Hawk 12, page 6
‘Maybe.’
‘When did you see him last?’
‘If I saw him.’
‘When?’
She slightly increased the pressure behind the knife. ‘That’ll be another five.’
Hawk started to shake his head but thought better of it. If he could jam his left elbow up into her face and drive her arm aside at the same time, he’d be able to grab the knife.
If.
‘I can’t exactly get it right now,’ he said.
The green eyes allowed themselves a smile, the corners of her mouth moved wide enough for tiny laugh lines to appear below her cheeks. It was one hell of a time to start feeling horny, Hawk thought. Bad enough to let a woman get the drop on you, worse still if you started fancying her while she had a blade pressed tight against your throat.
‘I can’t …’ he repeated, as if she hadn’t heard.
‘You talkin’ ’bout this here little knife?’
‘The five dollars.’
Cherry nodded, still smiling. ‘Sure.’
Hawk cursed the hard old spring poking through the mattress, cursed himself for falling for such an easy move in the first place. Not for the first time he asked himself why he’d assured Matt Dent he could handle this on his own and to get back and get some rest while he could. Hawk cursed himself and envied Dent his old man’s dreams.
‘Let’s do a deal,’ he suggested to the girl.
‘What kind of deal?’
‘Just ease off that knife a little so’s I can talk.’
‘You’re doin’ okay.’
‘I’m bleedin’ okay, too.’
‘A little blood never hurt anybody. Get on with it.’
‘Right. Ten dollars for everything you know about Emery. Another ten if you can tell me where to find him or set up a meeting.’
‘What d’you want him for?’
She didn’t really care. Simply asked the question to cover the time she wanted to think. She sure as anything wasn’t going to be able to keep him there like that forever and neither did she relish finishing with that little toy of hers what she’d started.
‘That don’t matter,’ Hawk answered.
It didn’t. ‘How do I know what you’ll do if I move this blade away?’
‘Trust me.’
Her laugh was shrill and hollow. ‘Too many times,’ she said feelingly.
‘Then you’d better use the knife.’
She knew he was right; knew that the longer she did nothing, the more convinced they both were that she’d do nothing more unless he forced her into it.
‘Ten dollars?’ she checked.
‘Yeah.’
‘And no funny business?’
‘You got my word.’
Cherry drew her lower lip down over a surprisingly good set of teeth and showed Hawk the tip of her tongue. It was small and pointed and only increased the state of Hawk’s horniness. Through the numbness of his left leg he could still vaguely feel the warmth of her thigh.
‘I got your word?’ she asked.
‘Sure.’
She lifted the knife clear from his throat and he punched her hard on the side of the jaw.
Chapter Six
WHEN SHE CAME to this time, Cherry screamed aloud with sudden, sharp and reverberating pain. A hammering set up on the adjoining wall and a man’s voice bellowed to her to keep her noise down so’s he could get some sleep. She opened her mouth again to call him something less pleasant than a flea-ridden rat and the pain that lanced up the left side of her face kept the words unspoken.
Then she saw Hawk. He was in much the same position as before, except that this time he’d pulled the chair close so that his right boot could rest on it while he leaned his weight back against the wall. A narrow line of dark blood had coagulated along his neck. The pistol in his hand looked very large, very steady. As she watched a grin shifted across his face and his thumb eased the hammer back, each of the three clicking movements sounding loud inside her head.
‘Bastard,’ she hissed, the curse more precious to her than the pain she knew it would cause.
Hawk laughed as he raised his arm and leveled the Colt directly at her chest. She shouted out in fright and then again in agony and the neighbor pounded on the wall and told her to keep the horseplay under control.
Cherry could see that her knife was on the far side of the dresser, close by the whiskey bottle, which now looked empty. Suddenly her throat was bare and dry and more than anything what she wanted was a drink.
More than almost anything.
‘Jack Emery,’ Hawk said.
‘You gave me your word, you bastard!’ she said, green eyes burrowing into his handsome, cold face.
