Find Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #1) (16 page)

Angel
was moving fast.

Lake
Tahoe stretched ahead of him, forty miles wide and blue as a
Chinaman’s robe. Quail scattered in front of his horse, their head
feathers quivering with every movement as they ran between bushes
and rocks. Ahead, the mountains soared in huge phalanxes of black
and puce and purple and slate, their shoulders mantled with pine,
peaks etched with snow. Angel pointed the sorrel’s nose downhill
from the pass.

‘
Well, there’s the avalanche,’ he muttered to the horse, ‘but
where’s the trail?’

In
truth, the trail along the flank of Echo Mountain was like an
avalanche to look at, a series of gigantic furrows scoured into the
flinty earth by the wheels of the Concords and wagons on their way
to and from the mining country. He followed it down to the shore of
the lake and by nightfall he was over Second Summit and coming down
the long shelving slope eastwards into the Nevada desert. He
wondered what Wells was doing.

He
had left no note. Wells wouldn’t need to be told where Angel was
going, and a frosty smile touched Angel’s lips as he visualized the
older man stomping around the hotel room cursing when he discovered
him gone. But he knew Wells would waste very little time on
recrimination. He would move heaven and earth to get to Virginia
City, to cut down the head start Angel had given himself. He
figured he had a slight edge on the Justice Department man but
nothing more. Travelling horseback he could make better time than
the coach Wells would have to use. That might give him twenty four
hours at the best, twelve hours at the worst, to find Cravetts in
Virginia City. He shrugged to himself. It would just have to be
enough.

Next
morning early he pushed up the twisting road that climbed the
canyon to Mount Davidson, passing dump after deep mine dump, and
shaft houses either working or already abandoned and rusted. Then
just like that, around a corner he was in the town, its crude,
ugly, overpowering mass clamped to the face of the
canyon.

The
streets went up the side of the hill in lettered array, with
downhill streets crossing them. Everywhere there were shacks and
tin pot stores with mining equipment hanging in jangling disarray
outside them. The sidewalks were crammed with people, and the whole
length of B Street was one churning seething hive of animals and
men, carts and wagons and coaches and horses and mules and yapping
dogs and over it all lay a steady, unaltering level of noise — the
deep thumping of the pile drivers below ground, the unending hubbub
of human voices, and the punctuation provided by the shrill blast
of the Virginia 8c Truckee Railroad down at the depot.

It
was already growing very hot in the open. The light mountain air
was thin and heady. Angel found a livery stable on the mountain
side of B Street and while he was unsaddling, asked the owner a
question.

‘
Cravetts, Cravetts?’ said the man, scratching his head.
‘Cain’t say I’ve heerd the name, son, but that ain’t nuthin’. Too
danged many people hereabouts for a man to know any but his own
kin, an’ a right few o’ them ain’t usin’ the name they had in the
States.’

‘
Place is sure humming,’ Angel agreed, looking out on to the
street.

‘
Waal, we better make the best of her,’ the stableman said.
‘You want my ’pinion, the gold’s a gonna peter out afore too long,
an’ the way they’re drillin’ down there, wouldn’t surprise me if
the whole burg caved right in.’

‘
Cheerful thought,’ Angel said. ‘Where’s a decent
hotel?’

‘
You
could try the International down the street a ways,’ he was told.
‘Good as any. The stage line uses it.’

Angel
thanked him and went out on the street, drifting with the endless
crowd on the battered and broken sidewalks. Virginia City was raw
and ugly and the smell of gold excitement came off it like rancid
butter. Along the street he found whiskey mills every twenty paces,
and looked into one or two. They were cheap deadfalls and he didn’t
expect to find anything, but he looked anyway. Wells had told him
that. Always look, he said. Costs nothing, and you never know what
you’ll find.

But
there was nothing to find. He had been naive to think he could come
to a big place like this and find one man in it. He walked further
along the street, and in the slide area between two buildings he
saw a cock-fight with a crowd of men clustered around the
screeching birds, fists full of currency, shouting and cheering
when blood was spilled. He came to the International Hotel, a
solid-looking brick building of two storeys, and went inside,
taking a seat in the lobby.

