GATLING LOCKED UP and headed for the hotel. The rain made halos around the gas lamps on Main Street. Up and down the street saloons were going full blast; mechanical pianos rattled out the same tunes, over and over; two patrolmen were loading unconscious drunks into a paddy wagon to save them from drowning in the parts of the street that were flooded. The noise would go on all night. Packed with snoring, mumbling drunks, the paddy wagon rumbled off toward the city jail.
To get to the hotel, Gatling had to pass an alley with a whorehouse at the end of it. Most of the whorehouses were on the other side of the river; a few were tolerated in the streets and alleys that branched off Main, provided they conducted their business in a quiet, orderly fashion, or what passed for it in Butte. Gatling had seen a patrolman coming out of the alley with his fly buttons open.
Lights showed at the end of the alley; there were none close to Main Street. Gatling was stepping up on the next stretch of sidewalk when a drunk in miner’s clothes and floppy hat lurched out of a doorway. Gatling moved to get out of his way. The drunk staggered some more, then suddenly he straightened up and Gatling saw Frankie’s grinning face and the shine of brass knuckles on his right hand. Frankie spat a jet of tobacco juice in his face as he reached for his shoulder gun. Most of it missed, but his eyes stung from what didn’t, then something hit him behind the right ear and he started to fall. He was still falling when the brass knucks struck him full force in the side of the head. A bright white light flashed in his head and he felt himself being dragged backward from the glare of the street to the dark of the alley. Still half conscious, he knew what was happening, but there was nothing he could do about it. His arms and legs were like rubber and the toes of his boots dragged in the mud. Somehow he knew that Frankie was doing the dragging. Then he heard Frankie swear as his heel caught on something and he dropped Gatling face-down in a puddle of muddy water. The puddle was deep and the shock of the cold water snapped his eyes open like a shutter. Lying on his back in the mud, Frankie kicked at Gatling’s face. Gatling saw the flash of the knife in Nick’s hand and knew he was a whip crack away from death. He staggered to his feet, but Frankie brought him down with a wrestling twist of his legs. Moving in with the knife, Nick cursed his friend for getting in the way. Gatling and Frankie went over and over in the mud while Nick tried to get at Gatling’s back with the knife. Gatling was momentarily pinned to the ground when there was a loud, cracking sound and a body fell. Frankie yelled “Nick!” but got no answer. Gatling sensed the panic in the other man’s body. “Help me, you dago bastard!” Frankie turned his head, and Gatling grabbed the hand with the brass knucks on it and sank his teeth into Frankie’s wrist until he felt the bones starting to break. Frankie screamed, and somewhere out on Main Street some drunk whooped in reply. Now all Frankie wanted to do was tear himself loose and run away, but Gatling would be damned if he’d let him do that. He grabbed Frankie’s head and smashed him in the face with his forehead, breaking his nose. Stunned for the moment, Frankie moaned as Gatling pushed him aside, then lurched to his feet and kicked him in the side of the head. The knife still clutched in his hand, Nick was coming to. Gatling kicked him under the chin and he lay there bubbling blood. Noise still came from Main Street, but somehow it seemed far away.
Gatling swayed on his feet, still weak in the legs; his head hurt from the blows it had taken. There was no sign of the man who had belted Nick on the head and stopped him from using the knife. Time enough to think about that later; right now he had to make sure that Frankie and Nick never bothered him again. If he didn’t kill them now, he would have to face them at some other time. And the next time they tangled, he might not come out of it alive.
Moving quickly, he rolled Nick over and stabbed him between the shoulder blades with his own double-edged knife. Then he did the same to Frankie. He left the knife buried in Frankie’s back. He looked up and tensed when somebody came out of the whorehouse drunk and yelling “Good night!” but whoever he was he went the other way.
Stooped beside the bodies, Gatling stripped them of guns, wallets, watches, even their boots. Nick had a diamond stickpin in his tie and he took that too. It had to look like a robbery. Butte was full of drifting criminals, so maybe it would. He didn’t think the police would try too hard to find out who had killed two dangerous thugs who were well known to them.
Stuffing the dead men’s possessions in his pockets and carrying their boots, he went to the mouth of the alley and looked up and down Main Street. It was still raining hard and there was no one on the sidewalk or in the street. He ran across the street and down the slope to the river and tossed everything far out into deep water. The boots floated for a few seconds before they filled up and sank.
