Two-Trick Pony (The Drifter Detective Book 8) Read online

  Copyright © 2016 by BEAT to a PULP

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  The story herein is a work of fiction. All of the characters, places, and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Based on characters created by David Cranmer.

  Front and back cover images from Adobe Stock and Dreamstime. Title page image from Shutterstock. Cover design by dMix.

  www.beattoapulp.com

  CONTENTS

  PART I: The Big Bronc Hit

  PART II: The Vinyl Coffin

  EPILOGUE

  About the Author

  More from the series

  Other titles from BTAP

  Connect with BEAT to a PULP

  PART I | The Big Bronc Hit

  The Texas Panhandle, 1948

  "You got your Commies," the blank-eyed trucker was saying, one hand on the wheel while the other flicked cigarette ash out the open window, "and you got your Reds. The Reds are the ones sneaking around this country, poisoning reservoirs and such. Hell, this one time I was in Abilene, they did something to my radio. Must've put a transceiver in it, because I could hear the Commies whispering to me over the music …" Two hours of riding shotgun with this lunatic, and Jack Laramie was feeling ready for the booby-hatch himself. "I thought you said that was the Reds."

  The trucker swatted air with a meaty hand. "Reds, Commies, same goddamn thing. Haven't you been listening to me?"

  Outside the windows rolled North Texas prairie, flat and treeless. Grain elevators loomed in the distance like rural skyscrapers. They were traveling at a good clip along Route 66. Too fast for a passenger to do something rash, like open the door and jump out, say.

  The trucker glanced at him sidelong. "I asked if you've been listening to me."

  "Christ, that's all I been doing."

  "You could be a Red yourself, now that I think about it."

  "A hitch-hiking spy, huh?"

  "Never did see your car. The one you claim broke down."

  "Oh, it's back there, believe me." He'd left the old DeSoto in a ditch. Something wrong with the carburetor. Only had the heap a month, and already it'd gone kaput on him. He hoped this wasn't going to be a pattern.

  "Where'd you say you were headed, again?"

  "Amarillo. Got to see a man about a horse."

  The red-rimmed eyes narrowed. "That's what you say …"

  "Look hoss, the closest I ever got to Russia was Silesia. That's in Poland. I was a guest of Hitler's during the war."

  That bought a second or so of precious silence. "Oh, a P.O.W., you mean. I wanted to do my patriotic duty myself, but for some reason the Army wouldn't take me."

  "Imagine that."

  "I suspect there were Commies at the recruiting station."

  "There's Commies everywhere, but not in your cab at the moment. Would you watch the road instead of me, please?"

  The trucker tossed his old stub out the window and deftly lit a new one. "If you're not a spy, how come you're heeled?"

  Jack kept his grandfather's Peacemaker in a shoulder rig, beneath his flannel coat. He'd thought he'd done a bang-up job of concealing the thing. "Just a little precaution," he said, patting at the bulge. "Can't be too careful on the road."

  "You got that right."

  They passed a herd of dun and white Jerseys, clustered beneath a wind pump. The pump's rotor spun so fast it looked ready to take off from its rickety wooden derrick. A nearby sign read BUSHLAND, prompting Jack to breathe easier. They were close.

  "You can drop me any time now," he said.

  "I'll take you to a filling station I know, on the outskirts of 'Rillo. Gotta gas up, anyway."

  "This station have a telephone?"

  "I imagine."

  Jack needed to make a couple calls. One to a towing company, and the other to Hobart Jones, an insurance investigator from Dallas. Jack had sort of apprenticed himself to the man. He hadn't seen the need to tell the trucker, but along with the gun he carried a newly-printed private investigator's license. Hobart had wired him about a case waiting in Amarillo, and the three hundred dollar retainer waiting with it.

  Three hundred dollars.

  He'd reckoned being a P.I. would be easy money. Now all he had to do was earn it.

  * * *

  The little station did indeed have a phone, and after speaking with ABC Towing Service, Jack put in another local call to Hobart's motel. He got the fat man on the second ring. "That you, Laramie? Took your time getting here."

  "Car trouble."

