Caleb looked at Doc and smirked. “Maybe it’d be better if you stayed out of this, Doc. It’s not your business, and getting tangled up in this mess isn’t even something I’d wish upon my worst enemy.”
“I’ve known Champagne Charlie for a little while,” Doc said as he lifted his tea and took a sip. Wincing as some of the hot liquid slid over the rough patches in his throat, he reached into his pocket and removed his flask so he could pour a bit of whiskey into the cup. “And I’ve also come to know you. Neither of you two deserves to be as miserable as you’ve seemed lately.”
“It’ll pass.”
Doc let out a frustrated breath and said, “I pull teeth for a living, Caleb, don’t make me do the same just to get something out of you.”
“All right, then. You ever hear of a man by the name of Bret Weeks?”
“Sure I have. He’s part owner of most every saloon in Dallas. Every saloon but yours, that is.”
“I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised with how much you know about this. Especially since you’ve been spending more time in the Flush than I have.”
“Beats the hell out of digging around in bloody gums.”
“Yeah,” Caleb sighed. “It seems Weeks wants to be a partner of mine as well.”
“Could be good for you. His other partnerships seemed fairly lucrative.”
“A man who negotiates with gunmen and killers backing him up rarely cuts a fair deal.”
“Weeks has killers working for him?” Doc asked.
“At least one. He claims to have started the big fire last October.”
That stopped Doc cold. “What?”
Caleb nodded. “That’s what he claims. Said the fire was started because the Alhambra and Thompson’s Varieties didn’t fall in line with Weeks’s plan.”
“You really think Weeks could do something like that?”
“Maybe not him, but one of the men he had working for him sure could have done it. By the looks of that one’s face, he’s gotten closer to more fires than an old kettle. Besides that, I’ve had enough men try to threaten me to know when someone’s bluffing. This one wasn’t bluffing. I can’t prove he started that fire, but I wouldn’t put it past him.”
Doc lifted his teacup to his mouth and took a sip. “My old practice was nearly caught in that blaze.” After taking another sip, he asked, “What did Weeks say to you? What were his exact words?”
“Just that I could either join up with him or get burned down. He also mentioned something about locking me up. That struck me as peculiar.”
Leaning back, Doc allowed the server to set down plates of the food they’d ordered. Once the server was gone, Doc asked, “What’s so peculiar if he was the backer that Jim Deagle was going on about? Then he’s already tried to work the law against you.”
“Yeah, but those Deagles are dead and buried.”
“You certain about that?”
Caleb nodded.
“Interesting,” Doc muttered.
“The law’s already admitted that the shooting at my place was self-defense,” Caleb continued. “There wasn’t even much of a trial to speak of. Hell, all I got was a talking to from a judge that didn’t even make a ripple around here.”
“Folks are too excited about the new courthouse they’ve been building to worry about any trial that won’t make the papers. I just figured it was best not to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth.”
Caleb looked around and leaned forward, even though there wasn’t anyone in the restaurant who seemed at all interested in his conversation. “I think Weeks might have an in with the sheriff or the Texas Rangers.”
Doc scowled and stirred his tea. “I doubt he’d pull much weight with Sheriff Hopper, and those Texas Rangers tend to think pretty highly of themselves to stoop to being bribed by some saloon owner.”
“A very rich saloon owner.”
“True.” Doc said as he picked at the small steak and baked potato he’d ordered. “If Weeks is telling the truth, it makes sense that he’d have some kind of in with the law to keep it all running. Otherwise, Charlie or any of those other saloon owners would have just turned him in.”
“That’s my point,” Caleb said as he used his fork to point over the table. “And no matter which lawman is in on this with Weeks, I’m in one hell of a bad position.”
“Bad position?” Doc scoffed. “My friend, I’d say those words don’t do justice to where you’re positioned.”
“Thanks.”
“But that doesn’t mean we can’t stand to gain from any of this.”
Chewing on his own steak, Caleb shook his head and scooped some mashed potatoes onto his fork. “Even after all this, you’re still trying to think of a way to make a profit?”
After waiting a moment, Doc allowed a smirk to show on his face. “Between you and me, Weeks has tipped his hand. He wants something you’ve got and is obviously pretty desperate to get it. You tell me how this is any different than a high-stakes card game.”
The scowl that had appeared on Caleb’s face melted away, and he soon found himself starting to nod. “We can either play it to win or fold our cards.”
“Just like our friend Champagne Charlie,” Dcc said. “Not that Charlie is weak or cowardly in the least. He just didn’t have any cards to play against a dangerous man like Weeks.”
“And we do?”
Pointing across the table with his fork, Doc explained, “First of all, we now know that Weeks is the one behind all of this and that he’s got no small number of guns behind him.”
“Not to mention whatever lawmen are eating out of his hand,” Caleb added.
“Which leads me to my second point.” The more he talked, he more color appeared in Doc’s face. “We need to figure out which lawman that is.”
Groaning, Caleb said, “Or if it’s both the sheriff and that ranger.”
But Doc shook his head with confidence. “Can’t be both of them; otherwise, Weeks would have come after you a whole lot harder.”
“I guess that makes sense. By the way, Doc, he also mentioned that he could be coming after you as well as me.”
Doc shrugged that off without a thought. “That goes without saying. What’s important is that we keep our own cards covered without letting him know that he made a mistake in showing his.”
“What cards are you talking about? I’m just trying to keep my saloon and skin in one piece.”
“You’re a bright fellow, Caleb,” Doc said patiently. “But every now and then I wonder how much of that is just the whiskey making me see things.”
Caleb cut another slice off his steak and dipped it into the gravy pooling on the side of his plate. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Good. Now how about we take Bret Weeks for damn near everything he’s got?”
Nearly spitting out his food in his haste to speak. Caleb had to drink some water to keep himself from choking. “What?”
“We’ve got a few weeks,” Doc said thoughtfully. “That should be plenty of time.”
“And what about those killers on Weeks’s payroll? What about that asshole with the melted face?”
“We’ll be going against them sooner or later. That is, unless you wanted to save yourself the trouble and just hand over controlling interest of your saloon.”
“The Flush is my place. I may have had second thoughts about retiring there, but I’d rather burn it down myself than have Weeks own it.”
“That’s the spirit! Once we nail down which lawman we need to worry about, we can set a little fire of our own beneath Mr. Weeks.”
“No problem there,” Caleb said. “Just wait two weeks, and there’ll be enough fire around here to turn my saloon into a pile of ash.”
Doc waved that off like so much smoke. “Weeks wants to take your saloon, not destroy it. Although the threat of another fire does serve one big purpose: to put a fright into men like you.”