Send Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #2) (17 page)

Angel reached Tucson under
cover of darkness. He made no attempt to conceal himself. Burnstine
expected him to be dead - and buried, he thought grimly- and nobody
here knew him by sight except Burnstine
’s Negro servants. He kept a sharp
eye for any black face along the busy sidewalks, but saw few black
people. An old woman walking proudly upright beneath an enormous
bundle of washing directed him to the office of the United States
marshal on Elm Street. The marshal, John Allan, was a tall, slim,
fair-haired man who listened with growing amazement to the story
Angel told him.

‘
By
God!’ he would growl, every once in a while, ‘By God!’ And he would
hit his knee with a clenched fist. When Angel finished his story,
Allan wasted no more time. Within half an hour he had rounded up
half a dozen men whom he told Angel were completely reliable, and
within another fifteen minutes they were hammering on the door of
Burnstine’s hacienda.

After a few minutes a light came on in the
hall and the same Negro who had opened it to Angel before swung the
door wide. He fell back several steps as Angel stuck a six-gun
under his nose, his eyes as wide as saucers with fear and
surprise.

‘
Quick, now,’ snapped Angel. ‘Is Burnstine here?’

The Negro shook his head. His
lips trembled and when he
tried to speak his teeth chattered. Allan touched
Angel’s arm, his eyes indicating that Angel should put away the
gun. He spoke to the terrified servant in a gentle
voice.

‘
What’s your name, boy?’ he said, ignoring the fact that the
Negro was old enough to be his father, perhaps even his
grandfather.

‘
Gee,
suh,’ the Negro managed, gulping. ‘Banner Gee.’

‘
Well,
Banner, we ain’t going to hurt you none,’ Allan said. ‘You know
me?’

‘
Yassuh,’ Gee said. ‘Yo’re the marshal.’

‘
And
you know I work for the Government, Banner,’ Allan continued
softly. The Negro nodded. ‘So does this gentleman here, Banner,’
Allan went on. ‘He’s not goin’ to hurt you none.’

‘
Yassuh.’ The Negro nodded, his eyes losing their startled
whiteness.

‘
The
senator is in bad trouble, Banner,’ Allan said. His voice was easy,
and friendly. Angel could see the servant warming to Allan’s soft
Southern tone.

‘
He
is?’ Gee said.

Allan nodded.
‘I’m afraid so,
Banner. We’ve got to find him or some bad men may hurt him. You
wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?’

The servant shook his head
vigorously.
‘No, suh, I sho’ wouldn’t.’

‘
Well,
then... ?’

‘
He’s
gone to Daranga, see them gen’l’men there,’ the man said. It was as
if he was relieved to tell them.

‘
Birch
and Reynolds?’

‘
That’s right, suh.’

‘
That’s fine, Banner,’ Allan said, gently. ‘I’ll tell you
what I’m going to do: to make sure you are safe, I’m goin’ to leave
a couple o’ my men here with you. Then if the bad men come here
looking for the senator, they’ll be waiting.’

The Negro servant nodded eagerly. Allan
looked at one of the men, who nodded.

They needed no words. Angel
knew that the senator
’s house would be thoroughly and carefully
searched.

‘
Let’s
go,’ he said. ‘I have one more thing to do before I head for
Daranga.’

‘
You’re going back there?’ Allan said. ‘Maybe I’d better
come with you.’

‘
Let’s
get down to River Road,.’ Angel said. ‘We can talk about that
later.’

On the way down to the red light district he
told the Marshal what his plan was. Allan nodded. Angel warmed
again to this capable peace officer. He needed no long-winded
explanations, but acted quickly and decisively. When they reached
the house with the red roof, Angel crossed the street alone and
went over to the door, lifting the heavy brass knocker and letting
it fall until a lookout door popped open and a white face peered
through it at him.

‘
Willy
Mill sent me,’ he said urgently. ‘Open up.’

‘
We
ain’t - we’re not open yet,’ the woman said. ‘Come back
later.’

‘
I
want to see Angela,’ Angel rasped. ‘And I want to see her now. Do I
have to go and talk to the senator?’

The pale eyes widened in the white face and
Angel heard the woman fumbling with a bolt.

