gold cutters. Settling in here, evidently as he'd settled into the day coach. Damn the man's coolness! He entered as Gaunt was applying a Lucifer's flame to the cigar end. Both pretended the other didn't exist.

In a seat halfway back Quincannon fiddled with pipe and shag-cut tobacco, listening to the steady, throbbing rhythm of steel on steel, while Gaunt smoked his cigar with obvious pleasure. The process took more than ten minutes, at the end of which time the fugitive got leisurely to this feet and started forward again. A return to his seat in the coach? No, not yet. Instead he entered the gentlemen's lavatory and closed himself inside.

Quincannon stayed where he was, waiting, his eye on the lavatory door. His pipe went out; he relighted it. Two more men—a rough-garbed miner and a gaudily outfitted drummer—came into the smoker. Couplings banged and the car lurched slightly as its wheels passed over a rough section of track. Outside the windows a lake shimmered into view on the southern desert flats, then abruptly vanished: heat mirage.

The door to the lavatory remained closed.

A prickly sensation that had nothing to do with the heat formed between Quincannon's shoulder blades. How long had Gaunt been in there? Close to ten minutes. He tamped the dottle from his pipe, stowed the briar in the pocket of his cheviot. The flashily dressed drummer left the car; a fat man with muttonchop whiskers like miniature tumbleweeds came in. The fat man paused, glancing around, then turned to the lavatory door and tried the latch. When he found it locked he rapped on the panel. There was no response.

Quincannon was on his feet by then, with the prickly sensation as hot as a fire-rash. He prodded the fat man aside, ignoring the indignant oath this brought him, and laid an ear against the panel. All he could hear were train sounds: the pound of beating trucks on the fishplates, the creak and groan of axle play, and the whisper of the wheels. He banged on the panel with his fist, much harder than the fat man had. Once, twice, three times. This likewise produced no response.

"Hell and damn!" he growled aloud, startling the fat man, who turned quick for the door and almost collided with another just stepping through. The newcomer, fortuitously enough, was Mr. Bridges.

When the conductor saw Quincannon's scowl, his back stiffened and alarm pinched his sallow features. "What is it?" he demanded. "What's happened?"

"Even Gaunt went in here some minutes ago and he hasn't come out."

"You don't think he—?"

"Use your master key and we'll soon find out."

Bridges unlocked the door. Quincannon pushed in first, his hand on the butt of his Navy Colt—and immediately blistered the air with a five-jointed oath.

The cubicle was empty.

"Gone, by all the saints!" Bridges said behind him. "The damned fool went through the window and jumped."

The lone window was small, designed for ventilation, but not too small for a man Gaunt's size to wiggle through. It was shut but not latched; Quincannon hoisted the sash, poked his head out. Hot, dust-laden wind made him pull it back in after a few seconds.

"Gone, yes," he said, "but I'll eat my hat if he jumped at the rate of speed we've been traveling."

"But—but he must have. The only other place he could've gone -"

"Up atop the car. That's where he did go."

Bridges didn't want to believe it. His thinking was plain: If Gaunt had jumped, he was rid of the threat to his and his passengers' security. He said, "A climb like that is just as dangerous as jumping."

"Not for a nimble and desperate man."

"He couldn't hide up there. Nor on top of any of the other cars. Do you think he crawled along the roofs and then climbed back down between cars?"

"It's the likeliest explanation."

"Why would he do such a thing? There's nowhere for him to hide
inside,
either. The only possible places are too easily searched. He must know that, if he's ridden a train before."

"We'll search them anyway," Quincannon said darkly. "Every nook and cranny from locomotive to caboose, if necessary. Evan Gaunt is still on the Desert Limited, Mr. Bridges, and we're damned well going to find him."

The first place they went was out onto the platform between the lounge car and the smoker, where Quincannon climbed the iron ladder attached to the smoker's rear wall. From its top he could look along the roofs of the cars, protecting his eyes with an upraised arm: the coal-flavored smoke that rolled back from the locomotive's stack was peppered with hot cinders. As expected, he saw no sign of Gaunt. Except, that was, for marks in the thin layers of grit that coated the tops of both lounge car and smoker.

"There's no doubt now that he climbed up," he said when he rejoined Bridges. "The marks on the grit are fresh."

The conductor's answering nod was reluctant and pained.

Quincannon used his handkerchief on his sweating face. It came away stained from the dirt and coal smoke, and when he saw the streaks, his mouth stretched in a thin smile. "Another fact: No matter how long Gaunt was above or how far he crawled, he had to be filthy when he came down. Someone may have seen him. And he won't have wandered far in that condition. Either he's hiding where he lighted, or he took the time to wash up and change clothes for some reason."