He
was trying to think like Wells, and cast his mind back to their
weeks of waiting at Fort Bowie. Wells had told him many of the
ruses, the ploys he had used in his time with the Justice
Department. Tricks of the trade, he’d called them.

‘
People become thieves because they’re lazy,’ Wells had said.
‘Deep down, basically, I mean. They’re too lazy to graft for their
money so they steal it instead.

They’ll kill while they’re stealing it because they’re too
lazy to fight for what they’ve stolen. A lawman has to capitalize
on the fact that criminals are lazy, greedy, cunning, always
expecting someone to try and put something over on them. And use
the knowledge to bring them to him.’

Angel
nodded to himself. But how, Angus, how? He had to get action
quickly. ‘Always use the simplest, most direct methods,’ Wells had
told him. ‘Less chance of fouling up on a detail.’

He
went across to the desk.

‘
How
would I go about finding a man named Cravetts who runs a saloon in
town somewhere? he asked.

The
clerk looked at him indulgently.

‘
In
Virginia City proper, sir,’ he said, ‘or Gold Hill?’

‘
I
don’t know.’

‘
There are more than one hundred saloons in town, sir,’ the
clerk said patiently.

‘
Which one is the biggest, the fanciest?’ Angel
asked.

The
clerk raised one eyebrow slightly. ‘The Alhambra, I’d
say.’

‘
That’s on B Street?’

‘
No,
sir, on C, at the corner of Taylor. Two blocks along and one
up.’

Angel
nodded his thanks and left. He found the Alhambra without much
difficulty, and pushed through the crowd to the bar. The bartender
served him the beer he asked for and then pointed down the bar at a
florid-faced man with a huge belly standing talking to some of his
customers near the free lunch counter.

‘
Happy Jack’s the owner, you want to talk to him,’ he said as
reply to Angel’s question. Angel walked down to the end of the bar
and waited for a moment until he caught Happy Jack’s
eye.

‘
Wondered if you could help me,’ Angel said. ‘I’m trying to
contact someone. Name of Cravetts. Dick Cravetts. Bought a saloon
up here quite recently.’

Happy
Jack pursed his lips and looked at his molded ceiling for
inspiration. ‘Cravetts,’ he muttered. Then a beaming smile split
his face wide open, instantly explaining his nickname.

‘
Dick
Cravetts!’ he said. ‘Course! Bought that big place down on A Street
next to Crazy Kate’s. Had a fancy opening. Harry — ’ he called to
the bartender, ‘ — what did that guy Cravetts call the old Brewery
when he took it over?’

‘
The
Pay Roll,’ said the bartender, and Happy Jack smiled, his double
chins jiggling. ‘Some name for a saloon, eh, mister — ?’

‘
Torelli,’ Angel told him. ‘Frank Torelli.’

‘
You
new in town, Frank?’

just
got in,’ Angel said. ‘I’m at the International. Thought I’d look
old Dick up.’

‘
Well, that’s where you’ll find him, down the hill all the way
from here, turn left on A and there you are. Give him my regards,
tell him to come in some time for a chinwag.’

He
gestured at his double chins and the grin split his face again.
‘Chinwag,’ he gurgled. ‘Get it?’

Angel
supplied the fat man with laughter and a drink, then went out into
the street and found his way back to the hotel, where he booked a
room for the night. It was no problem to find someone to go down to
the Pay Roll Saloon with his message.

‘
Just
tell him Torelli, Frank Torelli sent you,’ he told the youngster.
‘Tell Mr. Cravetts I’m in Room 14 at the International and I have
to see him about the money.’

‘
See
him about the money, yessir,’ said the boy, and picked the silver
dollar that Angel flipped to him out of the air. With a satisfied
nod Angel went into the dining room and ate a good meal. Then he
went up the street and bought a few things which he took to his
room.

Once
there he stripped off his coat and went to work.

When
everything was the way he wanted it, he sat down on an upright
chair in the corner of the room to wait out the afternoon. He did
not think anything would happen before dark.