Slocum and the Comely Corpse Page 8

  “It’s needed, what with some of the thieves and cutthroats we get in here, aching to murder us all in our beds,” said Maud.

  “Is that you and your girls, or the customers?”

  “It wasn’t no man that was taken out of here with a knife in his black heart. Unfortunately,” she said.

  Also on top of the cabinet was a cigar box, which Slocum brought into the light. It was weighty, its contents rattling inside. He lifted the lid.

  “Shotgun shells,” he said. The box was full of them. He stuffed handfuls into his vest pocket.

  “That’s a break. Some real firepower, instead of that little popgun,” he said. “Not that I can’t use the popgun. Now for that drink . . .”

  He slid the shotgun to the left of the counter, so Maud would have farther to go if she was stupid enough to make a grab for it. He didn’t think she was that stupid, but scared people did funny things. Not that she looked all that scared.

  He jiggled the cabinet handle. “Locked.”

  He drew back a foot to kick in the door, but before he could act, she said, “Don’t break it. I have a key.”

  “This is a funny time to be worried about the furniture. You should be worried about your skin.”

  “If I live, I don’t want to have a busted cabinet. Costs money to fix.”

  “You seem almighty sure you’re gonna live, Maud.” She shrugged. “If you were going to kill me, you’d have done it already.”

  “I may yet, so don’t get cocky.”

  “The keys?” she said.

  “Okay.”

  She reached into a bodice pocket.

  “Nothing better come out of that pocket but keys,” he said.

  She took out a key ring, holding it between thumb and forefinger. There were about ten keys, most of them room and house keys, a few of them odd-shaped. She riffled through them, selecting a small flat key. She held out the ring, the key point-up. “That’s it,” she said.

  He took it and told her to sit. She sat.

  He stood on one side of the cabinet, clear of it, and fit the key into the lock. He leaned over on one side, still keeping clear of the cabinet. He didn’t know if there was some sort of device inside, rigged to blast unwary intruders.

  But the cabinet was just a cabinet, the unlocked door swinging freely open and outward, unencumbered by any tripwire that would grow taut and then pull the trigger of a hidden gun.

  Inside were plenty of bottles of whiskey. There were glasses under the counter, but he didn’t bother with them. He took a bottle, uncorking it with his teeth. Reddish-brown liquid sloshed, the fumes burning his eyes. His stomach rumbled.

  He took a long pull. It burned, then numbed. His face reddened, eyes tearing.

  Maud sneered. “Can’t take it, huh?”

  Slocum brushed his eyes with the edge of his sleeve. Dubiously he eyed the whiskey bottle label.

  He said, “ ‘Bottled in bond’ . . . hell! You’ve been switching bottles. That’s not bonded whiskey, it’s six-snake rotgut!”

  “Like you could tell the difference,” she said. “If you don’t like it, don’t drink it.”

  “Who said I don’t like it?” He took another drink and shuddered. “Grows on you.”

  The booze sent heat through him. There was a tingling at the back of his head. He felt as if he was floating free of his fatigued body. “I better lay off for now,” he said.

  “Can’t take it,” Maud said. “Pass that bottle this way.”

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t trust you with a bottle in your hands.”

  “You’ve got a gun. What’re you, yellow?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “It’s a hell of a thing when I can’t even get a drink of my own whiskey!”

  “Maybe later.”

  Maud sat back, looking pleased. At least there would be a later. That was something.

  Slocum said, “Where’s the blue stone?”

  “The what?”

  Slocum laughed. She said, “What’s so funny?”

  “You look like a dog that’s just had a juicy bone snatched out from between its jaws,” he said. “I could almost believe that you didn’t know about the stone. Almost.

  “But then, every whore’s got to have something of an actress in her, and a whore turned madam’s got to have more than most.”

  “I learned to lie from men.”

  “Don’t be so modest. I’m sure you managed to figure it out all by yourself.”

  “I learned it from your mother,” she said.

  “You could do worse. But let’s leave Ma out of this,” he said. “Who gave Dolores the stone, Maud?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I could,” he said, “but right now, I’ve got bigger fish to fry. Where’s the stone?”

