He didn’t like them.
He packed a few of his things into his saddlebags, went outside and saddled his horse, then left the horse a safe distance fron the house. That done, he very methodically set fire to the house where he had lived with his beautiful wife, walking around it with a torch, making sure that it would burn evenly and completely.
That done he put out the torch and stood back to examine his handiwork. He watched it burn for a while, then turned and mounted his horse. He rode away and did not look back once. As he was riding away he wondered just how far ahead of him Decker was.
In his past, most men would have died on the spot for the things Decker had said to him, but Decker was his friend, and had said those things out of friendship. Of this Tomàs was very sure.
When he found him, however, he still owed him at least a punch in the nose.
Tomàs de la Vega was moving back among the living.
Chapter Nineteen
“You want to do what?” Red Moran asked Crystal.
“I want to open a real high-class cathouse, right here in San Louisa.”
“That’s crazy,” he said, laughing.
They were together in his bed at the hotel, she lying on her back and he sitting up.
“Why?”
“This is a little, sleepy town. I wouldn’t want to see it change.”
“Maybe the people who live here all the time would feel different. Maybe they’d want it not only to change, but to grow. Did you ever think about that?”
“No,” he admitted. “I don’t usually think beyond what I want.”
“Look, Red,” she said, sitting up and putting her hand on his left arm, “we’ve only known each other less than a week, now, but I think we’re two of a kind.”
“Both from Texas?”
“More that that. I think that maybe whatever money you’ve got you didn’t get…playing fair.”
“That’s a good way of putting it.”
“But look at the position we’re in? You’re the law here, and you’re probably also the richest man in the town.”
“That ain’t sayin’ much,” he said, “not in this town, anyway.”
“Hear me out. I would already have two pretty good girls working for me—Carmen and Rosa.”
“If you could keep them from fighting.”
“They only fight over you, and they don’t even do that anymore.”
“Not since you came along.”
“We could get us a few more girls and build us a nice little business. Whaddya say, Red? Your money and my…talent?”
Red rubbed his jaw and while he did Crystal’s hand slid down and began to rub something else of his.
“Cut that out,” he said, slapping her hand away. “I can’t think if you do that.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t think you’re gonna sweet talk me into this, Crystal. If I go for this it will be because it’s a good deal—and because we meet my conditions.”
“What conditions?”
“Well,” he said, thoughtfully, “for one thing, I don’t think the town has to necessarily benefit from this operation of yours.”
“What do you mean? We’d benefit and the town wouldn’t?”
“I’d like to keep the town just the way it is, and to tell you the truth, I don’t think they’d much mind.”
“So we’d take in all the profits, and the town would stay out of the action?”
“We wouldn’t have to let everybody know about the place,” Red Moran said, “just certain people.”
“People with money to spend.”
“Right.”
“On women.”
“Right.”
“Then…we’re partners?”
“That depends,” Moran said.
“On what?”
“On how much you need to set this thing up.”
“Well, I could buy that old rooming house I’m staying in real cheap, get some of the locals to come in and fix it up for me real cheap…I guess I don’t really need all that much.”
“How much is not all that much?”
She told him.
“By golly,” he said, breathing a sigh of relief, “I think I can swing that.”
I’ll bet you can, Crystal thought, pushing him down on the bed, and I’ll just bet there’s a lot more where that came from.
“Now wait a minute, wait a minute,” Moran said, pushing her away.
“What?”
“Before we get all tangled up here there’s just one more thing we need to talk about.”
“Crystal’s.”
“What?”
“You were gonna say that we need to talk about the name of the place.”
“That’s right.”
“I’ve already got a name,” she said. “Crystal’s.”
“Why Crystal’s?”
“Because even though we’ll be using your money honey we’re gonna have to use my name.”
“Why?”
“Would you want to go to a whorehouse called ‘Red’s’ or ‘Moran’s’?”
“I guess not.”
“Besides, if you didn’t get that money by fair means, you don’t really want to advertise the fact that you’re down here in Mexico, do you?”
“Why not? The law can’t touch me.”
“But a bounty hunter might.”
He frowned. A bounty hunter! He hadn’t really considered that possibility.
“They wouldn’t put a big enough price on me for a bounty hunter to want to come all the way down here.”
“I wouldn’t know, sweetie. I don’t know what you did, but it still seems to me we’re better off calling it Crystal’s. Has sort of a ring to it, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, I suppose it does.”
“Then we have a deal?”
“We have a deal.”
He put his hand out for her to shake and she said, “You gotta be kidding,” and pushed him back down on the bed.
Chapter Twenty
“What do you mean ‘we lost him’?” Raquel demanded. “We have been following his trail for better than four days, how could we lose him?”
“I am not a trailsman,” Gilberto said, testily “I have sent Juan, Martinez and Orlando on ahead to try and pick up the trail again.”
“Ha!” she laughed, derisively. “We will be lucky if they can find their way back to us.”
“Raquel, there are times—”
“Just remember the times that I have gotten you out of jail, my brother, and forget about all the other times. If it wasn’t for me, you would be sitting in a jail cell right this minute.”
That was hard to argue with, so Gilberto simply sat and sulked.
When they were alone there was an amazing switch in personalities. In the company of their bandido band there would never have been any question that Gilberto was the dominant sibling, but if anyone had ever seen them alone there would have been no doubt that Raquel dominated him. Although Gilberto was the older by almost five years, it had been Raquel who had brought her older brother up after their parents died.
It was Raquel who was taking charge now.
“We will stop studying the ground in vain and simply travel south. We should be able to find out whether he has passed through the next town or not.”
“And then?”
“And then the town after that!” she snapped, testily. “We will find him, ’berto, and then you can play big tough bandido leader again—unless some chubby puta pushes herself in your face again.”
“Raquel…” Gilberto said, feebly.
Sometimes Raquel thought that her brother should have perished in the same fire that claimed their parents. They might both have been better off.