Warn Angel! (A Frank Angel Western--Book 9) (7 page)

He got on the roan and moved up Latimer
Street toward Central. Denver had grown enormously, he thought,
since it had sprung up from hastily sawed planks ripped from the
flanks of Long’s Peak about a decade ago. He wondered if the men
who had made the first strikes up above Idaho Springs would
recognize this part of the country if they saw it now. There were
shops and stores and bazaars everywhere the eye moved: hardware,
sporting goods, groceries, mining equipment, and dry goods jammed
every which way in the gloomy interiors and spilling out on to the
porched sidewalks beneath a jumbled rabble of signs and advertising
come-ons, which defeated the eye they were supposed to attract. He
saw one or two places that were selling Indian trinkets, Navajo
silver, Ute jewelry. All along the boarded walks the scurrying,
head-down mass of humanity ebbed and flowed like some strangely
colored tide.

Trappers and hunters, long Hawken rifles or
bundles of pelts slung on their shoulders, mingled with the crowd,
their buckskins greasy and blackened from long seasons of
thoughtless wear; bumping their shoulders were whey-faced
asthmatics and consumptives come to breathe easier in the mile-high
atmosphere of the city or to take what was known as the ‘camp
cure’—living as tough and rough as they could stand it up in the
mountains, with guide and tent and wagon and stove until the fall
closed in, then wintering in some hotel or boarding house until
spring touched the flanks of the mountains once again with tender
green fingers. Soldiers on leave swung by, spurs a’jingle, swirling
their long navy-blue serge capes dramatically. Teamsters moved
their wagons up and down the muddy streets with strings of oaths
like foreign tongues, oaths that would have reddened the ears of
any decent woman had she heard them. Angel saw very few white
women, very few women at all if you didn’t count the Ute squaws
bundled in blankets sitting impassively at the feet of their
stone-faced spouses or trailing along the regulation three paces
behind them. Up toward the center of town he saw dapperly dressed
Fancy Dans, ‘way-up’ gamblers or confidence men, or both, jostled
by burly, bearded ranchers made to look even huger by the massive
buffalo-robe coats and leggings they affected.

The express office, with its Wells Fargo
sign outside, was packed and he decided to take a rain check on
sending his telegraph message. Another hour wasn’t going to make
that much difference, he thought: the news would be just as bad
after lunch as it was now. He saw the sign of the American Hotel
and decided to get something to eat. He was just crossing the lobby
toward the dining room when he saw George Willowfield coming down
the wide staircase.

It was just too damned good to be true.

Yet there the fat man was, elegantly dressed
in a dark blue suit with a faint pinstripe, a gleaming white shirt,
a cravat that looked like pure silk, and a stickpin that looked
like a diamond, coming down the wide curving staircase of the
American Hotel like he owned it. Angel turned away from the
entrance to the dining room and made his way across the lobby
toward the reception desk. There was no danger of Willowfield
recognizing him: he’d never seen Angel, didn’t even know he
existed. Angel leaned against one of the marbled pillars by the
desk and watched the fat man. He scanned the lobby for any sign of
Willowfleld’s henchmen, but saw no familiar face. Willowfield made
his way across the lobby and subsided into a well-upholstered wing
chair set close to the fireplace. He rested his hands on top of his
silver-capped cane, and rested his chin on his hands, gazing
sightlessly into the fire.

Angel went across to the desk.

‘
Excuse me,’ he said to the clerk.
‘Isn’t that Colonel Willowfield over there by the fire?’

The clerk followed Angel’s gaze and
smiled.

‘
That’s correct, sir,’ he said. ‘Do
you know the colonel?’

‘
Slightly,’ Angel said. ‘Are his
friends still staying with him?’

‘
Ah, I, ah, beg your pardon, sir?’ The
clerk palmed the five dollars and his face was once more wreathed
in smiles. ‘His friends, ah, no, sir. They left yesterday, I
believe. Would you like me to—?’

‘
Not now,’ Angel said. He was already
moving, walking purposefully across the lobby toward where
Willowfield was sitting. The fat man’s eyes flickered up to check
him over, and then slid away. For a moment Angel could have sworn
that there was satisfaction in them, but it wasn’t possible. He
took a seat opposite the fat man.

‘
Colonel,’ he said.

George Willowfield raised his head slightly.
He let his eyes rest on Angel, openly cataloging his travel-stained
clothing, scuffed boots, unshaven jaw. He allowed Angel to see the
contempt touch his expression and then looked away without
speaking.

‘
If I was a gambling man,’ Angel said,
unperturbed, ‘I’d say you just came into a lot of money, Colonel.
Would I be right?’

Willowfield’s head came up, sharply this
time. His eyes were narrowed and he looked at Frank Angel warily,
tension in his stance.

‘
What?’ he said. ‘What? Who are you,
sir?’

Angel told him his name and where he was
from. Willowfield looked at him for a long, silent moment, and then
shook his head sadly.

‘
Too late, sir,’ he said. ‘You are too
late.’

‘
Too late for what?’

‘
Mr. Angel, you see before you a
betrayed man,’ Willowfield said.

‘
Oh, come on!’ Angel snapped. ‘Not
that!’

‘
Alas, it’s true,’ Willowfield said.
‘They took it all, Mr. Angel. Every penny of it.’

‘
It had better be good, Willowfield,’
Angel told him. ‘Very, very good.’

‘
The truth, sir,’ the fat man said
heavily, ‘is unassailable.’

‘
Try me,’ Angel said, leaning back in
the chair. ‘Who was it—the boy?’

The fat man’s face went a pasty white, and
for a moment Willowfield’s shock showed clearly on his face.

‘
What … what do you know about the
boy?’ he croaked.

‘
I know about the boy,’ Angel said.
‘And Chris and the German. I know it all, Willowfield.’

‘
You … you were on the train?’ the fat
man whispered. Then, with growing conviction, ‘You were on the
train.’

Angel nodded. The man’s reactions were
hardly what he had been expecting; Willowfield sounded almost
relieved to hear what he had just told him.

‘
That’s how you got here so fast,’
Willowfield said. He said it like a man who has just had a
conjuring trick explained to him.

‘
You want to tell me about it?’ Angel
prompted, harshly.

‘
Yes, of course,’ Willowfield said.
‘Of course. I planned it all so well. So perfectly. It was a
perfect plan.’

‘
It was pretty good,’ Angel
agreed.

‘
Everything went like
clockwork.’

‘
Until you got to Denver. Then your
boys decided to change the scenario.’

‘
Change the scenario,’ Willowfield
nodded. ‘Yes. They shamed me.’

‘
Go on.’

‘
We came up here two nights ago. We
got in at night.’

‘
You all came here, to the
American?’

‘
Yes. We were going to share out the
money, then have a farewell dinner at the Alhambra or the Palace.
Then … ’

‘
You started to share out the
money?’

Willowfield nodded, as though unable to
continue for a moment.

‘
Where was this?’ Angel
asked.

‘
Upstairs. In my suite. I’d promised
them ten thousand each.’

‘
But when they saw you had a quarter
of a million they decided to double-cross you.’

‘
Falco,’ Willowfield said. ‘It was
Falco.’

Angel said nothing. He wasn’t about to let
Willowfield know how little he really knew about them.

‘
We were talking, laughing,’
Willowfield said. ‘I had the money ready. Ten thousand for each of
them. Then Buddy. Buddy … he … oh, my God.’

His head fell and the mountainous shoulders
heaved with remembered grief. Angel watched impassively as
Willowfield got control of himself, blowing his nose on a huge
white linen handkerchief. Several men in the lobby looked across at
them curiously, but their gaze slid away when Angel stared at
them.

‘
He had a knife,’ Willowfield
whispered. ‘Buddy had a knife. He likes to use a knife.’

‘
Like he did when he killed the man
after the wreck?’ Angel guessed.

‘
Yes,’ Willowfield said, confirming
Angel’s guess that Buddy was the name of the kid. ‘He shamed me. In
front of all of them. He made me beg for my life. He stripped me,
mocked me, jeered at me. Then he made me beg. Beg!’