  “Don’t you have it?” She tried to look and sound bored, but greed kept getting in the way.

  “No, do you?”

  “No.”

  “We’ll see,” he said. “Take off your clothes.”

  9

  Maud sat up, stiff-backed. Slocum said, “You ain’t stripping.”

  “You’re damned right I’m not!”

  He sighed. “I don’t have time to fool with a lot of games, lady. Do it.”

  “Like hell!”

  “You know who I am?”

  “Mister, I don’t know you from Adam, and I don’t want to!”

  “The name’s Slocum. Maybe you heard of me.”

  She had, but she wasn’t giving away anything. “Never heard of you. Why? Are you supposed to be somebody?”

  “A bad man to fool with.”

  “Yeah, well, I never heard of you. Slocum? The name means nothing to me.”

  “I can believe that. Otherwise, you’d have known better than to cross me and leave me alive.”

  “Too bad I missed.”

  “Yeah, too bad. You’re mixing in something that’s bigger than you think, Maud. If you knew how big it was, you’d be scared. I want that blue stone.”

  “I haven’t got it,” she said simply.

  “Prove it.”

  “I’m not taking off my clothes!”

  “You will or I will. One way or another, it’s gonna get done. It’s not you I want, it’s the stone.”

  “I don’t have it.”

  “I have to be sure you’re not hiding it under your clothes.”

  “I bet,” she said sarcastically.

  “Get to it. It’s not like you never took your clothes off for a man before. Pretend I’m paying for it, if that’ll make you any more comfortable.”

  “You’ll pay,” she said. She unbuttoned her cuffs, then her collar. She rose, garments rustling. She unbuttoned the dress down the front, to her waist. She pulled the top off her shoulders, baring them. She stood staring at him, blank-faced. She pulled her arms out of the sleeves, letting the top fall around her waist. Under it she wore a white slip, low-cut, with thin shoulder straps. Her skin was pink, rosy. The plunging V neckline bared the inner curves of her full breasts. Her nipples were outlined against the taut fabric.

  She worked the dress off her hips and leaned forward from the waist, until her breasts threatened to spill out of her slip. She wiggled her hips as she pulled down the dress. It slid down her long legs, falling in folds at her booted feet.

  The white linen wrapper came down to the middle of her thighs. Under it she wore black lace knickers, dark stockings, and ankle boots.

  Around her neck hung a gold chain. Something dangled on the end of it, buried between her breasts.

  Slocum pointed. “What’s that?”

  “Why, those’re my tits, honey,” she cooed.

  “Don’t be funny,” he said, crossing to her. He hooked a finger under the chain, lifting it, fishing the object dangling at its end up and out of her bosom.

  It was a key, a small flat key. “No sapphire,” she said. “What’s the key to?”

  “My diary.”

  “That should make some interesting reading.
”

  “I didn’t know you could read.”

  “I can’t. I’ll look at the pictures,” he said. He let go of the chain, letting the key fall back against her flesh.

  “Give me your dress and no tricks,” he said.

  She stepped out of the dress puddled around her ankles, picked it up, handed it to him. He stepped back, eyeing her. He perched a hip on the edge of the bar, leaning there while he turned out all the pockets in the dress, methodically, one by one. He felt through the folds for hidden pockets, found none. He checked the inner lining, making sure that the stone hadn’t been sewn inside. It hadn’t.

  “Can I have my dress back now?”

  Slocum set it aside, out of the way. “No. Take off your shoes.”

  She sat down, unlaced her ankle boots, and took them off. He examined them, checking for hollow heels, hidden compartments, finding none.

  “Keep going,” he said. She stood up, raising her arms over her head to pull off her wrapper. She squirmed out of it, bare from the waist up. Her flesh was creamy and glowing. Her nipples were dark pink, long, with neat round circles.

  She bunched up her wrapper and threw it at him. She stood with her hands on her hips, glaring. He patted down the garment, kneading it, making sure there was no stone.

