After leaving Lottie behind, it took Caleb less than two minutes to pick up Morris’s trail. The well-dressed man strutted down the street like he owned it and preferred to keep his hired guns surrounding him like a royal entourage.
Following the group through town was so easy that Caleb started to get anxious, as he was certain he was being led into some sort of trap. But Morris led him all the way to the Cedarwood Hotel, leaving one man outside as the rest marched in through the front door.
From there, all Caleb needed to do was circle around the place until he found a side door. It opened into the kitchen, putting Caleb face-to-face with a couple of startled young women who were cleaning up the place.
“This the lobby?” Caleb asked with a bit of a drunken slur in his voice.
One of the women started laughing as the other one showed Caleb into the dining room and pointed him in the right direction. He tipped his hat to them and stumbled along until he heard the kitchen door shut behind him.
The Cedarwood was one of those places that smelled as if it had just been built. Every tabletop was clean enough to sparkle, and the rugs looked almost too fancy to walk on. Caleb made his way to the front desk slowly enough to keep from bumping into Morris or any of his men, while moving quickly enough to avoid drawing any more glances from the few people who were having a late meal in the dining room.
After Morris and his men had left the lobby, Caleb thought of a few different lies he could tell to whoever was working at the front desk so he could find out which room Morris was using. But all Caleb needed to do was follow the sound of stomping footsteps as they climbed the front staircase.
He didn’t have to sneak behind them for very long, however, before he got what he was after. Once he saw which door Morris was unlocking, Caleb grinned to himself and then headed back down the stairs.
The bespectacled man behind the front desk watched with mild curiosity. After a quick wave from Caleb, however, he nodded halfheartedly, unfolded his newspaper, and got back to more interesting matters.
When Caleb got back to Lottie’s room, he found it empty.
For a few seconds, he stood there as if expecting her to jump out from where she was hiding and surprise him. Before long, he knew she wasn’t there. Normally, he wouldn’t have thought twice about her stepping out like that. Considering everything that had been going on, however, Caleb felt an uncomfortable knot twist into the middle of his stomach.
He turned on the balls of his feet and sped back out of the hotel. As much as he wanted to run down the street to find Lottie, Caleb didn’t have any particular direction in mind. With his heart slamming against the inside of his ribs and the blood rushing through his veins in a hot torrent, he stood on the boardwalk with his hands resting on his holstered guns.
The streets were mostly empty.
When he closed his eyes and concentrated, he could only hear the sounds drifting through the air from various saloons, consisting of loud music, laughter, and working girls plying their trade.
Something festered at the bottom of Caleb’s gut, like a single bubble working its way up through swamp water. It left his innards cold and filthy as it got to the back of his throat.
“God damn!” he cursed as he turned and slammed his fist against the front of the hotel.
Responding to that commotion, the squat man who worked at the hotel’s front desk walked outside and took a look around. “What the hell was all that?”
“Did you see where Miss Deno went?”
“Lottie? Sure I did.”
Caleb wheeled around so he could look directly into the shorter man’s eyes. “What happened to her?”
“I don’t know if anything happened, but she left a bit before you got here.”
“Was she alone?”
“No. There were some other fellas with her.”
“What others?” Caleb asked while trying not to lose too much more of his patience. “Did you know them?”
The clerk thought it over while rubbing his chin. “Don’t believe I seen ’em before.”
“What did they look like?”
“Aw, the hell if I know,” the clerk replied as he quickly reached the limit of his own patience and turned to walk back into the hotel. “I’ve got work to do.”
Following the man inside, Caleb asked, “Was one of them tall with a fancy suit?”
“No,” the clerk replied quickly.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you just saying that, or are you really sure?”
“Jesus Christ, if I knew you’d be all riled up like this, I wouldn’t have said a damn word. Whatever she’s doing with those fellas, I’m sure she’ll be back before too long. She seems like a good woman, so I wouldn’t worry too much.”
By this time, the man had settled in behind his desk and found a drink that was kept out of plain sight. After taking a quick sip, he looked up and seemed surprised that Caleb was still there. It wasn’t the good kind of surprised, either.
“I’m worried that she might be in trouble,” Caleb said. “Did it look like those men were taking her somewhere she didn’t want to go?”
“Not hardly,” the clerk grumbled.
“What’s that mean?”
“Just what I said. She wasn’t smiles and laughs, but she wasn’t kicking and screaming, either. If she was, I’d have fetched the law and told them about it rather than poke my nose outside just to tell some lunatic pounding against the front of my hotel. What kind of man do you take me for, anyway?”
Caleb leaned with both hands flat against the top of the desk. He took a few seconds to breathe deeply before asking, “Think you could tell me where they went?”
“Ain’t my business.” Suddenly, the clerk’s eyes shot open and he straightened up as if something had bitten his toe. “I almost forgot!”
“What?”
“There’s a message for you.”
“Is it from Lottie?”
“No, no,” the clerk replied with a dismissive wave as he turned and dug through a small pile of papers behind him. “Someone’s been coming around looking for you.”
Caleb’s eyes narrowed as he asked, “Who was it?”
Muttering under his breath until he found one particular slip of paper, the clerk held it up, stared at it, and shook his head. “Name he left was…Tom Mackey.”
“Tom Mackey?”
“Don’t you know him?”
Shaking his head, Caleb asked, “What did he want?”
“See for yourself.” With that, the clerk flipped the paper across the top of the counter so it could fly right into Caleb’s chest. “And don’t bother me anymore with what Miss Deno’s doing and don’t pound yer fists against my walls like some goddamn animal. This ain’t some whorehouse and Denver ain’t some cow town like you’re probably used to, you Texan son of a bitch.”
Although Caleb had been pushed way past frustration with the squat man behind the counter, anger wasn’t exactly his next stop. Under normal circumstances, the mix of whining and wheezing in the other man’s voice might have been funny. What he’d seen and heard, however, just made Caleb feel as if he’d been picked up, spun around, shaken up, and set back down again. He was so flustered that it took a moment or two for him to focus on the slip of paper in his hand.
Sure enough, printed there in handwriting that was much too florid to have been done by the squat man himself, the name Tom Mackey was written plain as day. Beneath that were the words, “Theatre Comique” in somewhat smaller letters.
“When did he come looking for me?” Caleb asked.
The clerk shrugged. “It was there when I got here at five.”
Caleb didn’t have to think much at all to recall where he was at that time. He’d been at the Mint playing five-card draw. In fact, Caleb had been there nearly every waking moment since his arrival in Denver.
“So you didn’t see this Mackey person?” Caleb asked.
The clerk shook his head.
“What about this theater? Do you know where that is?”
Grudgingly, the clerk leaned forward so he could take another look at the paper. After examining it for a good, long time, he shook his head again. “Nah.”
“Thanks a lot. You’ve been a big help.”