Chapter 11 – Chateaubriand in a Different Light

"That," Morgan Everton said, "was quite an accomplishment."

"That," I replied, "was self-defense. That's the way the marshal saw it."

"If you don't mind my asking, why did you shut the business down?"

"To take care of me," Bret told him.

"No disrespect, Mr. Maverick, but surely with your brother's money he could have hired – "

"No," I interrupted. "I strung things out as long as I could. Johnson had left so many holes in the operation that it had begun to collapse. With Hinkel gone, I needed somebody to protect my back. It was going to be several months before Bret was well enough physically to do that. So I sold what I could, closed the rest, and took the time Bret needed. Then we decided to move the operation west."

"To Tucson?"

"Possibly. We've also spent some time lookin' at Yuma, and a nice place a little further north named Phoenix. I hadn't been in Tucson for a while, so we came here from Yuma to see how the city had grown. I'm suitably impressed."

"And just what kind of business are you looking to start? Something similar to what was being run in Dodge?" Morgan's voice had lost all its skepticism and he was behaving as if this was just an ordinary, everyday business meeting.

"Along those lines," I told him. The gray cat, who had been perched on the corner of the desk watching everything, suddenly stood up and stretched. He eyed Bret warily and walked right past him, choosing me instead to stand in front of. Without any kind of warning the cat jumped down and planted himself in my lap.

I was already scratching his head when Morgan spoke up. "Lucius, whatever has gotten into you?" The cat sat on my lap and purred. "He's never done that; he's very particular. He must sense a kindred spirit in you."

There was a frightening thought. Did Morgan choose his business associates based on his cat's predilections? I knew I was never gonna hear the end of this from Bret, but I let the cat stay in my lap as long as he chose to. Finally, he jumped back up and walked over to sit beside Morgan's arm on the desk.

"Well, I'm quite pleased that we were finally able to meet, Mr. Maverick. Could you join me for dinner at the Cattlemen's Club tonight at eight o'clock? Both of you, of course. Would that be acceptable?"

I looked at Bret and saw that flash of disdain again – quickly replaced by a broad smile. "We'd be delighted, Mr. Everton."

This time, all three of us stood up, and Morgan Everton shook hands with both Bret and me. Lucius sat and stared. I reached for my cane and Everton seemed to see it for the first time. "Nothing serious, I hope?"

"A minor inconvenience," I replied. Bret waited for me to lead the way, and followed me out into the front office. I could almost see his teeth grinding as we walked. He was solicitous of my limping and offered his arm in support. I waved him off and continued on outside. We walked back down the street in silence, turning into the hotel and then straight upstairs to our suite.

I plummeted onto the settee, worn out from all the walking and the long night and longer morning we'd just finished, and dropped my hat on the table in front of me. Bret took a seat across from me. There was a twinkle in his eyes that hadn't been there before. "You make a convincing criminal," he told me.

"Evidently the only one I had to convince was Lucius," I pointed out.

"Are there things in your past I don't know about?" I didn't know if he was kidding or serious. Considering how long it had taken me to tell him the complete truth about Mexico, I'm not sure I blamed him for wondering.

"Other than a minor skirmish due to Dandy Jim or Doc, nope. I'm clean as a whistle."

"Everton seemed impressed," he stated rather brusquely.

"Isn't that what we were trying to accomplish?"

"True, it was. Remind me what a good actor you are the next time we need to con someone." There was a mixture of pride and admiration in his voice.

"I learned from the best," I reminded him.

"Pappy?"

"You, big brother."

XXXXXXXX

Within a few minutes I was in bed, and this time I went to sleep with no trouble. Like I said before, I was exhausted. I slept peacefully, with no strange dreams or nightmares, and woke up much later in the day feeling better. Another shave and fresh clothes were in order, and it was around seven thirty when I rejoined the land of the living. As usual, Bret was ready and waiting for me.

"We do clean up nicely," he told me as I joined him in the sitting room. "You're limping less."

"It's not as stiff," I told him. "How's your shoulder?"

"Gettin' close to normal. Let's see if we can get through this without any war wounds, shall we?"

"Wouldn't that be nice? And highly unusual."

"Come on, Mr. Crime Boss. Let's go have supper."

The Cattleman's Club was down the street and one block over from the hotel, right next door to Fancy's. The Club had been there first and protested loud and long when Fancy's opened right next door. It did no good at all. Both establishments thrived, although drawing entirely different clientele. At least Fancy's wasn't your average drunken cowboy bar; they were, as the name indicated, Fancy. The long wooden bar was polished mahogany – it reminded me of the bar at the original Three Mavericks Saloon in Montana. The one that Harry polished endlessly; it was his pride and joy. The poker tables were all at one end and the roulette wheels, Faro games, and whatever else existed was at the other end.

The Cattleman's was loud and boisterous, and filled with as much smoke as Fancy's. This dining establishment, unlike the Tucson Steak House, was populated strictly by the men of the town. No self-respecting lady would be caught dead inside. A tremendous amount of business was conducted here, and the men that conducted that business could get quietly drunk before slipping next door to the bar and the saloon girls. Bret entered first and told the maître d' "Maverick for Everton's table," and the man practically jumped.

"Yes, sir, Mr. Maverick. Right this way, please. Mr. Everton is waiting for you gentlemen in his private dining room."

We were early, but Everton was even earlier. His private dining room, eh? Sounded like Morgan ate here on a fairly regular basis. And the room was indeed, just that – a dining room, with walls and a door, and not simply a curtained off enclosure. Stationed outside the door, like palace guards, were Nate Turner and Big Ed. The maître d' knocked on the door and then entered, leading the two of us inside. Morgan was already seated, with a wine goblet on the table in front of him. Two other places were set, one for each of us and on either side of him.

