Wilde West Part 31

"Dr. Holliday," Oscar told him. "He's-"

Rudd.i.c.k abruptly stopped walking, causing Oscar to do the same. Irritating. "Doc Holliday?" Rudd.i.c.k said. "The gun-fighter?"

"Yes. Fascinating chap. Quite a raconteur. Where's Grigsby?"

"But he was in El Paso," Rudd.i.c.k said.

"Hmm?" Oscar looked around, couldn't spot the marshal anywhere among the Manitouians.

"And in Leavenworth, too," Rudd.i.c.k said. "I saw him there. I thought he was a reporter or something, like O'Conner."

Oscar turned to him. "What are you saying?"

"Doc Holliday. I saw him in El Paso, and then a few days later in Leavenworth. He was in the audience both times."

And Holliday had been, by his own admission, in San Francisco.

"Are you certain?" Oscar asked him.

"Of course I am."

Oscar looked back at the French door. He could see nothing through the gla.s.s. He could only make out, framed like a photograph along its surface, brightly lit beneath a spectral chandelier, looking sleek and das.h.i.+ng and more than a little alarmed, his own reflection.

"HOWDY, MATHILDE," GRIBSBY SAID to the ringlets of gleamring blond hair, the opposed white arcs of naked shoulder blade fanned above the band of bright blue satin.

She turned, a gla.s.s of ehampagne held between both hands, and she smiled broadly up at him. "Bohb!" She reached out and touched his arm. "How are you?"

He grinned, deeply pleased by how deeply pleased she seemed to be. "Just fine. Yourself?"

"Very well, thank you. When did you arrive?"

"While ago. I was over at the hotel, thought I'd step out and take a gander at this blowout here."

After checking into the Woods and learning at the front desk that he had received no telegrams, Grigsby had drunk a quick bourbon in the bar and then limped painfully upstairs to his room. He had lain down-for only a moment or two, he had told himself, only time enough to rest up his hip a bit. Almost immediately he fell asleep. He had slept away the entire afternoon, the first time in years he had been able to sleep in the daytime.

She was good for him, this French countess.

In more ways than one-when he awoke, the pain in his hip had contracted to a memory of itself, a dim trivial blur, meek and powerless. And, even more surprising, he hadn't felt the need for a drink to get his head cleared and his stomach settled. (He had put one away anyhow, of course, down in the bar; but that had been just a bracer, what he called a heart-starter.) At the front desk, the clerk had handed him a packet of telegrams.

One of these in particular, Grigsby thought, just might hold the answer to all the questions he'd been asking lately.

At the moment, his pain in retreat, his hopes advancing, he felt strong and fit and convinced that he could go without drinking for the rest of his life. If he wanted to.

And maybe he would. Maybe he'd do exactly that. Clean himself out, stay off the booze. Maybe even stop smoking. Why the h.e.l.l not?

Mathilde was laughing. "Gander. Blowout. I once believed that I knew the English language."

"Seems to me you know it just fine."

With her gla.s.s, she indicated the rest of the room. "Are you familiar with all these people?"

He nodded. "Some of 'em."

He and she were standing near the entrance to the ballroom, beside a long trestle table supporting platters of food and iced silver buckets of champage. Grigsby glanced around, at the men plump and stiff in their penguin suits, the women plump and stiff in their billowing gowns.

They might look dumb-they did look dumb-but these were the movers and shakers of central Colorado, the mine owners, the cattlemen, the railroad men, the bankers. These were the solid citizens who had brought industry and civilization to the frontier. Naturally, along the way, they had raped the land, killed off the Indians and the buffalo, fouled the rivers with poisons and sewage; but they reckoned that this was a fair price to pay for progress. And, since they were the ones setting the price, the deal had gone through.

"Would you like some champagne?" Mathilde asked him. She smiled. "I warn you, it is like no champagne I have ever drunk before."

Grigsby smiled. "Don't mind if I do." A little champagne never hurt anybody. Stuff was like soda pop, not like real liquor at all.

"Allow me," she said, and smiled.

