Buchanan's Revenge (13 page)

"How'd you like to spend an evening with that?" Hal
Harper asked, his voice hushed.

Buchanan turned his head back around, smiled to him
self. "Be something to remember," he said.

"Haughty as a queen, though," Harper said. "Cold.
Wouldn't you say so?"

"Never can tell," Buchanan said. "The way they look
and the way they feel can be two different things."

The dapper little gambler laughed. "Well, boy, you and me aren't likely to find out how she feels. She's way be
yond our reach."

"Miles and miles," Buchanan said.

Their steaks arrived soon afterward, and though Bu
chanan gave his usual undivided attention to the meal,
Hal Harper spent most of his time stealing glances across
the room. Suddenly his eyes dropped to his plate and he
stiffened.

"You all right, Harper?"

"I think I'm in bad trouble," the gambler murmured shakily. "John Lime is headed for this table."

"Trouble about what?"

"For staring at his woman. This is a hanging town and
he runs it
—"

Buchanan put his fork down, swung his head around out
of curiosity. The sheriff, sure enough, was making right for
them. Then he was there.

"Evening, Buchanan."

"Hi, Sheriff. You know Hal Harper?"

"I know his reputation," Lime said and Harper winced. "He deals an honest game. Miss Ford would like you and
your companion to join us in a brandy."

"Us?" Harper said. "Join you
—?"

"I'd enjoy it, Sheriff," Buchanan said, rising. "Than
k
you." Lime led the way back to his table. Harper tugged
at Buchanan's sleeve, whispered to him urgently.

"What's going on? What's this all about?"

"Sounds like a free drink," Buchanan answered. "Yo
u
said your luck was high tonight."

"I know, but-"

"Hello, Tom," Cristy said warmly.

"Hello, Cristy. I see you made a trade for the shirt and
pants."

"No, not a trade. I kept them in case I go riding with a
gentleman again. Won't you sit down?"

Buchanan introduced her to the wide-eyed gambler and
all three men took chairs around the table. Lime ordered
brandy and then turned to Buchanan.

"Cristina has told me your real purpose in Browns
ville," he said in a less formal voice. "I admire it, Bu
chanan, up to a certain point."

"What point is that?"

"I enforce the law here. I am the constituted authority.
You are not."

"That's right, Sheriff. On the other hand, I'm not here
to enforce any law. I just want to settle an account with
three backshooters."

"You're seeking justice," Lime said, the neat gold star
on his vest glistening softly in the candlelight. "That is
my department in Brownsville. Which is beside the point,
actually."

"How do you mean?"

"It's my opinion that those three men are members of
the Leech Gang. You won't find them in town."

"Where will I find them?"

"In a hacienda Leech is using for a temporary head
quarters. And to ride out there would be foolhardy, to say
the least. Leech has nearly forty men with him, every
one of them a professional gunman and killer."

"I'm not looking for every
one," Buchanan said mildly.
"Just three."

"They're a close-knit outfit, Buchanan," the lawman
said. "That's been Leech's main strength for years along
the border. Frankly, I wouldn't relish going after them
with my own force. Not unless I commanded forty riders
and didn't have to attack them in their lair."

The brandies arrived. Cristy leaned forward toward
Buchanan.

"John is speaking good sense to you, Tom. I wish you'd
h
eed it
—and the advice I gave you about pressing your
luc
k"

"I thank you both," Buchanan said, raising his glass in a
toast. "And though nobody here knew him like I did, I'd like to drink a toast to my friend and partner Rig Bogan."

They all four sipped of their glasses.

"Is that your answer?" Cristy asked him.

Buchanan looked to John Lime.

"What is this headquarters for?"

"The merchants here
—the exporters—feel that the Mex
ican custom officials are oppressing them. They've decided
on a massive reprisal and hired Leech's so-called army to
help them."

"Massive reprisal? You mean smuggling?"

Lime smiled. "As a law officer, Buchanan, I could hard
ly have knowledge of any smuggling and not report it to a
higher authority. This is a reprisal action, undertaken un
officially by private citizens. Men, incidentally, of the
highest standing and best reputation."

"When does their smuggling come off?"

Lime frowned. "Their free-trade venture will begin very
soon. It's one of the conditions I laid down."

"And where did you say this Leech bunch hangs out?"

"Don't tell him, John!" Cristy said, and Lime's frown
deepened at the girl's impulsive concern.

"I don't intend to," he said. "I've been compelled to
send fools to the gallows. I would never direct one to his
own suicide."

Buchanan tossed off the rest of his brandy, pushed his
chair back.

"Thanks again, Sheriff," he said, getting to his feet. He
grinned down at Cristy. "I hope the hours suit you better in Brownsville, ma'am," he told her politely.

