Slocum and the Comely Corpse Read online

He entered the room, light on his feet. Cal tugged on his arm, saying, “Better take my gun, Chase.”

  “I don’t need it. There’s his gun, hanging up on the chair.”

  Slocum’s gun was impossibly far away. Slocum thought: What am I supposed to do, make a play for it so I can be shot down reaching?

  “I don’t need a gun. Just these,” Chase said, knocking his big fists together. His neck swelled. Muscles slid and flexed in his shoulders and chest.

  Standing behind him was Maud Taylor, a tall woman; leggy, long-necked, and high-bosomed. Brown hair was piled up on top of her head in a crownlike arrangement, adding inches of height. She had a long face, with too much jaw and a too-pointy nose and chin, but she was still a handsome woman. She had yellow-brown eyes, the color of topaz and as stony.

  She rested a hand on Chase’s bare shoulder. It looked like a bird’s talons clutching a pink marble statue.

  It was all starting to come together for Slocum. Maud Taylor was a well-known madam and whore monger. This must be her house, the House of Seven Sisters, in Bender, New Mexico. Chase was her so-called “protector,” supplying muscle as needed. The dead girl was one of her girls. Out in the hall, the others were whores and their clients, along with the maid.

  Vangie was right about at least one thing. Slocum had killed Trav Bannock. He remembered that. Or did he?

  Too many unknowns! He couldn’t quite think straight. His mind was slow, fumbling. Somehow he’d been hit so hard that his wits were scattered, and now he had to re-gather them, laboriously picking them up one by one.

  That took time, but time had run out. Chase started forward. Maud said, “Careful . . .”

  “Hell,” Chase said. He padded barefoot into the space between Slocum and the wall. Beneath his paintbrush mustache, his lips were wet. A pink tongue tip flicked out between his lips, rimming them.

  He leaned forward, bent over, reaching for Slocum with both hands. Every hair on that sleek oxblood scalp was in place. He must have brushed his hair before coming out to investigate, Slocum thought.

  Chase hauled Slocum out of bed and threw him against the wall. Slocum crashed to the floor, in the corner.

  Chase tried to stomp him. Slocum made himself into a ball, presenting a smaller target. His arms were folded over his head, protecting it. His legs were bent, knees-up.

  Chase was barefoot and his tramplings fell mostly on Slocum’s arms and legs. It hurt, but it didn’t do any real damage. It hurt like hell. Each kick was a hammer blow, slamming Slocum’s bones.

  Chase was just getting warmed up. A mist of sweat showed on his face and chest. Under it, the skin had a ruddy pink glow. His spoiled cherub’s mouth was flecked with saliva. His eyes shone. He was having fun.

  He wrapped his hands around Slocum’s neck, jerking him to his feet.

  Between the marble-topped bureau and the window, standing against the wall, was an eight-foot-tall wardrobe closet made of dark wood. In front, it had two double doors, both closed.

  Chase slammed Slocum’s back against the wardrobe. Slocum groaned. Chase did it again, harder. The double doors broke off their hinges, collapsing inward.

  The inside of the wardrobe was lined with a rack of the dead woman’s clothes, red gowns and lacy black froufrous. There was a sweet smell mixed of powders and perfumes.

  The wardrobe was deep. Slocum fell back into it, the garments cushioning him. Chase was holding on to a double fistful of Slocum’s shirtfront and was pulled forward by his fall.

  Chase got his hands on Slocum’s throat and started squeezing. Slocum felt like the top of his head had blown off, again. He gripped Chase’s thick wrists and tried to pull away the strangling hands, but they wouldn’t budge.

  Chase was leaning forward, off balance. He spread his legs wider, feet farther apart for a more secure stance.

  Slocum kicked him between the legs. Chase’s eyes bulged, his face purpling. Now he was really off balance, giving Slocum enough slack to properly place the second kick.

  Chase’s mouth opened wide, but no sound came out. He was breathless, sucking air.

  Slocum pushed off with his back, out of the wardrobe, planting both feet solidly on the floor. Chase’s hands on his neck weren’t squeezing anymore. They were just holding on.

  Slocum made a fist. He wouldn’t waste it trying to make a dent in that hard-muscled torso. He went downstairs, punching Chase in the crotch.

