Wilde West Part 9

Hanrahan glanced at the other policemen, turned back to Grigsby, nodded. Together the two of them walked away from Tolliver and Hacker until they were ten or twelve yards distant.

"Anybody see anything?" Grigsby asked.

Hanrahan shook his head. "You know better than that, Bob. No one ever sees nothin' in Shantytown."

"You covered the street?"

"Not all of it. Waiting for Greaves now, we are."

"He'll try to keep this under his hat."

Hanrahan nodded. "Bad for business, a thing like this gets out."

"You send for Doc Boynton?"

"I did."

"Tell him I'd like to hear from him afterward. Soon as he finishes."

Hanrahan nodded. "Greaves won't like it a-tall."

"He won't if he knows about it."

For a moment Hanrahan pursed his lips thoughtfully together. Then, "What's yer interest here, Bob? Where's the federal side come in, exactly?"

"Like I said, somethin' I'm working on."

"And might ye be sharin' that with us one day?"

"When I got somethin' to share."

"Playing it a bit close to the vest, ain't ye, Bob?"

"The way I always play it, Gerry."

Hanrahan glanced back at Tolliver and Hacker, looked again to Grigsby. "Right you are, Bob. Time being, then, it's yer deal."

Grigsby nodded. "'Predate it, Gerry."

Hanrahan shrugged. "I owe ye one. Ye'd best make tracks, though. Before-ah, well. Too late. Here's himself arrivin' now."

Grigsby turned. Drawn by four large black geldings whose sleek coats had been brushed until they gleamed like patent leather, the big black carriage rumbled down the narrow street. On the vehicle's door, gilded in ornate gothic script, were the words CHIEF OF POLICE, CITY OF DENVER.

The carriage stopped ten feet away from Grigsby and Hanrahan. The door opened and William J. Greaves stepped out. He was tall and broad-shouldered and, even now, despite the extra weight that good living had added to his frame, despite features that had somewhat blurred and thickened, he was still a striking man. His jet black mustache was artfully waxed and his curly black hair was theatrically silver at the temples, a color that was precisely matched by the fur lining at the collar of his elegantly tailored black wool topcoat.

He looked like everything a chief of police should be, very smart, completely fearless, and totally incorruptible; and he was, Grigsby knew, only very smart. In Denver, Grigsby had once told Clara, it wasn't just the cream that rose to the top. The sc.u.m did, too.

Greaves glanced down at the muddy ground, grimaced with distaste, looked up and saw Hanrahan and Grigsby. The grimace became an angry frown.

Stepping down from the carriage behind him came Harlan Brubaker, a.s.sistant to the chief. Brubaker was Greaves's bagman. He collected the protection money from the saloons and gambling halls, the brothels and opium dens. He was a short, officious, ferret-faced man who was wearing a fur-lined topcoat identical to Greaves's. The two men were the same age, midforties, but the difference in their size and the similarity of their dress made them look like prosperous father and promising son.

Greaves stepped onto the sidewalk and stalked up to Hanrahan. Pointing a blunt forefinger at Grigsby, he demanded, "What is this man doing here?"

"We were just discussin' that, Chief," said Hanrahan.

"This is city business. He has no jurisdiction here."

Hanrahan nodded. "Exactly, Chief. I just got finished ex-plainin' that very thing."

Greaves's eyes narrowed. "You and Grigsby go way back, don't you, Sergeant. Rode for a while together. Texas Rangers, wasn't it?"

Hanrahan shrugged. "Years ago, that was. Can't hardly recall it a-tall now, Chief."

"I certainly hope so. That dime-novel nonsense, cowboys and Indians and the wide open prairies-those days are gone, Sergeant. You're supposed to be a policeman now, working for the City of Denver. I hope, for your sake, that your loyalties haven't gotten confused."

Grigsby, looking on, thought that Hanrahan's face might have grown a shade redder. But the sergeant's voice was level and unemotional when he said, "n.o.body's ever had cause to doubt me loyalties."

Grigsby said to Greaves, "She was one of my informants."

His face tight with displeasure, Greaves turned to him and looked Grigsby slowly, coldly, up and down. Finally he said, "What?"

"The prost.i.tute. Molly Woods. She was one of my informants."

Greaves snorted. "Informants. Is that what you call them now? What'd she inform you about? The price of p.u.s.s.y?"

Behind him, Harlan Brubaker chuckled.

Grigsby took a step toward Greaves and Hanrahan interposed his bulk between the two men. To Greaves he said, "I already explained to Marshal Grigsby that this here's a city matter. He was just leavin', Chief."

