The Silverberg Business, page 4
Owens watched the game. I had a feeling that he wanted to join, but there wasn’t a chair available. I recognized one of the players, Saul Malley, from my Galveston boyhood. We had shared a piano teacher and an interest in cards.
It wouldn’t have been a bad game to join. People were staying in on too many hands—an indicator of weak players. The kind of players you can win money from, but you have to be careful. Sometimes weak players are too dumb to fold when you’re bluffing. Malley wasn’t one of the weak players.
Owens left; I followed him back to the rooming house. He entered through the front door; I went around to the alley, in case he had noticed me and planned to leave through the back. An upstairs light came on. His silhouette appeared in the window. If he had seen me, he would go to the curtain and pull it aside to look. He didn’t. I spat out the tobacco and returned to Sitterle’s. When the current hand ended, I let Malley see me. His face showed no surprise, mostly—only someone who knew him well would have noticed the way he blinked twice and pushed his glasses closer to his eyes.
“Taking a break, boys,” he said, and swept up his earnings.
We shook hands. Malley was nearly six feet tall, with dark hair and gold, oval glasses. His dexterous fingers had given him more success at music and poker than my stubby digits could manage.
“Has it been ten years?” he asked.
“Close,” I said. “I left in ’77. I’ve been back a few times to see the family, but never stay long. We played some cards in ’80, when I was there for my sister Naomi’s wedding. I’d heard you’d moved but not to where.”
“I’m practicing law, and I married a fair damsel of this town. A schoolteacher. Dora Rosen, a cousin of Janice Shapiro, whom you may recall from long ago.”
I did. I recalled as much of her as had been proper in that time, place, and age. Now she ran her father’s shipping business. We reminisced, enjoying the sensation of talking old times with a long-separated comrade. He knew what type of work I did and knew better than to ask about my business in Victoria. I got to it, eventually.
“Did you see a man hanging around the table earlier—skinny guy, bald on top with a dark crust on the sides?”
He had. “Lousy player. Owes money to some ungenerous people. That’s who you’re after?”
“Not him, specifically.” I told Malley about the job. He had some things to say about Stephens, but he didn’t say them very loudly.
“That hombre is no mensch. He’s mean, a mean and heartless bastard. I watched him stab a man, at a saloon in San Antonio. The man said Stephens was using a mirror. Stephens said, ‘Come closer, is this what you saw?’ and when the fool moved closer, Stephens slipped a knife up between the ribs and into his heart. Skinny razor knife, in and out with no fuss and hardly any blood. At first.
“Stephens leaned back, looked at the rest of us, and said: ‘Next deal?’ and that was it. The man he’d stabbed walked away, dazed-like, out the door, then fell flat on the sidewalk and bled to death. And you know what? I don’t think Stephens had been cheating.
“He plays hard. He pushes, intimidates, but I doubt he cheats. One thing . . . he has this ring. On his right hand . . . onyx . . . carved face of Tykhe, goddess of chance. The Romans called her Fortuna. Sometimes he’ll hold his hand up, Tykhe-face pointing at someone, and he’ll wiggle the finger, just a touch. I can’t explain because I don’t understand. Some kind of mesmerism. He did it to me once. I didn’t notice the trick till he worked it on me. I raised on a hand where I should have folded. He raised on my raise and I called. The other guy who was still in folded. I folded on the next card. Stephens was bluffing, obviously, but not a regular kind of bluff. I’ve seen him do the trick with others, since. I don’t play with him anymore.
“But with all that, he’s not someone the law is after. He’s welcome in the card games of the wealthiest people. To them, he’s charming. I don’t see it. I guess he charms when he needs to and kills when he needs to. If your guy is mixed up with him, nisht gedacht.”
It was getting late, and Malley said he needed to go home to his schoolteacher. We went out to the street. He invited me to come for dinner on Friday. I told him I was going to ride off and try to find where they had taken Silverberg. I said I would talk to him when I got back. “If you see Stephens while I’m gone, leave me a message at the Delmonico.”
Next day after breakfast, I asked the desk clerk about outfitters. He recommended Wolcott’s and told me how to get there. Outside, the air wasn’t quite as steamy as my previous Victoria mornings. I was glad of that. If I was going to be spending the next few days on horseback, nicer weather was preferable.