At the hotel, the room clerk was dozing behind the desk, as he did when business slackened off for the night, and there was no one in the lobby. Upstairs in his room, Gatling filled the bathtub with very hot water and drank a bottle of beer while he soaked in it. He had taken a good pounding, but there was nothing that would show when he went to the store in the morning; the bumps on his head wouldn’t be noticed if he kept his hat on.
He tried to think through the clanging pain in his head. The beer wasn’t strong enough to ease it, but he didn’t want to go out to buy whiskey. Best to stay off the street; the bodies could be discovered at any moment.
Sleep didn’t come easy because of the pain. Lying in the dark, thinking about the dead men, he wondered if Kane had sent them or if killing him was their own idea. Though Kane was capable of anything, he doubted if the Irish labor boss was behind it. Kane had no real reason to have him killed, at least not yet. So it had to be the two thugs acting on their own. Two down, he thought as he finally drifted off to sleep. X number to go.
It had been a good night’s work and he slept soundly.
Sergeant Fallon came to the store next morning. Gatling was reading the newspaper, drinking coffee with his hat on. The hat was tight because of the swelling on the side of his head. Cutting the sweatband hadn’t helped much; the pain in his head was still pretty bad, and he wondered how he looked to the policeman, who looked unusually cheerful so early on such a gray gloomy day.
“Morning,” he said.
Gatling nodded. “Want some coffee? Just made it.”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
“Will have to be black.”
“That ought to wake me up,” Fallon said. “Got routed out of bed in the middle of the night. Only got a few hours’ sleep after that.”
Gatling pushed the newspaper aside. “Rowdy drunks threatening to burn City Hall?”
Fallon sipped the scalding coffee and made a face. “Worse than that. Your good customers Frankie and Nick were killed and robbed in an alley down the street. The one where the whorehouse is. Both of them knifed in the back, the bodies stripped of everything valuable, even their boots. Now I call that a robbery-murder with absolutely no class. To steal dead men’s boots. They didn’t pay you a visit, by any chance?”
Gatling shook his head. “They didn’t come here. I worked till dinnertime, then came back, hung out my CLOSED sign, and worked till eleven-thirty or twelve. Can’t be sure of the time, but that’s about right.”
“They got a good beating before they got knifed,” Fallon said. “Kane’s going to be awful mad about this. They were two of his best boys and he’s going to miss them. We’re all going to miss them.”
“I guess Kane can always get two more.”
Fallon set his coffee down to cool. “Not like Frankie and Nick he won’t. Good men are hard to find, as the saying goes. What puzzles me is two capable fellows like that getting caught with their pants down in a dark alley.”
“They had their pants down?”
Something like a smile twitched at the corners of Fallon’s mouth. “A figure of speech. I mean caught unawares.”
“Maybe they knew their killers. Or maybe they drank too much, whored too much in that cathouse you mentioned. Too much whiskey, too much exertion can make a man groggy.”
Fallon drank some more coffee, this time without making a face. “There’s another odd thing. The woman that runs the whorehouse denies they were in her place. Of course she could be lying. Everybody lies to the police. I’m afraid it will remain a mystery, as so many murders do. Ran into a lot of unsolved murders when I was a detective back in New York. New York has at least two or three murders a day, so you can see what the odds are.”
Gatling kept his voice casual. “How come you ended up here, if you don’t mind the question?”
Fallon shrugged. “I got sick of all the graft and corruption, quit the force and went to work for the Holmes Agency, special operative. Worked all over, but mostly Chicago. Too many dirty trains, too many cheap hotel rooms, too much bad food, I quit Holmes and came west. They were looking for men here, so I applied and was accepted. The Chief started me as sergeant because of my New York and Holmes experience. Butte doesn’t have a regular detective, so I fill in there. We’ve got two lieutenants, but one of them is the Mayor’s nephew, is young, and can’t be moved. Chief Boyd says he’ll make me a lieutenant as soon as the other man retires.”
Gatling thought about the Holmes Detective Agency, Pinkerton’s biggest rival in the crook-catching business. He wondered if the two agencies traded information in spite of that. There was no way to know. Maybe Fallon knew more about him than he was letting on.
“Seems like you have a pretty good deal,” Gatling said. “You could end up as Chief of Police.”
“So I could.” Fallon smiled as if he didn’t think he’d climb that high. “But the Mayor’s nephew is more likely to get it—that is, if the Mayor is still in office when the time comes. For the moment, though, sergeant-detective suits me fine.”
Gatling refilled his cup. “You like detective work?”
