Tough Bullet Read online

  “Like to see Corley,” I told him.

  He had a wide pink face going white like a cooked and partly eaten ham—after the feeders leave the parts they don’t like, and the meat gets dry. A somewhat eaten ham with damp ribbons of white hair on top, with unworried wrinkles in front under the hair, smart pig eyes and a pig’s mouth.

  “So would I,” he said, smiling like a city bartender. “Mr. Harkins ain’t been in much lately.”

  I was tired, in trouble. Mostly I was tired of New Orleans. I knew he was lying. Maybe it was the detective’s iron hat. It was kind of a silly way to talk. I said: “Listen, sow-face—here or not, you tell Harkins Carmody wants to see him. Mention the Fourth of July, 1880—he’ll understand.”

  “This way,” pig-face said when he came back. He jerked his pink thumb at a door at the end of the long bar and behind it.

  By Christ, there was old Gordy Hindman himself behind a desk that didn’t suit an old stage line robber. I don’t know how old Gordy was when he retired and put his cache together and headed east to New Orleans. I don’t know— maybe fifty-five, maybe older than that. Maybe he was sixty and if that was so, now he was seventy after ten years—and looked eighty. Either he was sick or city life didn’t agree with him, which to me was the same thing.

  The pig-faced bartender unlocked the door to the office, and after I was in he locked it again. The office behind the saloon was a lot fancier than the saloon itself. Gordy Hindman—Corley Harkins—was fancier than I’d ever known him. Old and fancy. The fancy couldn’t hide the old, the tired.

  It took him a while to say, “Hello, Carmody, Still a big hit with the ladies, I hear.”

  The old thief’s cackle turned into a fit of coughing that threatened to kill him. He mopped his mouth with a handkerchief that looked like a small tablecloth. He still wanted to enjoy his joke this time he cackled more carefully.

  “Not to mention the Chief of Detectives. The son of a bitch!” Hindman added, screwing up his watery eyes. “You should of finished Basso when you had the chance. ’Stead of just breaking his head.”

  There was a sideboard with bottles on it. I helped myself. On Hindman’s desk there was a half-eaten bowl of oatmeal and beside it a glass of milk. The old bastard licked his lips when I threw back the whiskey.

  “Word sure gets around,” I said. “The whole thing didn’t happen more than a few hours back.”

  “Gertie was kind of a prominent citizen,” Hindman said. “People just love a dirty murder. Captain Basso’s a prominent citizen, too. Not to mention yourself.”

  I put more whiskey in the glass. “I didn’t kill Gertie,” I said.

  “Sure, Carmody. It’s no skin off my ass. You want me to help you get out of the city, is that it? I guess that can be arranged, for old times’ sake.”

  “That isn’t what I want,” I told him. “What I want is information. Maybe some money. You think old times are worth that much?”

  “You think I owe you something?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  I figured I’d rob him if he said no. And kill him if I had to.

  Maybe he knew what I was thinking. Most likely that’s what he would have done in my place. What he said was, “I owe you a favor. One favor. But I’ll be the one that decides how big. I ain’t scared, you understand. I’m too old and sick to be scared. More tired is what I am. Take a tip from me, Carmody. Get yourself killed before the time comes for oatmeal.”

  “That won’t be for some time,” I reminded him. “Now you want to listen or not?”

  Having me around made the old thief’s stomach act up. He sucked on his milk while I outlined the business with Gertie and the other business with Basso and Sam Nails that came after it.

  Just hearing about it seemed to cheer him up. He wheezed at the fun of it. “Lord, but you been busy,” he said. “Basso’s going to chase you good. Now what was that whore’s name again? I guess I heard of that one.”

  “I told you. Minnie Haha was the name Gertie gave her. The real name is Frances Verrier. With a brother George still lives in a place called St. Phail. You know where that is?”

  “That’s over in Vernon Parish by the Texas line,” Hindman said. “A post office and a few houses. That’s all I know about it. You think maybe she went back there?”

