I knew there was sense to Masters’ words about acting rashly; it was the same rap my editor in New York, Tom Walters, used to lay on me. I knew as much, and still I didn’t care.
I raced across Central towards Duke’s. The anger in my chest felt like a buzz saw was loose in there, and my fists gripped the steering wheel.
I tried to reel myself back in. I didn’t have any evidence against Clay Tucker, but that just made my temper worse – as though he’d lied to me and thought he could get away with it. All I had were my suspicions and the speculation of a man I’d just met – but something made Masters’ words carry weight with me; he spoke with a heartfelt anger that reminded me of Robinson.
I pulled up by Duke’s and jumped out, leaving the car at an angle to the kerb. The doors to the saloon were locked. I checked my watch, saw it was only eight-thirty. Too early for a bar to be open to the public, but not too early for Tucker to be there working on his cleanup. I looked around. The drugstore next door was open and I went inside and found the store clerk, asked him if he knew where Tucker was.
‘At a guess, he’s probably sleeping one off. He’s had one heck of a rough week.’
‘Do you happen to know where he lives?’
‘Sure, right upstairs from the bar. Until the fire.’
‘And now?’
The clerk opened his hands. ‘I haven’t a clue, sorry.’
‘Have you seen him this morning?’
‘No, sir. Haven’t seen him since Saturday.’
‘Not one time?’
He shook his head. ‘Doors haven’t been open once.’
I balled my hands and planted them on the counter. ‘And you’re sure you don’t know where he’s staying now? Think about it before you answer.’
The clerk took a step back. ‘No, sir, I don’t. What do you want him for, exactly?’
The tremor as he spoke made me pause. Another voice came into my head, that of Ella Borland, speaking to me the day before, asking me if this was a matter of revenge. I’d told her it wasn’t, that it was about justice, but now I wasn’t convinced. I took in the clerk’s face, his discomfort at having me bawl him out in his own store, and realised my temper was out of control. It jolted me, bringing to mind everything that weakness had cost me before. Justice wasn’t served by me laying my hands on Clay Tucker, and much less by running a two-bit intimidation number on this man. I took a breath and unclenched my fists. ‘I’d like to talk to him, is all. I’ll stop by again.’
I beelined it back to the street, feeling a smaller man than when I went in. I leaned on the hood of the car and tried to bring some order to my mind. Because it dawned on me then that Ella Borland had been right – at least in part. That a need for revenge was driving me as much as any desire for justice. That didn’t sit well; I had no right to lay claim to anger at Robinson’s death. It hadn’t escaped my attention that somewhere along the line I’d started referring to him as my friend – a useful shorthand at first, but now used almost by way of explanation. As a justification. We weren’t friends – those were my own thoughts when I’d arrived in Hot Springs, and now they served as a testament to my hypocrisy.
I closed my eyes. If I was going to pursue this, it had to be in the name of finding the truth of what happened to Robinson – not some reckless crusade for revenge, anger holding my reins. Nothing good was served by that.
I got back into the car and sat there, cooling off by trying to figure out my next move. My gut told me Clay Tucker wasn’t coming back. He’d been gone for three days, and if his debts were as bad as Masters made out, chances were he was in the wind. There was merit in what Masters said about the simplest explanation usually being the right one. But even knowing that, my thoughts kept tracking back to Barrett and Coughlin. I had a firm link between the two men now; Barrett running bag explained Coughlin’s motivation in intervening to protect him from a grand jury. And the rumours about Coughlin ordering the murder of the previous sheriff elevated him to a whole new level of criminal.
Favours owed and favours repaid. Had to make for a nervous situation between the two men now – both counting on the loyalty of the other, just as Masters’ campaign made the price of that loyalty skyrocket.
Jimmy Robinson had been wading around in the Glover case for weeks before he died; what if he’d turned up some evidence to incriminate Barrett? If so, and Coughlin or Barrett had got wise to the fact, it was the start of a motive for why they might want him dead. A panic move, but a necessary risk, even in the glare of Masters’ spotlight.
As a theory it was a long way from watertight, and I knew it. I kept moving the pieces around in my mind, trying to figure out who was more compromised, who had the most to gain from silencing Robinson, but I just didn’t have enough to see the picture. Maybe there was no picture, Clay Tucker the target all along. Jimmy unfortunate to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Businesses along the street started to stir, but Duke’s remained dark and still. I figured I had little chance of catching up with Tucker before Coughlin’s men, but then I had an idea for a long shot. I drove up to the Arlington and placed a call to Ella Borland’s number. A voice I didn’t recognise from the previous times said she hadn’t been in that day and to try the Southern Club. I thanked the man and hung up.