‘Just tell me about Emery.’
Cherry leaned her head against the rough plaster of the wall behind the bed. She should have known better than to have trusted him—to have trusted any man. She should have stuck the blade in him when she’d had the chance. Now she’d be lucky if she got out of that flea-bitten room alive. As it was her jaw felt as though it had been broken. It was more than she dared do to touch a swelling which seemed big as a goose’s egg. Her head was aching more than she could have imagined possible. She glared at Hawk and wished again she’d killed him when she’d taken him by surprise.
‘He suddenly started coming round,’ she said, not looking at him, concentrating on a dark stain on the ceiling instead. ‘Maybe a couple of weeks back. Loretta, she made a fuss over him like he was close kin. Gave him the pick of us girls on the house the first time. He walked his rheumy old eyes round the place like he couldn’t believe his luck. My luck was he chose me.’
Cherry paused and glanced over to the bottle but it was still empty.
‘He was all right, that old boy. Sight stronger and more lastin’ than men half his age. He’d got manners too. When he come back the next night with plenty of money in his pockets I was pretty glad he come over to me again.
‘Same every night for four nights, then he missed a night, come one and then missed two. I knew he was runnin’ out of whatever money he had. And he must’ve had plenty. New suit of clothes, new gun belt. Champagne he bought me one time. Got into a card game and lost maybe fifty dollars and got up from the table laughing. You know a man who feels that way about his money ain’t goin’ to hold on to it for long.’ Her eyes found Hawk’s for the first time since she’d started talking. ‘Almost as if he wanted to spend it fast as he could. Get it off his hands. That make any sense?’
Hawk figured maybe it did but he didn’t say anything. What he did do was lower the hammer on the Colt; didn’t move it though, the barrel still lined up on Cherry’s chest.
‘How many nights since he’s been by?’
She didn’t have to think more than a couple of seconds. ‘Three.’
‘You reckon he’s comin’ back?’
‘How should I know?’
‘I asked what you thought.’
‘Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.’
‘Know where he’s stayin’?’
‘No.’
The gun jutted forward just a fraction, enough for her to grasp its meaning. ‘Honest! Honest. I don’t know. He never said.’
‘Loretta, you reckon she might know?’
‘I doubt it. Why don’t you ask her and see? You might not find that sword of hers as easy as that little toy of mine.’
Hawk grinned. ‘You weren’t easy,’ he said grudgingly. ‘You were good.’
She shook her head. ‘If I were good, you’d be dead.’
He laughed and lifted his foot from the chair, slipped the Colt back into his holster but didn’t slot the safety thong over the hammer. Not yet.
‘Sorry ’bout your whiskey,’ he said, nodding in the direction of the bottle. ‘You were out a long time an’ there wasn’t a whole lot else to do.’
She shrugged and said: ‘You comin’ lookin’ for him? At Loretta’s place?’
‘I guess.’
‘A lot of people could get hurt in there if there’s trouble.’
‘That might just depend on him.’
‘It might just depend on you.’
Hawk lifted his hat from the foot of the bed and set it at an angle across his head. The girl looked at him and wished he wasn’t such a bastard; under those clothes he should have had a good body, firm and lean.
‘One thing.’
‘Yeah?’
‘You give him one word of warning, you’re likely to end up on the wrong side of a bullet.’
‘You expect me to let him get gunned down without a word?’
‘I expect you to mind your own business!’
‘You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?’
‘I hope not. Not if he sees sense.’
‘He’s an old man,’ she flashed. ‘He won’t see no sense. Besides …’
‘Besides what?’
‘Maybe he feels about his life the way he feels about his money.’
‘How’s that?’
‘He can’t wait to see it all used up.’
Hawk turned the handle and opened the door out into the dark of the corridor. ‘Remember,’ he said.
She pouted and tried to ignore the throbbing deep inside her head. ‘How could I forget?’ she said, sarcasm rich on her pointed tongue.