Wolcott’s proprietor was a keen-eyed man some few years above or below seventy, with gray shrubbery on his head, face, and eyebrows. A wad of tobacco bulged his cheek. I examined his stock of pistols, deciding on a Smith & Wesson Frontier model with a holster. I had my Bulldog, of course, but once I left town I wanted something to wear on the outside. Both guns used the same caliber of shells. I added a Greener shotgun, bedroll, folding shovel, lantern, slicker, Dutch oven, small frying pan, coffeepot, tin cup and plate, eating utensils, bowie knife for my belt, tin spoon for stirring, and foodstuffs: bag of Arbuckle’s roasted coffee beans, a mill for grinding them, slab of bacon, cornmeal, powdered milk, cans of condensed milk, cans of beans, salt, pepper, hardtack. Excessive, maybe, but I’m not a fan of hunger.
Thinking my Galveston wedding trip would only last a few days, I had packed little clothing, none of which was trail-worthy. For travel, I used a leather doctor’s bag with a carrying strap. That wouldn’t be practical for horseback. I selected two pairs of denim pants, red-twilled wool flannel shirt, two blue cotton shirts, a brown duster, and saddlebags to put everything in.
“Who has the best horses around here?”
The proprietor spat tobacco. “Meacham’s. East on Santa Rosa.”
“Better than anything out Lavaca way?”
“Yup. You going that way you can take the train.”
“I’ll load the horse into a stock car. I’d rather get to Lavaca and have a good horse. I may buy a packhorse or mule there.”
“What I’d do.”
I could have rented a horse, or even a small wagon—roads being much improved, but I needed to be able to go wherever the trail dictated. Off the map, as it turned out.
I paid for my things, stuffed the clothes into the saddlebag, and took it, along with the duster; the rest I asked him to bundle up and hold till he heard from me. “You outfitted any other strangers, say early September? Somebody who claimed to be building an immigrant settlement between Lavaca and Matagorda?”
He shook his shaggy head. “I’da remembered. Nobody with any sense would be doing that.”
I agreed. “Problem is, some people don’t have sense, or maybe have some sense but not enough information.” I showed him the pamphlet.
He read it and handed it back. “Seen things like that describing just about every place I’ve been. None of ’em true, none of ’em outright lies. Them people ever get here they’d be mighty surprised.”
He didn’t know a gambler named Stephens.
“Never gamble. Used to do. Lost too much in the war. Don’t want to lose anything else, no never, no more.”
Before checking the horseflesh at Meacham’s, I stopped at Ubder’s Furniture. The owner wasn’t there, but his son was, an eager lad of eighteen. I showed him the receipt from the Riverside office. He looked up the account.
“Past due,” he said. “We haven’t sent anyone ’round to collect. I suppose we’ll have to repossess the merchandise.”
I agreed with him. He didn’t know anything about Riverside but said he would ask his father. Talking to him got me thinking of my boyhood, working in one of my father’s stores. I’m still not sad about having abandoned that life.
According to the pamphlet, this area had “but few Negroes.” Meacham’s was run by one of them, a man named Butler (he had bought the place a few years back and hadn’t bothered changing the sign). “The man at Wolcott’s said you have the best horses in town,” I said.
“Did he? Well, whatever else he is, he’s no liar.” The man pointed to the rear. “Corral’s this way, boss.”
“Sounds like you’re surprised at the recommendation,” I said to the stretched fabric trying to cover his shoulders as I followed him toward the corral. He was a man of perhaps fifty, an inch or two over six feet with no gray in hair or beard.
“Man used to own me, boss.”
“Was he a good owner?” I immediately regretted the question. I was thrown off by his calling me boss. I didn’t know if I should tell him he didn’t need to, or ignore it.
“Didn’t beat me. I raised his horses for him. Losing me put him out of that business.”
“I guess a lot of white people had to learn how to do their own farming and stock raising,” I said.
My family hadn’t owned slaves, but not because my parents were against it. In Galveston there was no need for farmhands, therefore fewer slaves. Some people had house slaves. They called them servants. Slaves were part of the landscape. Hard to believe, now, but that once felt perfectly normal. In response to questions from northern cousins, my father said that living in the slave-owning South made Jews feel less exposed, less likely to be persecuted. Whatever people thought of us, they thought even less of slaves and free Negroes. These northern cousins thought that Jews, with the persecution we’ve suffered, should work to free the slaves. And that’s what they did, up there, while Southern Jews took on Southern attitudes.