  Maud said, “Dirty bastard!”

  “That’s right, lady,” Slocum muttered.

  There was no more fight left in Chase. He started to fold up, knees buckling. Slocum clapped his hands on the sides of Chase’s head, pulling it forward and down, where it was going anyway. At the same time, he brought his right knee up, hard.

  The knee struck Chase square in the mush, splashing his face. A sharp pain struck the knee, numbing it. Chase jackknifed backward, as if he was doing a back-flip. He hit the bed’s edge, jostling the corpse. He bounced off the mattress, spilling bonelessly to the floor, inert. His face was a wet red mess.

  Maud raised her fists to shoulder height, nails digging into palms. She shrieked once, a wordlike outcry. Her eyes showed all white around the irises, crazy-mad.

  She said, “Kill him, Cal! Shoot!”

  Cal struggled in the crowded passageway, gun drawn, trying to get through. “I can’t get a clear shot!”

  Slocum looked down. Something white and raw-edged was stuck in his knee. Chase’s tooth ...

  He took a step forward. The leg buckled, spilling him onto the bed. He fell face-forward across the mattress.

  One of his hands landed on the dead girl. She was stiff, cool. He recoiled from the touch.

  Cal lurched through the doorway, into the room. In his long red underwear, wearing a gun belt and boots, he was almost comical, except for the gun. There was nothing comical about his expression either. It was intent, serious, a man moving in for the kill.

  Now he had a clear line of fire.

  Maud said, “What are you waiting for? Shoot!”

  The only weapon at hand was the one sticking out of the dead girl’s chest. Slocum grabbed the knife by the handle, pulling it free. He gave his wrist a sharp snap, flicking the gore off the blade.

  Cal fired, missed. The bullet passed over Slocum, hitting the wall above the headboard. Grabbing the knife had unnerved Cal, whose hand had jerked when he pulled the trigger.

  In one motion, Slocum rolled sideways across the mattress, raised up, and threw the knife.

  He didn’t think, didn’t pause to aim, he just did it. It was instinctual. He was good with knives and had done a lot of practicing with them. This blade was long and thin and nicely balanced.

  It pinwheeled across the room, a blur. Thunk!

  The blade pierced Cal’s gun hand, entering through the back and exiting through the palm. It was in deep, the hilt hard against the back of the hand.

  The gun slipped from his nerveless fingers, hitting the floor. The hammer was cocked, but it didn’t go off.

  Cal held his wounded hand in front of his face, his eyes popping. He dropped to his knees, gasping, eyes closed.

  The gun was a Colt .45. It lay on its side, on the floor, in plain view.

  Vangie and Maud both went for it at the same time. Slocum would have gone for it too, but it was a lot closer to them than it was to him.

  He might have tried for his holstered gun hanging on the chair, if he’d thought it was loaded.

  Chase was a possible human shield, but Slocum knew he didn’t have enough left to lift him off the floor. He didn’t have much left, period.

  He rolled across the mattress, this time backward, away from the others. He threw his feet on the floor, jumping out of bed.

  Cal was in Vangie’s way, so Maud got to the gun first. She scooped it off the floor, holding it in both hands.

  A shot exploded, drilling the wall, spraying Slocum with plaster chips and powder, stinging his face and the backs of his hands.

  There was enoug
h room for him to take a running start toward the window. Maud pumped out slugs, deafening in that small space, filling it with gunsmoke.

  Shots roared. One hit the window frame. Another starred a pane of glass.

  Slocum threw himself out the window. Too bad it was closed, but that didn’t stop him. Those shots were getting close!

  2

  Slocum cannonballed into the window, encouraged by the last slug, which had come close enough to lift the hairs on the back of his neck. There was an instant of resistance, a fraction of a second.

  Panes and frames disintegrated, exploding outward in a burst of crystals and splinters, swept aside by Slocum’s bulk.

  There was coldness, and then he was in midair, falling. Earth rushed up to meet him.

  He fell about ten feet down, then hit something, a projecting roof or ledge. He bounced off, scrabbling for a handhold, and found himself on a short steep-sloped surface, then pitched headfirst off it. He dropped twelve feet to the ground.