Hawk closed the door and stood for a moment, letting his eyes grow accustomed to the dark. Behind another door a set of bed springs was creaking and complaining to a rising rhythm. He thought about the girl with red hair and wondered if she was really worth five dollars.
Matthew Dent spun the chamber of his .45 and let it slide down into the smooth leather inside his holster. Hand hovering above the grip, the old man’s mouth tightened as he counted down the seconds to five inside his head. The fingers drove down and encircled the butt and the arm curved back upwards, gnarled thumb prizing back the hammer.
The barrel was steady enough but Dent’s heart was beating more rapidly than it should. His narrow lips opened to wheeze in air; his eyes smarted where they ran water at the edges.
He released the hammer, replaced the gun, tried again.
Again.
Again.
A shot of whiskey did nothing to steady him, little to increase his speed. He knew that if it came to a fast draw, he was as good as signing his own death warrant the moment he made the first move. Slowly he turned away and sat on the edge of the bed; he stayed there for a time, glass cradled in his hands, thinking back to all the things that might have been. Things that were and never would be again. One mistake he’d never made: he’d never reckoned all you had to do was ride around just one more bend, climb one more damned mountain and all’d be glory on the other side. He knew there weren’t no glory any more. Not for him, nor for old Jack Emery neither. Best they could hope for was to go out with something approaching honor. That and nothing more.
Everything else was held in a handful of black dirt and the sound of it being hurled on top of cheap wood.
Dent lifted the glass to his lips but it was empty.
He tossed it on to the raveled blanket and pushed himself to his feet. Hawk was stretched out on the bed in the adjoining room, boots and vest already on, black hat set over his face to keep out what remained of the light.
As Dent entered the room Hawk lifted his Colt Frontier from the bed without moving his hat.
‘’Bout ready,’ Dent said. His voice was rough and he was having difficulty with his breathing.
Hawk tipped back the hat brim, peered out from under; he swung round from the bed and stood up in what was a single, fluid movement. The pistol was already back in its holster.
‘What the hell you starin’ at?’ Dent asked.
‘You all right?’
‘What kind of fool question is that?’
Hawk shrugged and set the safety thong over the hammer of the Colt, then tied both holsters to the inside of his thighs. He lifted his cartridge belt stuffed with shells for the Meteor from the end of the bed and angled it over one shoulder.
‘You don’t want me—’ he began.
Dent’s hand rested on his arm and the bony fingers pressed firm. ‘No. I don’t. I want this for myself.’
‘You aimin’ to talk him out of shootin’?’
Dent nodded: ‘If I can.’
‘And if you can’t?’
A moment’s silence weighed between them.
‘You just let me handle that.’
‘I—’
‘It’s what I’m owed, Jared. I should’ve stopped him up there in the hills. I got to do it now. You know that.’
Hawk nodded: he knew.
‘What d’you want me to do?’ Hawk asked as they were leaving the room.
‘Cover my back. Keep anyone who feels like chippin’ in his two cents’ worth out of it. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
Dent swung round and stuck out his hand and Hawk shook it, the older man’s grip strong and only barely shaking.
It was a quiet night at Loretta Hogan’s Goodtime Emporium. Only two of the three bars were open, the cornet player was off sick and a couple of the girls had canceled all engagements due to the particular time of the month. Loretta was staring sad-faced into the inevitable glass of brandy and counting the meager takings in her head. Even Matt Dent’s arrival didn’t seem to do a lot for her. She perked up enough to give him a crushing hug but even then her heart didn’t seem to be in it.
Hawk paid his respects, such as they were, before wandering over to where Cherry was trying to hold a drunken sailor’s attention at the same time as reapplying the polish on her fingernails.
‘Let me buy you a drink,’ Hawk said.
‘Sure,’ the girl said, without taking her eyes from the glistening red of her right hand.
‘Clear off, mister!’ snarled the sailor, trying to stand up straight and managing to give the appearance of being on deck in a force-ten gale.
