Chapter Twenty-Two

John Henry Cole sent the wire to Ike Kelly, told him what he’d learned so far, and urged his presence as soon as he could free himself of his obligations in Cheyenne. He needed to explain some things to him, the part about Liddy, only he didn’t mention any of that in the telegram.

His next move was to try and locate Leo Loop. He began asking around. It didn’t take him long to learn Leo owned a place called the Lucky Strike Saloon, up the street from Nutall and Mann’s Number Ten. At least he’d learned that Leo Loop actually existed. He had to admit—entering the Lucky Strike—that it was a lot more elegant than anyone would expect in a town like Deadwood.

Shafts of light filtered in through the front windows and angled across the floorboards coated with sawdust, tobacco plugs, and brass spittoons. Hanging over the backbar was a large painting of reclining nudes, their eyes cast heavenward. The place was quiet at that time of day, except for a back table where four men wearing plug hats were conversing with one another. A swamper was going around, carrying out the spittoons. He limped—another busted-down cowboy doing the only work left to a man whose only education was horses and cows. Two burly bartenders were carrying in barrels from a beer wagon parked out front.

Cole waited until one of the bartenders took a break, wiped his brow with a kerchief, and said: “Wadda’ll it be?”

“Coffee, if you’ve got any.”

The bartender looked perturbed. “Nickel,” he said. “That’s how much a cup of coffee is.” When Cole tossed a nickel on the bar, he said: “Refills are free.” His shirt was soaked with sweat from carrying the barrels. “Anything else?” he asked as he took the nickel off the bar and looked at it like it wasn’t worth his time.

“Leo Loop,” Cole said. “You know of a man named Leo Loop?”

He cocked his head, looked at Cole with tired eyes. “You gotta be joking.”

“Why’s that?”

“Everyone in Deadwood knows Leo Loop.”

“I’m new.”

He grunted. “You and a hunnerd others that pour in every day. That’s Leo in the corner . . . he owns the place.”

“Which one?”

“This one,” he said.

“No, I mean, which one is he?”

“Oh, the fat one with the fancy vest and the cookie duster.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mind, I’ll be gettin’ back to work now. Red gets peeved if he thinks I’m slacking.”

“A couple of more questions, if you don’t mind?”

He showed a look of impatience. “Mister, Red won’t like me standing around yakking. It’s delivery day, or didn’t you notice?”

Cole laid a pair of silver dollars on the bar. “That’s for you if you’ll answer a couple of my questions.”

He picked them up and slipped them into his pocket, making sure the other guy hauling the beer barrels didn’t see him do it.

“Say, Harve, what’s up, ya helpin’ out here or not?” the other barman asked.

“Can’t you see I got a customer, Red?”

The guy grunted, settled the barrel behind the bar, and went back outside, muttering something to himself.

“Hurry up, ask your questions,” Harve said.

“I hear Leo is the boss dog around Deadwood. If you want to do any business in this town, you need to get Leo’s blessing first.”

“Depends on what you mean,” Harve said.

“Don’t be coy,” Cole warned. “That’s good money in your pocket.”

“Yeah, maybe you heard it right,” Harve said, leaning over the bar and speaking softly. “Leo’s sorta the man in town, you want to put it that way.”

“He runs things?”

“You could say that.”

“I’m asking.”

“Yeah, I’d say he pretty much run things.”

“Gambling, whores, things like that?”

Harve nodded.

“Somebody want to set up a game, maybe run a few of his own girls, they’d have to see Leo first? Suppose a man skipped seeing Leo and just set up his operation? What then?”

“Look,” he said, keeping his voice low, “I could lose more than just my job here for being out of line about things . . . you understand?” He swallowed, looked over at Leo Loop and the other men with him. “Maybe you ought to go talk to him.” Harve nodded in the direction of the fat man at the rear table.

Then Red, the other bartender, brought in another barrel of beer, set it down, and wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt. “This going to take all day?” he asked Harve. “You serving this fellow a cup of coffee or planning an evening out at the opera?”

“I gotta get back to work here,” Harve said.

Cole took his cup and walked over to the table of the men wearing the plug hats.

“Mister Loop,” he said.

Four unhappy faces looked up at him, Leo’s being one of them. They were all well dressed, clean white shirts, cravats, claw-hammer coats. Their hands were soft, the nails neatly trimmed, hands that didn’t know work, other than the work it takes to count money or cut into an expensive steak. The fat man with the cookie-duster mustache said: “We’re having a business meeting here, sir.”

“Your bartender makes a good cup of coffee,” Cole said.

Leo Loop didn’t try to hide his displeasure with the interruption. His soft gray eyes shifted toward the two men carrying in the barrels. “Yes, well, I’ll bring that to his attention the next opportunity I get,” he said sarcastically.

“I’m new in town,” Cole said, before he could turn his attention to the three others with him.

