Wilde West Part 12

A boyfriend? He met up, maybe, with another nance?

It was smart, too, for Wilde to ask about killings in places where he hadn't given one of his talks. Got to check on that.

First, though, talk to the valet. The servant. When you want to know about the boss, you ask the hired hand.

"No suh," said Henry Villiers. "I never heard no prost.i.tutes got kilt in those cities."

Grigsby sat in one of the two unsteady chairs in the valet's tiny room. He was sitting down because his hip still ached, and because the ceiling was so low it b.u.mped against his hat. The room had probably been a storage s.p.a.ce, maybe even a broom closet, before the Laidlaw brothers, the owners of the hotel, got greedy and crammed the bed and the chairs in here. The only other furniture was a small pinewood dresser. There was no window. The wallpaper, muddy green, trembled in the pale yellow glow of a small oil lamp.

"Where were you at last night, Henry?" Grigsby asked.

"With Mr. Oscar. At the Opera House."

"Until when?"

"Until after the lecture."

"And when was that?"

"'Bout ten o'clock."

"Where'd you go afterwards?"

"Went for a drink."

"Where?"

"The Red Eagle Saloon."

Grigsby nodded. The Red Eagle was one of the few downtown saloons that served coloreds. The Red Eagle served everyone. Except for the Chinese, naturally. No one served the Chinese.

"What time you get back to the hotel?"

"'Bout twelve."

"Anyone see you? Clerk at the front desk?"

Henry shrugged. "Don' know. Maybe."

He was a small slender black man, fifty or so years old, with white hair and a long narrow face. He wore a neat black suit, a white shirt, a black bow tie. His features were even and regular, and so far they had been completely without expression, revealing nothing at all of what went on behind them.

"How you gettin' along with Mr. Oscar, Henry?"

"Jus' fine."

"You figure he's a little strange, maybe?"

"Strange how?" The features didn't change.

Grigsby grinned, man to man. "C'mon now, Henry. You know what I mean."

Henry shook his head. "No suh."

Grigsby generally liked colored people-their good humor, their innocence, the easy unthinking rhythm of their simple lives-and although occasionally, like now, they were a little slow on the uptake, generally he got along just fine with them all. Some of them were shiftless, sure-but, h.e.l.l, when you came right down to it, so were some of the whites. Most of them were hard workers, good providers, men who knew their place in the scheme of things, and stayed in it. There weren't a whole lot of uppity coloreds here in Denver-one way or the other, uppity coloreds didn't last long.

And all the coloreds in town knew that Grigsby might be hard, but he was straight. He gave a man a fair shake, black or white.

If only he could get Henry here to see all this.

Grigsby said, "You married, Henry?"

"No suh."

Grigsby nodded. "So I guess maybe, being a normal kind of fella, every so often you get yourself a hankerin' for a woman." Grinning again, Grigsby winked. "Know what I mean?"

Henry shook his head. "No suh. Don' really have no time for the women."

"Well, sure, Henry. You got responsibilities. But I mean, if you had the time, you'd probably get yourself a woman every now and then, right?"

Henry shrugged. "Yes suh. Prob'ly."

"Sure you would. And all I'm askin' is, you figure that Mr. Oscar does that? Get himself a woman now and then?" Or a nancy boy, maybe?

Henry shook his head. "Wouldn' know 'bout that."

"Yeah, but Henry, you see him every day. You'd know if he was out tomcatting, am I right?"

Henry shrugged. "See him in the morning. See him at the lecture. Don' see him at night, mostly."

Try something else, Grigsby told himself.

"Who takes care of Mr. Oscar's clothes, Henry? Gets 'em to the laundry and all?"

"I do."

"You ever noticed anything strange about Mr. Oscar's clothes?"

"He got a lot of them," Henry said. "Lot of different colors."

They were like children. You had to lead them along, step by step. "No, Henry," Grigsby said patiently, "what I mean is, you ever noticed bloodstains or anything on Mr. Oscar's clothes? Or maybe they were damp, like he'd tried to wash 'em off himself?"

Henry shook his head. "No suh."

"You see what I'm getting at, Henry?"

"No suh."

Grigsby sat back. He plucked the sack of tobacco from his vest pocket, opened it. You just had to be patient, was all. "You smoke, Henry?"

"No suh."

Didn't use tobacco. Didn't use women. Maybe Henry was a nance himself. Nances were popping up all over the place.

Grigsby poured tobacco into the curled sheet of paper, rolled the paper, licked it, stuck the cigarette between his lips. He struck a match with his thumbnail, lit the cigarette. Exhaling, he said, "He hired you, Henry? Mr. Oscar?" He stuck the tobacco pouch back in his pocket.

"No suh," Henry said. "Mistuh Vail."

Grigsby nodded. "You get along okay with Mr. Vail?"

"Yes suh."

"You ever notice anything strange about Mr. Vail?"

"No suh."

"What about the others? The newspaper reporter. O'Conner. Anything strange?"

"No suh."

"And the German? This colonel fella."

"No suh."

"And who's the other one? The poet?"

"Mistuh Rudd.i.c.k. No suh."

"Everybody's one hundred percent normal and okay."

"Yes suh."

Grigsby took another puff. "Well, Henry, I don't think so. I think one of these fellas is crazy. Evil-crazy. I think he's killin' hookers. I know he is. So I want you to do me a favor. You don't mind doing me a favor, do you?"

"No suh."

Grigsby nodded. "You do me a favor, maybe I can do you a favor. You come through for me, maybe I can slip you a few dollars. How would that be?"

Henry nodded, still expressionless. "Be fine," he said.

"We can all use a few extra dollars, right?"

"Yes suh."

"Okay, so what I want you to do, I want you to keep your eyes open. You see anything strange, you let me know. Anything at all, okay?"

Henry nodded. "Yes suh."

Grigsby stood. "Good. We got a deal then?"

"Yes suh."

"Just between us, now. You and me. No point in lettin' any body else know."

"No suh."

Glancing around the room, for the first time Grigsby noticed the book lying atop the pinewood dresser. "That yours, Henry? The book? You can read?"

"Yes suh."

"Hey, that's great. Here in Denver, not many of the coloreds can read. You ought to be proud."

"Yes suh."

"What's the book?"

"The Red and the Black."

"Yeah? Any good?"

"Yes suh."

"Well, that's great, Henry. Great. You keep it up."

"Yes suh."

"And you let me know, you see anything strange."

"Yes suh."

Back downstairs in the bar, Grigsby sipped at his bourbon. All in all, he thought he'd handled Henry pretty well. Patient and friendly, no strong-arm stuff, no threats. Straight from the shoulder, one regular fellow to another. Even complimented him on his reading. (The Red and the Black? What was that? Some kind of history about Indians and coloreds?) Anyway, he figured that he and Henry were real solid now. And maybe, to get the money Grigsby had offered, Henry would come through with something new.

Probably not, though. Henry wasn't exactly the smartest colored that Grigsby had ever met.

He took another sip of bourbon. Who's next?

"Wait a minute," said Jack Vail, suddenly sitting back in his chair. "Let me get this straight. You're saying someone's been killing off hookers in the cities where Oscar's been giving lectures?"

Grigsby, sitting opposite the business manager, said, "Yeah."

Vail's room was three times the size of Henry's, and bigger even than Wilde's. Being a business manager paid pretty well, it looked like.

"On the same days he was there?" Vail asked.

"You got it."

"Jeez. Don't tell O'Conner."

"How come?"