“Why?” Virgil said.
“Why?” Lassiter said.
“How did he know the governor had that amount of money on him?” I said.
“Well, I don’t know,” Hobbs said. “We don’t actually know.”
Lassiter crossed his arms and frowned a bit.
“I suppose he did not know for certain,” Lassiter said. “I mean, how could he have known?”
“That’s what I’m trying to asscertin,” Virgil said, then shook his head. “That ain’t the word I meant. What is the word I’m looking for, Everett?”
“Ascertain.”
“That’s right,” Virgil said. “That’s what I’m trying to ascertain.”
48
Berkeley came from the bar with a bottle of cognac and poured us a snort.
“I have arranged for a posse,” Berkeley said. “They’ll be gathering here at first light.”
“Splendid,” Hobbs said.
“This endeavor you were planning on in the territories,” Virgil said. “What was the nature of this endeavor?”
“What do you mean?” Lassiter said defensively.
“What was the governor planning to do with that money?”
Hobbs and Lassiter looked at each other. Lassiter sat tall and said, “The territories will open; the land run will be taking place very soon.”
“This much I know,” Virgil said.
“We were providing resources for the city developments,” Lassiter said.
“And how were those resources to be distributed?” Virgil said.
“We provide the marshals to stake the claims, and the payment would be for their services,” Hobbs said, “and in turn, we retain ownership.”
“Ownership?” Virgil said.
“Yes,” Lassiter said. “Essentially.”
“Essentially,” Virgil said, “what you were doing was buying Indian land or planning on buying Indian land with Texas money?”
Lassiter and Hobbs looked at each other like they didn’t like the sound of what they heard.
“And whose idea was this?” Virgil pressed.
“Idea?” Hobbs said.
“Yep.”
“The state of Texas was in surplus,” Lassiter said, “and this, this land run, provided us, and the state, an opportunity.”
“Everett, when we left Mexico, how long did it take us to get out of the state of Texas?” Virgil said without looking at me.
“Five days, altogether.”
“Five days?”
“Yep,” I said. “Five days by train.”
Virgil smiled.
“And to think the state of Texas ain’t big enough,” Virgil said. “Now they want the Indian Territories.”
Lassiter and Hobbs laughed.
“‘Provided us,’ you say,” Virgil said. “Are you, Mr. Hobbs, Mr. Lassiter, members of the legislation?”
They shook their heads together again.
“We are both attorneys,” Lassiter said. “Law partners.”
“So what was the nature of your involvement?”
“We had the contacts; we both have served as legal counsel for the Nations,” Hobbs said. “The Five Civilized Tribes, and we had the relationships.”
“That’s right,” Lassiter said.
“What was in it for you?”
“Mr. Cole,” Lassiter said. “We are not on trial here, and we are as interested as yo—”
“Just answer the question, Mr. Lassiter,” Virgil said politely.
Lassiter shook his head slightly and looked to Hobbs.
“We were just providing the contacts,” Hobbs said. “The governor is our close friend, and this was an opportunity for all of us.”
Virgil took a sip of the cognac and smiled. He puffed on his cigar for a moment while Hobbs and Lassiter just looked at him. Berkeley took a seat across the table from us, between Hobbs and Lassiter.
Virgil looked at his cigar and to Berkeley.
“Got a doctor in this town?” Virgil asked.
“Doctor?” Berkeley said. “Yes, we do. Well, I should say we did, but he has moved out to the camp, the miners’ camp, for the time being. A lot of the men have been sick, so he’s out there for now. There is a dentist here that has been doing doctoring in the interim. Doc Meyer.”
“Where would we find Doc Meyer?”
Berkeley pointed.
“Right across Three Quarter Street here, just up a ways. If he’s not there in his place, he’s most likely at one of the gambling parlors down the street. He gambles a bit... a lot, actually.”
Virgil stood up, and I did the same.
“Are you feeling bad?” Berkeley said.
“’Bout some things,” Virgil said.
“Not the food, I hope?”
“No, food was good. Fact, that’s some of the best food we’ve had in a long time,” Virgil said. “Don’t you think, Everett?”
“I do.”
Berkeley smiled as he scooted back the chair he was sitting in and stood up.
“Well, good, then.”
Berkeley retrieved two keys from his pocket and handed one to me and one to Virgil.
“Got you gents a room here if you want. When you come back, just talk to Burns here at the desk, he can get you some hot water. There is a tub at the end of your hall, second floor.”
“Muchas gracias,” Virgil said.
49
We crossed the street to the south side and walked east. There was less commotion, fewer folks moving about in the streets than there were when we had entered Hotel Ark.
“You think those lawyers got something to do with this, Virgil?”
Virgil worked on his cigar for a moment, thinking as we walked.
“Don’t know.”
“But maybe?”
“They looked at each other an awful lot,” Virgil said.
“They did.”
“There was some knowing by somebody about something for this ball to drop like it did,” Virgil said.
“Seems probable,” I said.
“More than probable.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Don’t know,” Virgil said. “But Bloody Bob Brandice and that one-arm conductor fellow didn’t stumble into that Pullman car by chance.”
“What about the governor?”
“Hard to say.”
We walked on. I moved up on the boardwalk. Virgil stayed walking in the street.
“Constable Berkeley seems like an okay hand for a whore handler.”
“Big boy,” Virgil said.
“Serves up some good food.”
“Does,” Virgil said.
“His whores are good-looking.”
“They were.”
We walked on a ways farther, looking for Doc Meyer’s office.
“How much do you think it’d cost for that pretty whore with the baking-soda teeth and the flower in her hair?” I said.
“More than you got.”
“Here we go,” I said.
We came to a narrow two-story structure with a Dentist Office sign on the door. Virgil was standing in the street, looking up.
“Lamp burning,” Virgil said.
I knocked on the door. We waited for a moment, but no one stirred. Virgil stepped back into the street a bit more, looking up to the upstairs windows. I knocked again and looked back to Virgil.
He shook his head.
I knocked again, harder this time. I heard some bedsprings squeak, followed by a man’s voice.
“Hold on, just a goddamn minute, hold on...”
Through the wavy sugar-glass window of the door, light and shadow of a lamp coming down the stairs at the back of the office stretched and turned.
A man’s shadow grew huge against the back wall of the stairwell as he descended the steps. After he got to the bottom step he started talking loudly as he approached the door.
“Don’t you got no better sense than to bother me at this time of night! The cost is double this time of night, just so you know, goddamn double!”