"See that he does. And Sergeant, if I find out that this man, this old buckaroo of yours, has interfered in any way with a municiple investigation, I'm going to hold you personally responsible. Is that clear?"

"Absolutely, Chief."

With another quick cold glance at Grigsby, Greaves turned and stalked away. A smirking Harlan Brubaker followed him.

Watching the two march toward Molly Woods's shack, Grigsby said, "You shoulda let me slam him one, Gerry."

Hanrahan shook his head. "Too many witnesses. He'd be off in a flash to see Judge Sheldon, and between the two of them they'd have yer job by lunchtime." He grinned. "Besides, these days an old codger such as yerself is like to get sorely hurt in a donnybrook."

Grigsby smiled. "The day I can't take a bag of pus like Billy Greaves is the day I toss in my badge." He watched as Greaves and Brubaker entered the ramshackle building.

"Ah," said Hanrahan, "yer only thinkin' that, ye see, 'cause yer still livin' in those famous dime-novel days of yers. How was it he put it now-cowboys and Indians and wide open prairies."

Grigsby looked at him, smiled again. "Maybe so," he said. And added, "buckaroo."

Hanrahan grinned. "I'll talk to Doc Boynton. Prob'ly he can get to yer office this afternoon."

"Good, Gerry. 'Predate it."

Just then there was a sudden bang as the door to Molly Woods's shack flew open and Harlan Brubaker came reeling out. His face white, he pushed aside Officer Hacker, staggered to the edge of the sidewalk, bent forward at the waist, and vomited into the street. The two city constables looked away.

Grigsby sympathized. The interior of that room was a vision he wouldn't wish on anyone, even someone like Brubaker.

Hanrahan shook his head sadly. "Ye know, the pity of it is, that's the first time I ever seen the fella show a single solitary spark of humanity."

The thing on the bed, its upper half propped against the wall, was once Molly Woods. The thing wears a petticoat, pushed back to its waist, and its legs are drawn up. There is no skin or flesh on the legs ...

Grigsby took another sip of whiskey and closed his eyes.

"No steak this mornin', Bob?"

Grigsby opened his eyes and looked over the bartop at Conlan, the beefy Irish barkeep. "No, Tim. Not today."

Polishing a gla.s.s with a bright white rag, Conlan said, "Well then, listen, I made up a nice hot batch of porridge this mornin'. Fresh as mother's milk. Why don't I fetch you a big bowl of the lovely stuff?"

Grigsby sipped at his shot gla.s.s of whiskey. "You know, Tim, one day you're gonna make some lucky cowhand a wonderful wife."

Conlan smiled, shook his head, shrugged his meaty shoulders. "Ah well, Bob, you have it your own way, then. You usually do." He turned and ambled down the bar.

Grigsby stared down into his shot gla.s.s.

Wilde. It all came back to Wilde.

In three cities where Wilde had given one of his talks-three that Grigsby knew of; there might be more-hookers had been murdered and cut up.

So far as Grigsby knew, he was the only person aware of the connection between Wilde and the killings. He had learned only by accident, through the crazy coincidence of those letters, from Clara, from Earl in El Paso, from the spit-and-polish new sheriff of Leavenworth. And, technically, he had no jurisdiction in any of the murders; each had occurred in an area with its own local police force, its own local courts.

Technically, he should give what he had to Greaves.

But, Jesus Christ, the idea of handing a murder investigation over to Greaves-Grigsby just couldn't do it. Even if Greaves managed to get together enough evidence to bring Wilde to trial, he'd only use it to line his own pockets somehow. Wilde was in tight with Tabor, and Tabor had money. Greaves goes to Wilde, Wilde goes to Tabor, Tabor goes to Greaves with a handful of cash. And Molly Woods's murder goes unsolved.

The ribbons of flesh are everywhere: stuck to the walls, piled atop the mattress, dangling from the k.n.o.bs of the dresser, arranged in careful coils along the floor, Four or five of them hang from the rim of the mirror like meat left to dry.

The man who did that, who could do that, was crazy. Worse than crazy. He was evil in a way that Grigsby had never encountered before.

Grigsby knew he should wait for a while. Sober up some. Get his balance back. He knew that he was too angry, too stricken by what he'd seen, to conduct an intelligent, rational investigation.

But the crazy b.a.s.t.a.r.d who sliced up Molly Woods-he wasn't rational either.

f.u.c.k it. Let's go. Let's do it.

Grigsby pounded on the hotel room door. Bang bang bang.

He waited. Nothing.

He pounded again.