As she moved around the table, Grigsby looked once more toward the crowd. He didn't like these people. Never had. They had grown rich, most of them, through swindle and fraud and outright theft; and yet they were the first to b.i.t.c.h and bellyache about law and order. Their law, their order. Once they had their pile together, they didn't want anyone else messing with it.

Grigsby felt the bitterness within himself, recognized it, and smiled ruefully.

Yep. No question. He was getting too old for this s.h.i.+t. Time to find himself a new line of work. Maybe start giving lectures. Famous Outlaws I Have Known.

"Monsieur," said Mathilde, smiling as she handed him a gla.s.s of champagne.

"Much obliged." He raised his gla.s.s.

She smiled and raised her own.

Grigsby sipped at the champagne. He frowned. Watery and kind of rotten-eggy. Shame they didn't have any good bourbon whiskey on hand.

He spotted Wilde and Rudd.i.c.k winding toward him through the thickets of crowd, Wilde nodding grandly right and left, like the king of Siam waltzing along a street packed with adoring riffraff. Well, if he could get these yahoos to fork out twenty bucks to hear a lecture and drink sheepdip, more power to him.

Grigsby turned to Mathilde. "Can I come by and see you tonight?"

She smiled. "I shall be in my room by midnight. Room 204 at the Woods Hotel."

Grigsby already knew her room number; he had asked at the front desk. "I'll be there."

He turned to face Wilde.

"Marshal Grigsby," Wilde said. "Your arrival is fortuitous. Young Rudd.i.c.k here has just told me something that may possibly be important."

Grigsby nodded to the lulu-belle. "Wilbur."

Rudd.i.c.k smiled a bitter-persimmon smile.

Jesus, Dell, why did it have to be this one?

"You're familiar with Doctor John Holliday?" Wilde asked him. "The gunman?"

Grigsby nodded.

"Well, young Rudd.i.c.k-" Wilde stopped, glanced around, leaned toward Grigsby and lowered his voice. "Perhaps we should discuss this in private."

"Fine by me." He tossed back the rest of his champagne, then turned to Mathilde and nodded. "Ma'am." Turned to the lulu-belle. "Stick around, Wilbur. Might wanta talk to you later."

The gravel drive outside the Hardee mansion was packed with carriages, their liveried horses sighing bored white puffs of vapor that feathered away in the moonlight. As Grigsby followed Wilde across the lawn, he wondered where all the drivers were hiding. Probably in the kitchen, along with the mansion's servants. And probably drinking, all of them, better stuff than watery sheepdip champagne.

Wilde stopped beside an oak tree. "First," he said, "I should tell you that I've met Doctor Holliday on several occasions, and found him an absolutely charming man."

Grigsby nodded. Charming wasn't a word he'd use himself, and especially not for Doc Holliday, but never mind. "What's Doc got to do with anything?"

"If the situation weren't such a serious one," Wilde said, "I shouldn't be bringing this to your attention."

Grigsby nodded.

"I mean to say, I quite like the man."

"Uh-huh," Grigsby said. "This story gonna start sometime soon?"

Wilde sighed sadly. He nodded. "Yes. Quite right." He inhaled deeply, exhaled a bit, like someone about to squeeze a rifle trigger, and he said, "Dr. Holliday told me, when I first met him, that he had attended one of my lectures in San Francisco. This evening, when young Rudd.i.c.k saw him, he recognized him. According to Rudd.i.c.k, the man was present both at the lecture in El Paso and the lecture in Leavenworth. He was also, as you may know, in Denver at the time of this most recent killing."

Grigsby frowned. Doc?

Suddenly he remembered that Earl, the sheriff down in El Paso, had mentioned Doc. In the same letter he had mentioned the murder of Susie Morris, the hooker. In the same letter he had mentioned Wilde's visit. Grigsby hadn't paid much attention at the time, because Doc tended to wander. One week he might be in Tuscon, the next in Dodge City.

But Doc killing hookers?

He shook his head. "Nope," he said to Wilde. "Don't see it."

"Well, as I say, I like the man. But he was there. In San Francisco, El Paso, and Leavenworth. And in Denver. I spoke to him myself on the very night that poor woman was killed."

