Prologue
Something flapped in the hot wind; Johnny caught the motion out of the corner of his eye. The pinto did too and tried to duck out from under him, snorting and whirling. The horse kept him busy and the wrongness of what he saw didn't hit him until he had control again.
Brightly colored stripes shouldn't be fluttering fifty feet off a little used trail. The pinto tossed its head as he rode closer to the dark form.
She was just stiffening up. Nothing but ants had found her yet. She lay on her back, sightless eyes staring at the sky. Her hooked nose and strong chin marked her as Indian, but her blouse and skirt were definitely Mexican. Her lips were cracked, her feet blistered and bloody. She hadn't carried anything with her on her barefoot walk away from Tucson. Then Johnny noticed a bulge under her colorful skirt—she was carrying something after all.
He wasn't packing anything like a shovel, and there weren't any stones around to cover the body, but he couldn't just leave her. Johnny cut the rest of the torn ruffle from the bottom of her skirt. When he lifted her head to wrap the makeshift shroud around her face, a chain moved on her neck. He undid it and clutched the crucifix in his fist as he tried to pray for her.
He wondered about her the rest of the way into Tucson. He nearly went back to sling her over his saddle but common sense won out. Folks would likely be suspicious of a gunfighter showing up with a dead girl. He'd just keep his ears open in hopes of finding Dolores's next of kin—he'd started thinking of her as Dolores as he rode to town—so he could return the crucifix to them and tell them where she was.
Chapter One
Johnny double checked the slip of paper he'd carried from Nogales and shook his head. He was looking for Calle de la India Triste—the street of the sad Indian girl. The name meant nothing before he'd found Dolores. Now it felt like a punch in the gut.
He found the house with the right number and stomped his boots on the mat. When he knocked, hot dust drifted from his jacket sleeve onto his boots. Before he could whisk it off the door was opened by a man whose dark black skin was set off by an immaculate formal suit. The man looked at him expectantly but didn't say a word.
"I'm Johnny Madrid. Dab Runkle sent me."
With a bow and a flash of teeth, the butler stepped aside, ushering Johnny into a small foyer. Then he disappeared through a beaded curtain to the next room. Johnny heard hands clap and a quickly fading rustle of petticoats. He parted the beads with his trigger finger and looked through.
Tufted red velvet furniture and gold floor lamps crowded the room. A bar of carved mahogany gleamed to his left. Love seats and upholstered chairs hugged the walls, and a huge crystal chandelier hung over a circular sofa covered with tasseled pillows. Johnny blew a soft whistle—there had to be room for eight, maybe ten people to sit around that thing. Hell, if this wasn't a bordello his name wasn't Johnny Madrid. That rustling he heard must have been the girls leaving. It was early yet; maybe they had to go get dressed. Or undressed.
A door opened in the back; a stout woman in a green dressing gown came through. Her lips were the same reddish-orange color as her hair, and she carried a stick with a pair of spectacles on the end. She used the stick to hold the glasses to her eyes. "Please, come in, Mr. Madrid." She'd probably practiced that smile a lot. Strands of beads caught up in his hat brim when he walked through, but she ignored them.
"Ma'am." Johnny wasn't sure if he should shake hands with her. He reached up and took his hat off instead.
"I'm Florrie Westcott, Mr. Madrid, the landlady of this house. Thank you for answering my summons so promptly. My friend Mr. Runkle recommends you highly."
"Uh, yes, ma'am." Her summons? He'd assumed it was a man sending for him. Always had been before. He wasn't quite sure how to feel about it.
"This is Silvano." The butler, now standing behind her shoulder, bowed slightly. "He doesn't speak, but he understands both English and Spanish."
This time it felt right to offer his hand. Silvano grasped it firmly with a slight nod of his head. Johnny almost asked the man why he didn't talk, but he stopped himself in time.
Johnny turned back to the madam. "Mrs. Westcott, I gotta say this is a first for me."
"No." She raised her eyebrows in exaggerated disbelief. "Surely not your first time inside a brothel, Mr. Madrid!"
Johnny snorted. "No, ma'am, I wouldn't say that. But it's the first time I've been hired by a woman."
"Is that so? And it's the first time I've hired a gunfighter." She peered at him through those silly glasses on a stick. With that contraption near her face she looked like a dying owl. "I wasn't expecting you to be so good-looking. My girls will appreciate that."
"I wish I didn't have to say this, but if I'll be working for you it wouldn't be right for me to…to take advantage." Damn.
Mrs. Westcott raised one eyebrow, looked hard at him, and smiled that fake smile again. "Shall we discuss business over a drink, Mr. Madrid?"
She swept to the back of the bar to produce a bottle and two glasses. "Rye?" She poured a shot in each glass and held one out to him. They tossed back the first pour and she refilled the glasses.
"Mr. Madrid, I've had several offers for my business over the years, but none of them were attractive enough to make me decide to sell. I'm very proud of what I've built here, and I intend to keep working as long as I'm able."
She finished her second drink and poured herself a third. When she held the bottle over Johnny's glass he spread his hand on the top and shook his head. He hadn't had a thing to eat today and he didn't want to fuzz up his head.