‘
You’d
better come in,’ she mumbled. ‘I’ll go an’ see ...’

She was a thin, slatternly woman of about
thirty, the dirty history of her life etched in the lines about the
deep shadowed eyes. She had on a thin dress which barely concealed
her body. The woman went up the stairs after showing Angel into a
kind of salon, a parlor full of overstuffed furniture and heavy,
dark wallpaper. The smell of cigar smoke and liquor and cheap
perfume hung in the air. After a wait of perhaps five minutes Angel
heard the swish of material and turned to see a tall woman, her
face high-cheekboned and almost beautiful, hair tied tightly back,
fine green eyes regarding his disheveled appearance with disdain.
The dress of watered green silk was in the latest Eastern fashion.
All in all Angela, for it was she, was a handsome woman and knew
it.

‘
If
Willy Mill sent you,’ she said haughtily, ‘he would also have told
you that we do not ... entertain before ten o’clock.’

‘
Lady,’ Angel said. ‘You have a girl here named Kate Perry.
Go and get her.’

The patrician eyebrows rose.

‘
I am
not accustomed to being spoken to like that,’ she said.

‘
Get
used to it,’ Angel snapped. ‘It’s polite compared to the way they
talk in Yuma.’

For a moment she puzzled over his allusion,
and then her brow cleared.

‘
Are
you some kind of law officer?’ she asked.

‘
You
might say,’ Angel told her. ‘Get the girl.’

‘
You
are making a mistake, my friend,’ the woman said, ominously. ‘I
have connections in this town.’

‘
Not
any more you haven’t,’ he said. ‘If you mean the
senator.’

She looked at him for a long, long moment,
and then turned on her heel.

‘
Wait,’ she said.

‘
Uh-huh,’ Angel told her. ‘Send someone for the girl. You
stay here.’

Her eyes were fiery, but she came back into
the room and pulled a cord hanging in the corner.

‘
You
will regret this,’ she hissed.

‘
I
doubt it,’ he said. The slatternly woman came in and Angela told
her to fetch Rate Perry. ‘The one in number eight,’ was how she put
it.

When they brought the girl in Angel felt his
guts turn over in pure anger. She walked like a whipped animal, her
head down, her long hair hanging over her face. Every inch of her
seemed to cringe, as if her soul was buried in shame.

‘
Kate,’ Angel said. She looked up at him and her eyes filled
with huge tears. She gave a choking sob and hurled herself into his
arms.

‘
Ohmygod,’ she sobbed, ‘Ohmygod!’

‘
It’s
all right now, Kate,’ Angel said, clumsily. ‘It’s all right.’ He
smoothed her hair awkwardly with his hand. ‘I’ve come to take you
home.’

The girl sobbed uncontrollably
and Angel patted her shoulder, looking up into the hate-filled eyes
of the madam. She had a
little derringer in her hand. The bore looked as
big as a cannon and it was pointed right at Angel’s
head.

‘
Stand
still,’ Angela hissed. ‘Very, very still. I think the senator will
want to know you are here.’

‘
He’s
gone, Angela,’ Angel said, pushing Kate Perry gently away from him.
‘He’s not at the hacienda.’ Kate stood watching the exchange, her
eyes wide.

‘
You’re bluffing,’ the madam said. ‘He’ll come.’

‘
No
chance,’ Angel told her. ‘Put up the gun, Angela. Don’t make things
any worse than they are. You’re already mixed up in a conspiracy to
kidnap charge, not to mention some other things a good prosecutor
might dream up if he was pushed to it.’

‘
You—’
she rasped. ‘Who else knows you’re here?’

‘
I
do,’ said Allan. He had come in behind her, soundlessly, having
entered the house from the rear. He tapped her neatly behind the
ear with the barrel of his sixgun. Angela folded like a fan and the
silk dress spread out like a pool of water as she slumped to the
ground.

‘
Hate
to do that to a woman,’ Allan said. There wasn’t an ounce of regret
in his voice.

Kate Perry started to cry. The tears simply
trickled hugely from her eyes. She made no sound, no sob. Her eyes
simply welled with water, which trickled down her face and fell
with soft thumps upon the carpeted floor.

‘
It’s
all right, Miss Perry,’ Allan told her. ‘It’s all over.’

