The Assassin Read online

  “But we have no champagne glasses.”

  “Tin cups will do,” said Edna.

  “No need,” called a familiar voice, and around the tent strode Archie Abbott with four champagne flutes in his hand.

  “Where in blazes did you come from?” asked Bell.

  “Train from Houston,” said Archie, smiling at the ladies. “In the nick of time. Saw you lugging a barrel of ice, put two and two together, and quickly got glasses. Miss Hock, lovely to see you again. And you, Miss Matters, of course, are the famous flying orator.”

  He bowed over Nellie’s hand. “What a treat to observe you without getting a crick in my neck.”

  “Will you join us for supper, Mr. Abbott?”

  Bell said, “Don’t you have an appointment with a witness, Mr. Abbott?”

  “Not on an empty stomach.”

  “That would be too cruel,” said Nellie. “You must let him have a bite first, Mr. Bell.”

  “Rabbit first,” said Edna. “Witness later.”

  The champagne lasted until night was falling and it was nearly dark.

  “If you boys will open the Chablis, Nellie and I will ladle out the rabbit.”

  The sisters gathered around the fire. Bell got to work on the wine bottle.

  “Two lovelies!” Archie said in a low voice. “Count ’em, two. Beautiful, intelligent, charming, accomplished, and single. An abundance of riches.”

  “Hands off,” said Bell. “I haven’t made my mind up yet.”

  “Fear not, Ma-ma is vetting prospective fiancées.”

  The Abbotts of New York had lost their money back in the Panic of ’93. Archie was supposedly on a hunt to replenish the treasury, but Bell doubted it would happen. He was more likely to fall in love, and money would be the last thing on his mind.

  “Funny,” said Archie, “how they keep turning up wherever you’re investigating.”

  “Intelligent,” said Bell. “As you said.”

  “Come and get it!” cried Nellie.

  “Don’t mind if we do,” bawled a loud voice at the edge of the firelight.

  Six or seven drunk cowhands and oil workers had wandered over from the board-on-barrels saloon.

  “You mean the food or the gals?” yelled a rangy rigger.

  “Both!” howled a cowboy.

  Isaac Bell and Archie Abbott stood up.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” said Archie. “Go away.”

  “Make me.”

  Archie took a lightning step forward and threw an even faster left hook. The rigger tumbled backward into his friends. When they pounced at Archie, Bell was ready with a hard right that dropped the cowboy and a left cross for a burly roustabout.

  The four drunks still standing were quickly joined by four more.

  The two detectives stood shoulder to shoulder. Archie muttered, “Any more and I’m pulling a gun.”

  “Too many folks around for gunplay,” said Bell.

  “Bloody hell, you’re right about that.”

  Nellie Matters laughed. “Go away! Our hearts are spoken for.”

  If Nellie’s joke was designed to defang the mob, thought Bell, it had the opposite effect. She seemed oblivious to the danger. But Edna, Bell noticed, was coolly eyeing the tent flaps behind which was propped her shotgun.

  He said, “Let’s take ’em, Archie.”

  Archie said, “You’re on.”

  —

  The trick was to prevent being mobbed by a concerted rush.

  The Van Dorns used their long reach and prize ring footwork to keep them at bay, darting in, dropping three more men with powerhouse punches, and backing lightly away. It looked as if five or six still standing were reconsidering their future when an enormous oil hand easily as big as Big Pete Straub lumbered up.

  “Who wants it first?”

  “Start with me,” said Isaac Bell, flashing forward, faking a left jab, and throwing a roundhouse right that flung the oil hand flat on his back. But as hard as he hit the ground, it seemed to have no effect. The giant shook his head like a dray horse annoyed by a fly, sprang to his feet, and charged. Bell took his measure, spotted his fists rise, which exposed his solar plexus, and lined up a straight left that would take advantage of the momentum.

  Suddenly the man clutched his chest.

  He lurched at Bell as if shoved from behind by a mighty force. The burst of unnatural speed caught Bell unaware. Before the tall detective could throw a punch or sidestep the charge, the giant slammed into him.

  Three hundred pounds’ deadweight drove Isaac Bell to the ground.

  Hot liquid splashed his face.

