Quincannon

Chapter 14

From the courthouse he made his way to the nearest saloon for whiskey. McClew was a shrewd man, he though as he drank; there was no gainsaying that. And for all appearances, an honest one. He had been favorably impressed by the man — but he still wasn’t ready to take the marshal into his confidence, not while he was on his own here. McClew’s help could be solicited after Samuel Greenspan arrived. Meanwhile, he would have to be circumspect in how he conducted his investigation.

Quincannon ordered a second whiskey, which was a mistake. It made him woozy; last night’s beating had weakened him more than he cared to admit. Outside again, he stood for a time in the warming wind to let his head clear. Then, still moving at a retarded pace in deference to his bruised ribs, he left the downtown area, crossed Jordan Creek, and went up Morning Star Street.

As he walked he pondered what McClew had told him about Jason Elder. The tramp printer’s death was hardly unexpected; nor was there much surprise in the fact that Elder had been tortured before he was killed. Conrad again? Bogardus? One or the other seemed likely. It was also likely that the purpose of the torture had been to force Elder to reveal the whereabouts of the item, whatever it was, that he had given to Yum Wing for safekeeping. And if Whistling Dixon had been assigned the task of disposing of Elder’s corpse, it would explain how he had come by Elder’s brand new watch: he had simply removed it from the dead man’s pocket before dumping the body.

Some of the pieces were beginning to fit together now. But others remained puzzling, and one of the largest of those was Helen Truax.

He turned off Morning Star toward where the Truax mansion sat on its lofty perch, looking down on the rest of Silver City. As he approached he saw that the buggy Mrs. Truax had been driving last night, with the dappled gray in harness, stood waiting before the carriage barn to one side of the main house; he took that to mean she was home. He opened the front gate, went up the path to the veranda stairs.

But he had only climbed two when a woman’s voice, shrill with anger and loud enough to be heard above the pound of the stamp mills, came from inside and off to the right.

Quincannon stood still, listening. He thought he heard a man’s voice, and then the woman’s again, just as shrill and just as angry; but the words of both were indistinct. He backed down off the stairs, followed another path that paralleled a thick row of lilac bushes along the right side of the house. Halfway back, a pair of French windows had been opened to admit fresh air and the morning sun. The voices were coming from inside there, and when he drew closer he could hear what was being said.

“… tell you, I won’t do it!”

“Yes you will. You’ll do just as I say.”

“I won’t, damn you!”

There was a sharp smacking noise, flesh against flesh, followed by a small cry. Quincannon eased into the bushes on the near side of the window, poked his head over the top of one and peered through the crack where the inner edge of the window hinged outward. At first the only person he could see was Helen Truax, standing next to a mahogany music cabinet with one hand to her cheek and her eyes blazing. Quincannon moved his head slightly, to improve the field of his vision. More of the room appeared — a sitting room, filled with expensive furniture — and finally he saw the man who had struck her, in hard profile a few steps away.

It surprised him not at all that the man was Jack Bogardus.

She said, “You shouldn’t have hit me, Jack. Not in my own house.”

“Your house. Hell. None of this is yours; it belongs to that fat son of a bitch you married.”

“You shouldn’t hit me,” she said again, in the same cold, angry voice.

“I’ll hit you any time I please,” Bogardus said. “Here or anywhere else.” He smiled at her without humor. “Besides, you know you like rough handling.”

“I don’t.”

“You do, Helen. Same as you like me coming here while your pig of a husband is at the Paymaster. Same as you like what we do while I’m here.”

“Don’t talk that way. I don’t like vulgar talk.”

Bogardus laughed, as if she had told a particularly funny joke. He put his back to the window, went to where a cut-glass decanter and matching glasses sat on a sideboard, and poured himself a drink. When he turned again, to look at Helen Truax, he also faced the window at something of an oblique angle. Quincannon lowered his head, even though Bogardus’ attention was fixed on the woman.

“Well?” Bogardus said. “More argument?”

She folded her arms across her heavy breasts and hugged herself as if she might be feeling a chill. “I don’t like it, Jack. Hasn’t there been enough of that already?” The anger had faded from her voice; now she sounded nervous and perhaps a little afraid.

“Yes,” he said. “Too much. But it can’t be helped.”

“Why do I have to be the one?”

“We’ve already discussed that.”

“It has to be tonight?”

“The sooner the better.”

“I don’t have to stay at the mine, do I?”

“Why not? You might enjoy the game.”

“Damn you, Jack…”

Bogardus laughed again. He finished his drink, put the glass down, and moved over to stand in front of her. Still smiling, he slapped her a second time — not hard, but hard enough to sting.