She shook her head, the tears raining
down.

‘
I’ll
take her home with me,’ Allan told Angel. ‘My wife can get her some
decent clothes. I’ll have the doctor look in. She’ll be all right,
Angel.’

Angel nodded.
‘Kate?’ The girl
looked at him. Her eyes shone with the tears she was trying
desperately to hold back.

‘
Kate,
I have to go now. I have to go to Daranga. You know why, don’t
you?’

The girl nodded again. The tears began once
more.

‘
Don’t
cry,’ Angel said. ‘Go with Marshal Allan. When it’s over I’ll come
back and take you home.’

‘
Yes,’
she managed. ‘Yes.’

Angel turned towards the door.

‘
Angel!’ Allan called after him. ‘You’ll need
horses!’

Angel grinned.
‘I know just where
I can get them, too,’ he said. Then he was gone out into the night.
Allan stood for a moment, his arm around the shoulders of the
weeping girl.

‘
That’s quite a man,’ he said, almost to himself.

Kate Perry looked up at him and
for the first time since he had seen her she smiled.
‘Yes,’ she
said.

Angel sprinted up the street to
the livery stable he had visited before. The same man sat on the
same keg. It might even have been the same bottle of beer. He
looked at Angel, his mouth a surprised
‘O’.

‘
Howdy,’ Angel nodded. ‘How many horses you got in?’ ‘Uh ...
er ... I... six ... six - mebbe seven,’ the man stuttered. ‘Why’d
you ask?’

‘
Just
wondering,’ Angel said. ‘Any really fine horses?’ ‘Couple,’ the man
said, wonderingly. ‘Whuffor?’ ‘They’d be the senator’s, I guess,’
Angel went on. The man nodded.

‘
Good
stock they are,’ he said, proudly. ‘Palominos.’ ‘Incredible,’ Angel
said, and his voice changed suddenly. ‘Saddle them.’

‘
Saddle ‘em?’ squeaked the man, almost swallowing his Adam’s
apple.

‘
Quick,’ Angel said. The hostler looked down to see the
sixgun jamming into his belly. He gulped another gigantic swallow,
down and bobbed his head. ‘Uh .. . now . . . see here, mister . ..’
‘Move!’

Angel stood over the man as he saddled the
two horses. They were superb animals: they had the fine deep chests
and long muscles of racehorses and Angel felt a fleeting sadness at
what he was going to have to do to them.

‘
Mister,’ wheedled the hostler, ‘the senator’s goin’ to have
my cojones on his watch-chain when he finds out what’s happened. I
hate to think what he’s goin’ to do to you, but it’ll shore be
unpleasant.’

Angel looked at the man for a long moment,
frowning.

‘
Knew
there was something,’ he said finally.

He laid the barrel of his
sixgun along the side of the man
’s head, dropping him like a sack in the
dust. He picked up the beer bottle and emptied the contents down
his throat, remembering that he hadn’t eaten. The stars were out in
splendor as he gigged the spirited horses towards the edge of town.
He paused for a moment to look up at the sky. Then he took a deep
breath and kicked the startled horses into a thundering
gallop.

Larkin came down Fort Street.

His clothes were white with
trail dust and his eyes peered from an alkali mask. They burned
with a lambent fire that bordered on madness. He had ridden in a
huge half circle, out to the Reynolds ranch and then on to the
Birch place, scouting each of them like an Indian, waiting until he
could get near the main buildings and see either of the two men
whose names he kept repeating to himself like a litany. Neither had
been there, so he knew now that they were in town and he was coming
in to get them and nothing, nothing was going to stop him. He had
slept fitfully in a small stand of ironwood trees in the Rio Blanco
valley, twitching as he slept, his lips making small sounds. At
dawn he had saddled his horse again and now, as the sun climbed the
far side of the sky, he was at Daranga. He watched the people on
the sidewalks with hating eyes, and they saw him and the word ran
alongside
and ahead of him. He came down Fort Street and Sunny Metter
stepped out into the street, a carbine in his hands.

‘
Larkin!’ he shouted.

Larkin shot him down. Nobody
saw him move. Metter didn
’t even have a chance to fire. One second Larkin
was motionless, the next Metter had been blasted backwards, his
hands clutching at the dust, blood welling from his right shoulder,
knees drawn up in agony. Larkin kneed the horse on, ignoring the
Mexican girl who ran out to where Metter lay.