The Southern was right across the street from me. The frontage was less garish than that of the Ohio, but not by much; it sported the familiar striped awnings, a candy-cane green and white in this case, but the structure was more understated – a grey concrete facade with minimal flourishes.
I went inside and found myself in a deserted restaurant. The tables were laid and ready for service – the lights glinting off buffed silverware, the smell of parched white tablecloths – but all stood empty. I spotted a waiter in the far corner. I went over and asked for Ella Borland.
He nodded to the grand staircase at the back of the room. ‘She’s rehearsing.’
I climbed the stairs and garnered a nod from a heavy seated on a stool on the landing. Open double doors led into a large room that evidently served as the casino. There were three roulette wheels, a half-dozen dice tables, a chuck-a-luck cage and three rows of slot machines. Even at that hour on a Tuesday morning, one of the dice tables had a thin crowd around it, and the slots were seeing action, the continuous dinging of bells like a fire truck.
At the far end was a small stage. Ella Borland and two other women were on it, walking through the steps of some kind of dance routine. I moved closer and watched, waiting for a chance to talk to her.
The stage wasn’t lit and the women moved at half-speed, stopping to re-do a step every few seconds. It was apparent that Borland was no natural; her movements were stilted by comparison to the other two women, and she struggled to keep pace with them. Even so, she moved with a certain grace, and was mesmerising. She kept her eyes on the back of the room, and where the other two wore smiles that were too wide to be mistaken for real, Borland just seemed to shimmer, in a way that could buckle your knees.
She stopped abruptly when she caught sight of me, and the spell was broken. She looked uncomfortable at noting my presence; she said something to the others and then slipped off the stage and came over to where I was standing. ‘Mr Yates, what are you doing here?’
‘As it happens, I was looking for you.’
‘Why? We don’t have anything more to talk about. I’m certain I made it plain when we met that I don’t care to trawl through everything again.’
I held up my hand. ‘I’m not here about Jimmy. I need your help – I’m trying to track down Clay Tucker. He’s not been seen at Duke’s since Saturday. You happen to know where else I could try?’
‘Clay Tucker? I wouldn’t have the first idea. I have nothing to do with that man.’
‘I understand that, but I’m wondering if he had any family in the area, something along those lines.’
She glanced back at the stage, the other two dancers now in hushed conversation to one side of it, then looked back at me. ‘He talked about a brother, sometimes. Leland, I think. I remember him saying he lived out by Stokes Creek.’
I memorised the place name to look up after. ‘Do you have anything more specific?’
She shook her head. ‘I have to get on.’
‘I appreciate it.’
She started to walk to the stage, then stopped and turned back. ‘What do you want with Clay Tucker, Mr Yates?’
I stepped closer to her again. ‘I spoke to Samuel Masters earlier and he had some interesting things to say. The more people I talk to, the less it seems like that fire was an accident. I think Clay Tucker knows what really happened, and I’m going to make him tell me.’
She frowned. ‘Why, what did Mr Masters say to you?’
I put my hands in my pockets. ‘That Clay Tucker is behind on his debts to some serious people. I’d like to know if that had some bearing on what happened.’
Her hands were by her sides and she splayed them, but only for as long as it took her to realise she’d done it. ‘If you find him, you won’t mention my name, will you?’
I shook my head, wondering why she looked so worried. ‘No, of course not.’
She nodded and then turned and went back to the stage.
I watched her a moment longer, thinking she looked rattled. But it was fleeting, and in a moment she was moving fluidly again. The casino sounds came back to me and started to grate. I wheeled around and crossed the room heading for the stairway.
Halfway there, I stopped in my tracks. William Tindall was standing with one of the pit bosses, his eyes moving around the room, taking everything in. Before I could think, I’d ducked out of sight behind a bank of slot machines. I let a second pass before I peered over to watch. The pit man was trying to argue a point, but his words just seemed to bounce off Tindall. He persisted, each sentence rolling into the next, until something he said caused Tindall to look him straight in the eyes.
Right away the pit man fell silent. His mouth parted and his head tilted to one side, like he’d just missed the last lifeboat. Then he held one hand up and backed away. From what I could tell, Tindall hadn’t even spoken a word.
Keeping out of sight, I slipped along the row of slots towards the exit.