Wilde West Part 26

Grigsby nodded. "Know you can. But don't be no hero, Carver."

"Greaves don't scare me none."

Gruffly, Grigsby said, "Don't you be no hero. That's an order. Greaves leans on you, you bend. Hear me?"

Carver nodded, abashed. "Yes sir."

Grigsby glanced around once more.

In June it would be twelve years since Grigsby had first stepped into these two rooms, and they looked exactly the same today as they had then. From time to time Clara had begged him to fix them up, hang pictures on the wall, lay carpets on the floor. But Grigsby had liked them the way they were-plain, simple, functional. They made the place look like a marshal's office, and that was the way a marshal's office was supposed to look.

It seemed to him now that his twelve years here had left no mark at all. He might never have been here; might never have hung his coat on the coat rack; might never have lowered his painful hip behind the big broad wooden desk ...

"Anything else, Marshal?"

Grigsby looked at him.

Anything else.

What could he say to Carver's eager young face?

Time pa.s.ses. Things change. Life goes on but sometimes we don't.

He shook his head. "Nope. See you, Carver."

Mary Hanrahan opened the door, her bony shoulders stooped, her long face so pale that the freckles across her nose seemed gray. She wore a brown cotton frock, much washed and often ironed, and against her gaunt frame it looked almost as worn and tired as she did. Her gray hair was pulled into a bun at the back of her thin neck. Resignation was etched into the lines at the hollows of her cheeks, smudged into the circles below her eyes. But when she saw Grigsby, her face tightened-it folded up, like a flower when the sunlight left it.

"Mary," Grigsby said, nodding.

"Bob," she said, her voice flat. She didn't nod.

"Sorry, Mary. I got to talk to him."

"He's asleep." Cool and curt, offering the words with the reluctance of a miser handing out gold coins.

"It's important. I wouldn't bother him unless it was."

"He needs his sleep," she said.

"It's important," he repeated.

She folded her arms below her small parched b.r.e.a.s.t.s and she shook her head, less in refusal than in disappointment. "You're still the same, Bob Grigsby. Some people have it in them to change, but not you. You're still the same selfish man you've always been. Does it matter to you, the horror he had to face this morning? Does it matter to you that he was hours getting to sleep, he was so sick at heart?"

"It matters," Grigsby said. "But I got a job to do."

"It's not your job," she said. Her eyes narrowing, she leaned toward him and put one hand on the door, the other on the jamb, effectively blocking his way. "Greaves wants you out of it. Gerry told me so. And nothing good will come to him by helping you. Isn't it enough you ruined your own life, and Clara's? Do you have to ruin his as well?"

Grigsby looked down. Whatever happened, whatever was said here, he was going to talk to Hanrahan. If listening to a lecture from Mary was the price he had to pay, then he would pay it.

"Oh Bob," she said, and her voice had softened. Grigsby looked up and for a moment he saw, hovering like a ghost before her present-day self, the Mary she had once been, tall and slender and proud. "Won't you leave him be?" she said. "You know he can't refuse you, whatever you ask him. Bob, if you've any fondness for the man at all, please leave him alone. We've enough trouble without the sort you'll be bringing us."

But it was too late, even if Grigsby could have turned himself, magically, into some other person. Because just then he heard Hanrahan's voice behind her: "Let the man in, Mary. In this house we don't keep no one standin' on the doorstep, not even the divil himself."

Mary glanced over her shoulder. She turned back to Grigsby for a moment with a look of naked fury; and then, all at once, her face sagged back into its usual look of resignation.

She stood aside and Grigsby stepped into the small parlor.

Wearing his uniform pants and the top of his union suit, his feet bare, Hanrahan stood in front of the curtained doorway that led into the kitchen and the bedroom. The light in the room was dim; the shades were drawn at the windows and only a single small oil lamp burned on the end table. Grigsby suspected that the room was always like this, blurred and indistinct in the grayness of a perpetual dusk.

Behind Grisgsby, Mary slammed the door shut.

"It's all right," Hanrahan said to his wife. "I wasn't sleepin' anyhow. Fetch us a bottle, would you, Mary?"

Mary's face was closed again. "You fetch your own b.l.o.o.d.y bottle," she snapped, and stalked past them. She whipped the curtains aside and stormed through them.

Hanrahan turned to Grigsby. He smiled apologetically and ran a hand back through his disheveled hair. "She's not feelin' herself today," he said. "Have a seat, Bob. I'll be back directly."

As Hanrahan slipped through the curtains, Grigsby lowered himself into one of the two frayed armchairs that faced the sofa. He could hear, through the curtains, the sharp serrated hiss of their whispering.

Over the sofa hung a rectangle of needlepoint, framed in wood, set beneath gla.s.s. Grigsby could just make out the words: G.o.d BLESS OUR HAPPY HOME.

Grigsby sighed. Maybe Mary was right. Maybe he shouldn't have come here.

Ducking his head, Hanrahan emerged through the curtains carrying a bottle of Irish whiskey and two gla.s.ses. He set the gla.s.ses on the end table, filled them halfway with whiskey, then set down the bottle and picked up the gla.s.ses. He handed one to Grigsby. "Health, Bob."