  He looked at her. “Don’t stop now.” His mouth was a little dry.

  “Bastard,” she said. She took off her knickers and stepped out of them, now bare but for a pair of dark stockings that were held in place by round garters. She had round hips, a taut rounded belly, and a brown bush, thick, but neatly trimmed at the edges.

  There was no place in the knickers to hide the stone. No place on her either.

  “Getting a good look, you bastard?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You want to look up my snatch?”

  “That won’t be necessary. It would be kind of painful to hide the stone there,” he said.

  “Are you satisfied now that I don’t have it?”

  “Not on you anyway.”

  She gave an exasperated snort. “Oh, for crissakes!”

  He reached out and plucked the key and chain from her neck, breaking the catch.

  “Hey! Give that back!” she said.

  “What’s that key open, I wonder.”

  “Give it back!”

  “That’s the most outrage you’ve shown yet—”

  She tried to knee him in the groin, but he was expecting that and turned to the side so his thigh caught the blow. It hurt, numbing deep into the muscles. Her fingernails tore at his eyes. He batted them away, but it was just a feint. She darted past him, toward the shotgun on the bar.

  He got a hand around her throat, stopping her. He held her at arm’s length. She tore at his hand with both of hers, but couldn’t break his grip. He backed her into a wall and lifted her up, one-handed, until her feet were off the floor. Her eyes bulged and her face was red, then purple-red. Her heels drummed against the wall. She made strangling noises.

  He released his grip. She slid down the wall and sat down on the floor, hard, her legs sticking out in front of her. She sucked wind, great gulping gasps.

  After a while, her eyes stopped bulging so much, and her face lost some of its plummy color.

  “Get dressed,” Slocum said.

  10

  The key was to a safe in the closet of Maud’s second-floor bedroom. Slocum went to it straight off, with no hesitation.

  “Bastard! How’d you know it was there? Who told you?” Maud demanded.

  “I found it earlier, when I first broke into the house. I was looking for a weapon,” he said pleasantly. He could afford to be pleasant.

  Maud was fit to be tied. In fact, she was tied, hog-tied with a couple of sashes from her robes. She lay fully clothed on her belly on the bedroom floor, hands tied behind her back, ankles tied, and wrists and ankles tied together so that her limbs formed a sort of bow. He hadn’t wanted to tie her, but when she saw that he was going for the safe, she’d made such a fuss that he’d had to restrain her. It was that or tap her out on the back of the skull with a gun barrel. He didn’t want to do that—it could damage the barrel, take it out of true.

  Her room was the biggest on the second floor. It was in the back of the house, away from the street. There was a big brass bed and a full-length mirror and some dressers. There were rich fabric hangings and fancy trimmings. A lamp turned low supplied dusky bronze light.

  A heavy scent mixed from sweet-smelling powders, perfumes, and lotions tickled Slocum’s nose. He squatted in the closet, the door open to let in the light and to allow him to keep an eye on Maud, who lay on the floor nearby.

  The safe stood in the corner, a squat bulky metal cube with a pair of flanges protruding at the base, bracketing the door. In the flanges were holes, through which had been driven railroad spikes, nailing the box to a floor beam. It couldn’t be easily removed. But he had the key.

  The key still trailed the twin halves of the broken necklace that had held it around Maud’s neck. The safe had an inset lock and a handle, no dial. The key fit, turning in the lock. Slocum levered the handle, opening the door.

  Inside was a six-gun, loaded but rusty. He didn’t need it. He had other, better weapons. There was a packet of letters, tied with a bow. Love letters. Nothing in it for him. There was another, larger envelope, containing legal papers and documents: deeds and titles to various pieces of property, including the house, and some railroad bonds and the like. He leafed through them, looking for—what? He wasn’t sure. There was nothing there that spoke to him of murder.

  There was a brick-sized wad of greenbacks, a couple hundred dollars worth. There was a small leather pouch with almost a hundred dollars in gold coins. A larger, doeskin pouch with a drawstring held jewelry.

  Eyes narrowed, Slocum emptied the pouch on the naked floorboards. There were strands of pearls, bracelets, rings, pendants, pins, and other jewelry.

