Stepping over Darby’s still form, he moved to the man in the hallway who was gasping out his last few breaths. “Heard . . . heard . . . you were good,” he wheezed.
“Who sent you?” Fargo snapped, kicking the man’s gun down the hallway. “Who wanted me dead so badly that they’d send you in broad daylight?”
The man coughed blood and grinned a red smile. “You . . . you’ve got to know,” he managed. “Just . . . about . . . everyone.”
“Who?” Fargo demanded. “Who sent you?”
“To . . . hell . . . with you,” the man said; then his breath hitched one last time and he died.
“Damn it!” Fargo snarled, resisting the urge to give the dead man’s body a kick. From the bottom of the stairs, he could hear shouting and the rush of steps. He wasn’t even going to have time to search the bodies before half of New Orleans was jammed into the hallway trying to see what had happened.
From experience, Fargo knew that the law would already be on its way—there was always someone who ran for the sheriff the minute they heard gunshots. He walked back into his room to wait, reloading the Colt and taking a position by the window.
Ignoring the questions from the people in the hallway who were alternating their queries with exclamations about the two dead men, Fargo kept his silence, watching the street below.
He wasn’t particularly surprised when, several minutes later, he spotted H.D. moving down the boardwalk at a fast clip, a crowd at his heels.
Standing framed in the doorway, H.D. whistled softly at the damage, then turned and said, “Show’s over, folks. Go on about your business.” People began to drift away and H.D. kept his mouth closed until he and Fargo were alone.
“Seems like you’ve already made friends here,” he quipped. “Want to tell me what happened?”
Fargo shrugged and related the story, not embellishing the details. “They must have figured to take me somewhere outside of town and kill me,” he said. “Lots of swamps around here to hide a body in.”
“You got that right,” H.D. said. “Every so often, the tide shifts a bit and the swamp spits up a couple—usually just a few bones that the gators haven’t chewed up.” He nudged the body on the floor. “This here is Darby Trent. A local thug, does muscle work for anyone who’ll pay him when he’s not down in Anderson’s Café drinking his wages.”
He stepped back into the hall and looked at the other man. “I don’t know this one,” he said.
“They’re all the same,” Fargo replied. “Men who will kill for a few dollars and the chance to be famous.”
“Not much of a way to make a living, if you ask me,” H.D. said, stepping back into the room.
“Nope,” Fargo replied. “Then again, moonlighting as a poker dealer isn’t, either.” He moved closer to his old friend. “You want to tell me what’s really going on, H.D.?”
“Ah, hell, Fargo,” H.D. said. “All three of them asked me to do it—Parker, Beares, and Anderson. Said they could trust that I would be fair about it and I could stand to make a little extra money, what with feeding a wife and a whore these days.”
“Funny,” Fargo said. “The man I knew in Kansas wouldn’t have spent time with any of these snakes for two bits and a cold beer.”
“The man you knew in Kansas was a lot more naive than I am,” H.D. said. “There’s no law against it and I’m trying to get enough of a nest egg to retire, Fargo. I’m getting too old for this life.” He pointed a finger and added, “I notice you’re working for them.”
“I wouldn’t be,” Fargo said, “if I’d known what I was really getting into. But I accepted the job from Parker and I don’t back out of a job once I’ve taken it on.”
“Even when you find out the truth—that your employer is no better than a rattler himself?” he asked.
“I gave my word,” he replied. “I’ll see it through, but I play fair and always have. What about you, H.D.? You still playing fair?”
His friend leaned against the dresser. “Fair as I can, Fargo,” he said, sighing. “I’ve got to live here, too. You’ll move on after this, just like you always do.”
Fargo nodded, then said, “So long as you understand the rules, H.D., you’ll do all right.”
“What rules?” he asked. “I’m just dealing the cards.”
“And if I catch you doing more than that,” Fargo replied, his voice soft and menacing, “then you might live to wish I hadn’t.”
H.D. stared at him for a long moment, then nodded. “I’ve always been a straight shooter, Fargo. I’ll deal the cards that way, too.”
“Good enough,” Fargo said. He looked at the bodies on the ground and added, “Do you want help moving these down to the undertaker?”
H.D. shook his head. “No, we’ve got street urchins for that. They’ll move ’em for two bits each and be glad for the work. The parish will pick up the cost of getting ’em buried if no one comes to claim them.”
“How’s Mary making out over at your place?” Fargo asked. “She doing okay?”
“Oh, she’s fine as frog’s hair,” H.D. said. “My wife has a new friend.” He sighed heavily. “You were right, Fargo. No sane man would have two grown women in his house. They start plotting against you the minute they think you’re out of earshot.”
Fargo laughed and a sense of relief washed over him. He didn’t think H.D. was on the wrong side of things here, which would mean one less man to worry about. “What makes you think,” he asked with a grin, “that they wait even that long?”
Once he was back on the street, Fargo got the feeling that he was being watched again. He tried and almost succeeded in convincing himself that this was stupid. The problem wasn’t people behind windows noting his every move—the problem was that this was a city where virtually nobody was trustworthy. Usually when he went into a town he found the good folks right away. Not here. New Orleans was a place where there was no such thing as “the common good.” Every group you could name had a “common good,” meaning that there wasn’t much civic cooperation. It was a wonder that New Orleans had bloomed the way it had. Despite his misgivings about the place, Fargo had to admit that it was a magnificent spectacle of a city and that things only promised to get even bigger and bolder here.
Not that he’d stick around to watch.
In the afternoon before the game was scheduled to start, Fargo grabbed a quick bite at the diner next door and watched the street from the window. The blackened catfish filets he was eating were delicious and the slaw and the cornbread were homemade, but his mind wasn’t on his food but on the slow-moving groups of men circling the streets around the Blue Emporium and eyeing each other like soldiers getting ready to go to war.
It took almost a half hour, but eventually Fargo spotted the two men situated on the roof of the brothel and noted that other men had taken up positions in the alleys nearby. If things went badly tonight, a lot of people were going to die. There were too many guns and too many enemies gathered in one place.
He finished his meal and paid the bill, then stepped into the street. Beneath the brim of his hat, he saw that several sets of eyes followed his movements, but no one bothered him as he strolled around several blocks in either direction, counting the number of men that Parker, Beares, and Anderson had sent to keep watch on the brothel.
By the time he’d completed his circuit, Fargo knew that trouble was brewing and it was only a matter of time until it exploded. He remembered how, out on the plains of Nebraska, a summer storm would roll across the prairie in a black and purple line, the clouds churning and bolts of lightning zapping back and forth as it built up strength. When it hit, it did so with a ferociousness unrivaled in nature, and wise men hid in their root cellars until it was over and they could come out and inspect the damage.