“No brag,” Fallon said, “but I think it’s what I do best. I can’t say I was trained to be a detective, though I did work under Chief Inspector Byrnes for a while. Byrnes may be the best detective in New York, in the world, but he got himself assigned to the Wall Street area to look after the interests of the brokers and bankers. I hear he’s becoming a rich man himself. But I don’t envy the man. I like being a big fish in a small pond.”
There was something about Fallon that wasn’t quite right, Gatling decided. What he said sounded straightforward enough, and still there was a doubtful ring to it. Why an obviously intelligent man would want to be a policeman in a miserable place like Butte was hard to understand. With all his experience, Fallon should have been able to get a police job anywhere in the country. And if not a straight law job, then a job as head of private police for some big company. Jobs like that paid well, and if a man played his cards right he would be set for life. Be that as it may, Gatling knew his suspicion might be unfounded. Fallon might be just what he said he was: a big fish in a small pond.
“You have any idea who might have done it?” Gatling said.
“So far I haven’t,” Fallon said. “Like I said, this case is likely to remain unsolved. If they’d been honest upright citizens, men of some importance, it might be different. The Department, meaning me, would have to put a lot more effort into the investigation. But even then there would be no guarantee of success. Well, I mustn’t be keeping you from your work, and I have my own to do. Kane has to be notified, if he hasn’t heard already. He may want to pick up the bodies, though I wouldn’t bet on it.”
Fallon set down his cup and buttoned up his black rain slicker. “It rains more here than in Ireland,” he said. “This time of the year it never stops.”
Gatling said, “What do you think Kane will do?”
“No way to tell. He can hardly burn the town, can he? Why do you ask?”
“Knife work usually means foreigners,” Gatling said. “Kane could take it into his head to kill a few foreigners. I’d like to get set if there’s going to be some kind of trouble.”
Fallon waved his hand toward the gun racks. “I’d say you’re set enough as you are. Thanks for the coffee. If anything turns up, I’ll let you know. I mean about Frankie and Nick. I can see you’re interested.”
“Not that interested,” Gatling said.
That afternoon the newspaper got out an extra edition devoted entirely to the double murder. Not since the St. Patrick’s Day riot had there been such a story. Frankie and Nick weren’t just two thugs, but Michael P. Kane’s top men. As with the Rainbow County Massacre, there were all sorts of wild speculations about who had committed the crime. It was the talk of the saloons, whorehouses, stores, offices, and genteel parlors. The Butte Banner and Rainbow County News, which was violently anti-Kane, had dire warnings of more trouble to come as a result of the murders. There was no way, the editor said on the editorial page, that Kane would take this lying down, though his language was much more flowery than that. The town, he added, should prepare itself for the worst.
Gatling decided the editor might be right when, late that afternoon, Kane called a twenty-four hour strike in all the mines. The miners, prodded by Kane’s thugs, walked off the job and the mines shut down. The huge ore crushers and steam shovels stopped working; the town became quiet; except for the clanging horsecars, there was no wagon traffic in the streets. But there was tension; the town twanged with it. The police were out in force, including some special deputies. There were rumors that the state militia had been sent for. It was thought that the strike would last much longer than twenty-four hours. If it lasted long enough, there would be bloodshed.
Nothing happened that night. Coming back to the store after dinner, Gatling noticed that Cyrus Findlay, the undertaker and his next-door neighbor, was working late. The shades were pulled and the CLOSED sign was out, but men were working in the coffin maker’s shop. They were still at it when Gatling left for his hotel at eleven o’clock. The saloons on Main Street had some drinkers in them, but not many. Butte or most of it had the jitters.
The town was still quiet when Gatling went to the store after breakfast. It had stopped raining and, for a change, the air was clear. At the store, business was brisk as more and more men came in to buy guns, mostly shotguns and rifles. Fallon stopped by to say hello. Cyrus Findlay’s fanciest hearse rumbled past while he was there.
“Looks like Kane is going to give his boys a state funeral,” Fallon said, turning away from the window. “Findlay had his men working all night on two of the costliest coffins you ever saw. Solid mahogany, mind you, with satin lining and silver handles.”
“I heard them working,” Gatling said. “You think Kane will come to town?”
Fallon said no thanks to a cup of Gatling’s cast-iron coffee. “Hard to tell. Kane hardly ever shows himself in town. This time, though, he may make an exception. It’s a special occasion, after all. If he does come you can be sure he won’t come alone. Last time he came was last year, and you’d think it was the President of the United States. Come to think of it, the President isn’t half as well guarded. Folks here would like to get this over with. It’s bad for business.”