He was dressed in a similar but more formal fashion than this morning. The suit, this time, was a dark charcoal gray, with striped pants and a silver colored vest, and a white silk shirt with a tall collar and a gray velvet string tie. I almost expected Lucius to be sitting somewhere close by. Bret and I were both in black frock coats and black pants, and between the three of us, we looked like we were going to a high-class funeral.

"Bart, Bret, so glad you could make it. Please be seated. Send Marie in please, Henri."

"Marie?" I questioned.

"I refuse to have one of these stuffy waiters trying to take care of me. Marie is . . . well, you'll see. She takes care of my dining room, only."

Ah, there it was, the hubris, the arrogance, the privilege – to not only have a private dining room in a restaurant but to employee a woman to wait on you because you didn't want to deal with a man. In just a minute Marie entered, and I have to admit she was not what I expected. A little older than your average saloon girl, she was dressed quite formally, with her hair up in a bun, and she carried a tray with two wine glasses and an unopened bottle. She placed the glasses in front of my brother and me, and then expertly opened the bottle, pouring some in each glass. It was another red wine, a little on the sweet side, but with a rather tangy aftertaste. Not bad. Bret tasted it and almost made a face; I could see he didn't care for it. Morgan raised his glass. "A toast, gentlemen, to new friends and profitable business relationships."

We joined him in the toast. Bret took just a sip of his wine and set the glass down. "What do you recommend, Morgan?" I asked our host.

"Ah, if you'll trust me, I've already arranged for the meal. The meat is called Chateaubriand and you've never tasted anything like it. With all the usual trimmings, of course. Is that acceptable?"

I had the distinct feeling I was gonna be eating meat that was gonna walk into the room of its own free will and crawl up on a plate in front of me. I wouldn't like it, but I'd eat it. We had to make some progress when it came to discovering just who it was Morgan wanted killed, and we were running out of time. I wasn't gonna do anything that would offend our host, and if that meant eating barely cooked beef, so be it.

We talked about Morgan's lending business, and the protection racket that Orin (and Bart Maverick) had operated in Dodge City. I explained the whole business and the way Orin ran the funds through the saloon, and I had a rapt listener in Mr. Everton. And another one, surprisingly, in my brother. I don't think he had any idea how deeply I'd gotten into Johnson's business before bringing it all to a halt. We continued the back-and-forth all through dinner.

There was one thing that Morgan Everton was correct about – the Chateaubriand was excellent. Fortunately it was cooked, maybe not as much as I would have liked, but the darn thing was quite tasty as it was. Maybe there was something I should investigate about the way I ate my steak after all. I just wouldn't admit that in front of Bret.

Finally the conversation turned to the upcoming elections. It was evident from the way Morgan talked about John Fordham that he thoroughly disliked the sheriff; he was backing a man named Spencer Weston. Weston, however, was not garnering a lot of excitement or support, and I couldn't help wondering if Sheriff Fordham was Eamon Garrity's potential target. From the glance I got from Bret the same question had crossed his mind.

Then Everton complicated matters when we discussed the mayor. The rumors about the current mayor being on Morgan's payroll were evidently untrue, because he had a horse in this race, too, Michael O'Reilly. "Irish Mike?" I asked, and Morgan laughed.

"Yeah, that's him alright. Mike actually worked for me for a while, until he won the saloon in a poker game and renamed it. We're good friends, and we think alike. I don't know what kind of a mayor he'll be, but at least we agree on the way things should be done around here. And he seems to be leading in the mayor's race. If we can get a sheriff and a mayor elected that's more to our liking, that'll open the town up to our kind of business."

"What happens if Weston doesn't win?" I asked him. "Then you've got the right kind of mayor and the wrong kind of sheriff."

"I'm hoping to have that problem under control. I'll know soon. So what do you think, Bart? Does this sound like the kind of place you might set up shop? I think our businesses could work hand in hand here."

'Yeah,' I thought, 'to cheat everybody in the valley out of their hard earned money.' "I think it's got distinct possibilities, Morgan. There's just a few more things I need to investigate before I make a commitment. Sounds like everything's good, though. It shouldn't take me long to make a decision."

"Before the election, right? Sooner is better, Bart."

"I understand. I'll have an answer for you within the week."

Supper and business talk concluded, we made arrangements to meet for breakfast Sunday. Bret and I both thanked him for dinner and the evening and finally got out of there, about eleven thirty. We stopped in Fancy's for a minute – I needed coffee to clear my head.

"You know an awful lot about Johnson's operation in Dodge," Bret said to me once we'd both gotten coffee and found a table not occupied by a poker game.

"I wasn't lyin' when I said I ran the operation, Bret. It's just that I ran the saloon and the legal side of the business. But all the books and the money were there with Sally, and once I knew you were alive I sat down and went over everything with a fine-tooth comb for Marshal Hillis. It was a slick set-up; rotten to the core, but slick. That's why I know so much about it. And it's a good thing I do. I never thought it would come in handy again, but it sure has. By the way, whatta ya think? Is Everton gonna send Eamon after the sheriff?"

"That's what it sounds like to me," Bret agreed. "The mayor seems to have a much better chance of gettin' elected."

"And if the rumors about Everton and the deputies are true . . . "

"The majority of law enforcement in Tucson will be under the control of the crime bosses. That includes you, Brother Bart."

"Ya know, if we play this thing right we just might be able to bust the whole set-up to pieces," I told him. Once again there was a look in Bret's eyes that I didn't . . . like isn't the right word, maybe understand. Was there something goin' on here that I didn't know about? Before I could say anything big brother shut the look down, and it left me wondering just what it was I was missing. He didn't think I really wanted to be a crime boss, did he? Why would he even entertain that notion? No, it had to be somethin' else; I just didn't know what.