‘Whiskey?’ Hawk suggested.
‘Gin.’
‘I said clear off!’
Hawk waited until the drunk had weaved close enough to take an uppercut under the heart without anyone else in the place noticing. He stifled the cry with his glove, caught the man on the way down and called over his shoulder, ‘Feller’s passed out.’
While the mulatto carried the unconscious seaman out through the front door, Hawk fetched Cherry her glass of gin. ‘You not drinkin’?’ she asked.
‘Later.’
She glanced over at Matt Dent, sitting on a straight-backed chair over by Loretta. ‘She ain’t goin’ to like it, you know. Trouble on her precious premises.’
Hawk shrugged. ‘He been in?’
‘Hour back.’
‘Jesus! Why the hell was he so damned early?’
Cherry dipped one shoulder and drank some more of the gin. She was wearing a white blouse with lace down the front and nothing underneath. Her stockings were pale green and she sat smoothing down a matching silk slip with the fingers of her left hand. Over and over like she didn’t know she was doing anything at all.
Hawk made himself stop staring at the small, strong fingers sliding over the shiny material; he made himself think of the nick in his neck instead.
‘He said he was coming back,’ she offered.
‘When?’
‘Said around eleven, eleven-thirty. For me to be free.’ Her eyes held Hawk’s. ‘He didn’t look good; you know what I mean? Like he was sick or something.’
Hawk was already looking the length of the balcony. ‘Which is your room?’
‘It don’t work that way. My room’s any one that’s empty.’
Hawk stepped away, nodded. ‘All right. How long does it take—with him, I mean. Emery.’
‘Go to hell!’ The words spat from her mouth and she jerked herself round so that all he could see of her was the dip in her back through the white blouse and the fire of her red hair.
Hawk was sure as anything she was worth five dollars.
Jack Emery was maybe an inch under six feet and he weighed close to a hundred and eighty, hundred and ninety pounds. Aside from a twinge of rheumatism in his left elbow and a stiffening of both legs early in the mornings and late at night, he reckoned himself to be in pretty fair shape.
Cherry reckoned he was in pretty good shape too.
Lying there on the bed, resting on one arm, she looked him over and thought he was a better specimen of manhood than most of her customers, whatever their age. But it hadn’t been easy for him tonight and she’d had to use a couple of her tricks to get him through his paces. There was an abstracted air about him, as if something vague was troubling him without his being able to set a finger to it.
‘You okay?’ she asked, reaching down to pull up her drawers.
‘Me? Sure. I’m fine. Why?’
‘Just wondered.’
‘You mean that business—hell, feller gets to my age these things take a little time.’
She smiled and tended to the other stocking. ‘I didn’t mean that. You were fine. You should see some of the drunks and bums I get in here. Some of ’em don’t know where their damn pecker is and them as do ain’t got much of a clue what to do with it.’
She smiled again and sprang up from the bed; Emery laughed a mite lopsidedly and she let her hand stray across the gray, curled hairs of his chest as he pulled on his shirt.
‘You know you can come an’ see me any time,’ she said.
‘How many times a night you say that?’
Cherry pushed at a stray length of red hair and nodded: ‘Four or five times. But that don’t mean to say I mean it.’
‘Exactly my meanin’.’
‘Hey, now! With you I do.’ She pressed against him. ‘You’re my idea of a man.’
‘Long as there’s money in my pocket,’ he said, buckling on his gun belt. The Colt Peacemaker sat comfortable in its holster, just like it had since he’d been one of the first lawmen in Arizona to own one. Him and Matthew Dent both.
A frown passed across his face as he thought about Matt for the first time inside a week or more.
‘What’s the matter?’
Cherry was ’tending to her face in the cracked piece of looking-glass that leaned against the wall from the top of a slim chest of drawers. She saw the look of puzzlement slowly disappear and Emery lift his coat from where he’d folded it across the foot of the bed.
