Since arriving in Monterey Jordan MacPhail hadn’t kept his attentions to the girl of a barkeep in a waterfront bar. Better for him if he had. That way the only trouble that would have come his way would have been a two-day headache, a six-day bruise and a dent in a not inconsiderable ego.
But Jordan had used his charm and looks on women for so long, it was automatic. Except for the fact that he’d never made a woman get out on the streets or into a cathouse on his behalf, he was as close to being a pimp as you can get. Even when he was married to Lydia MacPhail and her gold, he was close to being a pimp. Times he collected the money she deposited in his account at the bank he was as close as a man can be.
The money was never enough on account of Jordan liked to gamble but he wasn’t very good at it, didn’t even come out a winner when he was using his own marked deck. So Lydia’s money paid his bills and let him hold his head up when he walked over to a poker game and asked to sit in.
Another woman’s money and other men’s women—that was pretty much Jordan’s life.
One night in Monterey he’d had more luck than usual at five card stud and an hour of blackjack had confirmed that things were swinging his way at last. Not wanting to miss out while he had the chance, Jordan asked where he could find the biggest game in town and was pointed in the direction of the Spanish Star.
The Star was a gambling place and dance hall that swung out over the ocean at the northernmost edge of town. Lamps hung outside, shifting a little in the wind that slid up off the ocean, and music with a Mexican tinge drifted through the low, white fog along the boardwalk.
The Spanish Star was owned by a Mexican named Luis Aragon and if it had been the only property he owned, he would still have been a wealthy man. Luis took a twenty per cent rake-off from all the tables and the wheel, clipped twenty-five per cent of the bar takings, twenty-five per cent of the girls and he made sure all the liquor that was sold there was stuff he’d freighted in himself.
That would have made Luis Aragon rich.
The other three smaller saloons he owned, the whorehouse he was part-owner of, the thirteen fishing boats and the wine import-export firm he ran made him richer.
Velma Moriarty made him happy. She was twenty-six years old, weighed just enough to move the scales at all, and was a couple of inches taller than average. She got her temper from her Irish father and her round and dark good looks from her Greek mother. When she first met Luis she was working at the whorehouse he owned half of and he almost failed to notice her. Someone pointed out to Velma who the man with the white suit and the dark moustache was and she got close enough to spill a glass of cheap wine in his lap and make it look like it was his fault.
Velma fluttered her eyelids some and wiped Luis down, not letting that opportunity go to waste for a moment. Her hands sent messages up Luis’ spine that a straw man would have found hard to ignore.
‘What was in your glass?’ he asked, struggling to keep calm.
‘Champagne,’ she said, letting the tip of her tongue rest wetly on the center of her bottom lip for longer than was strictly necessary.
Luis Aragon smiled and ordered a bottle of champagne. He knew that what she’d been drinking had been ordinary white wine, knew that she had arranged to bump into him on purpose. He thought she had a lot of spunk for a three-dollar whore … and his body wasn’t forgetting the rubbing down she’d given it.
They sat and talked for hours until the band had stopped playing and then Luis had her driven in his carriage back to the Spanish Star where the music went on until the dawn.
Before the musicians had broken off to eat breakfast, Luis had told Velma she wasn’t turning any more three-dollar tricks, she wasn’t wasting herself on any other men, she was going to be his mistress.
Velma sat back and surveyed the fifty-year-old paunchy man with thinning hair who now had wine stains on the jacket of his white suit and said that suited her fine.
So it did until Jordan MacPhail chanced to come to the Star looking for a big game of stud and she started feeling a little itch somewhere she hadn’t felt it for some time.
Jordan lost most of the money he’d won earlier but when he saw the amount of attention that thin good-looking girl was giving him he reckoned his luck hadn’t run out on him at all.
If he’d seen Luis Aragon spying on the two of them round back of the place that night, he might have thought different. Instead, he soothed Velma’s itch for a while and kissed her softly on the mouth before slipping back to his houseboat and promising to come calling again.
Time passed like time does and Jordan never got to go back to the Spanish Star and if he had he might not have recognized Velma Moriarty on account of the cut that Luis had razored down the center of her face. In any case, Velma didn’t step out in public that much anymore.
Then Robert arrived and moved in with Jordan and if he had any lingering memories of a half-way exciting fifteen minutes pushed up against the back of a building with music throbbing through the wall, they soon slipped away.
Not so for Luis. He’d needed to deal with Velma himself, show her who was boss in his own way, but the cheap gambler she’d betrayed him with, he wasn’t worth taking risks over. Not in person. Luis was patient enough to send for two men who would deal with the gambler just like they were sweeping up horse shit from the middle of Main Street.
‘Sure I seen him around.’ The dealer leaned back in his chair, angling his head round towards Fowler while never taking his eyes off the table. ‘He comes in every coupla days, talks a lot, looks real handsome till he sits down and starts playin’ the cards.”