‘S
inverguenza!’
she spat.
‘Hijo de la gran
puta!’

‘
Ma’am,’ Larkin acknowledged, touching his hat. He felt
good. All his sinews were loose and the old fire was racing in his
veins. He wondered for a brief moment why the man had tried to stop
him but then dismissed the thought. It didn’t matter. He dismounted
outside the Alhambra and pushed in through the swinging
doors.

The Alhambra was by any
standards a very fancy saloon. The long bar curved around the room
in a horseshoe, gleaming black mahogany polished to a high
shine.
Behind it, fancy fretted woodwork shelves backed with cut
glass mirrors reflected the amber gleam of dozens of neatly
arranged bottles. The floor was smooth-planed pine, scattered with
sawdust. Brass spittoons punctuated the brass foot rail every three
or four feet. To one side of the room there were tables, several
set up for gambling: poker, blackjack, faro, chuckaluck. A stairway
led to a balcony which ran around the room like a minstrel gallery,
with doors leading off that were occupied by the girls who worked
in the place. Larkin saw all this in one swift glance, and in the
same glance he saw Birch sitting at a table with Burnstine. The
place was almost empty. A swamper looked up and saw Larkin in the
doorway, and almost fell over himself getting out of the way. His
pail rattled and the two men looked up and saw Larkin
there.

Burnstine
’s eyes widened with fear, but
Birch betrayed no emotion at all. He merely stared at the gunman,
his eyes opaque.

‘
Well,
well,’ Larkin said. ‘Two birds with one stone.’

‘
What
do you want, Larkin?’ Birch said, his voice hard.

‘
You,
you bastard!’ Larkin spat. ‘You an’ Reynolds set me up. I played it
straight and you set me up.’

A man ran from the room. The others cowered
back against the bar as far away from the probable line of fire as
they could get. No one moved a muscle. The air was charged with
menace.

‘
Don’t
be a fool, Larkin!’ Birch rasped. ‘Try that here and you’re a dead
man.’

‘
Sure,’ Larkin said, his voice soft and easy. He directed
his gaze at the cowering Burnstine. ‘Stand up, Senator!’

Burnstine looked at Birch. The big man
nodded and they stood up together, chairs scraping on the floor.
Birch moved off to one side away from the politician. Larkin
watched them like a cat

‘
I’m
not armed,’ Burnstine stammered. ‘It’ll be coldblooded murder,
Larkin!’

‘
It
don’t bother me none,’ Larkin informed him. So intent upon the two
men was his gaze that he did not hear the door open soundlessly on
the balcony above him, but Birch did. From beneath his jutting
eyebrows he saw the slim figure of Jacey Reynolds, gun in hand,
move to the rail of the balcony.

‘
I
don’t care much which o’ you goes first,’ Larkin said. He might
have been discussing the weather.

Up on the balcony, Reynolds
leaned over and cocked the gun and fired but Larkin, his reflexes
honed to razor sharpness, heard the sound of the ratchet and was
moving. He threw himself backwards and to one side, firing at the
man on the balcony. Reynolds grunted as the slug smashed through
him and then teetered for a moment, tipping forward, folding across
the rail, somersaulting down to the bar, smashing flat on the
polished mahogany counter even as Larkin went on with his roll,
trying for the shelter of one of the tables. Birch had a
second
’s
advantage and that was enough. His gun was out and spouting fire,
three shots in a rising arc as the gunman scrambled across the
floor. Birch’s first shot smashed Larkin’s right hand to a mangled
mess of muscle and white bone. The second one hit him almost in the
middle of the chest, slamming Larkin flat on the floor. The third,
slightly wild, hit Larkin’s left thigh. He lay there on the saw
dusted floor, and Birch stalked over to him, cocking the gun
again.

‘
So
long, Larkin,’ he said callously and raised the gun. Larkin looked
up and tried to spit at the rancher towering above him. Every eye
in the place was fixed on the pair. Nobody saw Angel come
in.

‘
Birch!’ he shouted.

