“I’ve tried,” Chester said. “Although, the truth be told, it was my wife who insisted we talk to a lawyer and have papers drawn up.”
“You still haven’t said how much the fee will be,” Paunch noted. “No one mentioned anything about any damn fee.”
“Surely you did not think you could kill for free?” Chester replied. “Each of you must obtain a permit.”
The door at the back opened and in came Sally Worth. She had brushed her hair and changed into her best dress. “How do I look now?” she asked Paunch Stevens, but he did not answer.
“How much do these permits cost?”
“One hundred dollars.”
“Each?” Paunch said in amazement.
“Each,” Chester said. “Then there is the burial cost. Another fifty from each of you, to be used only if you are killed and returned to you if you are not.”
“Let me get this straight,” Paunch said. “You expect us to give you one hundred and fifty dollars before we can squeeze a trigger?”
“That is correct,” Chester confirmed.
“Why, that is nothing but out and out robbery,” Paunch complained, “and I, for one, will not stand for it. I came here to kill this English son of a bitch and that is exactly what I aim to do.” With that, Paunch stabbed a hand for his Smith & Wesson.
Chapter 14
Seamus Glickman was the only one in the sheriff’s office when Aces Weaver hurried in. Seamus looked up from the Illustrated Police News and nodded in friendly greeting. He had played cards with Weaver a few times. Then Seamus saw the expression on the gambler’s face. “If it is trouble I do not want to hear about it.”
“It could be trouble,” Aces Weaver said.
“I do not want to hear it.” Seamus resumed reading and did his best to ignore the man standing barely three feet from his desk. But he could not ignore Weaver’s feet. They poked into the edge of his vision like unwanted intruders. “Why haven’t you left yet?”
“I need to talk to someone,” Aces said. “If not you, then Sheriff Hinkle.”
“He is in court, giving testimony,” Seamus revealed. “He will not be in until later today, if then.”
“One of the deputies, then?” Aces hopefully asked.
“All performing official duties,” Seamus said. “I have been left to hold down the fort.”
“Who is upholding the law?”
“Very funny,” Seamus said, but he was not amused, not in the least. Irritated, he tried to concentrate on the lurid account of a buxom young woman from Philadelphia who fell into the clutches of opium fiends. The drawings that accompanied the story were enough to make a prostitute blush.
“I will wait for a deputy, then,” Aces said.
“Like hell you will. I do not intend to sit here all day being assaulted by your feet.”
“My what?”
“I know I will regret asking,” Seamus said, “but what is so all-fired important that it can’t wait?”
“It is about Coffin Varnish.”
“Why did I ask?” Seamus spread the newspaper on his desk and leaned on his elbows to read it. “I guess you haven’t heard. There is to be no mention of that wretched excuse for a town in my presence.”
“What do you have against Coffin Varnish?”
“What don’t I?” Seamus retorted. “The mayor’s backbone is in his wife’s body. The saloon owner is drinking his own saloon dry. The town whore is old enough to have been around before the Flood. And the entire population consists of two bean-eaters, a family of pope lovers, and a Swede with less brains than my little toe. Shall I go on?”
“You didn’t mention the notice in the newspaper,” Aces Weaver said. “Inviting folks to go there and kill each other.”
“You had to remind me of that, didn’t you?”
“It is why I am here.”
Resigned to the fact that the gambler was not going to leave unless shooed away, Seamus reluctantly stopped reading about the buxom young woman and sat back. “All right. Since you persist in being a pest, I will listen to what you have to say. Then you will leave and never grace our doorstep again for as long as you live.”
“You are joshing me, right?”
“Of course,” Seamus said. “Now out with it. The Arabs have just got their hands on Pearl Trueblood and I am anxious to learn her fate.”
“Arabs?” Aces said. “Here in Dodge?”
Seamus tapped the Police News. “Get to the point of your visit. You are sorely trying my patience.”
“Do you know Club Caine?”
“He owns a freight line.”
“And Paunch Stevens?”
“He owns half of Front Street. Two of our city’s more prominent citizens, I would say.”
“They won’t be prominent much longer. They left this morning for Coffin Varnish to kill each other.”
Seamus stiffened in alarm. This was serious business. Caine was a close personal friend of people high in state government, and Stevens had strong political ties to a senator. “Please tell me it is you who is joshing me?”
“I would like to but I can’t.”
“What put them at odds?”
“I believe her name is Harriet Fly. I have not met the lady myself, but I understand she boasts the biggest melons this side of the Mississippi.”
“Caine and Stevens left earlier, you say?” Seamus asked, rising.
“I don’t know exactly when. To be honest, I didn’t expect them to go through with it. But Joe Gentile told me he saw Caine ride out a couple of hours ago, heading north.”
“A couple of hours?” Seamus consulted the clock on the wall. “Damn. They are probably there by now.”
“Most likely,” Aces agreed. “About all you can do is pick up the pieces.”
Seamus gave the artistic rendering of Pearl Trueblood a last longing gaze, then made for the door. “At least I will have tried.”
Ernestine Prescott found it hard to concentrate on the American Revolution when all she could think of was Jeeter Frost. She could still feel his lips on hers even though he had slipped away from the schoolhouse well before dawn so as to avoid being spotted by early risers.
Ernestine nearly giggled. Her behavior had become downright wicked. If the parents of her charges learned what she was doing, they would dismiss her without hesitation. A schoolmarm was expected to be the living embodiment of moral and ethical virtue. Much to her surprise, and great delight, she had discovered she was, after all, as human as the next woman.
Ernestine had never met a man like Jeeter. He wasn’t cultured or educated. He wasn’t rich. But there was something about him, some quality she could not define, that made him irresistible. When she was around him, all she wanted to do was touch him. Her, of all people. She had never been with a man in her life, and only ever kissed one once, and here she was, behaving like a hussy and jeopardizing her teaching career.
Suddenly Ernestine became aware that her charges were staring at her. “Who can tell me why the minutemen were called that?” She scanned the rows and pointed at her brightest student. “How about you, Sarah?”
Instead of answering, Sarah raised her hand and pointed at the window. That was when it dawned on Ernestine that her class was not staring at her; they were staring at something behind her. She turned, half fearing Jeeter had broken his promise to stay away during school hours, and felt her stomach tighten at the sight of a middle-aged couple, the parents of Billy Doughty, the class troublemaker. She smiled at them but they did not return the smile. Puzzled, she motioned for them to come around to the front of the schoolhouse.
“Why are your parents here, Billy?” Ernestine asked as she went past his desk. She had talked to them a month ago when Billy saw fit to bring a garter snake into class to try and scare the girls.