  He blacked out, but only for a flicker, a few heartbeats. He came to while he was still rolling. Finally, he rolled to a stop, the wind knocked out of him.

  He lay facedown in the weedy dirt gasping, unable to draw breath. That scared him more than anything so far.

  Blindly, in a mad panic, he threw himself over on his back. The ground thumped him between the shoulder blades, hard. The action got everything moving again.

  Time ceased to stand still as he drew a breath....

  He lay face-up, looking at the sky. It was light, but there was no color in it, not a hint of blue. The air was fresh and cool. In the corners of his eyes, on both sides of his head, he could see golden-brown weeds, fresh with dew.

  A rattling sounded from somewhere above, followed almost immediately by a tuneful clink.

  Slocum raised himself on his elbows, looking for the source of the sound. The movement sent his body throbbing. He felt like one big bruise. A groan ripped out of him.

  The scene wavered, blurring, doubling. Slocum shook his head to clear it. He forced his eyes back into focus.

  He lay on his back in a yard, behind the back of the building. It was a two-story white-painted wooden-frame house. Above the back door, on the second floor, where a window had been, gaped a jagged black opening. The inside of the frame was lined with glass shards, like teeth in some monstrous mouth. As Slocum watched, a piece from the upper frame came loose with a rattle, plummeting like an icy barb into the ground.

  Now he could see what had happened. When he’d gone out the window, the platform roof had broken his fall. The ground was hard but the weeds were high, needing cutting. They’d helped to cushion his fall.

  Maud Taylor leaned out the window, holding the gun in both hands. When she saw Slocum, she fired and missed. Two slugs thudded into the ground beside his head, so close that they made his skull ring.

  Maud swore, jockeying for a better shot. She brushed against the frame, sending more glass teeth earthward.

  Slocum rolled left, away from the shooter. He got his feet under him and jumped up, throwing himself still further to the left. The corner of the house drew near. The yard wasn’t much wider than the rear of the house. Beyond the corner, the yard only went on for another eight feet or so, ending in a waist-high white picket fence. The fence could have used painting. On the other side of it was a hedge, a man-high thicket of dense brown bushes.

  Maud threw some lead at him. The shots missed, punching past Slocum, shattering some fence slats.

  He rounded the corner, out of range. The shooting stopped.

  The house was a simple flat-roofed rectangle, two stories high. The long sides of the structure ran north-south. Slocum was on the east side of the house. A strip of ground lay between the wall and the picket fence. At the far end lay open space. Slocum made for it, half stumbling, half running.

  At least there were no broken bones, or if there were, they weren’t enough to stop him. He weaved around a few shrubs, breaking into the front yard.

  Slocum glanced at the house rearing up above him. From inside came a muffled clamor, shouting. It sounded like it was coming from upstairs. If he’d heard the sounds of someone on the other side of the front door, opening it, he might have risked lurking just outside it, in a desperate attempt to wrest away a gun when the other came out. But all the noise came from the second floor. Nobody had yet come down the stairs.

  So he ran. Easier to dodge a shot from a dozen yards away than at point-blank range. He angled across the lawn toward the front gate. The grass was dead and brown, but wet with dew that darkened the feet of his boots.

  The top of the fence was waist-high, but even though he was in a hurry, he didn’t have enough left to hurdle it. He paused at the gate to unlatch it. It was a section of the fence, double-hinged and opening outward. He went out, closing the gate behind him, pausing to re-fasten it.

  While he was fumbling with the latch, the middle window on the second floor was flung open. He didn’t wait to see what would happen next. He staggered into the street and away.

  Street? Hardly. It was little more than an unpaved road, a dirt road, rutted. Empty, at least in the immediate vicinity.

  A wind blew from the west, gusting, whipping up dirt and chaff. Slocum narrowed his eyes against it. The wind was cold, knifing through his clothes, making him shiver.

  In this part of New Mexico, at this time of the year, when fall slides into winter, the days may be warm but the nights are cold. Slocum figured it was about forty-five degrees Fahrenheit. The wind came down from the mountains, making it much colder. Slocum wore a dark blue button-down long-sleeved shirt, a fleece-lined black leather vest, gray-brown jeans, and boots. The vest was warm, but it hung open, letting the sharp wind cut through the shirt.