  Rabbit stew, he thought in a crazy tenth of a second ended by a rifle shot. He heard a second shot. Lead whistled. A muzzle flash lit the night, and the sniper’s third shot clanged off Edna’s cook pot.

  “Down!” he yelled.

  Archie swept Nellie and Edna off their feet. Bell levered out from under the giant. The man did not try to hold him but flopped over with his chest spouting a fountain of heart blood that glittered in the firelight.

  The dying brawler had jumped into the path of a bullet meant for Bell.

  10

  Take off your shoe,” said the assassin.

  Big Pete Straub glared down the rifle barrel aimed at his head and weighed his chances of wrapping his mitts around the neck of this man who had played him for a sucker. Not good.

  Slowly, he unlaced his boot, biding his time, gathering his enormous frame for an overwhelming rush, figuring to take a bullet or even two before he crushed the life out of him.

  “And your sock.”

  Straub tugged off a dirty sock and reached for his other boot. Bare feet? Why?

  “Leave it on. One’s enough.”

  “What in—”

  “Put your hands behind your back. Lay down on them. All your weight. Close your eyes. Tight! Squeeze ’em tight!”

  “Is this because I missed? I would have hit Bell if you let me use my own gun.”

  “I knew you would miss.”

  “Then why—”

  “Open your mouth.”

  “What—”

  The assassin shoved the rifle between Big Pete’s teeth and touched the muzzle to the roof of his mouth. Big Pete felt it tickle the sensitive membrane.

  —

  “Ah don’t envy Humble’s sheriff,” drawled Texas Walt Hatfield.

  Texas Walt and Archie Abbott and Isaac Bell were wolfing down the Toppling Derrick’s blue plate special breakfast of fried fatback and eggs.

  “Ah mean every time the man turns around, someone’s shot, and whoever does the shooting gets clean away. Dumb luck last night, only one dead with all that lead flying, and thankfully none of the ladies. Good luck for you, though, Isaac.”

  “Look out!”

  A flicker of motion in the corner of Isaac Bell’s eye exploded into a rock shattering the window. Bell shoved Archie. The rock missed Abbott’s aristocratic nose by a half inch and broke the coffee cup Texas Walt was lifting to his lips.

  The drunk who had thrown the rock—a middle-aged, unshaven cowhand in tattered shirt and bibless overalls, and one boot peeling off its sole—stood swaying in the middle of Main Street. His truculent expression froze in astonishment when three tall Van Dorn detectives boiled out the swinging doors with guns drawn. Isaac Bell covered the sidewalk to their left with his automatic pistol. Archie Abbott guarded their right with a city slicker’s snub-nosed revolver in one hand and a blackjack in the other.

  Texas Walt stalked into the street and leveled two long-barrel Smith & Wessons at the rock thrower’s face. His voice was cold, his eyes colder. “You want to explain why you ruined my breakfast?”

  The drunk trembled. “Looks like I bit off more than I can chew.”

  “What in Sam Hill are you talking about?”

  “Did you read the note?”

  “Note? What note?”

  “This note,” said Isaac Bell, who had picked up the rock on his way out the door. He sl
id a throwing knife from his boot, cut the twine that tied a sheet of paper around the rock, spread the paper, and read it.

  “Who gave you this?”

  “Feller with five bucks.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Big.”

  “Beard? Mustache?”

  “Nope.”

  “What color hair?”

  “Yeller.”

  Texas Walt interrupted to ask, “Do you want me to shoot him, Isaac?”

  “Hold on a minute. When did the fellow give this note?”

  “Couple of hours ago. I guess.”

  “Why’d you wait to throw it?”

  “Thought I’d have a snort first.”

  “Got any money left?”

  “Nope.”

  “Here. Get yourself something to eat.” Bell shoved a gold piece in his dirty palm and went back to breakfast. Archie and Walt followed.

  “Why’d you give that sorry fool money?” asked Walt.

  “He did us a big favor.”

  “Favor? Spilled coffee all over my best shirt.”

  “The hostlers at the stable saw ‘two men.’ Remember?”

  “What two men?” asked Archie.

  “Mounted up and rode off after they shot Gustafson,” said Hatfield. “What favor, Isaac?”

  “When his rock broke the window, I realized why there were two men. One fired first to break the window to give the sniper a clear shot at Mr. Gustafson.”

