White Lightning (13 page)

“What did you talk to him about?” asked Naylor.

“Moonshine,” Swagger said. “He reckoned someone in the neighborhood was cooking it and selling on the reservations. Figured maybe I’d been offered some, as well.”

“And were you?” Slade inquired.

“I wish. The red-eye they ship down to me from Wichita comes dear. I’d like a better profit margin, but alas, no one’s come peddling any ’shine my way.”

“And what about your opposition there, across the street?” asked Slade.

“Flynn Rafferty? Call him a friendly rival,” Swagger said. “I couldn’t tell you where he gets his whiskey.”

“Even though you’re friends? In the same business?” Naylor prodded.

“With the key word being
business
,” Swagger answered. “Neither one of us leaks anything to help the other get ahead, you understand.”

“But if you knew that he was up to something on the shady side…” Slade left it hanging, letting Swagger fill the gap.

“I’m not a nark, and never will be. If you want the dirt on Rafferty, you’ll have to dig it somewhere else.”

“You think he’ll show you the same courtesy?” asked Slade.

“There’s only one way to find out. If we’re all finished here, I need to buy the house a round. Help prime the pump, you know?”

Grady Sullivan stood in the recessed doorway of O’Malley’s barbershop and watched the two new marshals from the Swagger Inn. He’d spotted them by chance, as they went in, and close to twenty minutes had elapsed since then, stalling his plan to tell the big man that their plan for Percy Fawcett was in progress.

Sullivan supposed it made sense for the lawmen to drop in and question Swagger. They were looking into moonshine and he
did
run a saloon. Also, they’d want to check on every step their fellow deputy had made in Stateline, sniffing after leads. The question now was, what had Swagger told them?

Likely nothing, but the big man didn’t pay Grady to speculate. When he asked questions, answers were required, not guesswork. A miscalculation could rebound and cost him dearly—at the very least, his job. At worst…

He didn’t even want to think about it.

On the Oklahoma side of Border Boulevard, the marshals stood and talked together, peering up and down the street suspiciously. Sullivan couldn’t hear what they were saying, wished that he could read their lips. Frustration made him raise a hand and gnaw a fingernail before he caught himself and dropped the hand back to his side.

Tim O’Malley came out of his shop, distracted Sullivan
by saying, “Grady, you could use a shave.” Maybe a joke, or he was trying to drum up some business.

“Not today,” said Sullivan, dismissively.

Instead of going back inside, the barber lingered at his elbow, looking off across the street. “More marshals, eh?”

“Looks like.”

“First one, now two.”

“Don’t miss much, do you?” Sullivan replied.

“I keep my eyes open,” O’Malley said, missing the jibe.

“And what about your ears?”

“I hear all right,” the barber said.

“You still shave Swagger regular?” asked Sullivan.

“Sure do. He’s just across the street.”

“Same time each day?”

“If nothin’ interrupts it.”

“And what time would that be?”

“Half past eleven. After he gets up and drinks his breakfast.”

“So he’s all done for today.”

“Slick as a whistle.”

Damn it.
“Does he talk about his business when you’re workin’ on him?” Sullivan inquired.

“A bit, sometimes.” Suspicious-sounding now. “What are you getting at?”

“I’d like to find out what he talked about with them law dogs. Think you could squeeze that out of him tomorrow?”

“Maybe. I can’t promise nothin’.” His anxiety gave way to greed, O’Malley asking, “What’s it worth?”

“Depends on what you get. Five dollars, maybe ten.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Across the street, the objects of his interest were moving, easing off the sidewalk while a buggy passed, then heading toward the Sunflower Saloon.

“Goin’ to see your boss, now,” said O’Malley.

“Seems so.”

And he couldn’t even run around the back way with a warning now, for fear of drawing their attention. If he walked and kept it casual, they’d beat him to the big man’s office easily.

“Guess you can ask him what they want, yourself,” O’Malley kidded him.