  He wasn’t used to going outdoors without a hat. His bare head felt bald, cold. It hurt too.

  The sky was light, but the sun had not yet come up. Morning. When he had gone upstairs with the whore last night, it had been Saturday. So, unless he’d been out longer than he thought and lost a day, this was Sunday morning. Early Sunday morning.

  The house stood alone on a lot east of the town proper. Just west of it, where the property ended, the road took a slight dip, sloping downward for a stone’s throw before leveling off at a graded railroad bed. The tracks ran north-south, as far as the eye could see in both directions. On the west side of the tracks stood a station. It was closed, the platform empty. About an eighth of a mile north up the line, a trestle bridge spanned a lead-colored river.

  On the far side of the tracks, the dirt road sloped upward for another stone’s throw, leveled off, and spilled westward into the heart of town.

  The site had been settled long before the advent of a town called Bender. It sat astride one of the principal trade routes coming up out of Mexico, a transit point for the two-way traffic across the border, traffic in gold, salt, hides, guns, and livestock, both human and animal. Here the slave trade still thrived. Girls were sold into whoredom up and down the pipeline. Men were sold as slave laborers, toiling away the rest of their short miserable lives as peons on the great estates of the land barons, or as molelike burrowers in the mines.

  In these parts, the trade was kept behind the scenes. Civilization had come to this part of the West, bringing increased scrutiny and a need for discretion. And Bender dealt in more than contraband nowadays. The area was well-watered by a network of rivers and streams that eventually flowed into a branch of the Rio Grande. Good ranch land. The mineral-rich hills held deposits of gold, silver, and copper. Mines dotted the land. The mines and ranches had brought the railroad. Trains needed water, and Bender had it. Before the railroad, the town had been small, sleepy, peaceful—at least on the outside. When the railroad came, Bender boomed.

  Now, the town numbered a few hundred souls, with an equal number occupying the ranches, farms, pueblos, and mining camps of the outlying districts.

  Bender had gotten “civilized” enough to have the town whores banished to
the other side of the tracks. That way, the respectable male citizenry could sneak across to do their sporting, with less risk of being seen by their wives and sweethearts.

  A handful of small structures, railroad outbuildings and sheds, were clumped just east of the tracks. Otherwise, the slope was bare to the top of the east rise. The House of Seven Sisters occupied the north comer lot. A vacant lot lay east of it, between it and the next house, which was small, mean, and dingy.

  Further east along the road, on both sides, sprawled a loose assortment of drab modest houses and crude, barnlike buildings. Some of the lampposts showed red lanterns, smoky rubies in the morning dusk. Maud’s house had a red light too, a red globed lamp that sat on a table in the front parlor, where it could be seen glowing through gauzy curtains. But it had been snuffed earlier, sometime during the night, and was now dark.

  A hundred yards further east on the road, there were no more structures. The road continued, stretching east across a great flat, vanishing into blue-gray haze at the horizon. Beyond, it kept on going, straight through to Texas.

  The east road was deserted, bare of man and beast. If there’d been a horse in view, tethered to a hitching post, he’d have made a try for it.

  A flash of movement caught his eye. In the middle distance, on the south side of the road, a pair of bat-wing doors swung open, as a man stepped out of the front door of a long, low, shedlike building. He weaved unsteadily, as if drunk. His hands were in his pockets. He was bowlegged. His feet were spread wide apart, helping him keep his balance and not fall over. Clenched between his teeth was a hand-rolled cigarette, its tip a glowing orange dot. He hadn’t seen Slocum yet.

  A piercing shriek sounded, followed by more shrill high screams. It came from Maud’s house, where Vangie had stuck her head out the second-floor center window. She kept on screeching, waving her arms, trying to attract attention.

  The bowlegged man looked up at her. Her shrieks were so high-pitched that it was impossible to make out the words. However, there was no mistaking the tone of furious outrage as she sought to raise a hue and cry.

  The bowlegged man stared at her, uncomprehending, but interested. Slocum eased away, westward down the slope. The man still hadn’t seen him yet.