Just after sunset Driggs hurried back to the Boston House with the orchid corsage he got from a Chinaman. He thought the ivory color would complement the princess’s sterling blue eyes, dark hair, and new yellow dress. He bounded up the stairs to their room and when he entered someone was just inside, standing to the side of the door, and stuck a gun barrel to the side of his head. Driggs froze.
“Double-barrel,” a deep voice said. “Fancy one. Took it off some Englishman religious fucking chap that was twice your size. He said it was a hunting gun. For grouse and pheasant and the like. Said it was given to him by someone that meant something to him or some shit. Funny thing was I didn’t find no scatter bird loads for it. Just hard knocking double-ought buck is all I found. That’s what this load is. Double-ought buck. Take your head off.”
Driggs eyes turned.
“Easy, cocksucker,” the voice said.
Driggs did not need to see who was holding the shotgun to his head; he recognized the voice but looked anyway to see it was the hulking hayseed Ed Degraw.
“He used funny fucking words. He said things like ‘chap’ and ‘jolly’ and ‘shit.’ Until I stuck the gun up his ass and let go both barrels. You should have seen that. Fuck. The double-ought buck exploded out the top of his head. There was eyes and hair and brains and teeth and all kinds of innards all over the ceiling of the little chapel where it happened. I think he was the pastor or preacher or pope or whatever the fuck you call ’em.”
Driggs just stared straight ahead. He was calm, poised, collected, and breathing easy.
“I know you are wondering how the fuck it is I found you, ain’t you?” he said. “Fuck you, I’ll tell you . . . Move your ass over there, to the corner, to that chair there, now.”
Driggs moved fluidly and his eyes were steady as he walked slowly to the chair and sat.
Degraw kept the shotgun pointed at him with one hand as he removed an old newspaper article from his pocket with the other. He flipped it open. The paper was yellow and crumbly.
“You ’member this?” Degraw said. “From the Appaloosa Star Statesman? When we was locked up together you kept reading this goddamn article about the goddamn brick factory here in Appaloosa. That was damn near four fucking years ago and you kept reading it. I know it had to mean something to you. You ’member and I asked you why you kept looking at it and reading it and you said it was none of my goddamn business. But now look it here, it is my business, ain’t it? You read it more than you ever read any of them other newspaper clippings. You read this all the fucking time. The goddamn Vandervoort Brick Factory in goddamn Appaloosa. Then when I get here I see half the town goddamn says that, Vandervoort. And then I think, I know you, Lonnigan. I know what a conniving shit you are and you are up to no good all the time. I knew you had something here up your sleeve . . . You are a moneygrubber cocksucker thief. So I figured I’d just come and get some of what you was out to get . . . You ain’t interested in sharing, then I will just fucking turn you in or kill you. Both, I would look forward to doing . . . I knew it’d be just a matter of time before I found you. I knew you had fucking money and you’d live high. I know you. Know all about you. What you did and how you got out. I figured it all out . . . I did. I looked at all the other hotels first before this one. But you know what? I would not have found you so easily if it had not been for the little canary . . . the warden’s wife.”
Driggs’s eyes went to the left and then to the right.
“You can imagine her surprise when it was me and not you coming through the door.”
“Where is she?”
“She looked really nice,” he said. “Little canary. So do you. You look like you’re ready for a party . . . and, a goddamn flower? Goddamn, Lonnigan, you’re a regular dandy.”
“Where is she?”
Degraw rubbed his crotch.
“She was just as I imagined she’d be,” he said.
“What’d you do?”
“What else?” Degraw said.
Driggs stared at him without an ounce of emotion.
Degraw grinned.
“Have a look for yourself,” he said as he nodded to the armoire.
Driggs looked to the tall, mirrored wardrobe cabinet, then looked back to Degraw.
“Go on,” Degraw said, “I think you will like what you see. You won’t be disappointed.”
Driggs rose out of the chair and walked to the cabinet. He reached out and opened the door. He stared motionless at what he found inside.
“She was . . . good,” Degraw said. “I knew that Bible bullshit she brought around was a bunch of bullshit. She was just like all the others, nothing but a fucking whore.”
The princess was hanging inside the tall cabinet from a cord around her neck. Her eyes were wide open. Her purple tongue protruded from her lips. Her yellow dress was split all the way up the front, as was her body. She’d been split open from her crotch all the way to her chin with the straight razor that was lying at her feet.
Degraw leaned just a bit to get a closer look at Driggs’s face.
“Is that a fucking tear?” Degraw said.
Driggs did not look at him.
“It is,” Degraw said with a laugh. “I’ll be goddamn. Donnie fucking Lonnigan . . .”
Driggs turned his head slowly and looked to Degraw. Tears were running down his cheeks.
Degraw laughed again, harder this time, and when he did Driggs quickly dropped and lunged just as Degraw pulled both triggers. The shotgun’s double-barrel explosion was loud, but the shots missed. They went just over Driggs’s head and blew through the top of the armoire door as Driggs’s shoulder hit Degraw in his midsection, slamming him hard against the wall.
Driggs pulled on the gun but Degraw held it from him. Then Driggs grabbed Degraw by the hair and pulled hard, banging his head into the remaining jagged mirror of the armoire door, slicing Degraw across the face.
Driggs got Degraw in a headlock, then spun and charged toward the room door. The door shattered and splintered free from the doorjamb and fell into the hall followed by the big men. Driggs landed on top of Degraw and he twisted Degraw’s head to the side. Degraw screamed in pain, as his neck was about to snap. Degraw rifled three elbows into Driggs. Driggs was momentarily stunned and Degraw put the shotgun to Driggs’s throat. But Driggs pushed back as the two men powered back up, getting back on their feet. They were locked arm to arm with the gun held by both as they stumbled back into the room. Driggs jerked Degraw hard and they slammed into the wall, busting through the lath and plaster. Degraw pulled back, then pushed hard on Driggs and drove him across the room, snapping the post from the footboard of the bed, as the muscled men smashed hard into the opposite wall. The two powerful men turned and turned again, going back out into the hall. Then Driggs picked Degraw up off his feet and charged back into the room with him and crashed out through the window. They landed, striking hard on the shingled porch overhang and instantly started to slide, and within a moment they rolled off the fifteen-foot-high roof. There was a short silence as they fell. When they landed on the hard-packed street Degraw gasped—his wind knocked out of him. Driggs was on top of him. Looking down at Degraw’s eyes staring up at him. Driggs put his large hands on Degraw’s head, and with a dominant twisting crack, he snapped Degraw’s neck.
Driggs stared at Degraw for a long moment, then glanced up and looked around. There was a crowd of people on the boardwalk that had come out of the Boston House Saloon who had just witnessed what happened, including Wallis.
“Mr. Bedford?” Wallis said.
Driggs pushed back his hair and tucked in his shirt.
“My God,” Wallis said,
Off in the distance the whistle blasts of the evening train coming into Appaloosa echoed through the streets.
“Are you okay, Mr. Bedford?” Wallis said.
Driggs straightened his coat and tie as he looked to Wallis.
“Yes,” Driggs said. “I’m fine.”
Driggs looked to dead Degraw. He reached down, scooped up the double-barrel shotgun. Then he rifled through Degraw’s pockets and found some shotgun shells.
“Are you sure?” Wallis said.
Driggs rose back up and broke open the double-barrel and slid in two new shells then looked to Wallis.
“I’m perfectly fine, Mr. Wallis, perfectly fine,” Driggs said. “I have a party to attend.”
Driggs snapped the break-over shotgun closed with a loud click and started walking off toward the Vandervoort Town Hall.