Broadway Bounty

Chapter Eighteen

“What are you doing in New York?” Linda asked.

“I told you before,” Decker said. “I’m on vacation.”

“Do you really expect me to believe that?”

He looked at her across the dinner table. They were dining in the same restaurant, at a more reasonable dinner hour. Linda was dressed more appropriately, in a lovely blue gown that left her shoulders bare. Decker felt almost inadequate in one of his new suits. He wished now he’d spent more of the Tyrone’s money on clothes.

“Why not?”

She took a moment to put a piece of expertly prepared shrimp into her mouth.

“Most men who are on vacation would not react so…nonchalantly to being shot, the way you have. How is your shoulder, by the way?”

“It hurts a little…when I exert myself.”

“Oh,” she said, “next time you should let me do all the work.”

He smiled and said, “Next time.”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Are you going to tell me what you do that makes people want to shoot you?”

He stared at her for a few seconds and then said, “All right, I’ll tell you.”

“Good,” she said, eating another piece of shrimp, “I’m all ears.”

“No,” he said, looking at her admiringly, “you are not.”

“Don’t change the subject.”

He took a moment to eat a piece of steak. It was not as fine as some he’d had in the West—or in San Francisco—but it was very good.

“I told you the other night. I’m a bounty hunter. I hunt people.”

“I’m not sure I understood you then,” she said, putting her fork down. “You hunt them for…for money?”

“Everybody has to make a living,” he said. “I hope you won’t hold that against me.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Do you…kill them when you catch them?”

“I don’t set out to,” he said, “but some of them don’t want to go peacefully.”

“And then you kill them?”

“Your dinner is getting cold.”

She looked down at her dinner and then back at him.

“That’s what I am, Linda,” he said. “A bounty hunter.”

“And that’s what you’re doing in New York?” she said. “Hunting a man?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s worth five thousand dollars.”

“Is that the only reason?”

“No,” Decker said after a moment, “he had a friend of mine killed. Shot in the back.”

“Ah,” she said, as if she suddenly understood.

“Don’t do that,” he said.

“What?”

“Don’t think that you understand me so easily,” he said. “Don’t romanticize what I do. What I do I usually do for money and for no other reason.”

“I see.”

“I’m sorry if that disappoints you.”

“It doesn’t,” she said, picking up her fork, “because I don’t believe it.”

“You don’t.”

“No,” she said, spearing a piece of shrimp, “not for a minute. When you’re ready to tell me the whole story, I’ll listen.”

“You’re so sure there is more to the story?”

“Oh, yes,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because I think I know you.”

“After such a short time?” he said. “I wish I could say I know you so well.”

“You will,” she said. “You will.”

Later, when they were together in her bed, he told her the whole story of how he had almost been hanged for a killing he didn’t commit and how he decided to become a bounty hunter after that.

She listened quietly and intently and then hugged him to her when he was done.

“They almost hung you for nothing?” she asked, horror in her voice.

“Yes.”

“That’s horrible.”

“Yes, it was,” he said. “I was very young.”

“I knew there was more to the story.”

“Just a little.”

“A little that explains a lot,” she said, putting her head on his chest. He felt her tears wetting his skin.

He hugged her tightly to him, amazed that he’d wanted to tell her the rest of his story to her. As she fell asleep, he wondered if he wasn’t losing sight of the real reason he’d come to New York.

He wasn’t sure he cared.