Grigsby raised his gla.s.s. "Health, Gerry."

Hanrahan drank from the gla.s.s, sat down on the sofa and looked for a moment around the room. Grigsby sipped at his drink and waited; this was Hanrahan's home, happy or otherwise, and Grigsby would discuss no business here until Hanrahan was ready for it.

Hanrahan turned to Grigsby. "Have ye heard from Clara?" He shrugged, smiled apologetically again, and said, "I neglected to ask ye this morain'."

"Got a letter a while ago. She's fine. The kids are fine."

Hanrahan nodded. He looked around the room once more, turned again to Grigsby. "'Member when we all of us went up to the Springs? You and Clara, and Mary? How long ago was that now, Bob?"

"Ten years," said Grigsby. "Eleven."

Hanrahan nodded. He sipped at his whiskey. "Good times," he said.

Grigsby nodded. "Good times."

"At least you had the kids," Hanrahan said. "We shoulda had kids, me and Mary." He sipped at his whiskey. "She blames herself. There wasn't anything in the world Mary wanted more than kids."

Grigsby nodded. The air in the tiny parlor was growing heavier as it filled up with the smoke of losses and regrets. He took another sip of whiskey.

Hanrahan studied the threadbare oval rug in the center of the floor. He looked at Grigsby. "Doesn't take long for things to turn to s.h.i.t, now does it?"

Grigsby shook his head. "Nope." He smiled. "Happens overnight, seems like."

Hanrahan nodded. "You think Clara's ever comin' back?"

"Nope." He wanted a cigarette; Mary didn't allow them in her house; never had. He sipped some more whiskey.

"You could go off to San Francisco," Hanrahan said.

"Get me a job as a sailor boy?"

"Police work."

Grigsby smiled. "I'm fifty-two, Gerry. You reckon they hire many fifty-two-year-old patrolmen?"

"You're an experienced lawman, Bob. You could do better than patrolman."

Grigsby shook his head. "Too late. I made my choices. I can live with 'em."

Hanrahan nodded. He drank some whiskey. He sighed. "Ah well. What can I do for ye?"

"I talked to Doc Boynton. He said there were footprints in Molly's room."

Again Hanrahan nodded. "There was. Gone now."

"Gone?"

"Greaves had me clean 'em up."

"Did he make a trace of the prints?" And then, in a kind of delayed echo, Grigsby heard what Hanrahan had actually said. "He made you clean 'em up?"

Hanrahan smiled faintly. "Told me I could order young Tolliver to help me." He shrugged. "Better me than him. Kid woulda never got over it. I put her pieces in a couple of wicker baskets. Washed down the floor and the walls."

"Aw Jesus." Grigsby tried to picture it; his mind skittered away. "Jesus," he said, and realized that this had been his fault. "Because you were talkin' to me. Because I was there."

Hanrahan shrugged. "Someone had to do it. Might as well be me."

"Jesus, Gerry," Grigsby said. "I'm sorry."

Hanrahan swallowed some whiskey. "What's done is done."

A couple of wicker baskets. "Aw s.h.i.t, Gerry."

"It's over, Bob. I wouldna done things no different anyhow."

Grigsby took in a deep breath, let it slowly out. "Did he make traces of the prints?"

"No. They wasn't much good, Bob. None of them was a whole entire foot, and all of them was smeared. They wouldna been no help a-tall."

"Boynton says they were average size."

Hanrahan nodded. "Average," he said.

"When did Greaves ... What time did you clean everything up?"

"'Bout an hour after you left."

"How come so soon?"

"Greaves said he didn't want no panic." He shrugged again. "I hate to say it, Bob, but could be he was right."

Grigsby took a sip of whiskey. Whether Greaves had been right or wrong, the footprints were gone now. "Listen, Gerry. I'm takin' off tomorrow mornin' for the Springs. Anything happens to me, I'd appreciate it, you do me a favor."

Hanrahan frowned. "What's gonna be happenin' to ye?"

Grigsby shrugged. "Long way to the Springs. Anything could happen."

"Yer takin' the train?"

"Thought I'd take it down to Colorado Springs and hire me a horse from there. Nice piece of road along the way to Manitou. Haven't seen it for a while."

Hanrahan smiled. "Cowboys and Indians and wide open prairies?"

Grigsby smiled back. "Somethin' like that."

"What's the favor?"

"There's a key to my house on the porch, under the flower pot on the rail. Key fits the back door. I got a big dresser in the bedroom. You pull out the bottom drawer and there's some letters and stuff inside. Take 'em, and then you'll know everything I know about all this."

"About all what?"

"It's all in the letters."

"You wouldn't want to be givin' me a little hint, now would ye, Bob?"

"Letters'll tell you everything you need to know. If I'm not back by Monday night, you go ahead and get 'em."

"And what do I do with them, exactly, once I got 'em?"

"Whatever you want. Whatever you think is right."

Hanrahan nodded. "How come yer tellin' me all this?"

"Greaves and I had kind of a set-to this afternoon."

Hanrahan looked at him for a moment. "Ye didn't, by any chance, cause the man some physical damage?"

"Some."

"What sort?"

Grigsby smiled. "Well, Gerry, it was kind of an accident."