The Accomplice (4 page)

“I can stitch up some of those cuts if you still have it in you,” Holliday said.

Caleb looked over to the dentist and found that sitting up and seeing Holliday at an equal level was something of a new perspective. Holliday still looked pale and gaunt. His eyes, which had seemed a cool blue before, now seemed gray. Sweat had broken out across his forehead and slicked his dark blond hair against his scalp. The perspiration seemed to come from something else besides the heat that filled the room as it did the entire state of Texas at that time of year.

Before too long, Holliday picked up on Caleb’s careful inspection of him. “You strike me as a fighting man,” Holliday said.

Once more taken off his guard, Caleb replied, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The way you’re sizing me up. I’ve seen wild dogs with less fire in their eyes.”

Now it was Caleb’s turn to smile. Even though the gesture hurt, it was good to be able to do it again. “I’ve heard about you, Holliday. You’re more than just a dentist around here.”

Holliday’s eyes showed a glint of amusement. When he smiled, he showed a set of well-maintained if slightly bloodied teeth. “Is that a fact, now?”

Caleb saw the bloodstains on the dentist’s teeth and reacted just enough for Holliday to pick up on it. In one motion, Holliday had turned away from Caleb and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to dab at his mouth. He cleared his throat a few times, but that soon degenerated into a series of hacking coughs.

One after another, the coughs came. They started shaking Holliday like a pair of rough, invisible hands as the sound he made became gritty and wet. And just as quickly as they’d overtaken him, the coughs were forced back down. Holliday wiped his mouth, pulled in a breath, and once again set his eyes upon Caleb.

Oddly enough, Caleb had to admit that Holliday looked even stronger than before.

“You said I had some cheaters in my place,” Caleb reminded the dentist. “From what I hear, you could be one of them.”

“And who told you that? Someone who bet too much and lost is what I’d wager.”

“Yeah. They lost, all right.”

“And let me guess. They didn’t take it up with the law, either?”

“No. They didn’t.” Caleb nodded at the way Holliday composed himself. He liked to think he had instinct to spare when it came to judging men. Even so, it was hard to get a read on the dentist before him. “So who is this cheater, then? Will you tell me?”

“First things first,” Holliday said. “How about you settle up with the girl out front for this service before I provide you with another one?”

A knot formed in Caleb’s stomach. “I don’t have any money with me. At least, probably not enough to pay for this.”

“Are you happy with my work?”

Caleb took a moment to mull the question and found no ulterior motives behind it. Holliday’s expression was genuine as he perched on the edge of his stool waiting for the response. Reaching up to feel his jaw, he found plenty of bloody gaps but no more glass. “Feels a whole lot better than when I came in.”

“Then that can hold me over until you can pay me. Now, how about those cuts? Shall I see to them, or would you prefer to go to another doctor?”

“Since I’m already here, you might as well do it. If I’m going to run up a bill, I’d just as soon just run up one big one than a few smaller ones.”

“Now that is what I call sound reasoning. Care for something to help with the pain?”

Fully expecting a tonic or some kind of ointment, Caleb nodded. What he got instead was something that made him look down just to make sure he was guessing correctly about what the dentist had given him. Sure enough, it was a dented metal flask. The initials JHH were engraved onto its front. A quick shake told him the flask was about half-full.

“That might sting a bit going down,” Holliday said with a wink. “But it’ll be worth it.”

Steeling himself with a deep breath, Caleb twisted open the flask and lifted it to his mouth. When he tossed back some of the contents, he made sure to keep as much of it as possible on the less damaged half of his mouth. The whiskey was smooth and potent, with a bit of a smoky aftertaste. That wasn’t enough, however, to dull the flash of pain that filled Caleb’s skull like billowing smoke.

Swallowing the liquor, Caleb handed back the flask. “Tastes expensive,” he said.

Holliday nodded while accepting the flask. When he took a pull for himself, he didn’t so much as flinch. “Feel better?”

“No, but let’s get this over with.”