The door finally opened and he saw, standing behind it, a lumpy young man wearing a black dressing gown over a pair of sissy-yellow pajamas. He was at least as tall as Grigsby-big enough, definitely, to handle Molly Woods-and his brown hair hung in disheveled tangles to his shoulders. His face was round and pasty, his eyes were puffy, and Grigsby immediately wanted to ram a fist into that thick, wide, sensual mouth.

"You Wilde?" he said.

THE MAN WHO STOOD outside the hotel room door was a tall and bulky cowboy, or at any rate a tall and bulky individual who chose, for some obscure reason of his own, to dress like a cowboy. He wore scuffed leather boots, denim pants, an ancient holster containing an enormous pistol, a stained brown leather vest, an open sheepskin jacket that had seen better days (many of them), and a hat that was-certainly at this hour-truly ludicrous. The white, conical, comical crown rose a good foot from the elaborately curled brim, like a snow-covered Kilimanjaro from the rolling hills of Africa.

But if the hat was comical, the man's face was not. The skin was lined and weathered and blotched, the narrow gray eyes were rimmed like wounds with red flesh, the mouth was set in a bitter and perhaps permanent scowl.

"You Wilde?" the man said. He was, Oscar realized, nearly as tall as Oscar himself, and quite a bit wider. He smelled, very strongly, of whiskey.

"Usually, yes," Oscar told him. "But I really couldn't swear to that just now."

"Grigsby," the man said. "Federal marshal. I got some questions for you."

"Ah." Federal Marshal? Another tiresome newspaper? "Would it be possible, do you think, to write them down and leave them? I've a really wretched headache this morning, you see. I'll be delighted to get them back to you sometime later today."

"Right here," said the man, the words clipped and cold. "Right now. Or else we go down to the federal lockup and you give me the answers there."

A federal lockup, whatever it might be, sounded not at all inviting. "Well, then," said Oscar, "by all means, do come in."

He stepped back and Grigsby shouldered past him, stalked across the room to the window. Oscar shut the door and said to the broad sheepskinned back, "Would you mind terribly if I sat down? Gravity and I are not getting along this morning."

Grigsby jerked at the window shade and the thing zipped up with a loud snarl and a final brittle slap. Sunlight toppled between the curtains. Oscar blinked in the glare; a small poisonous pain began to flicker at his left temple.

Peering out the window, Grigsby put his big hands in the pocket of his coat and said over his shoulder, "What'd you do with the knife?"

Oscar was still standing; his astonishment at the man's behavior had rendered him immobile. He said, "I beg your pardon?"

Grigsby turned. His face was hard, his features set. "The knife. What'd you do with it?"

Oscar frowned, puzzled. "Has someone misplaced a knife?"

Grigsby stared silently. A muscle fluttered elaborately along his cheek. Oscar wondered, idly, how he accomplished this.

He said, "You know, if you don't mind, I really must sit down. Either that or fall down." He waved his hand toward the room's other chair. "Please. Feel free. Make yourself comfortable." He shuffled to the chair, sat down, sighed expansively, crossed his legs knee over knee, arranged the folds of his dressing gown, and looked over to the second chair. It was empty. He looked back at Grigsby. The man hadn't moved.

Grigsby said, "What time did you get back to the hotel this morning?"

Oscar frowned again. "Is this in reference to the knife you mentioned?"

"What time?"

"Perhaps you could explain to me what this is all about. I mean, I'm perfectly willing to help in any way I can, of course." Fellow was obviously drunk, probably deranged as well; humor him. "But I should tell you at the outset that I know nothing about knives. A gentleman never does. If one's gone missing, I'm afraid you'll have to ask someone else." He reached into the pocket of his gown for his cigarette case and the box of matches, and Grigsby's right hand leaped from the pocket of his jacket and darted toward the holster on his hip in a movement too swift and blurred to be broken down into individual components, and then abruptly the hand was holding his pistol and the pistol's muzzle, only two feet away and as wide as a tunnel in the Alps, was pointing directly at Oscar's forehead. Oscar heard a cold metallic snick as Grigsby thumbed back the hammer.

Grigsby said, "You move real, real slow now. But whatever it is you got in that pocket, you fetch it out of there."

Oscar's heart thumped in an irregular trot against his ribs. Carefully, slowly, he withdrew his hand, bringing along the cigarette case and the box of Vespas.

Grigsby looked at them, said nothing. He still aimed the gun at Oscar.

"Mr. Grigsby," Oscar said. He was surprised-and rather pleased-at how perfectly normal his voice sounded.