Grigsby shook his head again. "Don't see it."

"Well, no matter what either of us sees, or doesn't see, the fact remains that Rudd.i.c.k is convinced that he saw the man. In both cities. In every city where a woman was killed, Dr. Holliday was present. Surely that makes him at least as suspect as anyone traveling with me."

Wilde was right. If Doc had been in all those cities when the hookers got cut, Grigsby owed it to himself to talk to the man.

He said, "Rudd.i.c.k saw him tonight?"

Wilde nodded. "I was speaking with him on the patio. Not ten minutes ago."

"He still there?"

"I don't know."

Grigsby nodded. "I'll find him. Is O'Conner inside?"

"O'Conner? Yes. I saw him a few minutes ago. Why?"

Grigsby considered telling him. Decided not to. "Just got a few questions for him, is all."

"Rudd.i.c.k said that you wanted to speak with me."

Grigsby had planned to let Wilde know that he was no longer a suspect-he felt he owed him that, for coming on so strong yesterday, for shoving his Colt up the Englishman's nose. But now Grigsby was p.i.s.sed off. By handing him this business about Doc, Wilde had thrown him off his stride. Just when he thought he might be getting to the bottom of things, Wilde (and his lulu-belle buddy, Rudd.i.c.k) had tossed in some more things.

"It'll keep," he said.

O'Conner wasn't in the ballroom and Doc wasn't on the patio. Grigsby left the mansion and went looking for them both. Wouldn't be too hard to find either one of them in a town the size of the Springs.

Doc he found within half an hour at the Whirligig Casino, playing stud poker at a corner table. He was sitting as he always did-with his back to the wall, so he could cover the room, and with an empty chair to his right, so no one could crowd his gun hand.

The game was five-card, and as Grigsby approached the table, Doc was getting his fourth ticket. The dealer and one other player, a cowboy, had folded their hands. Doc was playing head to head against a sawed-off little dude-plaid suit, s.h.i.+ny slicked-back black hair, probably a traveling salesman. The salesman held his cards up against his vest with the fingers of both hands, and he was showing a pair of nines and the queen of hearts. Doc's cards were lying on the table, and he was showing a pair of eights and the ace of clubs.

Doc looked up at Grigsby. "Bob," he whispered.

Grigsby nodded. "A word, Doc."

"Right with you," said Doc.

"Pair of nines has the bet," said the dealer.

The drummer looked down at his hole card, glanced at Doc's cards, and he grinned. He pushed a blue chip forward, into the pot. "Pair of nines bets ten simoleons," he said.

A loser, Grigsby thought. Even if he did have the other queen tucked away in the hole.

Without looking at his hole card, Doc picked up two blue chips and tossed them in. "Up ten," he whispered. He had used his left hand to throw the chips; his right hadn't moved from the arm of his chair.

The drummer glanced at his hole card, grinned again. He pushed two chips into the pot. "I'll just see that," he said. He pushed two more chips forward. "And I guess I'm gonna have to raise another twenty."

Doc picked up four chips and tossed them in. "Up twenty."

The little drummer grinned. "Question is, my friend, do you got the other ace under there or not?"

"Question is," whispered Doc, "are you going to see the twenty?" No irritation, no anger, nothing. Just a group of words strung out in a flat, indifferent line.

The salesman chuckled. He pushed in two chips and said, "I see your twenty."

Grigsby knew then that the man didn't have the queen. And he reckoned that if he knew that, Doc had to know it, too.

The dealer dealt the cards. An ace of hearts for Doc, a nine of hearts for the drummer.

"Three nines and two pair," said the dealer. "Three nines bets."

The salesman chuckled. He pushed some chips forward. "Those three lovely nines bet thirty."

Doc picked up a stack of chips, moved them forward. "Up a hundred."

The salesman chuckled. But his face was s.h.i.+ny now with sweat. Grigsby counted the chips in front of him, saw that a hundred dollars would just about wipe him out. The salesman chuckled again. "It occurs to me that you're bluffing, my friend."

Doc nodded. "I do that from time to time."