  “He missed anyhow. Twice.”

  “Only because Mr. Gustafson has lightning-fast reflexes. Most men would have stood gaping at the window. But it repeats a pattern.”

  “What pattern?”

  “Big Pete–type assistance. In Kansas he used him to throw off the scent. Here he used him to clear his shot. I’ll lay even money he used him, too, when he shot Albert Hill in Coffeyville and Riggs at Fort Scott.”

  “What does the note say?” asked Archie.

  Isaac Bell read it aloud: “‘You’ll find me at the I-Bar-O. Come and get me if you’re man enough.’”

  “Someone’s been reading too many dime novels,” said Texas Walt. “Why’s he announcing ahead of time he’s going to bushwhack us?”

  “Theatrical,” Bell agreed.

  “Bad theater,” said Archie.

  Bell spoke with the saloonkeeper who told him that the I-Bar-O ranch was north of Humble on a bend of the San Jacinto River. “That’s the old Owens place. Don’t know who you’ll find living there. Heard they pulled up stakes.”

  “We’re getting set up for a wild-goose chase,” said Hatfield. “Long ride on a hot day.”

  Bell said, “Get horses, saddlebags, and Winchesters. Pick me up at Mike’s Hardware.”

  Twenty minutes later Archie and Walt trotted their horses up to the gleaming-new, three-story brick Mike’s Wholesale and Retail Hardware Company leading a big sorrel for Bell. Bell handed them slingshots from a gunnysack and swung into the saddle.

  “You been chewing locoweed, Isaac? If it ain’t a wild-goose chase, the man has a rifle. So does his sidekick.”

  Bell reached deeper in his sack and tossed them boxed matches and half sticks of dynamite with short fuses. “In case they’re barricaded.”

  Winchesters in their scabbards, TNT in their saddlebags, the Van Dorn detectives headed out at a quick trot. They rode six or seven miles, perspiring in the thick, humid heat, passing several cattle outfits that had gone bust. There was a shortage of cowhands in East Texas, Walt explained. Young men flocked to the oil fields.

  The I-Bar-O appeared to be another of the abandoned ranches.

  No smoke rose from the cookhouse, and the paddocks were empty.

  The Van Dorns spread out, dismounted, and approached cautiously, guns drawn, eyes raking windows, doorways, and rooftops. The main house, a low-slung single-story affair, was deserted. So was the cookhouse—stove cold, larder draped in spiderwebs, flypaper crusted with dried-up insects. The only animals left in the barns were hungry cats.

  They converged on the bunkhouse, a flimsy building with an oft-patched roof, a few small windows, and a narrow veranda. Archie forged ahead onto the veranda and reached for the door.

  “Wait.”

  Isaac Bell pointed at a clot of mud on the veranda steps and motioned Archie from the door. The redhead pressed his back to the wall and peered in the nearest window. “Man on the floor. Can’t quite see. He’s got a rifle beside him, but he’s not holding it . . . In fact, if he’s not dead, he sure isn’t moving.”

  Archie reached again for the door.

  “Don’t!” chorused Bell and Walt. Neither questioned Archie’s courage, but his judgment was not seasoned to their liking. He had come late to the detective line—personally recruited by Bell, on the first case that Mr. Van Dorn had allowed him to form his own squad. As Mr. Van Dorn put it more than once, “It’s a miracle how a Protestant New York blue blood can get his Irish up as fast as Archibald Angell Abbott IV.”

  “It’s O.K.,” said Archie. “He’s alone and he’s dead.”

  Walt Hatfield cocked both his pistols. “Archie, if you touch that doorknob, I’ll shoot you.”

  “Shoot me?”

  “To prevent you from killing yourself. Stand aside and let Isaac show you how we do it in Texas.”

  Isaac Bell gestured Walt to take cover, bounded onto and across the veranda, shouldered Archie aside, jammed his spine to the wall, and rammed his rifle backward to smash the door open with the butt.

  The blast it triggered shook the earth.

  11

  A swath of buckshot wide as two men screeched through the doorway and splintered both sides of the jamb. Isaac Bell hurled himself into the bunkhouse before the assassin could reload.

