27

“What does it mean?” Charmian looked at them over the tops of her reading glasses. She sat in the swivel chair with her back to the writing table, holding the notes Hammett had made from the green leather notebook.

Siringo, seated at the desk with an elbow resting on the blotter, said, “Hammett thinks they’re payouts. I agree. Since I found them in Kennedy’s locker, it stands to reason he’s the one doing the paying. Question is what he’s buying, and where’s the money coming from.”

“But you said he’s rich.”

Hammett stood by the window smoking. For some reason his foot hurt less than when he sat. “The amounts total almost five million. He might have that much, but investment advisors almost never put that much of their own money into a project. Not the successful ones, anyway. Since Clanahan’s on the list, it isn’t coming from him.”

“I’m beginning to understand. He’s being financed to buy up Jack’s debts in order to control the liquor business: He answers to Kennedy. But who are these people who are getting such large payments?”

“Oilmen and politicians,” Siringo said. “It don’t say they got the money. Chances are he’s counting his chickens early, waiting for Clanahan to come through with the stake.”

“I know some of these other names.”

“Mr. Hammett and I was hoping you would. That’s one of the reasons we’re here.”

“They’re local residents. Some of them were far from friends of Jack’s. I suppose they may have some influence with the authorities, who could hardly be expected not to notice what Clanahan’s about. You saw this name, of course.” She turned the sheet their way and pointed to one near the bottom.

“Vernon Dillard,” Siringo said. “Your sheriff. At about five bucks a pound I’d say he’s overpaid. No wonder he weren’t much help after the eel come to pay his respects.”

Someone knocked on the door. Charmian took off her glasses. “Becky?”

It was her voice on the other side. “Aunt Eliza said those men are back. May I come in?”

Charmian looked at the detectives. Hammett grinned. “I won’t be the one to try to keep her out.”

Siringo got up and opened the door. Jack London’s daughter wore a plain blouse and a skirt that left her calves exposed. The old Pinkerton would never get used to seeing women parading around half-naked.

“I’ve been out walking,” she said. “I saw the taxi drive up. I don’t suppose you’ve brought another murderer with you?”

“We’re trying to break the habit.”

She scowled at Hammett. “Why are you always grinning like a monkey?”

“You should see me when you’re not around. I’m a regular sourpuss.”

“Come in, Becky. Shut the door.”

“Are you sure? It’s always so stuffy in here.”

“I’m very sure. These men have something to tell you and I’d rather it stayed in this room.”

“But there’s just Aunt Eliza.”

“Who is a fine woman on whose face you can read her every thought. Please do as I ask.”

She did, and noticed Hammett’s bandages for the first time. “Have you been in a fight?”

“Yes, miss, with the Southern Pacific Railroad. The S.P. won.” His face was pale despite the smile.

“Have you seen a doctor?”

“I’ve seen more than my share, thank you.”

“When was the last time you changed the dressings?”

“I keep forgetting.”

“Charmian, where is the first-aid kit?”

“In the kitchen, dear. Are you very much in pain, Mr. Hammett?”

“He’ll live,” Siringo said. “If you could die of a busted pin, I’d be six feet down in Texas.”

“I wasn’t asking you, Mr. Siringo.”

Hammett said, “It can wait.”

Siringo got up and held his chair for the girl. She sat with her back straight, her knees together, and her hands folded in her lap, her head cocked in a listening position. Her expression changed only once during the narrative, when Hammett described what had happened to him aboard the train. She clasped a hand to her mouth, but stayed silent until she’d been told everything her stepmother had.

“You left the money?”

Siringo nodded. “I won’t say I weren’t tempted. It’s my opinion that cash was all Kennedy’s, to prime the pump. Just because it came from his walking-around fund don’t mean he wouldn’t make me repay every cent with a piece of my hide.”

“He’s yellow, Mr. Siringo is,” Hammett said. “And crooked as a roulette wheel.”

“I think you’re both marvelous,” Charmian said. “Becky will see to Mr. Hammett’s injuries and then we’ll discuss what comes next.”

Becky sprang to her feet and took Hammett’s elbow. He offered no resistance; Siringo thought he leaned a little more heavily on her than warranted as they went out.

“You’ve trimmed your moustache, Mr. Siringo,” Charmian said. “It becomes you.”

“Much obliged. I always look better when I’m not supposed to be me.”

“Charlie O’Casey. Peter Collins. I don’t know how you both keep track of who you are at any given moment.”

“Don’t forget Horn and Tarkington. It’s getting so when somebody calls me by my real name I look around to see who he’s talking to.”

“I can’t blame you for taking precautions. These are dangerous men. There have been two attempts at murder, and may be more.”

