Louisiana Laydown (16 page)

“How much?” H.D. asked, his curiosity getting the better of his usually quiet nature.

“Enough,” Anderson said, “that even if I lose tonight, I can always start building a new Storyville somewhere else. I understand that the weather in California is most agreeable.”

“Another liar,” Beares said. “If you had that much, you wouldn’t be here tonight, playing for the stakes we’ve agreed on.”

Anderson put his next ante in the middle of the table and didn’t bother to reply. He simply looked at H.D. and said, “Let’s keep going, shall we?”

They were almost four hours into the game and had lost two players. The ones remaining, Fargo knew, would last quite a bit longer and he settled himself in for a long night of watching. So far, no one had been cheating that he could see.

Hattie refilled everyone’s drinks, then took up her station behind the bar for another half hour before she said, “Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me, I need to check on the girls upstairs.”

“Of course,” Parker said, getting to his feet. “We aren’t going anywhere.”

“Should we take a break?” Beares asked, also rising. “Until you return?”

“Come on,” Anderson snapped. “We don’t need a woman here to play cards, do we? Let’s keep this thing moving along.”

“Whatever you say,
Mayor
,” Beares snapped. “I suggest we take a break.” He looked at the others for support and saw none forthcoming.

“Well, to hell with it,” he said. “I’m taking a damn break. Come along, Hattie. I’ll escort you upstairs.”

It finally seemed to sink in to Parker what Beares really wanted to take a break for and he said, “I think I’ll come along, too. I could use some fresh air.”

“I’m stunned,” Anderson said, laughing. “It’s taken this long for the two of you to figure out that you’re both sleeping with that woman?”

“I am not!” Beares stammered. “How dare you accuse—”

“I’ll dare whatever the hell I want,” Anderson interrupted. “You two want to fight over Basin Street and Storyville. I built them up from nothing. But I wasn’t being led around by the balls while I was doing it.”

Hattie whistled sharply, already at the door. “This is a pointless argument, gentlemen,” she said. “Since I won’t be bedding anyone tonight.”

“And that,” H.D. muttered under his breath, “truly is a shame.”

Hattie, Parker, and Beares headed upstairs, while Anderson and H.D. sat and smoked.

Fargo stayed put for several minutes, then he moved to stand next to H.D. “Can you keep an eye on things here for a few minutes?”

“Why’s that?” H.D. asked.

“Just a feeling—” Fargo started to say, when the sound of gunshots echoed through the building. “Ah, damn it to hell,” he said, running from the room and wondering which of the men was dead.

The acrid smell of gunpowder still hung in the air when Fargo reached the top of the steps, with H.D. and Anderson hot on his heels. The front door of the Blue Emporium was standing open, and lying face-down in a pool of his own blood was Senator Beares.

Hattie was standing over the body, her back to the stairs and a small pistol in her hand, while Parker stood next to the door, his mouth hanging open in shock.

“What the hell happened up here?” Fargo demanded.

Hattie spun toward him, and he quickly reached out and disarmed her. A woman with a gun was a dangerous thing in almost any circumstance, which Fargo knew from hard-won experience.

H.D. took the pistol from Fargo’s hand and demanded his own explanation.

“I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re suggesting,” ]Hattie snapped.

“I hadn’t suggested it yet,” H.D. said. “But you are the one standing here with a gun and Senator Beares looks pretty dead to me.”

“She didn’t do it,” Parker said. “We . . . Beares opened the door and there was someone standing on the steps, waiting for him. He shot Beares and Hattie pulled out her pistol and fired back, but the villain had already fled down the steps and into the street.”

Fargo stepped over Beares’ body and looked out on the street, where curiosity about the shot was bringing people outside. He scanned the crowd, but the dark made most of the faces virtually anonymous. He knelt down on the steps, looking for any traces of blood. “There’s no sign here,” he said to H.D. “No blood except for Beares’.”

“Hattie,” H.D. said. “I’ve got to take you in for questioning and send a couple of men over to pick up Senator Beares’ body.”

“Questioning?” Hattie snapped. “Why? Senator Parker just vouched for me.”

“I’m aware of your relationship with Senator Parker, ” H.D. said. “And it makes sense that he’d want to protect you—and his investment in the Blue Emporium. You need to come with me.”