"A man here in town has been trying to buy me out. I keep turning him down. Several weeks ago this man presented me with an ultimatum: accept his offer or be driven out." Mrs. Westcott brought her glass almost to her lips. "I refused. Since then there have been a series of small disasters that lead me to think he's working up to something serious." She took a quick swallow of rye.
Johnny thumbed his glass. "Disasters. Like what?"
"Broken windows. Shots fired outside at all hours. Grocers not making promised deliveries. Customers discouraged from visiting." She raised the stick and used it to look at Johnny again. "Last week the girls found a stray dog and started feeding it; yesterday they found it on our front porch with its throat cut."
Well, except for the dog the disasters didn't sound very threatening. "Who is he?"
"Jake Dunham. He goes by 'Big Jake'. He owns the dry goods emporium."
"Respectable business man, huh?"
Mrs. Westcott choked. "You could say that."
After another sip of rye Johnny straightened up. "What does he want with this place?"
"As I said, I've built up a very good business here. I suppose he wants the money."
"And you want protection, is that it?"
Mrs. Westcott's eyes narrowed. "No, Mr. Madrid. I want you to kill him."
Whoa. Johnny took a moment and studied his hands. "Why?"
"I should think it's obvious."
Why was she so quick to go to killing? "It's obvious you need protection. I can make him back down."
"For how long, Mr. Madrid?" Florrie Westcott's eyes flashed. "What happens the minute you leave town? This isn't a game. Dunham is out to get rid of me, and I'm not going anywhere. From where I stand it's him or me."
Johnny studied Florrie's face. She might have reddened under all her make up as he tried to figure her out. He finally gave up. "Killing a man don't come cheap."
"Money's not a problem. Name your fee."
Johnny huffed out a laugh. "Usually when people say that, it's because they don't plan on payin'. No offense."
Mrs. Westcott reached somewhere behind the bar and brought up a strongbox in a chain that ran to the floor. Then she reached down her bosom and brought out a key. She opened the box and spun it so Johnny could see the notes, poker chips, and gold coins in orderly rows.
He whistled again, and she snapped the box closed. "Name your fee."
Johnny chewed on his lip. He knew nothing about Big Jake, had no idea how to work in Tucson—hell, he didn't even know if there was law in this town. He needed to know more before he could make this happen. "I tell you what. Thirty-five up front for expenses 'til I set it up. Then a hundred and thirty-five just before I shoot him."
The madam didn't turn a hair until he added, "If I take the job."
Mrs. Westcott raised one eyebrow. "If?" She opened the box again, counted out thirty-five dollars, and laid it on the bar in front of him.
Johnny didn't touch it. "If."
When her lips pursed together it made tight lines in the powder around her mouth. "Are all gunmen as squeamish as you? I've already agreed to the fee. How long will you need to think about it?" She slapped the cash, hard. "You're leaving me in a spot, Madrid. Who knows what could happen while you're 'thinking about it'?"
"I know, I know. It won't be long." He got why she was angry, but it wasn't like he could just walk into the dry goods store and open fire, and Johnny Madrid didn't shoot men in the back. Killing people wasn't easy if you wanted to avoid the hangman.
Mrs. Westcott swayed slightly behind the bar; she gulped the rest of her drink and poured herself another without a word. Silvano stepped forward from somewhere and Johnny knew it was time to leave. He settled his hat back on his head.
"You be careful, Mrs. Westcott."
She didn't look up as Silvano led him through the back door. The hallway split in two, and the butler pointed to a passage leading underground. Apparently clients could come and go privately.
Nice touch.
Johnny came out in a recessed entry facing a whole different street. It confused him a bit, and he walked half a block north instead of south before he got it worked out. Feeling foolish and not wanting to change direction in the middle of the street, he kept going to the corner, which turned out to be a good thing. It led him past an alley, and down the alley a battered sign saying "Dunham's Dry Goods" leaned against a wall.
He walked closer; the sign stood next to an open door. From the shadows on the other side of the alley, Johnny could see into a room like a storage room or office. There was a desk with a lot of stuff on it, and a guy with a booming voice giving orders. If that guy was Big Jake Dunham, he looked like a dry goods merchant should—fat and balding, with whiskers that reached all the way to his top vest button and a big cigar in his mouth.
Dunham didn't look like a bad man, but there you go. Sometimes you just couldn't tell.
Johnny ambled around to the front of the store and took himself in. Mercantile buildings were usually stocked to the rafters, but this one was more crowded than any he'd been in before. Johnny could barely fit himself between the tables covered with clothes and trail supplies. The walls were lined with shelves where you had to dig to find what you needed for farming, ranching, mining, and whatever else people did in Tucson. Cooking utensils and bolts of fabric were stuffed in odd corners, and locked glass cabinets displayed knives and jewelry.
Johnny fingered his way around the store, not sure what he was looking for. Big Jake didn't come out of his office in the back. After a while the clerk noticed Johnny and offered to find him what he needed.
Johnny shook his head. "Just lookin', thanks. I'm new in town. Heard you could get anything you wanted at Big Jake's."
"Yes, sir. Anything at all." The clerk's eyes got all shifty, like he was waiting for Johnny to say something.
Whatever it was, Johnny didn't have a clue.
TBC