Shadow Man (9 page)

“You figure some guy from Denver brought the Hi-Standard pistol to our fair city?”

“Why Denver?”

Moon shrugged. “There can’t be that many contract killings to do in Colorado. You’d expect a person in that line of work to set up shop in our largest city—where most of the action is.”

“You might think so.” Parris smiled at another pretty young lady, who stole a glance at the Ute. “But nowadays, there are freelancers in the business. They might live anywhere. Pueblo, Salida, Durango—or maybe in some little mountain cabin. These part-time operators typically only do a job every year or two, to supplement their legal income. Rest of the time, they’re your friendly local barber or postman or…” Parris waved at a postman across the street. “Point is, we got to keep our thinking up with the times.”

“Yeah,” the Ute said. “I guess everything changes.”

The traffic light changed.

On the far corner of the intersection, the angular figure of a stick man flashed on a glass panel; his segmented legs walked in jerky fashion. For those who did not get the graphic message, a sign below the little man said
WALK NOW
. Obedient to the electronic summons, the lawmen crossed a little avenue called Shady Lane. It was a dead-end street.

Parris’s pager buzzed in his shirt pocket. He checked the number, glanced at his Indian friend. “I need to get back to the station.”

Moon watched the chief of police stalk away, then strolled another three blocks on Copper Street.
It is nice, once in a while, having nothing in particular to do. Let the Columbine take care of itself. I am footloose and free as a pronghorn antelope on the wide-open plains, happy as a coyote with a mouthful of warm jackrabbit—

At that moment, something quite odd occurred. It may have been a case of happy serendipity, cosmic synchronicity—or no more than a simple coincidence. But Charlie Moon noticed that he was standing directly in front of the place of business where Manfred Wilhelm Blinkoe claimed he had last seen It.

Harriet’s Rare Books.

I should walk right on by, forget this Blinkoe guy. Let him solve his own problems. Sensible thing to do is head on back to the Columbine, tend to my cattle operation.
The tribal investigator considered this latter course of action.
I need to make some telephone calls, find a caretaker to keep watch over the Big Hat so the rustlers don’t come back and haul off the rest the stock east of the Buckhorns. And I need talk to my county agent about that new government test for mad cow disease—maybe there’s some way to duck that bullet.

None of this sounded like a great deal of fun.

Or, I could just drop into this nice little bookstore and ask the lady a simple question or two.

Charlie Moon pushed on the door; it responded with a harsh, brassy squeak.
Hinges could use some oil.
The inner sanctum was illuminated by the few rays of sunlight that penetrated the front window. There were books everywhere—lining dozens of unpainted pine shelves, stacked on the floor, piled in pyramids on tables. There was not a sound, or any sign of life, human or otherwise.
I thought all of these places had cats.
He considered announcing his presence, but the fragile silence seemed to be the glue that held the place together. One muffled “hello” might bring the whole establishment crashing down.
The lady who runs this outfit may be in the back. Or maybe she stepped out for a few minutes, headed down the street for a bite to eat. I’ll just mosey around for a while, have a look at the books.

Charlie Moon moseyed over to a shelf marked
WESTERN
, began to scan the authors’ names. One shelf was filled with Zane Grey, another with Louis L’Amour. On a top shelf, nudged up against a few old paperbacks by Lee Floren, Al Cody, and Michael Hammonds, were several works by Will James that piqued the rancher-cowboy’s interest.
Lone Cowboy
was there, but Moon already had a fine copy of that one. He inspected volumes of
Big-Enough, Sand, Sun-Up, Cow-Country,
and
The Drifting Cowboy.
Then he spotted
Smoky the Cowhorse
—which turned out to be a first edition.
I’ve got to have this one.
He felt something hard and cold press against his spine. Instinctively, he froze.

“Gotcha!” the raspy voice crackled.

It sounded like a woman. A very angry woman. Moon did not dare look over his shoulder. “Excuse me—can I ask you a question?”

“
May
I ask you a question.”

“Sure—you go first.”

“I was correcting your grammar, bonehead!”

“And I sure do appreciate it.” He had another go at it. “May I ask you a question?”

“Sure. Say your last words.”

“What’s that sticking in my back?”

“The business end of a pistol.”

“I figured that. What caliber?”

“Thirty-two Colt.”

“Cocked?”

“Don’t need to be. It’s a double-action.” A gurgling chuckle. “But if it’d make you feel better, I will cock the blamed thing.”

“No, don’t bother yourself.” He felt beads of sweat on his forehead. “Is it loaded?”

“Damn right it is!”

“Then I hope you’ll be real careful.”

“
Very
careful.” She nuzzled the muzzle up against his spine. “Now you put that highly valuable first edition Will James back up on the shelf.”

Moon did as ordered. “I take it you don’t want to sell this particular item?”

“Don’t get sassy with me, you low-down, no-good book thief!”

“Look, ma’am—I didn’t have the least intention of stealing any of your—”

“Oh, shut your mouth.” The pressure on his backbone eased. “And turn around. But do it slow and easy.”

He turned. Slow and easy. Stared down at the elfin figure of a slender woman with a narrow, pinched face. The hair was a yellowish gray. In the blue dress and white apron, her appearance suggested an Alice in Wonderland well past the bloom of her youth. Moon estimated that if she managed to grow four inches, she would be pushing five feet.

The heavy chip on the woman’s shoulder caused her to lean toward suspicion. “One short-person joke and you’re dead meat.”

“It never crossed my mind.”

“Now look me straight in the eye and tell me you are not the yahoo who’s been sneaking in here for months, stealing my best stuff while I’m on the potty.”

“Okay.” There was no way the seven-foot Ute could look her straight in the eye. He watched the old revolver tremble along with her hand. “I ain’t the yahoo who’s been sneaking in here for months, stealing your best stuff while you’re on the—uh—potty.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Because I’m illiterate?”

The gun barrel dropped to point at his left knee. “You can’t read?”

“Not a word.”

Her mouth gaped, something almost like pity softening the hard little face.
He must be one of those basketball players that got through grade school without having to crack a book.
“Is that the honest-to-God truth?”

“Nope. It’s a flat-out falsehood.” He dared to smile. “Just wanted to see if I could get you to relax a bit—so maybe you wouldn’t shoot me by accident.”

“If I shoot you, it won’t be no accident.” Her gray eyes lost the flinty look. “You sure you ain’t a book thief?”

“I can’t swear to it—but I wasn’t last time I checked.”

“Well, I guess you could be tellin’ the truth.” She studied his face. “You don’t look smart enough to steal free samples at the supermarket.”

“Thank you.” Moon took a deep breath of the musty atmosphere.

She squinted at the overly tall man. “What’re you doing in my store?”

“Uh—looking for a good book to read?”

She aimed the pistol at the top shelf. “You want to buy that Will James
Smoky the Cowhorse
first edition?”

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but the way I see it—a man shouldn’t have to make a decision about a purchase whilst confronted by a lady who’s packing.”

“Times is hard, cowboy.” She tapped the end of the Colt barrel on his belt buckle. “Amazon and them other dot-coms has taken away half of my business. So what about
Smoky the Cowhorse
?”

“What’re you asking?”

There was the barest hesitation. “Ninety-nine dollars?”

“That’s a little pricey for my budget.” He saw her thumb go to the hammer. “But I’ll take it.”

“Ah, what the hell.”
I kinda like him.
“You can have it for eighty-nine.” She pointed again with the pistol. “Reach up there, get it off the shelf so I don’t have to bring the stepladder.” The woman stuffed the Colt revolver into an ample apron pocket. “But I don’t take credit cards or checks. Cash on the barrelhead, that’s my policy.”

“I hope if you find out I don’t have that much money in my wallet—you won’t murder me.”

She shrugged. “I’ll take your IOU. And you can have the book for seventy-nine bucks.”

“That’s a deal.” He removed
Smoky the Cowhorse
from its place between
Drifting Cowboy
and
Cowboys North and South.
Looked at the title page. “Well look at that, it’s signed by ol’ Will himself!”

“Not it’s not, you big smart-aleck.” She headed for the counter. “As you might’ve guessed, I’m Harriet.”

“Actually, that would have been my second guess.”

The proprietor of Harriet’s Rare Books stopped, turned. “What was your first?”

“Elizabeth Taylor.” His expression was deadly earnest. “When she was about sixteen.”

The tiny woman blushed. “What’s your name, you big shameless liar?”

“Charlie Moon.”

“Moon. I’ve heard that name before.” A frown creased her brow. “And come to think of it, I believe I’ve seen you in town once or twice. But you’ve never come into my store before.”

“I never felt the need of any extreme excitement.”

She gave him a suspicious look. “You that Arapaho who runs the Columbine Ranch?”

“I’m the Southern Ute who owns the Columbine. And,” he added with pardonable pride, “the Big Hat. Which is right next door, just across the Buckhorn range.”

It was coming back to her. “You’re some kind of Indian cop, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”
The kind that should’ve stayed home today.

“You really come in here to look for a book?”

“Not entirely.”

“I knew it! What’re you up to—you after a crook?” Hardboiled detective mysteries were her meat.

Might as well get right at it.
“You know a man by the name of Blinkoe?”

“I wish I could say I didn’t.” Her tone was distinctly hopeful: “Is old Weird-Beard in trouble?”

He nodded. “Big trouble and then some.”

“What’s he done?”

“Promise you won’t tell a soul?”

“I swear on Grandma O’Gilligan’s grave.”

“Then I guess I can trust you.” Moon frowned at the memory of the imagined event. “Last night, Dr. Blinkoe came out to the Columbine to do an extraction. I hate to tell you this, but that quack broke off my foreman’s wisdom tooth, left two of the roots down in the jawbone, took his two-dollar fee without so much as a ‘Sorry, bub,’ and left the ranch in a big hurry.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Me’n the boys are huntin’ him down. We lay hands on this Blinkoe bird, Pete Bushman will pull all of his teeth with rusty wire-pliers, then hang him personally. Probably from a cottonwood limb, though I prefer sycamore myself.”

“Orthodontists don’t pull teeth,
Bean Pole.
They straighten ’em.”

“So you say. But this is my story, and I’m stickin’ to it.”

She smiled, went behind the counter. “Dr. Blinkoe comes in here two or three times a month—and generally takes something home. He’ll buy anything on nineteenth-century dentistry, so I’m always on the lookout for those. He also likes books on western history. And weapons.”

“Weapons?”

“He’s interested in antique pistols. U.S. Cavalry swords. Collectible stuff like that.”

A coal-black cat appeared from somewhere, leaped onto the counter between Moon and Harriet. After asserting its considerable presence, the feline creature made a point of ignoring both of them.

“That’s Mississippi Snowball,” she said with a small grimace. “I don’t much like cats, but this one belonged to the previous owner. He won’t eat mice and he won’t go away.”

Moon leaned on the counter, rubbed Mississippi Snowball’s back. “Has Dr. Blinkoe been in lately?”

“Last Tuesday.” She glanced at a clock on the wall. “It was a few minutes before noon—I remember because I was about to shut the place and go get some lunch. Hadn’t had but two customers all morning, then here comes Goggle-Eye Doc with the funny beard.”

“Did he find something he liked?”

“He was looking at a book about Bowie knives. And he ended up buying it.” She stared at the cat’s yellow eyes. “But not before he was startled by something.”

Moon eyed the black cat. “I bet I know what spooked him.”

The smirk was all over her face. “I bet you don’t.”

“Bet you this much.” Moon put four shiny quarters on the table. All in a row.

Harriet removed a dollar bill from a cigar box, slapped it over the eight bits. “You’re on, high roller. Now, what caused my customer to drop the book?”

“Why that’s plain as the sparkle in your pretty eyes.” He watched her blush again. “You snuck up behind him, jammed that Colt
pistola
into his back, accused him of theft, tried to bully him into buying the Bowie knife book for three times what it was worth.”

“That’s a tempting notion, but it’s not what happened.” She snapped up the dollar and change.

Moon waited for a return on his investment.

She put the greenback plus profit into her cigar box. “If I told you what actually happened, you wouldn’t believe it.”

“Don’t matter a whit whether I believe it or not—long as it’s a good story.”

“You wouldn’t mind losing your money to hear a flat-out lie?”

“Not me. I’m a cattle rancher—money means nothing to a stockman.”

Harriet jerked her head to indicate something behind her. “You see that mirror on the wall?”

“I do.” What he saw was his reflection. And the dusty window framing a live motion-picture of Copper Street.

“Well, Dr. Blinkoe was paging through the
Classic Bowie Knives
book when he sorta slowed down.” She picked up a Cajun cookbook to demonstrate. “Slow as sorghum molasses oozing off a tablespoon, he looks up, right over my head.” She turned to point at the frame of silvered glass. “Right at that mirror.”

“What happened then?”

“Why, he turned pasty-white as an uncooked biscuit. No, make that an anemic marshmallow. Then he said, ‘Oh, no—it’s back!’ Or something like that.”

“He happen to mention what
It
was?”

“He didn’t have to.” The small woman looked past Moon, toward the street. “I saw him myself.”

Moon arched an eyebrow. “The
It
was a
Him
?”

“Well of course it was!”

“And where did you see It—I mean
Him
? In the mirror?”

“No, you big telephone pole.” She pointed at the front window. “He was standing right out there on the sidewalk—looking in through the glass.”

The Ute was muttering to himself. “Then It…was just a man.”

“But not just
any
man,” Harriet snapped. “This old blister was Dr. Blinkoe’s twin.”

Moon felt a deep chill creep along his spine, right up the nape of his neck to the back of his hat. “You absolutely sure about that?”

“Sure as week-old roadkill stinks. The fella outside the window was the spirit and image of Dr. Blinkoe.” She shuddered. “Just imagine—
two
of them Weird-Beards loose on the streets!”