Gatling said, “Not for my business. I’ve been selling guns like hotcakes.”
“Good for you, maybe bad for Butte,” Fallon said. “If Kane does come, there’s always the chance that some loony will try to take a shot at him. The Chief has men posted all over, but you never know. Even with the special deputies, we just don’t have enough men. The mine police are guarding the mines.”
“How are the miners taking this?”
“There’s not much interest there. No miner that I saw was wearing a black armband. You may not know this, being a newcomer, but Frankie McCargo and Nick Smith were not well loved in the mining community, nor anywhere else, for that matter. Kane doesn’t love them either—only a mother could love them—he’s doing this as a show of strength. A display of force, if you will. You’ll be staying in the store when the cortege comes back this way?”
Gatling thought there was more behind Fallon’s words than just a casual question. But maybe he was reading too much into it. “I’ll be watching from the window,” he said.
Fallon said, “I don’t think there’ll be any trouble if Kane comes himself. He’s not a man to put himself in the line of fire. He’s become cautious as the years creep up on him. The man who tries to kill him here and now would be making a terrible mistake. A word of advice, Mr. Taggart. Keep your door barred during the afternoon. You don’t want to be cleaned out if things get out of hand.”
Gatling hung out the CLOSED sign and bolted the door after Fallon left. Nothing happened for about two hours. The horsecars had stopped operating; Main Street was deserted. It was well past noon when he heard heavy movement in the street. Somebody close by yelled, “Kane’s coming!” and there was the sound of a door being slammed.
Gatling went to the window. First came twelve horsemen carrying rifles, riding three abreast. Then came the carriage with Kane in it, flanked by ten riflemen, five on either side. Another twelve men on horses brought up the rear. More Kane gunmen moved down the sidewalk on the far side of the street. Gatling figured that Kane’s men had taken control of both sidewalks. Men who looked like gunmen were walking past the window; there were at least fifty or sixty gunmen out there.
Kane sat alone in the back of the carriage, looking neither right nor left. He was dressed in black and wore a shiny top hat. He should look ridiculous, Gatling thought, but he doesn’t. There was a certain dignity to the son of a bitch. The carriage was a real gentleman’s carriage, shiny black with red and gold trim. Pulling the carriage were four jet black horses with decorated silver harness. Two men sat on the box. The man beside the driver wasn’t carrying a rifle or a shotgun; there had to be one on the floor. Kane and his bodyguard passed by.
In a little while they came back with the fancy hearse out in front. One coffin was stacked on top of the other. Kane’s carriage followed behind the hearse. Six riders guarded the hearse; the rest stayed with Kane. An elderly Catholic priest sat stiffy beside Kane. He looked uncomfortable, and it looked like he had nothing to say. Nothing happened as the funeral procession moved slowly out of town.
Gatling went out and looked after it; the sidewalks and the street filled with people, gawking and whispering, awed by what they had seen. Gatling could understand that. It had been something to see. Kane had proved his point without having to fire a single shot. God damn, Gatling thought, he was close enough to kill with a handgun.
Gatling opened the store for business; a few hours later, Fallon turned up again. “Did you see it?” he said.
“How could I not?”
“Kane gave them a nice send-off,” Fallon said. “The one I pity in this whole business is poor old Father Moriarty. What can he possibly say about those two?”
Gatling said, “He’s a priest. He’ll think of something. There was no trouble?”
“Not a bit. Not anywhere. Findlay had the dear departed ready to roll when he got there. I wish I could have been at the funeral, but it was private, closed to the public. Only those with tears in their eyes were allowed to attend. I have to hand it to Kane, though, riding in an open carriage like that. We had men on the rooftops and balconies ... just the same ... Ah, well, it’s over now and Kane is back safe in his stone house. But you know, I wouldn’t be surprised if someday somebody kills that man.”
Gatling said, “That wouldn’t be easy, from what you tell me.”
“Any man can be killed,” Fallon said. “It depends on how clever and determined the assassin is. There’s no sure way to guard against death.”
“Probably not.”
“Did you know the mines are to reopen about an hour from now? Everybody is going to breathe a sigh of relief when they hear the ore crushers starting up again. Machine noises mean money in Butte. The mine operators make money. Kane makes money. That’s the way of it.”
Half listening to Fallon, Gatling decided to take a look at Kane’s gold mine early the next morning.