  "Let me give you the client's address, then. I suspect he's tired of waiting for you."

  Jack committed the street and number to memory. "I'd appreciate it if you told me what this is all about. Only thing I know is the case involves a horse. Someone stole it, I guess. Can't see any other reason to involve an investigator."

  "Mr. Adair will give you the rest."

  Hobart hung up.

  Several minutes hitching got him another ride in the bed of a pickup, cold, but blessedly quiet. It was mid-March, and the old Texaco thermometer in the filling station had read twenty-eight degrees. Well, he'd been through worse at Stalag Luft Three. Much worse.

  The pickup dropped him at a feed store at the edge of town. He got directions from the genial driver and hiked six blocks to a dirt road, the wind knifing him all the way. He pulled his Stetson down over the tops of his ears. The road ran parallel to a small horse ranch. White wooden fence enclosed acres of hoof-torn sod, with stables to one side and a manor house set farther back. Though much fancier, the estate reminded him of his own ramshackle homestead. He wished his ma, Veranda Jane, could see him now.

  A wrought iron gate breached the fence, beneath an arch of Spanish brick. Someone had nailed a horseshoe to the keystone. It had a bar through it, turning the shoe into a stylized letter 'A.' There was no street number or mailbox visible, but Jack figured this must be the Adair ranch.

  Whistling, he lifted the gate's latch. A trail of worn sod led all the way to the manor's front door. He caught the not-unpleasant smell of horseshit on the wind. Farther down the trail, two men were practicing roping with a longhorn skull perched atop a hay bale.

  Jack called out. Neither man acknowledged him. One was short and dark, a Mexican with a long vaquero moustache. He'd been bandaged around the temples, and he twirled his lariat with a dazed listlessness. By contrast, his blue-eyed partner stood tall and starkly handsome. For some reason he'd dressed like a stew bum, in baggy, patched clothing. They pretended not to notice Jack as he approached.

  "I said 'good morning,'" he repeated, which got him a sour nod from Blue Eyes. "Can either of you tell me if Mr. Adair is home?"

  After a long moment the tall man said: "He's not going nowhere."

  "Thanks." Jack tipped his hat and stalked off, before he said something all three of them would regret. Rudeness might be the norm in other places, but this was Texas, Goddamn it, and people were supposed to be civil. Even the crazy trucker had wished him good luck when they parted.

  He knocked on the front door, louder than intended. It opened so fast he startled at the woman standing there. Young, in her early twenties. Chestnut hair falling past her shoulders. She'd be pretty if she got some sleep, he decided, but right now her eyes looked sunken and bruised. She wore a high-necked black dress as if in mourning.

  "Mrs. Adair …?"

  "'Mon in," she said, slurring her words. Southern lilt. Jack noticed the half-full brandy snifter in her
hand. And here it was, an hour or so before noon.

  He took off his hat. She swayed backwards into a front hall choked with trophies. Plaques, ribbons, and engraved cups made from silver and gold plate. He inspected one at random:

  BEXAR COUNTY FAIR 1935

  FIRST PLACE BAREBACK BRONC RIDING

  ELROY ADAIR

  "He's in there." The drunk woman waved towards a well-appointed study. Leather chairs and mounted longhorns on the walls. Bookcases had been pushed aside to accommodate a hospital bed, and lying atop it was a pale cadaver of a man. Metal rails encased his limp body. An older woman in starched whites sat next to him, a book on her lap. At first sight of Jack she got up and bee-lined out of the room, as if she'd been waiting for an opportunity to leave.

  Jack squared his shoulders. When Mrs. Adair didn't introduce him he turned to prompt her, but she'd left, too.

  The man on the bed cracked his eyelids.

  "Mr. Adair," Jack said, "I'm, ah, Jack Laramie. Hobart sent me."

  A dry scraping emerged from Adair's throat. "The women gone?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Do me a favor, and fetch some whiskey from the sideboard."

  Jack located the bottle in question. He poured several fingers' worth into a water glass.

  "Bring it over here. Don't be shy, now."

  Adair's washed-out eyes fixed on the booze. He licked his lips and tried to crane his head up. Jack noticed a metal collar around his neck, just beneath his pajama's lapels. Adair's right hand jerked a little; the rest of his body remained still as wet sand.