Instead of answering, he left the barber standing there and cut across the street, reversing more or less the lawmen’s path. Sullivan wasn’t headed for the Swagger Inn, however. He had plans to finalize before he hustled Percy Fawcett out of Stateline, helpers to recruit and have on standby when the time came. There was nothing he could do to keep the deputies away from Rafferty, no way to help the big man deal with them. The best thing he could do was follow orders and make certain nothing else went wrong.

The next mistake, he knew, could be his last.

Halfway across the street, between the Swagger Inn and Sunflower Saloon, one ripple of piano music gave way to another. Slade saw a customer emerging from the Sunflower, unsteady on his feet, weaving a little as he turned away from them and tottered east on Border Boulevard.

“No lack of drinkers hereabouts,” said Naylor, as he watched the tipsy man’s retreat.

“A good market for whiskey,” Slade suggested. “Taxed or otherwise.”

“You think Swagger was lying?”

“Couldn’t say, unless we check his inventory and supplier.”

“Wichita, he said.”

“We can go back and get a name, if need be,” Slade replied. “Cable up there and save ourselves a hundred miles on horseback.”

“Suits me,” Naylor said.

The Sunflower was somewhat larger than the Swagger Inn and had a real piano player in the flesh. The rest of it was standard: bar along the back wall of a spacious room with card tables, roulette, and chuck-a-luck. A curved staircase led to the cribs upstairs, but none of the Sunflower’s working girls were presently in evidence. Slade counted five men at the bar and three more playing poker at a table to his right.

Whereas the Swagger Inn’s bartender was a giant of a man, the Sunflower’s was whisper thin and average in height, with jet-black curly hair, clean shaven, scarred along his left jawline as if from dueling with a knife or razor. He was joking with a customer but lost his sense of humor at the sight of badges.

“Help you?” he inquired, not sounding much as if he gave a damn.

“We’re looking for the boss,” said Naylor.

“He expectin’ you?”

“I’ll bet he is,” Slade said.

The barkeep cracked his knuckles. Said, “I’ll have ta check.”

“Do that,” said Naylor. Then, when he was left alone with Slade, “You think he’s heard about us through the grapevine?”

“Stands to reason,” Slade replied. “We made a splash with those four stiffs. A town this size, word gets around.”

The barkeep was returning, wearing a disgruntled look. “He’ll see you. Far end of the bar, the door marked
PRIVATE
, by the stairs.”

They followed his directions, found the door already open to an office with a large desk facing them as they approached. Behind it stood the Sunflower’s proprietor, a stocky man with salt-and-pepper hair, dressed all in navy blue. He didn’t come around the desk to meet them, but he leaned across to shake their hands.

“Flynn Rafferty,” he said, repeating Slade’s and Naylor’s names in turn as they were given, like a man committing them to memory. “Drag up a couple chairs and rest yourselves.”

They found two mismatched chairs and sat, while Rafferty inquired, “How can I help the law today?”

Slade ran it down for Rafferty the way they had for Swagger, starting with the ’shine, then moving on to Tanner’s homicide. Rafferty nodded through the recitation, frowning just enough to indicate concern.

“I spoke with your associate when he was here in town, of course,” said Rafferty. “Nice man, as far as I could tell.”

“He was that,” Slade allowed.

“Determined to locate these vermin who’ve been selling whiskey on the reservations,” Rafferty continued.

“It’s a problem,” Naylor said.

“And tragic, how he met his end. You’re thinking redskins are responsible? Maybe he caught some with a load of ’shine?” asked Rafferty.

“That isn’t clear,” Slade said. “The reason that we’re here, it crossed our minds that someone peddling whiskey to the tribes might try his luck with the saloons nearby.”

Rafferty raised one eyebrow, kept on nodding. “Wish that I could help you there,” he said. “You might check Swagger’s place, across the boulevard.”

“We did,” Naylor replied. “He said he gets his booze from Wichita.”

“Does he? Ours comes in from Joplin.”

“In Missouri?” Naylor asked.

Another nod from Rafferty. “It’s sixty miles due east, closer than Wichita by half. They have a fine distillery nearby, at Jolly Mill.”