“I take heart that they keep missing.”

She shook her head. For a homely woman she was uncommonly handsome. “I’m calling off this investigation. I’d rather let the ranch go than be responsible for your deaths.”

“That’s what they said in Colorado, when a puma that got too old to chase down wild game started going down into the local town and making supper out of the citizens. Instead of sending somebody after it and maybe getting him killed, they slaughtered a pig a day and left it at the town limits at sundown. The theory was the cat would fill up on pork and leave the folks alone.”

“It’s a reasonable assumption.”

“See, that was the problem. Killers don’t reason. Them pigs was just appetizers. The town lost ten more from the population before all the men in good health rode up into the mountains with Winchesters. That puma’s hide is still hanging in the lobby of the hotel there, and nobody’s been ate since. You give a killer what he wants, he just goes on doing what he’s been till you skin him and nail him to a wall.”

“But this isn’t your fight. Your lives are worth so much more than five hundred dollars apiece.”

He smiled.

“I can’t speak for Hammett, but I ain’t doing it for just the money.”

He watched her, expecting surprise or disappointment or loathing or maybe something encouraging. She smiled back.

“I guessed that, Mr. Siringo. I’m a grown woman and then some. I’ve gone through great loss, and learned from the experience. I fell in love once. It was wonderful and horrible and all things in between. I couldn’t go through that again. But thank you for making a middle-aged woman feel once again like a desirable schoolgirl.”

“We aim to please,” he said after a moment.

She was still smiling. “I thought it was ‘We never sleep.’”

“Oh, I catch plenty of winks off the job.”

“Now you’ll have your chance. I can’t allow you to risk your life for something that can never be. That’s why I’m ending this.”

“I respect what you’re saying. You got all the answers. You just need to ask yourself one question.”

“Just one?”

“What would Jack do?”

*   *   *

Seated in a brightly lit kitchen with a pump-up gas stove, white-enamel sink, and an icebox big enough to chill a side of beef all at once, Hammett watched Becky London bathe his foot with warm water from a basin and pat it dry in her lap. The toes were blistered and peeling, but the new skin was radiantly pink. She inspected the damage from all angles with a frown of concentration.

“You’re lucky,” she said. “I don’t know how you escaped infection.”

“I medicate internally.” He went on watching as she retrieved a roll of gauze, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and surgical scissors from a white tin box with a red cross painted on the lid. “Where’d you learn to be a nurse?”

“Charmian’s the expert. She tended Daddy every time he took a spill and looked after him at the—at the end. She insisted on teaching me everything she knew. ‘Men wrestle bears and fight wars, women patch them up afterward. That won’t change just because we have the vote.’ Her words.” She snipped dead skin from his foot.

“You really do like her, don’t you?”

“Daddy loved her. How could I not?”

“I guess she isn’t one of those wicked stepmothers you read about.”

“That would be my mother. I love her, but Daddy put up with a lot, before and after the divorce. I spend as little time with her and my sister as possible. They enjoy being miserable.”

“Runs in the family. Sometimes I think a smile would starve to death on that pretty face of yours.”

“I smile when I’m happy.”

“I’ve got something to look forward to, then.”

She used the applicator from the bottle of mild astringent to disinfect the wound, changing the subject along with the treatment. “You’re a foolish man. Two stubborn women are nothing to lose your life over.”

“I’m only doing it for one. I like Charmian, but I don’t stick my neck out just for people I like.”

“Are you saying you love me?”

“I don’t know yet. You can want a new car bad enough to lose sleep thinking about it, but you don’t know it’s a good match till you drive it a hundred miles.”

“Your opinion of my sex is why you’ve never seen me smile. A woman isn’t an automobile.”

“I only just said it.”

“You didn’t have to. In any case, you’re promised to someone else.”

“Siringo told you?”

“That wasn’t necessary. I’m Jack London’s daughter, Mr. Hammett. I don’t have to see the hobbles to know when a horse is someone else’s property.”

“It’s okay I’m a horse, but not you’re a car?”

“You spoke of all women. I spoke of one man.”

“Siringo’d say you didn’t inherit Jack’s bump of adventure.”

“That wouldn’t be an adventure.”

“Sin, then. I read some of his books, and I read about him. I know which sins bothered him and which didn’t. Ouch! Jesus!”

She’d begun winding gauze around his foot, and suddenly jerked it tight.

“Next I’m going to look at your head. There’s a hole in it I’m sure. Get yourself killed if you want, but don’t do it for my sake. Handsome men are bad for the heart.”

“Your father was a handsome man.”

“Exactly my point.”