“What’s funny about it?”
“I know a guy who would pay real money to get rid of that man.”
“What man?”
“What man you think? Caleb York.”
“Are you just talkin’ through that hat?”
“No. I’m prepared to do business.”
“...You know where the Plaza Hotel is?”
“I do.”
“After this hand, cash out, and meet me over there. In half a hour, say.”
“I can do that. Way things is going, I won’t have to cash out. I’ll lose the rest of these chips.”
That proved to be the case. The little cowboy tipped his hat and left. The other player did the same, after cashing out for less than five dollars.
The dealer said, “You wanna play two-handed, mister? Some folks don’t cotton to that.”
“I like two-handed fine. But give me them glasses first.”
“What?”
“My eyes is hurtin’ me. Must be the smoke. Let me borrow them glasses of yours.”
The derringer came out quick, but Lem’s .45 was already drawn under the table. He blew the dealer’s guts out. The smell of gunpowder and bowels vacating at dying filled the room along with the screams of trollops.
The bartender came up with a shotgun and brother Luke shot him in the face, decorating the mirror behind the dead man a dripping scarlet. The manager, a well-fed man in a fancy red vest, didn’t die, not right away, because Eph’s gun was all of a sudden in his neck. Eph and Les accompanied him into the office and after two minutes or so, and a gunshot, the redheaded brothers came out with a bag of money from the Dollar safe.
Lem had already emptied the dealer’s money box. The soiled doves in spangles and the men running the other games were hiding under tables, as were the couple of patrons, when the Rhomer brothers went out into the sunshine, two thousand and five hundred and fifty six dollars and fifty cents the better.
They got on their horses and rode across town to the hotel, where Lem would give them the good news about Caleb York and how they were going to get both revenge and more money out of it.
Much better than Lem’s previous visit to the Dollar.
Chapter Eight
Caleb York peered over the batwing doors of the Victory Saloon and saw what he hoped he would: a quiet night.
Weeknights often were less than hopping at Trinidad’s only, if imposing watering hole. Payday weekends were wild — many of the merchants boarded up their windows — and really any weekend could be a ripsnorter. But right now the Victory was in the midst of a lull.
He pushed through the swinging doors and glanced around. The Victory always looked big, but seemed mammoth when it wasn’t doing much business, its ornate tin ceiling like an endless sky lit by the suns of gas-lamp chandeliers, its fancy gold-and-black brocade wallpaper everywhere. The long, highly polished oak bar over at left seemed to go on forever, mirrors and bottles of bourbon and rye, towels dangling for fastidious types to wipe foam from their mustaches, a shiny brass foot rail with frequent spittoons. Behind the bar, on a busy night, as many as five bow-tied, white-shirted bartenders might be at work, serving the thirsty horde. Tonight, only one, and the customers were mostly townsfolk.
The casino section of the place was a ghost town, no one working the various stations, from roulette to wheel-of-fortune. One faro table, one poker table, were all that were going. Two bored-looking satin-clad darlings sat at a table challenging the established mores by smoking cheroots as one helped the other play solitaire. At the far end of the big room, the little stage was empty and so was the bench at the upright piano.
York went to the bar, which he had to himself, like one religious man at an immense altar. The bartender, whose name was Hub Wainwright — a big man with thinning brown hair and a round face and the kind of shoulders that said he could do his own bouncing — knew to give the sheriff a beer. Hub also knew not to refuse the sheriff’s dime.
York sipped the warm beer. “Slow night.”
“I heard you was a detective.”
York smiled, rather liking Hub’s dry sense of humor. “Is the boss lady in?”
“Look to your right.”
Rita Filley, who had inherited the Victory from her murdered sister, might have been Lola’s ghost. Though he would never ask a female such a thing, he felt sure the dark-haired Rita, whose slender, full-breasted shape so recalled Lola’s, had assumed not only her late sister’s business but her wardrobe as well.
He would swear he had seen Lola in that same blue-and-gray satin gown, its black lace cupping the sister’s bosom lovingly, the dress parted in front like curtains on a stage to show off fishnet silk stockings and laced-up high-heel shoes.
This young woman had near the same oval face with big brown eyes, turned-up nose, and full, red-rouged lips. There were differences, though — Lola’s beauty mark near that sensual mouth had been real, and those big eyes weren’t as widely set. Rita here was new to the saloon trade and hadn’t lost all the softness in her pretty face. Yet.
“Good evening, Sheriff,” she said, depositing herself before him. Her voice was higher than Lola’s had been, though some of the sister’s throaty purr lurked in there, too. “You might as well take that badge off — there’s no trouble here tonight.”
“I’ll leave it on just the same,” he said, though he’d already removed his hat in her presence. “You never can tell.”
She gave him half a smile, though the dark eyes were completely amused. “You’re a poker player, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “There’s a chair open. Several of Trinidad’s most distinguished bad card players are seated there. Could be a golden opportunity.”
“I’d rather seize a different opportunity, Miss Filley.”
“Oh?”
He nodded. “I’d like to finally have a chat with you. We’ve never really talked.”
“I had the feeling you didn’t see the need — since you were leaving town and all.”
With a shrug, he said, “Well, I’m still here. Why don’t we take a table?”
All of the tables, opposite the bar, were empty.
“I think we can squeeze in,” she said, and looped her arm in his.
He walked her over. Pulled a chair out for her.
She sat and looked up at him with an expression that already conveyed some fondness, or pretended to. “You’re a rarity in these parts, Sheriff.”
“My name is Caleb.”
She gestured to the chair next to her. “Sit down, Caleb. And I’ll tell you why you’re such a rare breed.”
He sat.
She did: “You take your hat off in a lady’s presence. You pull out a lady’s chair. You call me ‘Miss Filley.’ If you’re trying to get on my good side, you’re doing a very nice job of it.”
He sipped the warm beer, then said, “I think I just stumbled.”
“Did you?”
“I should have asked if you wanted something to drink.”
“Sheriff... Caleb? I own the place. And men don’t buy me drinks. They buy my girls drinks. Is that why you’re here?”
“Pardon?”
“To talk to me about my girls? Sheriff... and right now I am speaking to the sheriff... I want you to know that I intend to make some changes here. Some of these girls are going to be going.”
“Going where?”
She batted the air with a lacy-gloved hand. “Anywhere but here. I assume you were planning to get around to making me divest myself of my fallen angels, so I’ll ask for your patience. Give me a few months.”
“A few months for what?”
She gestured with the other lace-gloved hand. “To make this place more respectable. I have no need and no interest in running a house of ill repute. The more respectable drinking and gambling emporiums have girls who dance with the male customers, who let those customers buy them drinks, and encourage gambling. Sing, dance, talk, flirt.”