“What’s the matter? You don’t trust Hank to watch your place while you’re away?”

Caleb squinted through the slight haze that had rolled in behind his eyes from the combination of pain and whiskey. “Why do you say that? And how do you know so much about my business?”

Holliday’s features lightened a bit as he shrugged. “Maybe I should be asking you why you don’t recognize the face of one of your customers?” After another second ticked by, Holliday smirked. “Relax, Caleb. I make it my business to know as much as I can about the person who runs a place where I play cards. It helps me avoid the money pits.”

“Money pits?”

“Sure. Places where the only ones who win are the cheats and the owners who let them operate. Everyone else might as well be tossing their money into a pit.”

“Clever. You think up that one on your own?”

“Not hardly.” After one more pull from the flask, Holliday offered it back to Caleb. It was refused, so Holliday took Caleb’s portion for himself. “Now then, let’s see what we can do about that face of yours.”

Caleb’s first impulse was to vacate that uncomfortable chair until some of the whiskey had been purged from the dentist’s system. He stayed put when he saw that Holliday’s hands were just as steady now as when he’d started.

The whiskey gave Holliday’s skin a rosy hue and made the smile on his face a bit more personable. Anyone else would have looked like a drunkard. For a man who appeared to be a few steps over a corpse, any bit of color was a welcome change, no matter where it came from.

Only a few of the cuts on Caleb’s jaw were deep enough to need stitches. The rest only required bandaging so they could close up on their own. Now that the broken glass was out, the damage to his jaw didn’t seem half as bad as it had first seemed.

“You’ll be fine,” Holliday said, his southern accent polishing up the words like varnish on a knife’s handle. “You want some advice?”

“Sure.”

“Next time you see a bottle coming your way . . . duck.”

Caleb started to smile but held back when he realized that one of his cuts was still in the process of being stitched. He didn’t have to wait long, however, until the dentist had completed his task and was leaning back to clean his hands with a towel.

“There you go,” Holliday said in a somewhat thicker drawl. “All clean and good as new.”

Sitting up, Caleb ran his hand over the lines of his face. The glass was gone, and the blood was no longer slick upon his cheek. “Much obliged. You do good work. Now, about settling the bill.”

Holliday was already tipping his flask against his mouth while waving off Caleb’s statement with his free hand. “Worry about that later. We still have that other matter to discuss. How about we settle both things at once?”

“Fine by me,” Caleb said. Whether due to the pain or the whiskey he’d drunk to deal with it, he was having a hard time getting himself too worked up about the possibility of cheaters in his midst. Come to think of it, considering the crowd his place usually drew, having cheaters among them was no surprise. Still, rooting one or two out could go a long way in drawing better players.

“Splendid,” Holliday said. “It’s been a while since I’ve had a good game. I’ll stop by the Flush tonight.”

“I’ll have enough to pay you for the work you did, and I’ll even top off that flask of yours.”

Lifting the flask in a toast. Holliday seemed to be happier about that than anything else so far. “Mind those stitches, now.”

With that, Holliday got up from his stool and walked to the door. Before he could make it through the door, Holliday stopped and was taken over by another fit of coughing. He got it under control quickly enough, dabbed his mouth with his handkerchief, and then continued down the narrow hall.

On his way out, Caleb started to say something to the girl at the front of the office.

“Don’t worry about a thing,” she said cheerily. “Everything’s taken care of.”

He waved to the girl and left the dentist’s office. With the whiskey’s comforting haze already starting to fade, Caleb gripped the handrail and took the stairs one at a time.

The day wound up being quiet enough for Caleb to spend most of it relaxing in his office. Sitting in the room that looked to be more of a large closet than anything made to hold a desk and chair, he shook his head as he often did and wondered what the hell he was doing there.

The first answer that came to mind was the habitual one. He was there because he’d wanted to own a saloon. He’d saved his money and bided his time until he could eventually afford to put a payment down on a building that had come up for sale. With a little help from an investor or two, a few generous family members, plus no small amount of luck, the Busted Flush had been born.