  “Found what you’re lookin’ for yet?” Maud asked with a scowl.

  “Not exactly, but this might just do for the time being.”

  “Wait a second, mister, that stuff is goin’ right back where you found it. You’ve no right to pocket any of it.”

  “I’m thinkin’ that this loaded gun I got right here gives me all the rights I need,” Slocum said. “And since you won’t tell me what I need to know....”

  Maud rolled her eyes. “How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t have the damn stone? No matter how much you threaten me or how long you put your dirty fingers through my drawers, you’re not gonna find the blasted thing. So I swear, if you don’t give me back my stuff, you dirty bastard...” “Listen up, Maud, before you go off cussing a blue streak again. I’ve got a proposition for you.”

  She told him what he could do with himself.

  “No, it’s not that kind of proposition,” he said. “This is business, strictly business.”

  He sat down on the edge of the bed. She twisted around on her belly, turning so she could see him. She stared up at him, neck taut, face red, eyes hard.

  He bounced the jewel pouch on his palm, jingling it. There was something almost hypnotic in the movement, fascinating her like a fluted pipe charms a snake.

  He said, “How’d you like to earn back these trinkets?”

  That broke the spell. She said, “They’re mine, dammit, and so is the money you stole!”

  “Possession is nine-tenths the law. And what I’ve mainly got possession of is you, Maud ... or did you forget? The fact of it is that you’re gonna do what I say anyhow, so you might as well get something out of it.”

  “Or else what? You’ll kill me? You’re going to do it anyway, so why should I help you?”

  “I’m no woman-killer,” Slocum said, “and you know it, or you wouldn’t be arguing with me, trying to cut yourself a better deal.”

  “Deal? What deal?”

  “I’m getting to that. I’ve got guns and money now. If I was you, I’d be listening real close to wh
at I’ve got to say.”

  Maud rolled her eyes yet again, but remained silent.

  “That’s better. Now, just think for a minute. I’m standing here with all your money and a weapon, and yet I still haven’t killed you. Why would I try to bargain with you if I was the killer?”

  “ ’Cause you think I know—”

  “Oh, shut up and hear me out,” Slocum said. “If Dolores had that stone—and I think we both know that she did—then we gotta assume that her killer has it now. I don’t think somebody’d be stupid enough to murder her without havin’ that gem in their possession first. So, if you don’t have it and I don’t have it, then the killer probably ain’t in this room.”

  He looked to make sure she was following him. Satisfied that she was, he went on. “Now, we both have a stake in finding the real murderer here. Obviously, I gotta clear my name. And you’d just like to see the guy caught since he got one of your girls. Not to mention the fact it’d get me out of your hair. So, I suggest a little give-and-take.”

  “What exactly do you think I can do for you outside of the skills of my profession?” she asked.

  “You can tell me all you know about the strangers you’ve had comin’ in and out of this place. ’Cause it may very well be that the murderer was a customer of yours.”

  He paused as another thought came to him: “Or a stranger who sneaked in.”

  “Mister, nobody sneaks into this house.”

  Slocum raised one eyebrow. “I did, tonight.”

  11

  Slocum tried on a coat that Chase had left behind. It was loose in the shoulders and tight in the waist, but it was warm. Eyeing himself in the mirror, Slocum said, “Makes me look a little like a pimp, but it’ll do.”

  “Chase’s no pimp! I’m a high-class madam and I don’t need a pimp! Wouldn’t have any truck with one! I run this house, and nobody else, see?”

  “Don’t get yourself into an uproar, Maud.”

  Slocum held the sawed-off shotgun in one hand, and the jewelry box in the other. He dropped the bag into a coat pocket. Maud stood nearby, untied, chafing her wrists. When the jewels vanished into his pocket, she bristled.

  “Mind your manners, Maud. I’d hate to have to whomp you in the head with this here gun butt. No telling but what it might trigger a couple of shotgun blasts, and then the fat’d really be in the fire. Not to mention somebody might accidentally get their head blown off, or something.”