"I'm sure they will," she said. "But isn't it past your
bedtime? The sun has been down for hours."

"This, I suppose, is a private joke," Lime said edgily.

Buchanan turned the grin on him. "Yes, sir," he said,
"it is." He swung away from the table, walked out of the
place with Hal Harper dogging his heels like a terrier.

"Why didn't you tell me you knew that girl?" the gam
bler demanded when they were on the boardwalk.

"Don't recall that you asked."

"There's something between you two. What is it?"

Buchanan laughed at the other man's eagerness.

"What would you say if I told you we slept together the
last two nights?" he asked mischievously.

"I'd say you were lying or dreaming," Harper answered.
"Or both."

"And if I said she makes her living the same way you
do
—betting suckers they can't make twenty-one?"

"I'd know you were lying."

"Right," Buchanan said. "Listen, do you know where
this hacienda is located?"

"Where that wild bunch is? Sure. It's out on the old
Wagon Road, about five miles. But you ain't going to let
me down tonight, are you? I mean, you're paid in advance
and all."

"I'm bought and paid for," Buchanan assured him.

"Whew! Let's get down to the Crystal Palace then and
see if this is really my night to howl." They started walk
ing toward the bright lights of the casino section when
Harper spoke up again. "Seriously," he said, "did you really
sleep with that queen?"

"No."

"Where did you meet her, then?"

"In a little town north of here."

"What was she doing?"

"She was dealing blackjack," Buchanan said. "Like I
told you."

Harper looked up at him. "Now," he said, "I don't know
what to believe."

Buchanan put a hand on the gambler's shoulder. "Just
believe this about Cristy Ford: you met a real fine person
tonight."

They entered the Crystal Palace.

Nine

J
ohn Lime
had been obtuse when he said he knew Hal
Harper by reputation. In plain fact he knew everything
about the dealer that he possibly could learn, and about
everyone else who worked in the Crystal Palace
—from the chief cashier to the third porter—because the sheriff of
Brownsville was not a partner in the city's most profitable
gambling house. He owned it outright.

It was a spacious place, with a domed ceiling that
muted the noise, crystal chandeliers that hung from solid silver chains, deep carpeting on the oaken floor, a forty-
foot by eight-foot oil painting behind the bar that de
picted the epochal meeting of Diana and Apollo in some
Olympian glen, and a dozen equally voluptuous real-life
Dianas who brought liquid refreshments to the gamblers
at the tables and were not available
—professionally—for anything else.

For John
Lime
, too, had been in New Orleans, and San
Francisco, and Chicago and New York. And if he tried to
bring the sophistication and refinement of those cosmo
politan cities to the rough and rowdy border town of
Brownsville he could only be blamed for just that
—trying.
You could import the best of everything into Brownsville
but you had to take what humans happened to come your
way.

As a result, the Crystal Palace presented a strange nur
ture of exotic, high-minded decor inhabited by a breed of
rough-spoken, hard-handed, free-wheeling gambling men
who appreciated nothing more in life so much as an ace in the hole. Oh, they looked at Diana on the wall and
marveled at her monumental charms. And guessed at the
cost of the chandeliers. And, by and large, accepted the chastity of the hostesses as inviolable. But unlike their
gentler brethren in other towns, they made no bones
about the fact that their main purpose inside the Crystal
Palace was to gamble and win money.

Which John Lime came to understand, and accept-
along with his percentage of all the money dropped at the
tables
—as did Hal Harper, who sincerely appreciated the
attempt that had been made to give the Crystal Palace
tone.

Harper, as he led Buchanan through the gambling ca
sino to his own table, mentioned the various appoint
ments with a kind of personal pride.

"Them chandeliers come from Italy," he said. "Direct
copies of the exact thing in the palace ballroom. How
much you think they cost?"

"Plenty," Buchanan said.

"Five thousand per," Harper said. "And there's twelve
of 'em. How do you like that painting?"

"Big," Buchanan said.

"Biggest one behind any bar in the world. And oil, too.
I got up there one morning and felt it by hand. All bumpy-
li
ke. The real thing."

"Sure is big," Buchanan said.

"You feel that rug under your feet? That's one hundred
sad fifty separate carpets all sewn together. Goes clear
f
rom one wall to the other. Look down. Can you tell
w
here it was sewed?"

"Nope."

"You got to get on y
our hands and knees, in the dayligh
t I mean, that's first class."

They came, at last, to where he worked, a rectangular
able with chairs for six players on one side and a curved-
out
slot on the other for himself.

"A lot of money went into this place," Harper said,
shedding his coat and high-crowned hat. "And I want to
wa
r
n you about one thing."

"What's that?"

"Don't make a pass at the girls when they come around.
It’s
a house rule."