The dealer flicked two cards down and with absolute precision against the stack of coins opposite; he gave one new card to the next player in line, then two, then three, took one himself. The deck touched the surface of the table with a soft slap.
‘He ain’t as good as he thinks he is. He ain’t bad ... but he ain’t good. You understand me?’
Fowler grunted: he understood.
‘And …’
‘Yeah?’
‘If he could stop his eyes wanderin’ off the game an’ on to every woman that comes by, he might be a sight better.’ The dealer winked without seeming to move the muscles on his face. ‘You understand me?’
~*~
Wes Hart was sitting on a stool at the end of the downstairs bar at the Spanish Star. He was nursing a glass of beer and trying to hold the barman’s attention while other, thirstier, customers called their orders and tapped coins on the brittle counter top.
‘… so I was saying, he didn’t come in here only the once, well, he could’ve been in other times when I wasn’t workin’, that’d be Sundays or every other Tuesday, or he could’ve missed this part of the place altogether, although that’d be strange …
He shuffled sideways away to serve a customer, more of a dance than a walk, a clean white towel thrown with studied negligence over his left arm. Hart gave the beer another chance and figured that if he had a free choice of places to drink in the Spanish Star wouldn’t rate high. It looked expensive and fake and he figured it might be more acceptable in somewhere like San Francisco than in a fishing town like Monterey. There had to be more people around with money to throw away than he’d figured. And whoever owned the Star was scooping up most of it.
‘ . . anyway, this one time he was here, if it was the one time, he had a couple of drinks and went over to where the big game was, that’s up there on the balcony at the back of the room, and he hung around for a while till Mister Aragon, he owns the whole place, he tells him to pull in a chair and …’
This time he didn’t break off to serve a customer. He stopped in his tracks and stood back from the bar as a side door opened and a Mexican came through, pushing a girl before him. The Mexican was in his fifties and looked pretty good in a white suit and a black hat with a white satin headband. A ring on the small finger of his left hand shone deep like a ruby, which was probably what it was. The pants would have had to be specially tailored to keep his gut in the way they almost did.
The girl was tall and thin; she wasn’t so young but she was pretty until she lowered her hand away from her face and showed a scar, deep and dark and right down through the middle of both lips. Her eyes focused on Hart’s for a moment and they looked dead.
Maybe she wished the rest of her was too.
The Mexican continued to push her in front of him like a reluctant child and only stopped when they reached an alcove table close by the front door. There were two men already there and they nodded at the man in the white suit and gestured that he should sit down. He did and the girl didn’t. Instead she took up her position at the back of his chair, slightly to her right, one of her hands resting lightly on his shoulder, precisely where he’d told her to place it before they’d come in.
‘That’s him,’ breathed the bartender hastily, ‘that’s Mr. Aragon.’
And then he was gone down the bar, setting up drinks with a quicker, more agitated pace.
‘Take it easy,’ said Hart when he came back.
‘Mr. Aragon, he doesn’t like people talking about him. Not them who work for him.’
Then maybe he shouldn’t walk around in a white suit.’
The bartender looked at Hart as if he’d said something close to blasphemy and backed off. This time one of Hart’s hands restrained him, fingers tight and hard through the white towel.
‘Finish the story.’
‘I got work down the bar.’ Fear flashed across his eyes.
‘You got work here. Give me a shot of whiskey an’ get on with what you’re sayin’.’
‘Well, this feller you’re askin’ about, he sits in on the game for a couple of hours an’ it’s getting late and people start drifting home, although the bands still playin’ like it will do all night and there ain’t no sign of the game breakin’ up. Maybe he’s winning, maybe he’s losing, I don’t know, but he’s playing.’ He paused to gulp down a little air and glance over his shoulder. That’s when she comes in, Velma.’ Another glance, quicker than the first, over the shoulder. ‘Her an’ this feller, this MacPhail, they start makin’ eyes at each other like the moon’s full and the band’s playin’ a serenade instead of some Mexican polka. When MacPhail cuts out of the game, he comes down here and orders a drink, a tequila. He ain’t got time to drink it when she’s at his shoulder and they’re talkin’ close. Not long, maybe five minutes, but from the look on his face whatever she’s sayin’ makes him feel plenty hot an’ plenty good. Velma goes back to the table and hangs around Mr. Aragon, MacPhail goes out. I figure that’s it.’
Someone down the bar yelled for some attention and Hart shot him a look that changed his mind about the kind of hurry he was in.
‘I don’t know exactly what happened after that, except that somehow they’re both together round the back, Velma and MacPhail and whatever they’re doin’ there it ain’t just greetin’ the dawn. There’s all kinds of commotion and shoutin’ and then Velma’s runnin’ in here till she trips an’ falls on the floor, smack in the middle of all the tables. Her dress is torn an’ dirty down the back and there’s blood all over her hands an’ face an’ at first I figure she’s got a punch on the nose, but that ain’t it.’ He shook his head with a mixture of sadness and fear. That ain’t it at all.’
‘He did it to her, the feller in white?’
The bartender nodded, retreating slowly.