“You haven’t been approached by anyone with untaxed alcohol to sell?” asked Slade.

“No, sir. I would’ve sent them packing if I had.”

“And turned them in?” asked Naylor.

That received a shrug. “It’s not my job,” said Rafferty. “I try to live and let live when I can.”

“And when you can’t?” Slade asked.

“It hasn’t come to that, thank goodness.” Smiling. “Sorry that I couldn’t be more helpful.”

“Well, I guess it was a long shot, but we had to ask,” Slade said.

“Of course, of course. And while you’re here in Stateline, I hope you’ll accept our hospitality as time allows.”

“That’s mighty generous,” said Naylor.

“We aim to please.”

Outside, Naylor asked Slade, “Did that sound like a bribe to you?”

“Nothing that we could charge him with,” Slade said. “But that makes four people I’m pretty sure have lied to us so far.”

On Friday evening Slade and Naylor went to supper at the Lone Star Barbecue. Slade ordered carne asada with an enchilada and frijoles charros on the side, while Naylor ate pork ribs and grilled corn on the cob, washed down with beer. Slade stuck to coffee, strong and black, leaving some room for pie.

“The way I see it,” Naylor said, between large bites of pork dripping with sauce, “we need to have a look around Stateline without an audience or anybody offerin’ to scout for us. If there’s not something fishy goin’ on, I’ll eat my hat.”

“You won’t have room, the way you’re going,” Slade replied. “But I agree with you. I don’t trust anyone we’ve talked to yet.”

“Including Marshal Call-Me-Arlo Hickey?”

“Him, for starters. I still think he knew those four we got the drop on, or at least he’d seen them passing through.”

“We’re on our own, then.”

“Way it feels to me,” Slade granted.

“Suits me,” said Naylor. “Saves a lot of wonderin’.”

Dessert was apple pie for Slade, cinnamon cake for Naylor, who’d retired his beer and switched to coffee for the final course. Outside, after they settled up the tab, they lingered on the sidewalk for a moment, in the dusk, deciding where to start their search.

“East side of town,” Slade finally suggested. “Check our horses at the livery, if anybody’s watching, then work back from there.”

“Sly-like,” said Naylor. “Think they’ve put a pair of eyes on us?”

“I haven’t spotted any, but I wouldn’t put it past them,” Slade replied.

“Come out the back way from the livery, I guess, then work out way along behind the shops and all?”

“What I was thinking,” Slade agreed. “Get to the other end, then cross without attracting anyone’s attention, double back, and do it over on the Kansas side.”

“Okay.”

There horses seemed content. Slade spent a moment with the hostler, asking if he’d heard of any moonshine operations in the neighborhood, and got a hasty-feeling “No, sir” in return. The fellow watched them exit through the rear, a weakness in their plan if he ran off to warn someone, but it was too late to retract the question.

“So, another liar, do you think?” asked Naylor, when they’d cleared the stable.

“Maybe. Or by now he’s heard how Tanner got it, and he doesn’t want to take a chance.”

“Another way of saying that he might know something,” Naylor said.

“I guess that’s right.”

“Makes me want to grab somebody by the neck and shake ’em till they rattle.”

“Still an option,” Slade admitted, “if we come up short the other way.”

They walked along behind the buildings on the south—or Oklahoma—side of Border Boulevard, full dark overtaking them within a block or so. Slade wasn’t sure exactly what to look for, but he’d smelled a whiskey still on several occasions, thinking that the ’shiners couldn’t hide that kind of operation from his nose, even if they concealed it from his eyes.

“I’ve never seen a whole town that could keep a secret,” Naylor said, as they were pacing off the fourth block, moving east to west.

“I’ve seen a couple try,” Slade answered, “but they weren’t much good at it. Somebody always cracks.”

“Nice if we had a way to speed it up.”

“Finding the cooker ought to do it,” Slade suggested. “Or the place they stash the booze to age it.”

“May not age it much,” said Naylor. “If it’s just your basic popskull, they could sell it raw and let the buyers proof it down.”