Kansas City
“Are you sure this is where you want to go?” the hack driver asked Hodge Denman. The hansom cab had come into the most notorious street of the city and stopped in front of the most scandalous establishment on the most disreputable street. The sign on front of the building showed a bucket tipped over, from which streamed something red. The name beside the bucket was Bucket of Blood Saloon.
There were three people passed out drunk on the wooden porch in front of the saloon, and one of the three was a woman. The saloon, indeed the entire street, reeked of sour whiskey, stale beer, unwashed bodies, and even the unmistakable odor of urine.
“Yes, this is where I want to come. Wait here for me, please.”
“Mister, I wouldn’t wait in this place for Jesus Christ Hisself. When it comes time for you to leave, you’d best find yourself another way out of here,” the driver said. “I’ll take my quarter fare, now.”
“A quarter? It’s fifteen cents anywhere else,” Denman complained as he handed the driver a quarter.
“Yeah, well, this ain’t anywhere else, is it? It’s here. And a person could get his throat cut here.”
The driver snapped his reins and the horse started forward. He made a one-hundred-eighty-degree turn in the middle of the road, then urged his horse into a brisk trot.
Denman watched with a sinking feeling inside as his driver left. He felt the hair standing up on the back of his neck, and he was so frightened that he was having a difficult time breathing. The driver was right: a person could get his throat cut in this part of town. Why did he agree to come here?
He agreed because Howard had told him that this was the only place Kingsley would meet with him.
Although Denman dreaded setting foot inside the Bucket of Blood, he felt that it would be safer, if only marginally so, if he were inside with other people, rather than remaining out here in the dark. So, steeling himself for the ordeal ahead, he stepped up onto the front porch.
A bony arm reached up from one of the supine figures on the porch. The hand grabbed his pants leg, and Denman gasped out loud.
“Oh, my God!” Denman shouted, his voice a terrified shriek.
“Buy me a drink, honey,” a besotted woman’s voice said.
Realizing that it was just a drunk woman and not some ruffian who wanted to kill him, Denman recovered enough to jerk his leg away from her. “Don’t touch me!” he shouted. He moved quickly until he got inside.
Once inside, he stood for a moment looking around the room to see if he could find anyone who fit Kingsley’s description. Denman was a small man, with delicate, feminine features and his hair was blond and thin, of a color and texture that made it look almost as if he were bald until one got closer to him. Anyone could look at him and know immediately that he was very much out of his element in a place like the Bucket of Blood Saloon.
To his frustration and no small amount of worry and fear, he did not see anyone who looked anything like the description Howard had given him of Kingsley.
“He is an ugly man, tall and scrawny,” Howard had told him. “He has high cheekbones, and a scar that runs from the corner of his left eye down to just below the cheekbone where it curves up, sort’ a like a fishhook. And you don’t hardly ever see him without he has a cigar stuck in his mouth.”
There were a lot of ugly men, and even uglier women, Denman thought. But he did not see anyone that he thought might be Crack Kingsley.
Aggravated that Kingsley had not gotten here when he was supposed to, Denman chose a table in the back corner of the room. He stayed as far away from the clientele as he could; this place was making him extremely uncomfortable. He was easily frightened by men like the ones who frequented this saloon, and their loud and boisterous talk made him even more so.
The bartender called over to him. “You want somethin’, you got to come up here to get it,” he said.
“I don’t want anything. I’ll just sit for a spell,” Denman replied.
“Not in here, you ain’t,” the bartender said. “You sit in here, you better be drinkin’.”
“Very well, I will have a beer.”
“Come up here to get it, I ain’t bringin’ it to you,” the bartender said.
Denman cringed as attention was called to him, but he walked up to the bar, paid for a beer, then returned to the table.
This seemed a most unlikely place for someone like Denman, certainly not a place that he or anyone in his circle of acquaintances would ever visit. On the other hand, he told himself that this was the one good point about having the meeting here. As long as he was here in the Bucket of Blood, he knew that the chances of seeing anyone who actually knew him were practically nonexistent. And he did not want to be seen and recognized when he had his meeting with Crack Kingsley.
Howard had laughed when Denman agreed to meet with Kingsley here.
“You ain’t goin’ to get all a’ feared and pee in your pants or somethin’ like that, are you?” Howard had asked.
“I shall be uncomfortable, that is true,” Denman replied. “So tell him to please try to be on time.”
Denman had hoped that Kingsley would be there when he arrived, but there was no such luck. Nervously, Denman checked his pocket watch as well as the clock that stood against the wall of the saloon, and nursed his beer slowly as he waited. Kingsley was already fifteen minutes late. Denman would give him fifteen minutes more, only; if he didn’t show up by then, he would leave.
“Well, now, lookie here! Aren’t you a cutie, though?”
One of the bar girls came up to him and began running one of her hands through his thinning hair. She was wearing a very low-cut dress, and as she leaned against him, one of her breasts threatened to spill out. She might have been pretty at one time, but the dissipation of her trade had taken its toll. Her eyes were hard, her face drawn and haggard beyond her years. She had a three-corner scar on her chin, and two of her teeth were missing.
“Please,” Denman said. “I am waiting for someone.”
“Well, honey, wouldn’t you like to have a good time while you are waiting?” the girl asked. She threw one leg over his right leg, then straddled his thigh and scooted up against him, pressing against him. “Mandy can show you a real good time,” she said.
“No, please, I am not the kind who indulges in such behavior.”
“What’s the matter, can’t you get it up?” a man at the next table over asked. His question was followed by loud laughter.