“This . . . this is outrageous!” Hattie screeched. “Why would I kill Senator Beares?”

“I don’t know,” H.D. said. “But you can tell me all the reasons you wouldn’t down at the jail.”

“Is this absolutely necessary?” Parker demanded. “We have a game to finish.”

“Not really,” Anderson said, coming up the stairs for a second time.

“What do you mean by that?” Parker asked.

“Horn is gone,” Anderson said. “And so is our money.”

“Game called on account of murder,” Fargo said. “Perfect.”

“Why are you up here, Fargo?” the senator asked. “
You
were supposed to be downstairs watching over our money.”

“No, Senator,” Fargo said. “I was supposed to be watching the players, remember? That’s what you hired me for. When the players split up, I had to make a choice. I chose to stay downstairs until the shooting started up here.”

“Damn it all to hell!” Parker shouted. He stepped outside and walked down the steps. “Michaels, Douglas! Get over here!”

Two men drifted in from the crowd and Parker spoke rapidly to them, no doubt sending them out to search for Horn and the missing money. He came back up the steps and said, “They’ll find him.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Fargo said. “All of this, I think, was pretty well planned.” He turned to Hattie. “Wasn’t it, Miss Hamilton?”

“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about!” she snapped.

“Why don’t you take her away now, H.D.?” Fargo suggested. “I’ll come by in a bit and see if I can help you shed some light on this mess.”

“You do that, Fargo,” he said. He took Hattie by the arm and began walking her down the steps. Her voice rose to a screeching protest that faded as he moved her down the street at a rapid walk.

“What are you going to do now, Fargo?” Anderson asked.

“What I do best,” Fargo replied. “I’m going to find Horn.”

“This isn’t the wilderness, Fargo,” Senator Parker said. “There are no tracks in the dust for you to follow.”

“I don’t quit that easily, Senator Parker,” Fargo said. “I’ll find him and bring him back.”

“Just make sure you don’t lose your way,” he said. “With all our money.”

Anderson chuckled grimly. “I think maybe you hired the wrong kind of man, Parker,” he said. “Fargo doesn’t strike me as the kind of fellow who would do such a thing.”

“Maybe,” the senator admitted. “But it’s more likely that my men will find him first.”

“And then where will our money go?” Anderson asked. “And that doesn’t even begin to address the true stakes we were playing for.”

“No, it doesn’t, does it?” Parker replied. “Perhaps we’ll have to work out another arrangement later.”

“This is my part of town,” Anderson said. “If you want it, you’ll either win it or take it by force. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to give it to you just because you threaten me.”

“You’re fighting a losing battle, Anderson,” he replied. “Sooner or later, all of this will belong to me.”

“I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”

“That’s enough,” Fargo said. “I’m not going to stand here all night while you two work yourselves up to a fight. Go on back to your places and I’ll get to work.”

Parker waved a hand dismissively. “Whatever you say, Fargo. Just be sure that if you do find Horn, you come back with our money.”

Anderson didn’t speak, just turned and stalked out into the night. Several men fell in next to him as he moved down the street, and Fargo watched long enough to make sure they were gone, then waited until Parker, too, found some men to bring up his carriage and drive him back to his mansion. Inwardly seething, Fargo started into the warren of streets surrounding the Blue Emporium.

Somehow, Horn had slipped out with a lot of money and half the thugs in the city would be on his trail. But Fargo knew that sometimes the fastest way to track a man was to follow instinct instead of a trail. He’d meant to play the people tonight, and had been played himself.

It was not a sensation that he enjoyed very much at all, and he was certain that Hattie was mixed up in the whole thing somehow. But before he could prove that, he’d have to catch Horn and get the money that had been stolen.

Worse still, if his suspicions about those involved were correct, he had more enemies right now than Horn himself.

The city streets were quiet once more when, two hours after the shooting, Fargo slid around the back side of the Blue Emporium. He’d wanted to listen to H.D. question Hattie, but his instincts told him that Horn hadn’t gone all that far.