Every head turned. They saw Angel standing
there and they saw that his gun was not drawn. Birch, too, turned
half around, crouched like a cat ready to spring, the leveled gun
in his hand cocked and ready to fire.

‘
It’s
Angel!’ Burnstine shouted.

A look of purest animal joy
flitted across Birch
’s face: the thoughts in his head were plain to everyone
watching. Birch whipped the gun around. What happened next became a
legend in Daranga. Newcomers would be told the story, and they
would shake their head in disbelief and say it couldn’t be done,
but the men in the Alhambra saw it done and terrible though it was,
it was magnificent. In the same fraction of time that the big man
moved, Angel also moved, his hand sweeping up in a motion too fast
for the eye to follow, the sixgun blasting flame once, twice, three
times as Birch’s gun exploded harmlessly into the ground, the big
man dead as he fired. Birch’s death was so shocking, so impossible,
that when he fell there was a silence of stunning intensity. The
big man lay on his back. There were two neat holes just above the
third button of his dark blue shirt, and another had been drilled
dead center between the opaque eyes. Angel stood half crouched, his
grey eyes still cold and deadly.

‘
You?’
Burnstine managed. His face held the expression of a man witnessing
the end of the world. Angel said nothing. He looked at Burnstine
and the senator saw Angel’s trigger finger whiten. Burnstine looked
into the cold and grinning skull face of death and his jaw
slackened.

‘
God,
don’t, Angel!’ he cried hoarsely. ‘You’ve got to give me
justice!’

The last word seemed to release
a hidden switch in Angel. The watchers saw the man slowly
straighten,
slightly, easily letting the tension slip away. Angel
sighed, the barrel of the gun dropping slightly. And Burnstine knew
he would live. He was soaking wet with the sallow sweat of terror.
At that moment Sheriff Austin burst into the room, closely followed
by two soldiers. Angel whirled to meet the new threat, the sixgun
level and the killing readiness back in his eyes.

‘
Christ, Angel!’ screeched Austin. ‘It’s me!’

His discomfiture was so profound that it
almost totally dissipated the tension in the big room. Even Angel
gave a tired grin.

‘
For a
moment, there, Sheriff, I thought it was a man,’ he
said.

‘
What
in the name o’ God’s been goin’ on?’ stuttered Austin. His eyes
fell on the bodies. ‘Birch? Reynolds! What in the name of sweet
Jesus... ?’ Larkin groaned. He lay in a widening pool of blood, but
his eyes flickered open and he looked around.

‘
That
bastard!’ Austin said. ‘He shot Sunny Metter, you know that,
Angel?’

‘
I saw
it happen,’ Angel said. ‘I was too far away to do anything about
it.

‘
Why
did he try to take Larkin? He should have known he couldn’t do
it.’

‘
He
can tell you that hisself,’ Austin blustered. ‘He ain’t hurt bad.’
Angel felt a warm flooding feeling of relief at this news. ‘I’ll go
see him,’ he said. ‘Sheriff, this here is Senator Ludlow Burnstine.
Lock him up.’

Austin had started forward, his
hand extended. At Angel
’s words he stopped, his jaw dropping
comically.

‘
Lock
him?
Up?
he strangled out.

‘
Tight,’ emphasized Angel. ‘Two guards outside his
door.’

Austin gulped.
‘You can’t lock up
no United States senator, Angel!’ he yelped.

‘
Oh,
shut up and do what I tell you, man!’ snapped Angel. ‘He won’t give
you no argument. He’s plain glad to be alive.’

He motioned to one of the
soldiers.
‘Give me a hand with Larkin,’ he said.

They lifted the gunman up, and
Larkin shouted something from the depths of his pain as they moved
him. He was quite unconscious by the time they got him to the hotel
and sent for the doctor. The doctor opened his bag, snipping
Larkin
’s
shirt away and probing gently at the wound in his chest with his
fingers. He rose and snapped his bag shut. Angel watched him
expressionlessly.

‘
He
might hang on another twenty-four hours,’ the doctor said. ‘I can’t
do anything for him. Patch him up, maybe I’ll send my wife across
to bandage him up, make him a little more comfortable. I’ll look in
this evening.’

As quickly as he had come, the old doctor
was gone. Angel stood alone in the room watching the unconscious
man. After a while, he left.