“Give it a pull, Mandy,” the same man said. “Maybe if you work on it you can get it to come up.”
“Please!” Denman said. “I am not one who associates with prostitutes.”
“We can see that, Mister,” his antagonist said. “We’re just trying to figure out some way to help you is all.”
Denman didn’t know which he was feeling the most: humiliation or fear.
“Would you be Denman?” a cold, calm voice asked, cutting through all the laughter and ribbing.
“I beg your pardon?” Denman replied, surprised to hear his name mentioned in there.
“I was told to look for a scared-looking little shit, and that would be you, wouldn’t it? Are you Denman?”
The speaker was an ugly man with a gaunt face and a long, disfiguring scar. It had to be Kingsley.
“Please, don’t say my name so loud,” Denman said. “I’ve no wish to be known by anyone who would habituate such a place as this. You would be Mr. Kingsley?”
“Mr. Kingsley?” Kingsley said. He laughed out loud again. “Yeah, I reckon that would be me.”
“You are late,” he said.
Kingsley pulled a long black cigar from his shirt pocket and held a match to the end. Not until his head was enwreathed with cigar smoke did he stare through the cloud at Denman. “Well, if I’ve interrupted somethin’ you’ve got goin’ on, I reckon I can wait until you’re finished,” he offered with a sardonic grin.
“No!” Denman said sharply. “I have nothing going on! I want to get our business taken care of, and then leave this—this horrid place!”
“Oh, honey, you aren’t in that big of a hurry are you?” Mandy asked.
“Get offen his lap, girl. You’ve already seen that he ain’t got nothin’ for you.”
With a pout, Mandy got off Denman’s leg then turned toward Kingsley. “How about you, honey? Have you got somethin’ for me?”
“Not now. Git,” Kingsley said.
Mandy walked away, rejected and angry.
“Too bad I broke that up, Denman. I think Mandy was beginnin’ to take a shine to you. And you ought to feel good about that. It takes a heap to get a whore to actually wantin’ you.”
“Please,” Denman said. “I’m not interested in anything a prostitute might want or not want. And I don’t like this place. I want to conclude our business, then leave.”
“Get up, I’ll be takin’ your chair,” Kingsley said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I don’t sit with my back to the room. Get up. I want that chair.”
“Oh, uh, yes. All right, of course,” Denman said, getting up from his chair and moving around the table so Kingsley could sit with his back to the corner.
“I’ll have a whiskey,” Kingsley said.
“A whiskey. Yes, of course,” Denman said. “I’ll be right back.”
Denman walked over to the bar, being careful to keep himself as separate as possible from the other customers and from Mandy, who was standing at the bar, still staring at him. She offered him a broken-toothed smile when he approached the bar, but dropped it when she realized that he wasn’t coming toward her. He ordered a whiskey and another beer, then carried the two drinks back to the table, handing one of them to Kingsley.
Kingsley picked up the whiskey and tossed it down, then put the cigar back in his mouth, holding it clenched tightly in his teeth before he spoke again.
“All right,” Kingsley said. “What is our business?”
“Is it true that you are an—uh, I don’t know how to say this without coming right out and saying it—but, are you really an outlaw?”
“Why don’t you come right out and say it?” Kingsley said. “You’ve got somebody you want me to kill. Is that it?”
“What? Heavens, no!” Denman said with a startled gasp. “That’s not it at all. What would make you think such a thing?”
Kingsley chuckled. “What would make me think such a thing? Well, Denman, look at you and look at me. People like me and you don’t never get together unless one has somthin’ the other wants. I figure you got somebody that you think needs killin’, and you’re wantin’ me to do it for you.”
“Do you mean to tell me that if I did have someone for you to kill, that you would actually be willing to do something like that?”
“It depends on how much you would be willin’ to pay,” Kingsley said. “It ain’t something I do for fun. But I’ll kill someone if I’m gettin’ paid to do it.”
“I have no wish for you to kill anyone.”
“Then what do you want with me?”
Denman paused for a long moment before he answered. What if Kingsley agreed to do what he wanted, but then decided to cut Denman completely out of the picture? If he did that, what could Denman do about it?
The truth was he could do nothing about it. His only hope was in convincing Kingsley that if he played it straight with him, he could come up with other opportunities equal to, or perhaps even better than, this one.
“I have a proposition that I think would be mutually beneficial to us. A way to make some money.”
“How much money?”
“Don’t you want to hear what I want you to do first?”
“If there’s enough money in it, I don’t care what it is,” Kingsley said. “And if there isn’t enough money, it don’t matter what it is.”
“Your share would come to three thousand dollars.”
Kingsley’s eyes opened in interest. “Three thousand dollars?”
“Yes.”
“That’s my share, you mean. That’s not the total amount?”
“No, the total amount is fifteen thousand, eight hundred and twelve dollars and fifty cents.”
Denman had debated with himself as to whether or not he should tell Kingsley just how much money really was involved. He decided it would be best to go ahead and tell him, because Kingsley was going to find out anyway.
Now Kingsley’s eyes narrowed in a squint. “Wait a minute. The total amount is over fifteen thousand dollars, but I am only going to get three thousand?”
“Isn’t that enough? A moment ago, you seemed quite pleased with three thousand dollars.”
“Yeah, well, that was before I learned that the total amount was over fifteen thousand. I want half.”
“But I have had to do all the planning. I am the one who has set it up.”
“But you need me for some reason, right?”
“Yes, of course, or I wouldn’t have contacted you.”