The soft gray eyes shifted, grew agitated. “That’s all very interesting,” he said. “I applaud your enterprise!” Then he returned his attention to the others, grinning like he’d made some sort of joke. They chuckled, two of them. The third man looked like he’d never know a moment’s worth of pleasure in his whole life. He was a lean, cadaverous man with drooping bloodhound eyes and a sagging face, long and folded in lines. Probably on a full moon, he bayed.

“I’m thinking of going into business,” Cole said.

That got Leo’s interest just a little. “What sort of business would that be?” he asked, without bothering to look up.

“A gambling operation, maybe some joy girls. I heard I ought to see you first. So now I’ve seen you, now you know.”

Leo Loop turned his head, the thick flesh under his chin bulging over his tight paper collar. His skin was an ash gray, smooth yet from a morning shave, no doubt from the local barber, not his own hand. He smelled of bay rum and sweat. “Who told you that you needed to see me?” he asked, his manner nonchalant, but still curious.

“Let’s just say that’s the word on the street, that if I want to do business in Deadwood, I should see you first.”

“Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me,” he said, scraping his chair back away from the table. “It seems this gentleman and I have a matter that needs discussing.”

They all muttered their assent like the fine businessmen they were.

“My office is back there,” Leo said as he stood up, his bulk pressing against the wool jacket he wore.

Cole followed him back to a small but well-appointed room. A large desk took up most of it. He took up residence in a brass-tack leather chair and indicated for Cole to sit in the one across from him. The chair was made of elk horns, the seat covered in hide.

“I didn’t catch your name, sir,” he said.

“John Henry Cole.” There was no point in lying to him about it when he could find out if he wanted to.

He rubbed a place behind his left ear with his forefinger. “So you’ve come here to Deadwood to get rich, have you?”

“Something like that.”

“And you aim to do it by setting up your own operation . . . gambling, prostitution, that it?”

He had a smooth voice, oiled, like a man that sells curatives off the back of a wagon, elixirs that he mixes up out of coal oil and alcohol and snake heads, promising the customer that it will cure lumbago, dropsy, and waning sexual desire. Cole thought a man like Leo Loop with that smooth voice could sell a lot of snake oil. “Something like that.”

“And you were told you needed to check with me first?”

“That’s why I’m here, to let you know.”

“Because I sort of control things, is that what you heard?”

“Yeah, that’s what I heard.”

“Indeed.” He smiled, the fatness of his face becoming a gray moon.

“So, if it’s not true,” Cole said, “then why the private meeting?”

Loop removed a cigar from a hand-carved box atop his desk. He bit off the end of the stogie and held a match an inch under the tip until it caught fire, then he drew in a long, deep lungful of smoke before slowly blowing it out in a blue stream. He held the cigar between his fingers and rolled it back and forth as he took stock of Cole. Finally he gave a smug smile. “I have to plead innocent,” he said, his gray eyes expressive. “What can I tell you? The things you’ve heard about me are false. I have only this modest club, a small, simple operation out of which I do a meager business. I am, like everyone else who has come here to Deadwood, merely a man looking for the golden promise.”

“So, then, I guess it doesn’t matter to you that I start up my own operation, go into competition with you?”

His left hand slowly came up, the fingers touching the ends of the cookie duster as though testing to see if the barber had waxed them well enough that morning. “I have no concerns about your wanting to become a businessman in our booming little town, Mister Cole. What you do is strictly your business.”

“Then I was misinformed,” Cole said, not buying it for a minute. “Sorry to disturb your meeting.” He stood, ready to leave.

“Ah, there is just one little matter, however,” Loop said, clearing a throat that didn’t need to be cleared.

“Go on,” Cole said, waiting to hear the rest of it.

“You see, I am the head of the business council here in Deadwood, elected by the Deadwood Business Commission, some of whom you met out there at the table. And as such, I am responsible for making sure that any new business that goes up here in town has a proper business license. And of course there is the matter of monthly association fees that must be paid as a member of the council. It helps to regulate the town’s growth, and also to police our own, you see.”

“How much?”

He beamed. “A man who gets right down to it . . . I like that,” he said, clearly pleased that Cole had not challenged the obvious shakedown.

“How much?” Cole repeated.

“The license will cost you a thousand dollars. The monthly fee will be twenty-five percent of your gross take, as audited by me personally. It’s what I do best . . . count money.”

“And if I fail to buy a license and pay the monthly dues?”

“Then, sir,” he said with feigned disappointment, “you sha’n’t be doing your business here in Deadwood, or anywhere else in the gulch, for that matter.”

“How long do I have to think about it?”

“Take all the time you want, Mister Cole. Only don’t attempt to open up your operation until you’ve paid your fees.”

“I’ll let you know.”

“Yes, do that. And best of luck to you, sir.”

Harve and Red were going at it outside near the beer wagon. A smashed barrel lay in a pool of foam near the back of the wagon. Both men had their fists raised like prize fighters, dancing around each other in a small circle, cussing each other, and making lots of hard threats. Cole side-stepped them and headed for Liddy’s, now that he had something solid to go on. He needed to put the next piece of the puzzle into place. At least, that’s the reason he gave himself for going to see her.