  "You're going to have to hold it up to my mouth, partner." Jack did so. Adair bit the rim of the glass and tilted his head back. Whiskey drooled out over his cheeks.

  "Thanks," he said, after Jack took the empty glass away. He licked at the stray fluid on his chin. "You don't know how much I needed that."

  Jack thought a jolt would probably suit him right now, too, but didn't say so.

  Adair nodded towards the front hall. "I see you met my wife, Brenda. She never did hold much for manners."

  "Well …"

  "What we call a 'Buckle Bunny,' in the circuits. Thought marriage might make an honest woman of her. No luck." He cleared his rye-moistened throat. "Laramie, I'm going to cut the bullshit and get straight to business. Sooner this is done, sooner you can get your pay. Did Hobart fill you in?"

  "He said you'd take care of it."

  "Right. Well, two weeks ago I was a whole man. Meanest bronc I ever rode, Lubbock Red, busted my spine in the Regionals. Wasn't out the chute three seconds. Red kicked my pickup man in the head, too, when he come to save me. 'Berto hasn't been right since."

  Jack recalled the bandaged Mex outside.

  "Long story short, I want that horse kilt. Not just for what he done to me and 'Berto. That bronc's got a demon in him. Once it gets out he throwed a bucking champ there'll be a line of hopefuls want to make a name by riding him, and the Goddamn horse'll probably break their backs, too. Can't have that on my conscience."

  Jack opened his mouth, but couldn't think of what to say. Adair took it as acquiescence.

  "Brenda will give you half the money up front," he went on. "Got a ten gauge loaded with double-aught, waiting in the front room. Once you're done and bring it back, I'll pay you the other half. Now the tricky part. The horse ain't mine, and his owner's got him in a private stable near the fairgrounds. You'll have to slip in and slip out."

  His right hand spasmed. By what seemed a heroic feat of will he managed to raise a finger. "Most important thing: none of this gets tied back to me. Can't have it. Otherwise, I'd send one of my own. When the job's done you're headed out of here and you don't come back. Understand?"

  "Mr. Adair, I—"

  "Good. Hobart said you'd be hungry for work. Now git. And pour me another slug, 'afore you leave."

  Mechanically, Jack filled the water glass again and held it to the man's lips, in a haze about what he'd been charged to do. Without thinking, he took a pull straight from the bottle himself. If Adair noticed, he made no comment.

  Brenda waited in the hall with a shotgun perched over the crook of her arm. Jack tried to picture her as a goodtime gal, but couldn't. The good times had all died with a snap of bone. She shoved the gun at him and took a sheaf of bills out of her pocketbook. While he was stuffing the blood-money away, the front door opened. Blue Eyes leaned his head in, glancing past Jack like he wasn't there.

  "I'm due at the grounds in about an hour," he said to Brenda. "Be a sweetheart and help me with my makeup, will you?"

  Makeup?

  "Sure thing, Cecil. We'll use the bathroom off the parlor."

  Suddenly Mrs. Adair wasn't so mournful anymore. The strange couple traipsed down the hall together, oblivious to the broken man in the next room.

  * * *

  Hobart had arranged a late lunch meeting at The Cattleman's Palace, a steakhouse not far from his motel. Out front a ten-foot cement cowboy gave a moron's grin to customers. "I figure I'm up for most things," Jack said, "but I didn't drive over two hundred miles to assassinate a horse."

  "Keep your voice down." Hobart had picked a booth at the back, next to a collection of antique saddles. His king-sized girth threatened to flow out over the table between them. He'd ordered a small buffet, arranged on a sea of plates; an eighteen-ounce ribeye topped with fried onions, sliced okra and tomatoes, ranch beans, two baked potatoes, buttered toast, and tubs of glistening barbecue sauce.

  Jack nibbled on a hard roll. All his traveling budget allowed. He had no intention of keeping Adair's money.

  "That's why you were being so sketchy. You figured if I'd known I wouldn't have agreed to it."