“This rascal’s called Tempest.” Butler pointed to a horse in the corral, a large gray with white on his legs. “Guess you won’t want him.”
“Not if he’s like his name.”
Butler stopped and looked me over. “People come in, give me trouble, don’t want to do business with a colored man, I let them try to show me how good they are. I say ‘You don’t want this one—’ and they say ‘Don’t you tell me what I can ride, sambo’ and I say ‘Sorry, boss, I jes don’ know what I be saying’ and let them have a try. Sometimes they stay in the saddle for a whole minute.” He laughed. I did too.
“Easy on my backside and ready to follow directions is what I’m after,” I said. I’m comfortable enough on a horse, but I never worked as a cowboy, and these days I’m much more accustomed to streetcars than saddles. We settled on a dark bay gelding named Blue Swamp and a used saddle.
“Mind if I ride on down to the train station and back before I decide for sure?” The station was several blocks south of the center of town. Butler saddled the horse. I checked the cinch and mounted. Riding along neat streets past neat houses, I talked to Blue Swamp about the business, but he didn’t offer any answers. At the station, I asked if Caldwell, the train conductor, was in—he wasn’t—then I headed back to Meacham’s. I traced an indirect route, away from the center of town, so I could let the horse run. Blue Swamp and I would get along fine.
I left Blue Swamp with Butler and stopped at the Delmonico to check for messages and drop my new saddlebags and duster. Then, Fossati’s Delicatessen, where I ate a ham steak and thought some more. I didn’t figure there was much chance of Stephens still being in the area. Not after getting Silverberg’s money. But I needed to try to find Silverberg’s body and anyone who saw him with Stephens and the back-slapper. Then I could talk to the town marshal and get help tracking those two. While I worked on my thinking, the waitress offered a slice of peach pie and coffee, which both tasted fine.
A skinny man wearing a John Bull hat with a dent in its flat top was lounging outside; he’d been outside my hotel too. I tried to meet his gaze, but he was looking the other way. The side of his face toward me had a turned-down look, as if paralyzed. An itch told me I had seen him somewhere else, but I would have remembered a face like that. Caution is a great preserver of life and health, but I didn’t think anyone would be watching for me and ignored my own rules. A block on, the door to Sitterle’s popped open. Two men burst through and fell onto the boardwalk, grappling at each other. Distracted by the brawlers, I didn’t realize that someone was behind me till the blow struck the side of my head. Either I had moved by instinct or he missed the spot he aimed for, because it hurt like hell but didn’t knock me out. I stumbled into the wrestling pair. They left off their fighting and attacked me instead. None of them had guns in their hands, but I was too wrapped up to get to my Bulldog. A gun is a very useful friend when it’s three against one. I kicked, getting a satisfactory howl from one of them. A second kick freed my left arm. I flailed at whatever was in range. Then the sky collapsed.
4
Determinism Causes a Dilemma
My eyes opened to a violent light, and I vomited whatever was left from however many years ago I had eaten. Voices rattled my ears and my head throbbed like a dying puppy. Someone washed my face with a damp cloth. Time must have passed. Sounds protruded . . . someone walking up and down a steep hill wearing piano keys . . . no, wings . . . strong wings of a raptor with the song of a mockingbird. The sky filled with enough blue to make a man cry . . . the mockingbird landed on a branch, trilling a song to heal or at least soften the hurt. Clouds dissolved, and the mockingbird became a guitar playing “Garry Owen.”
I thought maybe it would be safe to open my eyes again. I lay on my side, in a narrow box of a room decorated with green wallpaper. My clothes had been removed and I had been dressed in a blue-striped nightshirt. A woman wearing a white cap and apron sat nearby; she had a round face framed by dark hair. She was sewing a sleeve onto a dress but looked up when I moved.
“Please don’t try to get up,” she said. “I’ll go find the doctor.”
The guitar switched to a slower tune. I must have dozed. What brought me back awake was a train tunneling through my head, whistle screaming, sparks flying. I jerked, and a firm voice told me to keep still, which wasn’t easy with all the poking and whatever else was happening back there. “Looks good. Let’s re-bandage,” the voice said.
