Crow Bait

Sixty-three

Lancaster was sitting behind the desk in the room when Roger Simon appeared in the doorway. He was a tall, handsome man with steel gray hair and a strong jaw. The position of his hands revealed something to Lancaster.

“If you got a gun stuck in your belt behind you, Simon, I wouldn’t go for it.” Lancaster touched his own gun, which was on the desk.

Simon’s hands twitched, as if he was surprised at Lancaster’s words.

“Where’s your daughter?” Lancaster asked.

“She’s upstairs,” Simon said. “You leave her alone.”

Lancaster had no intention of hurting the girl, but he said, “That’ll be up to you. Take the gun out and drop it in the hall.”

Simon hesitated, then reached behind him, produced the gun, and dropped it on the floor outside the room.

“Now come on in and sit down,” Lancaster said. “We need to talk.”

“You’re not here to kill me?” There was no fear in the man’s voice, just curiosity.

“Again,” Lancaster said, “that’ll be up to you.”

Simon came forward and sat down.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

“I want to know why you hired three men to attack me and leave me to die in the desert?”

“You don’t know?” Simon asked.

“I have no idea,” Lancaster said. “I don’t even know you. Never heard your name until Sweet told me.”

“Sweet? Did you kill him?”

“I traded him his life for your name.”

Simon firmed his jaw.

“The other two men who were with him are dead.” Lancaster didn’t bother to point out he hadn’t killed them himself.

“Well?” Lancaster asked.

“Well what?”

“If you want to save your life, start talking,” Lancaster said. “Why did you pay three men to kill me?”

“You’re saying you really don’t know?”

“I’m saying I have no idea!”

“My wife was killed last year, in the Mojave Desert,” Simon said. “She was on a stagecoach with several other people when the coach was robbed. The horses were driven off, and the passengers were left on foot. My wife was not a well woman, and she did not survive the trek through the desert.” His eyes filled with tears. “She died out there.”

“What the hell has that got to do with me?”

“I paid a lot of money to find out who the leader of that gang was,” Simon said.

“And you came up with my name?”

“Like I said,” Simon offered, “I paid a lot of money for the information.”

“So because you paid a lot you believed it?” Lancaster asked. “Did you bother to check it out?”

“I investigated your background,” Simon said. “You were a gun for hire for a long time.”

“So that makes me a stage robber?” Lancaster asked. “Simon, I think maybe you wanted information so bad you were an easy target for some dangerous lies.”

Simon stared at Lancaster, but the expression on his face said he wasn’t so confident anymore that he’d paid for the correct information.

“Y-you can’t prove that you didn’t do it,” the man stammered.

“Sure I can,” Lancaster said. “You tell me when it happened and I bet I can prove I was elsewhere. But the proof may simply be in the name of the person who sold you the information.”

Simon swallowed with difficulty.

“Who was it?” Lancaster asked. “What was his name?”

Simon started to speak; then he realized Lancaster was probably right. He licked his lips.

“Let me guess,” Lancaster said. “The man who sold you the information was Sweet.”

Simon nodded jerkily.

“Then after you paid him for that, he negotiated a price to take care of me for you.”

Simon nodded again.

At that point Angie appeared in the doorway, holding her dad’s gun with both hands and pointing it at Lancaster.

“Let my dad go!” she said.

Simon turned and his face paled as he saw his daughter.

“D-don’t—” he stammered, holding his hand out to Lancaster. “Don’t kill her—”

“I don’t intend to kill your daughter, Simon,” Lancaster said, “but you better talk to her before she pulls that trigger and ruins her life—and mine.”