  I said I didn’t know. From the tone of brother George’s letters, it didn’t look like Minnie was all that strong on making visits to the old homestead. But now that I wanted to have a talk with her, going back home might not seem such a bad idea. Maybe her so-called terrible affliction, whatever in hell it was, would keep her in New Orleans. There was the whole goddamned city to hide in, and I didn’t even know my way around.

  Hindman looked cagey. “What makes you think I can help you find her?”

  “Because I figure you aren’t altogether retired. I figure you got some other interests in town besides the saloon. You may be old and tired, Gordy, but you’re still a crook.”

  Hindman liked to hear that. It was like telling another man he was a credit to the community. “Well, you know how it is, Carmody. A feller has to keep his hand in.”

  The thing was dragging on too long. “What do you think?” I asked him. “Can you find her without the police tagging along?”

  Hindman looked sour, like a seventy-year-old baby. “Don’t tell me my business, Carmody. I was fooling the law before your momma dropped you. Let me tell you something else, boy. The big city don’t suit you one bit.”

  “Don’t I know it,” I agreed.

  “Just so you know it, boy,” Hindman said, back in cackling good humor. He rooted in the bottom drawer of his desk and came up with a book with a blue cover. He shook it at me. “This here’s the New Orleans Blue Book,” he said. “New Orleans got it all over New York and Chicago when it comes to Blue Books. This here book’s got every quality whore in the city. Measurements, the color of her eyes, the things she’ll do for a feller. Didn’t know there was a picture book like that, did you?”

  He was right. I didn’t.

  Hindman flipped through the book, muttering as he did it. “This the girl?” he asked, and there was Miss Frances Verrier lying on a leopard-skin rug and wearing nothing but a stiff smile and a wisp of gauzy cloth.

  Looking at Minnie made Hindman reach for his tablecloth of a handkerchief. He mopped his mouth. “Dark meat,” he said. “Real juicy little Creole.”

  He tore the picture out of the book. “Should be a help finding her.” he said. “When you talk to her, ask her if she’d like to come and work for me personal. Don’t you kill this one, Carmody.”

  I wanted to get on with it. I guess so did Hindman. He quit making the bad jokes and turned sour again. “One favor, Carmody—that’s the limit. Give you some money and find the girl if she’s in town. After that we’re even. Don’t come around again, no matter how bad it gets.”

  “Fine by me,” I said. “How much money?”

  “Two hundred. Two-fifty. You don’t break loose on that, friend, you ain’t going to break loose at all. I still say you’d be smart to head back to Texas.”

  My face told him no.

  “Your funeral,” Hindman said, bringing out a big leather wallet from the inside pocket of his coat. He counted out the money in small bills. The wallet was still fat after he counted out two hundred.

  “You said two-fifty a minute ago,” I reminded him.

  Hindman showed me the five yellow teeth left in his head. “Two hundred’s enough,” he said. “The other fifty’s room rent. Now you take yourself over to Paddy Rainford’s Fenian Hotel on Constance Street and wait till I send word on the telephone.”

  Hindman got up creakily from behind the desk and cranked up Central on the wall telephone and told the operator to ring him through to the Fenian Hotel. While he was waiting, Hindman showed his yellow teeth and said, “A wonderful piece of machinery, the telephone.”

  “Hello, Paddy,” he said into the mouthpiece. Old Gordy Hindman wasn’t all that much of a
city slicker. Even an old shit-kicker like me knows you don’t have to yell that loud over the wires.

  “Hello, Paddy,” he roared. “I’m sending a friend of mine over. A real nice feller. Take care of him, will you? That’s right—Basso and a lot of other trouble. No, you old bastard, he ain’t going to stay long. Good man, Paddy—obliged to you. That’s it,” Hindman said to me, coughing into his handkerchief. “Hate to be so cut and dried, but the trouble you’re in could ruin a man. Our friend Basso don’t exactly love me, you understand.”

  I finished my whiskey and took the money off Hindman’s desk. Twenty years before Gordy Hindman would have faced up to Basso with nothing but his stubby hands. Now he was old and lived on oatmeal, and I understood. And if he sold me out to get cozy with the law I’d come back and break off those five yellow teeth one by one, and shove them down his turkey throat, and hold his mouth shut until he choked on them.