She flushed and started to slap him in return, but he caught her wrist. She said, “What did you do that for?” with the anger in her voice again.

“I don’t like to be damned. Now are you going to do as you’re told?”

“All right. All right!”

“That’s better.”

She fingered her cheek where his hand had left a red mark. “What about that drummer?”

“I haven’t made up my mind about him yet. If he keeps asking the wrong questions, he’ll wish he hadn’t.”

“Another disappearance, Jack?” she said bitterly.

“Never mind that. One matter at a time. But we can’t afford to let anyone stand in our way now, this close to the finish. Not anyone, you understand?”

“When will we be able to leave Silver?”

“It won’t be long,” Bogardus said. “Now that we’re operating again, another couple of weeks is all we’ll need — at least two more big shipments. Then I’ll arrange to blow up the Rattling Jack, claim an accident, and we’ll all leave here rich.”

“We’ll go to Europe? You promised me that.”

“You sure you don’t want to keep on living with that pig you married?”

“Don’t toy with me, Jack. You know how I feel about you. I was a fool to walk out the way I did in Portland.”

“Yes you were. But it’s a good thing you did or neither of us would be in Silver right now.” Bogardus rubbed her reddened cheek with the back of one hand. “All right, Helen. New York first, then Europe.”

“London? Paris?”

“Anyplace you want to go.”

She looked at him for a time with her eyes as dark and hot as his. Then she said softly, “Damn you, Jack. Damn you.”

The words surprised Bogardus, but only for a few seconds. A slow smile lifted the corners of his mouth — and he slapped her. Not hard enough to rock her, but harder than before.

“Damn you,” she said.

He slapped her again.

Her breath came faster; Quincannon could hear the irregular rhythm of it even out where he was crouched. Perspiration put a polished sheen on her flushed cheeks. “Damn you. Damn you.”

Another slap, with enough force this time so that it sounded like the crack of a pistol shot. And in the next second she was in Bogardus’ arms, her hands in his black hair, her mouth hungry on his. Quincannon watched, feeling like a voyeur but unwilling to leave just yet; he was afraid of making a noise to alert them to his presence and of missing out on further conversation.

But they had nothing more to say to each other, at least not there in the sitting room and not with words. When their embrace ended, Bogardus urged her through a doorway and she went along willingly. It was obvious where they were bound. As soon as they were out of sight, Quincannon stood up out of the painful crouch he had been in, left the shelter of the lilacs, and hurried out of the yard and down away from the house. For the time being, there was nothing more to be learned there.

But his chance few minutes of eavesdropping had paid some dividends. He now had more confirmation, by implication if not by direct statement, that Bogardus and Helen Truax were involved in an illegal enterprise that almost certainly had to be the coney game. And that Bogardus considered him a potential threat, and would arrange “another disappearance” if he deemed it necessary.

The significance of the rest of their conversation, however, eluded him. What was it Bogardus had been demanding that she do tonight? What were the two of them plotting? He felt he ought to have some inkling of the answer, yet he couldn’t quite grasp it. That second whiskey he had taken before going to the Truax house still had his mind fuddled. He would have to be more careful about how much and how often he drank, at least until this business was resolved.

Downtown again, he found himself on Avalanche Avenue. He glanced up at the window of Sabina’s Millinery as he walked by, but he didn’t hesitate; he had nothing more to say to Sabina Carpenter, not this soon after last night. At Jordan Street he turned downhill. His intended destination was Cadmon’s Livery for a horse, which he would ride to the Paymaster mine for another talk with Oliver Truax; but the Western Union sign beckoned as he passed the Wells Fargo office. He turned inside.

Waiting for him was a second telegram from Boggs, just come in from San Francisco. This one said:

SC CONFIRMED DENVER PINK ROSE ASSIGNED PMC FMFM STOP PROBABLE OT PYRAMID STOP IS THERE CONNECTION OUR BUSINESS QMK PINK ROSE RELIABLE ALLY IF JOINT VENTURE DESIRABLE OR NECESSARY

Quincannon stared at the words in amazement. Well I will be damned, he thought.

The news that the Paymaster Mining Company flimflam was a probable pyramid swindle — in which Oliver Truax would be juggling stock proceeds, paying dividends to early investors with the money from sales to later investors and then pocketing the difference — came as no surprise. It was the other revelation that astonished him, the fact that Truax and his scheme were already being investigated first-hand and undercover by a “Pink Rose.”

Sabina Carpenter was an operative for the Denver branch of the Pinkerton Detective Agency.