  Hobart slathered a forkful of potatoes in sauce. "Now, don't get going about ideals. You knew investigative work was dirty."

  "This isn't 'investigative work.' It's a hit job, pure and simple."

  "You never put down a horse before?"

  "I have, as a matter of fact." He'd had to shoot his ma's mare, Flossie, on account of a broken leg. He'd been ten years old at the time, and bawled for a whole day afterwards.

  "Well, there you go. Previous experience. And I figured a P.I. would be perfect for this job, what with all the sneaking around required."

  "Bullshit. You just figured me as desperate, is all."

  "Look at it this way—you'll be providing a cripple some emotional relief." He started hacking at his steak. "The poor son of a bitch."

  Hobart had ordered his meat rare. Jack looked away. Watching people gorge themselves brought back memories of long Silesian nights, where stomachs howled worse than the freezing wind outside.

  "You think you drew the short straw," Hobart said around a mouthful, "I got called here to investigate a dysentery outbreak. Some rancher lost half his herd to the shits, claims it was contaminated feed and not an Act of God. Well, we'll see about that."

  "How do you know Adair, anyway?"

  "You do enough work in this field, word gets around." He leveled his fork. "Which is another reason you're taking the job. My good name. I vouched for you. Also, I'm going to be needing that twenty percent finder's fee."

  "I thought it was ten."

  "Just went up, on account of the high cost of living."

  Jack folded his hands. "I'm out."

  "Huh-uh. There's something else you're overlooking here, slick. How much is it going to cost you, for the tow and a new carburetor?"

  "Well …"

  "Didn't think so. You'll be stranded in Amarillo, less'n you can get that pay. Your next job will be ranch hand. If word doesn't get around you welshed a deal."

  The hardness in Hobart's piggy eyes left no question who'd be spreading that rumor.

  "It's illegal," Jack said.

  "Sure is."

  "I don't want to shoot a horse for doing something it's bred to."

  "Broncs aren't 'bred.' They're feral." Hobart checked his watch. "You got any more excuses? Because if you're pulling out, I'm going to have to f
ind someone else, quick."

  Jack swallowed a bite of his roll, without tasting it. This case was supposed to be his big break, a chance to get a toehold in the detective business. And he needed that cash. He'd used his G.I. Bill to pay for the investigator's license and required courses. The rest of his savings had gone into the DeSoto. He could wire his ma for money, but Christ, he'd vowed he'd send some scratch her way, not the reverse.

  All he had to do was grit his teeth and pull a trigger.

  "I guess I'm in, then."

  "Atta boy." Hobart slid a bowl of beans towards him. "Now eat something. I'm getting tired of talking to a scarecrow."

  * * *

  He borrowed Hobart's sedan and drove to the fairgrounds. March happened to be rodeo's peak month, but this was Texas horse country, and the wooden bleachers never came down. The Tri-State Annual Team Roping and Bull Riding championships were underway. Jack ambled among the crowd, intending to find the private stables where Lubbock Red was boarded. Instead, he followed his nose to the homey smell of deep-fried cornmeal. Using some of Adair's money, he bought a bag of Fritos and a cold Dr. Pepper. Hell, he might as well take in the show. Wasn't much point trying to shoot Red in broad daylight. The team-roping events for the day had ended, and the novelty acts were coming on as he found a bleacher seat. A dozen high school girls in pink satin marched out, twirling batons. Next came a team of fiddlers, but their sad sawing made him long for the more upbeat rhythms of Colored music. He missed the jazz he'd first heard while recovering in the repatriation camps of France.

  The PA announced bull riding as the next event. An appreciative murmur swept the crowd; that's what people had come here to see. Roping was technical and subtle, but riding pit man against beast, and injuries were frequent.

  "Ma, look," wailed a sandy-haired boy next to him. "The clowns!"

  A trio of men dressed in baggy clothes came capering out the chutes. Jack recognized the tallest as Cecil, though he'd painted his face white and drawn black stars around his eyes. To the crowd's delight, he turned a series of cartwheels that carried him to the center of the arena. There, he did a perfect backflip, landing in the same spot he'd launched himself from. Somehow, his hat stayed on the whole time.