‘And MacPhail? What about MacPhail?’
But he’d gone and was concentrating hard on the tequila bottle he was pouring from. Hart didn’t think he’d get him to say any more without pushing the barrel of his Colt into his ribs and that would cause more trouble than he wanted to stir up right then. If Aragon had taken his revenge on his woman, then he wouldn’t have let MacPhail off free.
That seemed to leave three possibilities: MacPhail was dead and left on the outskirts of Monterey for the vultures to pick over his bones; he’d had the good sense to clear out as fast as he could; he was still around and Aragon was taking his time in settling their account.
Hart pushed himself down from the stool and took a slow walk down the bar; he was curious to get another look at Luis Aragon and Velma, but also he was interested in the men Aragon was talking to.
When he saw them close-up he was even more interested. He pushed through the doors and out on to the wharf and set out to meet Fowler.
~*~
The silver flask glinted in the light of the sun that was bright enough to be near to silver itself. In the distance, back of where Fowler was leaning over the railing, a rectangular boathouse with a steeply sloping roof stood out like a black cut-out against the sea. Silver ripples sprayed up against the legs of the walkway which was little more than a squared-off spider’s web linking the boathouse with the land.
Fowler waited until Hart was almost upon him before taking a last swig and stoppering the flask. He patted it affectionately and dropped it down into his pocket.
Hart wondered what had put the detective in such a good mood.
‘Found him?’ he asked, taking off his hat just long enough to wipe the rim of sweat from his forehead with the already damp sleeve of his shirt.
‘Maybe.’ Fowler’s eyes twinkled deep in his face. ‘How ’bout you?’
Hart told him what he’d learnt at the Spanish Star.
‘Don’t let up, does he? Our friend Jordan MacPhail.’
‘No. An’ neither does this Aragon the way I heard it.’
‘Yeah.’ Fowler scowled at the prospect of some new difficulty butting in when everything seemed on the point of being settled pretty easily. Tell me about them two fellers again.’
‘One was Mex. Skin more olive than brown. Small features and small bones, I’d guess he weren’t more’n a hundred an’ twenty, thirty pounds. Seven or so inches above five foot. Wearin’ a yellow tan vest with a couple of them concho things sewn on it. Tan pants an’ boots with gold spurs. Had some sort of pistol holstered to the right, couldn’t make out what.
‘Other one was American. Ten years older, taller, beefy-lookin’ without a trace of fat. Had a fist wrapped round his glass like he could lose the damn thing from sight just by shiftin’ his fingers a little. He had a Smith and Wesson in a holster own by his left leg, knife big enough to butcher a steer with across from it in a plain leather sheath. Oh, yeah, he had somethin’ wrong with his face … here …’ Hart touched his left cheek, immediately under the jutting cheek bone. ‘… Looked like it was sort of dead skin. I don’t know.’
‘Saw all that walkin’ by?’ Fowler’s expression was one of admiration.
‘Hung around the bottom end of the bar a little.’ He shrugged.
‘Ought to be a detective.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘What’s the matter, you don’t like the pay?’
‘Pay’s fine. It was more the company I was thinkin’ of.’
Fowler shook his head and automatically pulled out his flask. When Hart declined, he took a swallow, then another and said: ‘Feller with the face. He goes by the name of Oklahoma. Like you said, the skin’s dead down that side. Got cut up in a fight an’ never grew again. Not properly. Look at it close, you can see where the blade went in, right along the contour of the bone.’
‘How come you know so much about him?’
Fowler took another shot of bourbon and the flask rattled as though it was close to empty. ‘I did it.’
‘You did?’
‘Sure. Over in Folsom. Feller I was tailin’ went through the back of one saloon, in through the front of another. I went after him and he weren’t alone. Oklahoma was with him. What happened exactly don’t matter, ’cept that there was a struggle an’ I got that butcher knife out of his belt and sliced him with it. While that was goin’ down, the man I was after cut the traces on my horse, rode his own out of there so fast it took me a week to catch up to him again.’
‘And Oklahoma?’
‘Looked awful bloody last sight I got of him.’
Hart shook his head ruefully. ‘He wouldn’t be like to forget you, I guess?’
Fowler found a smile from somewhere. ‘Guess not.’
‘Makes it a mite difficult, don’t it?’
‘Could do. Only …’
‘Only what?’
‘We know where MacPhail is an’ maybe Oklahoma don’t. That is if what we’re thinkin’ is right and this Aragon’s sent for Oklahoma an’ his friend to teach MacPhail a lesson he’ll carry to the grave.’
‘They wasn’t just passin’ the time of day.’
Fowler spat and narrowly missed the head of a drifting gull. ‘I believe it.’
Hart sighed and said: ‘How close is MacPhail?’
Fowler grinned and left the flask alone long enough to point along the wharf rail, out towards the dark outline of the boathouse that was trapped between the ocean and the spindly web of walkway leading out over the kelp and whitened stones that had been uncovered by the tide.