Along the way, he’d also picked up a pain at the back of his skull, which hadn’t lessened since he’d scratched his name upon the papers putting the saloon under his management.

Things could have gone a whole lot worse. After all, he was still in business and had managed to pick up a small group of customers. There was even talk that the Flush might make it onto the gambler’s circuit. Being included on that informal list, which got circulated among the country’s best players, was a hell of a boon to a man in Caleb’s business.

As Caleb’s mind shifted to the other side of that same coin, he felt a massive sigh work its way up to the top of his lungs. The deeper his roots sank into the business he’d so desperately wanted, the more he felt like he was getting buried underneath it all. The walls of his office closed in like the sides of a coffin. Every noise he made rattled around in there with him.

His breathing sounded like a grating rasp.

The shifting of his boots against the floor echoed in his ears. The movement of his hands over the top of his little desk was like desert rocks being scraped together.

Even the noises that came in from the main room echoed so loudly that he wanted to tear his ears off the sides of his head.

Caleb practically jumped up from his desk and stormed out of his office. When the door swung open, Hank jumped out of the way before taking a hit square in the nose.

“What’s the rush, Caleb?” Hank asked as the customers leaning against the bar laughed at his near fall.

“No rush. I just needed to get some fresh air.”

The old miner was still in his spot. From there, he seemed to see and hear everything that happened in the place. “No fresh air in here,” he said. “At least, not when ol’ Thirsty is in the room.”

Everyone within earshot laughed at that. Everyone, that is, except for Thirsty.

The middle-aged man was dressed in a sloppy, rumpled suit. His face had the permanent, rosy hue of someone with just as much liquor flowing through his veins as there was blood. “Aw, to hell with ya, Orville,” Thirsty grunted.

Raising his glass, the old miner shot back with, “You first, you drunk bastard.”

That got another round of insults started. Some of the others chimed in like children pitching their marbles into a schoolyard game. Caleb watched the bawdy exchanges with a smile as the knot in his stomach started to loosen. The air within the saloon might have been far from fresh, but it was exactly what he’d needed.

And, using the sixth sense that his sort always seemed to have, Loco Mike Abel picked that moment to make his entrance.

Before Mike had even stepped all the way through the front door, Caleb had spotted him and was searching for the darkly dressed man Mike was there to see. It was easy enough to spot the gambler, since his face was already turning toward the door.

Placing his hand upon Hank’s shoulder, Caleb walked past the barkeep and whispered, “Stay on your toes.”

The barkeep didn’t know how to take that until he finally spotted Mike swaggering into the saloon like he owned the place. Nodding, Hank stepped aside so Caleb could walk around the bar.

“Hell of a crowd tonight,” Mike said as Caleb approached him. “Word must’a gotten out about my big game.”

Caleb stepped right up to him, stopped, and took a look around for himself. “I’ve seen bigger.”

“Yeah? Well you won’t see a bigger game.”

“If that’s all you’re here for, then go have your game. I’m more than happy to provide the table. If it’s trouble you’re after, then you’d best move along.”

After ignoring Caleb for another moment or two, Mike finally shifted his eyes back to him and smirked. “Didn’t I already deal with you?” He reached out to take hold of Caleb’s chin so he could move his head from side to side. “Yeah. Looks like I did. How about you tend to your bar before I tear that face up some more?”

Caleb slapped Mike’s band aside. He could feel his nostrils flaring as every muscle in his body tensed.

Mike’s smirk became even more maddening as he said, “Ohh, don’t get all riled up. I didn’t mean anything by it.” He then put his back to Caleb and moved forward as if he’d forgotten the other man had even existed. “Now where’s that dandy who thinks he can play cards?”

“That’d be me,” came a voice from a table toward the back of the room.

The gambler didn’t bother getting up from his seat. He was still dressed in his black suit, but his tie was loosened and his jacket was draped over the back of his chair. Some of the others at his table took a moment to acknowledge Mike’s presence, but only with a quick glance over their shoulder.