This time I realized that the speaker was female. She moved her voice around to where I could see what it attached to, which was a woman with hair pulled back and hidden by a white bonnet. She had a young face—too young to be digging into my head.
“I’m Dr. Morgan,” she said, and stuck a hand toward me. I managed to lift mine to meet it. “I sewed up your scalp earlier. You’ll need to spend the night here.”
I shook my head—very bad idea. After the red lights had faded, I decided she might be right.
“The marshal wants to see you. I can put him off till tomorrow.”
“I can talk,” I said, but I didn’t think my voice sounded too impressive.
The nurse who had been sitting in the chair came back. Together, they propped me with an extra pillow. I drank a little water, thinking it was the best I had ever had. Dr. Morgan sent the nurse to get the marshal. “And bring our patient a mug of beef broth.”
A man came in carrying a guitar; he propped the instrument against the wall and sat by the bed. “Zach Griffin. I’m the law in this burg.” He had a big voice, too big for the condition of my head, and wide shoulders that didn’t like being trapped by a jacket.
The nurse handed me a mug. I inhaled the steamy broth and sipped. “You’re pretty good on that,” I said, pointing to his guitar.
“Thanks, that’s most kind of you. Do you play anything . . . Mr. . . . ”
“Piano mostly, and some guitar.” Having learned piano in my youth, I went through a period of trying other instruments, guitar, double bass, even trumpet. At home I have a guitar that I haven’t touched in months, but I still practice my piano. I gave him my name, though I figured he had already examined my billfold.
“Tell me about the attack.”
I decided to be direct with my answers. “I ducked into my hotel for a minute. There must have been a tip-off, because someone followed me from there to Fossati’s.” My voice was hoarse, my throat dry. I paused for more broth. “The man was waiting outside after I ate.”
“What did he look like?”
“About my height, maybe an inch taller, skinny, dark beard, John Bull with a big dent on top, brown vest. One side of his face looked paralyzed.”
“Sounds like Slack-Face Jake. Just back in town after doing six months in Huntsville Prison. We’ll see if we can turn him up.”
“The other men fell out of Sitterle’s and flopped into the street, play-fighting till I got close. The man following cracked me in the head and the men in the street hit me some more. I hit them back as best I could till my head took another blow. Woke up here with a lady doctor poking into my brain.”
“We like our Doc Morgan. Not many Texas cities would welcome a woman in that position.”
“We have our lady doctors in Chicago, but you’re right. This is a nice town. Except when people attack visitors.”
“Well, you’re not just a visitor, are you, Mr. Shannon?”
I hadn’t been ready to bring in the local law, but circumstances have their way of deciding things. I explained why I was here, told him about seeing Owens give Slack-Face money. “Owens had a key to the bank. Maybe they gave it to him, maybe not.”
He asked some questions about Silverberg and Stephens, but I was having trouble with articulate responses. Pretty soon the doctor came back in and made him leave.
I had a crazy dream. I hope it was a dream. A man’s face hovered inches from mine. In the dark, his features blurred. All I saw were eyes, reddish brown eyes. Dried blood eyes. He said nothing with his mouth. Only the eyes. I fell into them. I couldn’t move, but that didn’t matter. I was finished. Nothing could help me. Nothing could ever help. I lay on my stomach in a bowl-like pit. The pit’s surface was glassy, slick; I couldn’t grip anything. I writhed, trying to flip onto my back so I could see what was above me. Were those eyes boring down? Was I inside them? My chest heaved, but no breath entered. My lungs filled with something that wasn’t air. Not water, or dust. Invasive. Something that didn’t belong in lungs. I thought of air. I tried to sketch air from memory, its sparkling contours and golden depths. Air has no straight lines. Air is pale blue, so pale, the palest blue imaginable, with a touch of green. Caribbean water. Air is Caribbean—it tastes, it sparkles. Beyond those terrible eyes, air waited. I could see it. I could smell it. Fingers uncurled to summon air, and the air . . . the air touched my fingers! That blue with hint of green warmed my fingertips. I brought one finger toward my mouth. Those eyes couldn’t stop me. They tried, how they tried. Pain filled me, pain from fingertip to head. I brought one finger to my mouth and kissed it. The eyes released their hold. Now I was a tiny boat kicked from its mooring, suddenly adrift in an ocean so vast it would never be crossed. But I didn’t care. I was free.