  Cavernous ten-gauge shotgun barrels stared him rock steady in the face. He dived sideways, hit the floor with a crash, and rolled into a crouch before he realized that the shotgun was lashed tightly to a post.

  Ears ringing, Bell lowered his Winchester and looked around.

  A horseshoe dangled from a rafter. It was swinging on a string that looped over several nails and down to the shotgun’s triggers. Opening the door had bumped the horseshoe off a nail. Its weight had fetched up the slack in the string and jerked the triggers, firing both barrels simultaneously.

  Big Pete Straub lay on his back on the bunkhouse floor. His right foot was bare. Flies were darting in and out of a ragged three-inch hole in the top of his head. With one shoe off and one shoe on, the refinery police chief had killed himself by putting his rifle barrel in his mouth and pushing the trigger with his toe.

  “So much for your assistance pattern, Isaac,” said Hatfield. “The man went out alone with a bang.”

  “Almost took us with him,” said Archie.

  “About that ‘almost,’ Archie?” said Hatfield, cocking an eyebrow that demanded an answer.

  “Thank you, Walt. Thank you, Isaac.”

  “You can thank us by remembering that criminals do the damnedest things.”

  Bell was already kneeling by Straub’s gun. “Savage 99.”

  Hatfield snapped a spent shell off the floor. “Another wildcat.”

  The sleek, hammerless Savage felt remarkably light in Bell’s hands. He noticed an extension on the fore end of the chamber, as if a quarter-inch piece of metal had been added to it. A metal slide under the wooden end released it, revealing the underside of the barrel. A square stud projected from it. The wood had a corresponding hole. Bell fitted the wood to the barrel, held the chamber in the other hand, and twisted firmly. The barrel, which he expected to be compression-screwed into the chamber, rotated an easy quarter turn and pulled loose. He was suddenly holding two separate parts, each barely twenty inches long, short enough to conceal in a satchel, a sample case, or an innocent-looking carpetbag.

  “Walt, did you ever see a breakdown Savage 99?”

  “Ah don’t believe the company makes one.”

  “Someone made this one with an interrupted screw.”
r />   Bell put it back together by inserting the barrel into the chamber and turning a quarter turn. A metal slide underneath fit into a corresponding slot, locking the barrel in place. Thanks to the interrupted threads—an invention that had made possible the quick-sealing cannon breech—the rifle could be broken down or reassembled in two seconds.

  But the question remained why such a light weapon for a man as big as Straub?

  “No telescope.”

  “Holes tapped for mounting one?” asked Walt.

  Bell inspected the top of the frame. “Mounting holes tapped . . . You should have seen his shot in Kansas. Archie saw it.”

  “Better part of a half a mile,” said Archie.

  Walt said, “Mr. Straub must have had hawk eyes.”

  The Springfield ’03 that the sheriff had found under the dead man in a Humble alley was fed ammunition by a removable straight magazine. The Savage had a rotary magazine. The indicator on the side of the chamber read “4.” Bell extracted one of the rounds. Instead of factory-made round noses, the bottleneck cartridges had been specially loaded with pointed, aerodynamic “spitzer” bullets.

  Something about the weapon felt wrong to Bell. He unscrewed the barrel again, rethreaded it in a second, slid the wooden fore end back in place, locking the entire assembly. Then he carried the gun outside. The sorrel had wandered close. He tied its reins to the veranda railing in case shots spooked the animal, took a bead on a fence post a quarter mile away, and fired until the magazine was empty.

  He rode the horse to the target and rode back.

  “Hit anything?” Walt asked.

  “Dead center twice, grazed it twice. It’s a good gun . . . But it’s hard to believe it’s the gun that killed Spike Hopewell.”

  “Unless,” Hatfield grinned, “Mr. Straub was a better shot.”

  “Doubt it.”

  Archie said, “But we found a custom-made Savage shell.”

  Texas Walt said, “Listen close, Archie. Isaac did not say that Spike Hopewell wasn’t killed by a Savage 99. All he’s saying is he don’t reckon this particular Savage 99 did the deed.”

  —

  “Telegram, Mr. Bell.”

  Bell tipped the boy two bits and read the urgent wire he had been hoping for. Joseph Van Dorn had outdone himself in his constant effort to minimize expenses by reducing his message to a single word: