The Slickers Read online

  Bronson got up. Tex showed no inclination of moving at all. Tex’s eyes were roving up and down the checkered suit.

  Bronson whispered hoarsely, “Do what he says. He’s a killer.”

  Tex turned disgustedly and followed Bronson into the indicated room. The place was without lights or furniture. They stumbled over some mops and pails and the door slammed shut behind them. The key rasped in the lock.

  Tex upended a pail and sat down on it. “Damn it, I’ve got to call the Manhattan Hotel. Will that gent be gone long?”

  “Not long enough,” sighed Bronson.

  “What’s he goin’ to do?”

  “Get his pals and a car.”

  “What for?”

  Bronson sighed again. “Looks like we’re going for a ride.”

  “Will we be gone long?”

  “You don’t understand,” said Bronson. “We’ll be gone a long, long time. They’re going to take us out and bump us off.”

  “You mean they’re goin’ to plug us? What the hell? I never did nothin’ to them. And if they want to kill us, what’d that gent walk off for, huh? Why didn’t he just plug us and get it over with?”

  “He has to get his mob,” said Bronson.

  “That’s a helluva way to go about it,” said Tex. “I don’t like this town more and more and besides, John Temple’ll be gettin’ worried about me.”

  They sat there in the dark for a long time. Tex chewed up half a bar of tobacco, using a mop pail for a spittoon. Bronson burned a pile of cigarettes.

  Finally Tex stood up. “I ain’t going to wait.”

  “No, no,” said the stranger, quickly. “You—”

  Tex drowned out the rest of the sentence. Tex raised his heel and banged it against the lock. He tried it again, kicking harder.

  With a crash the door flew open. Tex stalked out into the second room and tried that door. It was also locked. Tex raised his boot and slammed it against the door. With a shower of splinters it caved in.

  Tex strode out into the barroom. Several men were sitting around with surprised looks on their faces, but the gunman was not in sight.

  Tex walked out on the sidewalk and proceeded toward Sixth Avenue, glaring at every man who stared at him.

  He found a cop on the corner and received directions about the Manhattan Hotel. It was up in the Fifties, a long, long walk from Thirty-fourth.

  In spite of his high heels, Tex walked it and his indignation against his reception committee grew with every stride.

  “Had to get his gang,” muttered Tex. “Had to get his gang. The yellow-bellied sidewinder. The pasty-faced son. Had to get his gang and there he stood with his gun in his hand and neither of us … Hell!”

  At last he found the Manhattan Hotel. He had never seen a hotel with phone service in the rooms before so he walked straight past the switchboard.

  He asked the clerk, “Where can I find John Temple, sonny?”

  The smooth-faced clerk eyed Tex with distrust. “You have some business with—”

  “Never mind about my business,” snarled Tex. “If you slick-ears ain’t the nosiest pack of lobos I ever see … What room’s he got? Quick now.”

  He got the room number immediately and bore down upon the elevators. He had ridden in elevators before, but he had never trusted them any. He stepped gingerly into a car and was whisked to the twentieth floor, leaving his stomach in the region of the tenth.

  Getting out, he prowled the halls until he found the number he wanted. He began to beam. John Temple was near at hand and all his troubles would be over.

  He knocked and then knocked again without receiving any answer. He tried the door and found it open.

  At first glance the room appeared empty, and then he saw a curiously stiff hand jutting out from the other side of the bed.

  Tex stalked across the rug and then came up with a jolt.

  John Temple was lying with outflung arms in a muddy pool of his own blood. A knife wound showed in his throat, another in his chest. His jaw was frozen open. His gray hair was matted.

  Tex stood there for at least two minutes without moving a muscle. He turned slowly around and saw that the room had been ransacked.

  “Something,” muttered Tex, “has got to be done.”

  He marched toward the door he had closed behind him, but before he could touch the knob it swung in to him.

  Two men in plain clothes were standing in the hall. Behind them was an officer in uniform.

  “Okay, Haggarty,” said one of the detectives. “Look around the room.”

  The other, Haggarty, stepped inside and spotted the corpse.

  “Dead man,” said Haggarty in a matter-of-fact voice.

  “Okay,” said his partner, walking up to Tex. “Don’t get excited, grandad.” With deft fingers he frisked Tex for a rod and found only the empty holster.

  “Knife job, shivved him twice,” said Haggarty.

  “No knife,” said the other.

  “Must have pitched it out,” said Haggarty.

  “Stand right there, grandad,” said the other, “and maybe if you act nice, you’ll get treated better. O’Brien, put the cuffs on him.”

  The uniformed officer snapped the bracelets on Tex’s weathered wrists and gave him a hard look.

  Haggarty said, “Call the gang and get them down here, Smitty.”

  Detective Smith tossed the phone from cradle to his hand and asked for police headquarters.

  “Gimme the squad,” said Smith.

  “Hello, that you, Pat? Send up the dead wagon for a stiff at the Manhattan Hotel.… Sure, it’s murder just like the tip said. Sure, we got the guy. Think we sleep all the time? Yeah, he’s right here. Looks like revenge or something.… I dunno, funny old geezer in a big hat.… How do I know what the stiff’s name is? Come up and find out yourself.”

  Tex came to life. “Say, what the hell are you fellers tryin’ to do, huh? This ain’t right. Look here, you think I done that? You think I’d use a knife? Why, by the great horned spoon, old Temple was my best friend. What’s the matter with you fellers? Say, listen, don’t you know who I am? I’m Tex Larimee, sheriff of Cactus County, Arizony, that’s who. Look here, I got—”

  “Shut yer trap,” said O’Brien. “You’ll talk. Later.”

  “Damn it, look here,” said Tex, suddenly worried, “Temple sent for me to come to New York and see him home.…”

  “Yeah, we believe you,” said Haggarty, searching the room.

  “Now, see here,” said Tex. “I’ve got a telegram from him.”

  “Let’s see it,” said Smith.

  Tex, in spite of the bracelets, tried to get into his breast pocket. With a sinking feeling he remembered that all his papers, even his suitcase, were gone.

  “Look here,” said Tex, “you just wire Ed Murphy at Stud Horse, Arizony, and he’ll—”

  “Will you shut up?” said Haggarty.

  Something like a wolf howl came from the street and presently the room was full of cops and fingerprint men and medical examiners.

  Worried though he was, Tex looked at this young army of police officers and grinned sourly to himself. “Hell, back in Arizony there’s just me. And I never make a mistake like that. Damned if—”

  “Shut up,” said O’Brien.

  A police lieutenant stopped before Tex and looked him over. “Haul him down to headquarters and he’ll talk all right. He’ll talk.”

  “Come along,” said O’Brien, jerking Tex’s arm.

  The officers pried their way through the crowd in the lobby and to the Black Maria. Tex felt red about the ears. People were pointing at him.

  The wagon careened through the traffic, first on one pair of wheels, then the other.

  “What’s the idea of drivin’ so fast?” said Tex. “I ain’t anxious to get anyplace.�
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  The police driver cut three red lights in a row, played hopscotch with a streetcar, squeezed in between two trucks at forty miles an hour, siren and whistle going continually.

  With squawking brakes they lurched up against the curb before headquarters. Tex was hurried up the steps, through the doors, down a hall, into an elevator, out of it, into an office, into another office and then into a room which had an enormous green-shaded lamp in the middle of it.

  They slammed him down into a chair, snapped off the cuffs, turned the light straight into his eyes and began to yell at him.

  Tex was so confused he could not do more than blink. He could not hear any one of the men. All of them were going hard.

  Suddenly there was silence. A lieutenant of detectives stepped into the light and thrust his jaw into Tex’s face.

  “So you won’t talk, hey?”

  “Damned right I’ll talk. Good God, you’re yappin’ like a lot of coyotes over a dead horse. Sure I’ll talk, but maybe some of you ought to listen, huh?”

  “All right, wisenheimer,” snapped the lieutenant. “Then answer this: Why did you kill John Temple?”

  “I tell you,” yelled Tex, “I didn’t kill him. He was a friend of—”

  “Cut it,” said the lieutenant. “We want it straight. Why did you kill John Temple?”

  “Look here,” bawled Tex, mustaches sticking straight out in his fury, “I’m Tex Larimee, sheriff of Cactus County, Arizony, that’s who, and you can wire Ed—”

  “Why did you kill John Temple?”

  “You can wire Ed Murphy and he’ll tell you who—”

  “Why did you kill John Temple?”

  “I came here to see old John and take him home and I—”

  “Why did you kill John Temple?”

  “He made a mint of money in the copper mining—”

  “Why did you kill John Temple?”

  “And he wanted me to look after him while he—”

  “Why did you kill John Temple?”

  “And I met a stranger on the train named Bronson and he—”

  “Why did you kill John Temple?”

  “And when I was coming up the steps a guy picked my pockets—”

  “Why did you kill John Temple?”

  “And he stuck us up and told us he was going to—”

  “Why did you kill John Temple?”

  “And when I walked into the room, there he was on the floor—”

  “Why did you kill John Temple?”

  “He must have had a lot of pesos on him and—”

  “Why did you kill John Temple?”

  “And that’s all I know about it,” finished Tex, defiantly.

  “So you won’t talk, hey?” snarled the lieutenant. “Slam him behind the bars, Fallon, and leave him there. Okay, wisenheimer, if you won’t talk now, you’ll talk later. We got a rubber hose around here for tough birds like you. Take him away!”

  They hustled Tex down another hall, into an elevator, down it and into another hall, and suddenly Tex found himself staring at the back of a locked cell.

  A sleepy-eyed man looked up from the bunk, grunted, turned over and went to sleep again.

  “Beats hell,” said Tex. “More and more I don’t like this here town.”

  Tex sat down and rested his chin on his palms.

  About nine the next morning, the lieutenant sent for Tex Larimee and soon Tex was ushered into that august presence.

  “Now look here, wise guy, we ain’t got all day. You come clean and we’ll get this out of the way.” He eyed Tex up and down. “From the West, ain’t you? Well, you ain’t West now. Maybe out there you can go around stabbing guys, but this is New York, understand? And in New York, we’ve got LAW.”

  “I’m the law out there,” said Tex, sullenly, gnawing at the ends of his mustache. “And from what I’ve seen of this here—”

  “Why did you kill John Temple?” said the lieutenant, exactly like a parrot.

  “You ask me that again,” said Tex, “and I ain’t guaranteeing what I’ll do about it.”

  “Tough guy, hey?” said the lieutenant. “You know who you killed? You killed John Temple the Copper King, that’s who. He’s worth ten million dollars and that makes it important, get me?”

  “What if he was only worth two bits?” said Tex.

  “Now come clean,” said the lieutenant. “Why did you kill John Temple?”

  Tex merely glared. An office clerk came in, listened for a moment and then pointed at the lieutenant’s desk.

  Annoyed, the lieutenant glanced down at a medical examiner’s report and recommendation. He studied it for some little while, evidently having difficulty reading. He moved his lips, scratched the top of his bald head and then stared up at Tex.

  “Who the hell are you, anyway?” said the lieutenant.

  Tex let out a long sigh. “I’m Tex Larimee, sheriff of Cactus County, Arizony. I came here to New York to take John Temple home. He wired me and I—”

  “Send for Lefkowitz,” said the lieutenant.

  Lefkowitz came after a long delay. He was short, round-faced and businesslike. His attitude said that he didn’t have all day to waste on a mere cop.

  “Now what?” barked Lefkowitz. “I’ve got work to do. Am I the medical examiner here or the errand boy?”

  “Now, Doc,” said the lieutenant, placatingly, “does this report of yours read right?”

  “No, I make them out for fun,” snapped Lefkowitz.

  “Look here,” said the lieutenant, “you say this John Temple had been dead almost three hours when we found him. That right? How’d you know how long he’d been dead?”

  “Rigor mortis and body temperature told me that.… Say, what the hell is this? I said he’d been dead almost three hours and that’s all there is to it, understand?”

  “I say he couldn’t have been!” yelled the lieutenant, surging out of his chair and banging his fist down on the report. “It ain’t possible. This bird killed him. We walked in and there he was, going through the bureau. Whatcha got to say about that, Mister Medical Examiner? Maybe if you had my job—”

  “The hell it isn’t!” roared Lefkowitz, also banging his fist down on the desk. “What’s the matter with this guy happening in after the cadaver was knifed, eh? What about that?”

  The lieutenant paced up and down the rug. He picked up the report, threw it down, picked it up and hit it with his fist. “Damn that clerk. He said this bird went up just before we did. He said he couldn’t mistake him because of that mustache and black hat. And now you come along and shoot my case all to pieces. Damn it, I’ve got to get a conviction if I have to hang the mayor. John Temple was worth ten million dollars. That makes it important, see? What am I going to do if every mother’s son in this office comes around and shoots my cases full of holes? What do ya think you are, anyway?”

  Lefkowitz turned on his heel and opened the door. “That’s my report and that’s all there is to it. And if you call me again when you’ve got my report in front of you, I’ll see you never get a conviction.”

  The door slammed and the lieutenant looked hard at Tex. “I still think you did it.”

  Tex spat thoughtfully at the cuspidor and then looked at the two cops who held him as though measuring up their fighting capacities.

  The lieutenant looked back at the report, baffled. Tex said, “Well, what’ll it be? You goin’ to hang me or what?”

  “Turn him loose,” said the lieutenant to the two cops. “And listen here, you. We’re keeping an eye on … I mean we’re not through with this yet. Now get out.”

  Tex planted his big black hat on the back of his head, turned around and walked out.

  Hands thrust into his empty pockets he stared balefully at the noisy, hurrying street and the towering buildings. He sighed deeply and looked
down at his feet. It was a long walk back to Thirty-fourth Street.

  He was buffeted about by the crowd until he found out that the only way to walk in New York was dead ahead without caring who you knocked down. After that he made fair progress.

  Accustomed as he was to looking thirty miles in any direction without seeing anything more startling than a Joshua tree, Tex had some difficulty finding the bar. He walked around and around the blocks adjacent to Pennsylvania Station, high heels hurting worse and worse. By the time he had run out of epithets for pavement and people he noticed that he kept seeing one particular man always behind him.

  The fellow was round and beefy and red-faced and he walked with a heavy list as though about to fall over. Once Tex walked straight back to where the fellow stood and then, for fear he was mistaken, allowed him to go on peering into the shop window.

  After all, thought Tex, you couldn’t tell these damned greenhorns apart, nohow.

  Again he searched for the bar, and he found plenty of bars but none of them looked just right. Once more he noticed the fat one behind him.

  It dawned upon Tex then that headquarters was shadowing him, hoping that he’d lead them to some of his supposed pals. Tex thought that over.

  It takes a long time for an Arizonian to get mad. He has lots of time and lots of space to get mad in and he usually ends up without getting mad at all. But this was different. People were bumping him; an El was grinding overhead; a block away, the Seventh Avenue subway was yowling under his skittish feet and three thousand cabs were honking their horns.

  Tex walked straight back to the shadow and grabbed him by the coat. The man was so startled the cigarette jumped out of his mouth and showered sparks down his vest.

  “What the hell’s the idea?” roared Tex. “Maybe you think I can’t read trail sign, huh? Maybe you think I need a conducted tour around this here town. Wal, I don’t.”

  He gave the detective a thorough shake and then dropped him to the pavement.

  “If,” said Tex in a mounting bellow, “if I see you once more I’m going to lick the whole damned police force. You better get going.”

  The shadow scuttled back. This was unprecedented. He could hardly call for aid because to do that would be to admit that he had shadowed so poorly that he had been detected in the act. He made the best of it by half walking, half running out of sight.