  I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t sell me out. Now that he was old, maybe having his life saved wasn’t such a big thing. Living on oatmeal, drooling over pictures of women he couldn’t do anything about, try as he might, maybe he resented having his life saved.

  “Thanks, Gordy,” I said, not a bit thankful, thinking maybe I should take that fat wallet when the taking was easy. That’s the kind of old friends we were, Hindman and me. “I know you’re putting yourself in the way of big trouble, helping me. Just let me say thanks again.”

  Hindman cackled. That’s the only word for the way he laughed. “Don’t bust out crying, Carmody. You ain’t no actor.”

  “Kiss my Texas ass, Gordy,” I invited him.

  The fit of cackling that followed that brought Hindman to death’s door. When he came back from it, he told me to go out the back way.

  Chapter Six

  I didn’t go the Paddy Rainford’s hotel right away. There was a drunk with a pasty face puking his guts up in the alley behind Hindman’s saloon. At another time I might have wondered why he wasn’t wearing any shoes or socks.

  On the way over to Constance Street, I stopped to send a telegraph message from a Western Union office that looked as if nobody had sent a message since the Yankees broke the blockade.

  “Am prepared to invest money soonest needed,” I wrote on the telegraph message blank. “Important discuss amount and terms income.”

  Doing that wore me out. I sent the message to Mr. George Verrier, St. Phail, La., and signed it Everard Mayhew, Fenian Hotel, New Orleans. I paid for a reply and told the tapper behind the desk that I’d make it worth his while to get any messages back to me right quick.

  What in hell did I think I was doing? I don’t rightly know. I suppose a hunch is what it was. To see if brother George would answer. It wasn’t much of an idea, but since I had nothing at all, it was better than nothing.

  A big man in a loud yellow coat with big checks and green trousers was behind the desk at the Fenian Hotel. A smaller man, older, with a mustache so clipped it looked painted on, was pushing papers on to a spike file. The small man was good with the papers and the needlepointed spike.

  Speaking to the big man, I watched the small man and wondered why he didn’t prong his girlish hands with the spike.

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. —” the big man said. He didn’t say who I was. “I’m Paddy Rainford and welcome to the Fenian Hotel. Any friend of Mr.”—he left that blank too—“is a friend of mine. I got a fine room all picked out for you.”

  I didn’t like him much. Big and no special age and Irish. I don’t know how big he was. Big enough. Not taller than I was but filled out more, lard around the middle and under the chin. He was jumping all over himself to make me feel at home. He even had a name picked out for me. I guess he thought I’d write John Smith in the register.

  “Hope you enjoy your stay at the Fenian, Mr. Rhinebeck,” he said.

  There was a Yankee millionaire named Rhinebeck. I guess Rainford thought he had a sense of humor.

  “The name is Everard Mayhew,” I advised him, and he had another joke ready for that until I gave him my no-jokes look. I said there might be a telegraph message coming in for me. I wanted to know about it right away.

  Upstairs, there was whiskey and a glass and a bucket of ice on the dresser. The room was big, clean enough but dusty, probably the best in the house. The w.c. was down the hall and I decided none of the guests could read the sign that asked them to keep it clean.

  I drank some whiskey and spilled the ice into a towel and held it against the top of my head. Lying on the big brass bed, I tried not to hear the steady rattle of traffic outside on Constance Street. I got up and pulled the finger-greased shades and tried to sleep. Nodding off took a while, the way things kept spinning in my head. Chasing after Minnie Haha could be one big waste of time. Gertie already knew who I was when I went to her place, and she had to know that because the police—Basso—told her. Basso got the word from Hot Springs. A feller named Carmody was headed for New Orleans with eleven thousand in his jeans. Maybe that was how Basso worked. To get a line on moneyed citizens running from the law. Even in a rotten town like New Orleans he couldn’t get away with taking the money directly. He had to arrange to take it some other way. Working with whorehouse proprietors, saloonkeepers and hotel operators would be the best way to do it. The money disappeared in some kind of frame-up and the feller who took the money in the first place was killed off by Basso’s men, or managed to get out of town. Maybe the party to answer questions was Captain Ned Basso, not the Creole redskin Minnie.