Kicking a scavenging rat out of his way, Fargo moved to stand beside the door that led into the kitchen. Inside, Matilda alternately spoke and sang softly to herself. She had a sweet voice that carried long, low notes of melancholy in it. He imagined that working for Hattie Hamilton would do that to most anyone.

After waiting almost a half hour more, he heard Matilda mutter, “Lord God, but that man does like his vittles, don’t he?”

As far as Fargo knew, there were no men left inside the Blue Emporium, so he continued to trust his instincts and silently opened the back door and stepped into the shadows that surrounded it. Matilda was standing at the counter, her head wrapped up in a towel of some kind and wearing a housedress that was so large it could have served as a field tent for any two normal-sized soldiers.

She was making a large plate of food, most of it out of the cold storage box set into one wall. Fried chicken, cut-up carrots, and coleslaw covered the plate. She added two cold buttermilk biscuits and a large pat of butter. “That ought to do him,” she muttered. “And if it doesn’t, he can damn well make more for his own self.”

Fargo was considering his options when his instincts tried to scream a warning, but it was too late. He felt the cold steel barrel of a pistol pressed up against the back of his skull.

“You don’t want to move, Mr. Fargo,” Horn said from behind him. “Not even a twitch until I say so, understood?”

“I understand,” Fargo said. “I guessed you were still here.”

“You’re a good guesser,” Horn said. “Or just a bit smarter than the others.”

Matilda watched with wide-eyed interest from the kitchen as Horn pushed Fargo into the dimly lit space. “Mr. Horn!” she said. “Why on earth you puttin’ a gun to that man’s head? I thought you wanted to eat!”

“Sit down, Fargo,” Horn said, moving him toward one of the chairs. “Maybe we can talk a bit.”

Fargo sat down and finally managed to get a look at Horn’s face. He appeared tired, but his eyes were still watchful. “You don’t want my guns?” Fargo asked.

“Not unless I have to have them,” Horn said. He sat down heavily in another chair, but kept his gun aimed and ready. “We need to talk.”

Matilda set the plate down on the kitchen table next to Horn’s elbow and said, “I’m goin’ back to my sleep, Mr. Horn. If you need something else, you’re already in the kitchen.”

“Fair enough,” Horn said. “Thank you, Matilda, and good night.”

“Good night,” she said, heading through a door Fargo hadn’t seen which led into the second sitting room, where Horn had been waiting for him.

Once she was gone—her heavy tread making the stairs above their heads creak alarmingly—Horn said, “Good, now we can have a talk without listening to that woman ramble.”

“So, talk,” Fargo said, wondering where this was leading.

Horn reached inside his coat and pulled out a badge. “The name’s not Horn,” he said. “It’s James McKenna. I’m a Pinkerton agent.”

The light dawning, Fargo nodded. “So where’s the real Horn?” he asked.

“Dead,” McKenna said. “I had hoped to use him to find out more about Parker, Beares, and Anderson, but when I went out to his plantation, I found him in his parlor, dead maybe one or two days. It looked like a heart attack, maybe. He was slumped over his desk, and I guess it’s a lucky thing I showed up. All of the money he’d planned on using for this game was in stacks on his desk.”

“None of his workers had bothered it?” Fargo asked, amazed.

McKenna laughed. “Apparently, he’d told them not to disturb him, no matter what.”

“They took his orders seriously, I take it,” he said.

“I’m pretty sure they heard him collapse,” McKenna said, “and just left him in there to die. Horn wasn’t a very nice man, by all accounts.”

“How is it that Parker or Beares didn’t recognize that you weren’t Horn?” Fargo asked. “I assumed they knew him.”

“They did,” McKenna said, “but only through correspondence. Horn’s plantation is up near Lafayette. He was known by reputation to be something of a gambler.”

“I’ll be damned,” Fargo said. He gestured to the gun in McKenna’s hand. “How long do you suppose you’re going to keep pointing that thing at me?”

“Just one question,” McKenna said, “before I put it away.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Are you sleeping with Hattie Hamilton, too?”

“Hell, no,” Fargo said. “I prefer my women to be poison free, and she’s the kind that might be death in the sack.”

“Good,” he said, putting the gun back into its holster. “Because then I don’t have to shoot you. Before this is done, I imagine I’m going to have to kill every man involved in this who’s been sleeping with her.”