His voice trailed to a maudlin stop and his
shoulders began to heave again. Then without warning the sniveling
stopped and the big head came up. Willowfield’s eyes were blazing
with a malevolence so intense that Angel could almost smell the
sulfur.

‘
They shamed me!’ the fat man hissed.
‘They robbed me, and reduced me to a groveling animal. They will
pay for that. I will see each of them dead!’

‘
You may read about it someplace,’
Angel said. ‘But that’s all.’

‘
No!’ Willowfield snarled. ‘I want
them all dead. Especially the boy. Especially the boy!’

‘
Ask the judge,’ Angel
said.

Willowfield looked at him, and there was
cunning and wariness mixed with the light of hatred behind his
eyes, and something else, something Angel could not quite identify.
Satisfaction? What had the fat man to gloat over? Angel watched as
Willowfield drew in a long, slow breath and then leaned back in his
chair, admiring the way the fat man got control of himself.

‘
Well, now,’ Willowfield said. ‘Let us
examine the matter.’

‘
Let us,’ Angel said. ‘By all
means.’

‘
You, Mr. Angel, represent the
Department of Justice, you said?’

‘
That’s right’

‘
It is, I imagine, your allotted task
to retrieve the stolen money and to bring the malefactors to the
bar of justice.’

‘
Something like that’

‘
You were very quick,’
Willowfield said. ‘Much quicker than I expected. If you had been a
few days longer, I would not have been here. I would have been on
the trail of those … those
scum,
myself.’

‘
Instead of which,’ Angel pointed out,
‘You have other commitments.’

Willowfield steepled his fingers and touched
them to his thin lips, and allowed a small smile to touch his face.
He nodded, as though coming to a decision.

‘
So be it,’ he said. ‘You prevent me
from pursuing Falco and the others. I would have remained behind
them until either they or I were dead. Now I think I will let you
do it for me.’

‘
How’s that?’ Angel said.

‘
My dear sir,’ Willowfield said. ‘If I
tell you where they are heading, you will pursue them, will you
not?’

‘
I will,’ Angel said. ‘And you know
it.’

Willowfield nodded, standing up and putting
his weight on the silver-topped cane. ‘And myself, sir?’

‘
I’ll hand you over to the United
States marshal,’ Angel told him. ‘He can keep you on ice until
you’re shipped back east for trial.’

‘
Ah,’ said Willowfield. ‘You’re
efficient, Mr. Angel. I can see that. A man after my own
heart.’

‘
Yeah,’ said Angel, getting up from
his chair. ‘Shall we walk across to the marshal’s office,
Colonel?’

‘
Oh, not yet, Mr. Angel,’ Willowfield
said. ‘Allow me to buy you lunch, sir. If you are to be the
instrument of my revenge, I want to help you in every way I can. I
will tell you all, Mr. Angel, but pray let us talk in a civilized
manner. Afterward, when we’ve eaten, we can walk across the street
to the marshal and conclude this dreary matter. What do you say,
sir?’

Angel looked at the fat man, and Willowfield
met his gaze with an expectant, open smile.

‘
No tricks?’ Angel said.

‘
My dear sir,’
Willowfield smiled. ‘Of course not. Come, let us go into the dining
room. They do a very fine steak here. Unless you prefer trout, of
course. The
truite au bleu
is memorable, sir, quite memorable.’

You had to hand it to the old renegade,
Angel thought: he had style.

Willowfield sang like a bird.

Angel identified himself to the United
States marshal for Colorado, a tall, rangy man with the deep chest
and sturdy legs of the mountain-born, and delivered the fat man
into his custody. The marshal, whose name was John Henderson, was
only too happy to assist the Justice Department by promising to
keep Willowfield on ice until an escort could be sent out to take
him back to Kansas City. Then Henderson commandeered the telegraph
office, and stood by as Angel made his long initial report over the
wires, ending it with the information that he had taken Willowfield
and asking for an escort to take him east. It would be a while
before a reply came through, and he spent the time talking to
Willowfield, filling out the picture that the fat man had given him
of the whole robbery and the men who had taken part in it.