  The melting ice dripped through the towel. It felt good on my face. I dumped what was left of the ice on the floor and wiped the sweat off my face with the cold towel. If nothing happened with Minnie, if Hindman’s boys couldn’t find her, if they did find her and I got nothing out of her, I promised myself that I’d go after Basso. That was a laugh, with the whole police department looking for me. It sure as hell was the last thing the good captain would expect. Oh hell, I thought, it’s just one big maybe ...

  ~*~

  I woke up, the .45 cocking itself in my hand. Whoever it was knocked again. It wasn’t the police; the police wouldn’t knock. Off the bed fast, I unlocked the door and got out of the way. The way the light came through the window told me I’d slept maybe two hours.

  It was the agent from the telegraph office. I put the Smith & Wesson under my coat before I let him in.

  “I did just what you said, Mr. Mayhew,” he said. “Then after about two hours when there wasn’t a reply, I sent a follow-up asking did they deliver the first message. That isn’t the usual thing, but I figured it was kind of urgent, you know. I got a reply back right away. Nobody home, they said.”

  I gave him five dollars, and he went away.

  “Always ready to be of service, Mr. Mayhew,” he said. “The name is Danzig. Martin C—”

  I shut the door in his face and drank some whiskey. I wondered where Minnie’s brother was off to. He wasn’t just out to buy groceries; in a place like St. Phail, a few houses and a post office, Hindman said, a telegraph message was an event; and they’d be looking to deliver it. If George Verrier wasn’t home, most likely then he wasn’t in St. Phail. Could be he’d gone alligator trapping or whatever in hell they did for sport in West Louisiana. Or—another maybe—had he decided to come to the big city to help little sister with her terrible affliction?

  Going at it again, I tried to figure what Minnie’s problem could be. Maybe she was crazy. She had seemed kind of peculiar. A girl with her kind of good looks didn’t have to work as a whore on North Franklin Street. Maybe as some kind of whore but not a come-one-come-all house girl. There were lots of moneybags in the city would be tickled to set her up in her own place. I could see doing it myself if the money came in steady and I stayed in one place long enough. Minnie’s affliction, so called by George, could be that she liked to work in a whorehouse. There were women like that; they didn’t do it for the money. There was only one thing wrong with that kind of figuring—it didn’t ti
e in Minnie with my eleven thousand.

  There was loud whistling in the hall. Knuckles hit the door and a man’s voice called out, “You’re wanted on the telephone, sir. Did you hear, sir?”

  I said all right. The whistling went back downstairs. It didn’t sound right, that whistling. When I was a kid we whistled like that going past Boot Hill after dark. I checked the loads in the Smith & Wesson and the Colt .38, then put them inside my belt, under the city coat.

  The telephone was on the wall behind the desk. Two gents, one young, the other no special age, sat in cracked leather armchairs reading newspapers. They were reading so hard I thought they might hurt their eyes. Or maybe I was just on edge.

  Rainford pointed to the telephone and smiled. The clerk followed him into his office. A voice was coming out of the telephone before I got to it. “Yeah,” I said into it.

  “Now listen good,” Hindman was yelling at the other end of the wire.

  I was listening good but not to him. I guess the two gents in the lobby should have tried to kill me sitting down. They didn’t and that was a mistake. The chairs creaked when they stood up at the same time.

  They had their guns out when I turned. The older gunman got off one shot before I put a third eye in his forehead. He sat down again and he was dead before his backside hit the seat. The young one tried to change his mind, but the chamber was already turning in the Smith & Wesson, and I never did hear what it was he wanted to say. The bullet tore right through his heart, but he stood there, blinking at the wonder of it all, still trying to say it was all a terrible mistake. I settled him down with a bullet in the left eye.

  Maybe four seconds had been used up. After another second or two of quiet Rainford looked around the side of the half-closed door. I think he was surprised to see me on my feet. I’ll say this, he looked surprised. Still and all, he was pretty quick with a comeback.

  “My God, Mr. Mayhew,” he said. “My God, this is terrible. Those men tried to kill you.”