The silverberg business, p.3
The Silverberg Business, page 3
Caldwell slapped the pamphlet against the side of the caboose. “I’ll help you. I don’t like cheats. My brother-in-law lost some of his people in that last storm. That will never be a place anybody ought to live.”
I told Caldwell about Rafkin but he said no one like that had been with the group. He described Stephens: whitish hair, somewhat taller than average, red-brown eyes, a tendency toward fancy dress. “He wears a ring, onyx, with a carving in it, Greek god or some such. He’s a mean one, too. Never heard a good thing about him, though I am predisposed to dislike gamblers.”
According to Caldwell, Stephens had a way of being threatening without saying anything. Caldwell claimed that Stephens didn’t have that effect on him, but he had seen it with others. It’s a trait I’ve encountered. For some, the line between humanity and wild creature is thin and unpredictable; the beast lurks just beneath the surface, warning off the weaker animals.
Was Stephens the man who walked past the hotel restaurant and stared in at me? White . . . blond . . . storm of white-capped waves gouged the coast . . . an oak that had stood for centuries screamed and gave up its life . . . nothing remained, nothing but naked earth twisted into shapes of the dead and dying. I cried for the land, but what use are tears?
Across from the Sibley bank, I waited for Owens to leave for lunch, then went in. Owens was likable enough, but that didn’t mean he was telling the truth. Someone wasn’t. And even if he was, he didn’t have to know everything I did.
The clerk from yesterday was there, but Wilson was out. I told the clerk what I needed. He looked and told me that Riverside still had an account (containing $82.36). The name on the account was George Granger. The clerk said he didn’t know this Granger personally. He gave me an address that led me to two-story frame building that had once been a house. A laundry occupied half the ground floor, and, no surprise, the other side was vacant. A to let sign said to inquire at Mrs. Farber’s laundry. Through the window I could see a desk, chairs, and cabinets. I went over to the laundry. A bare-armed woman hummed “Oh Susanna” while muscling a load of sheets through the wringer. The bell on the door hadn’t disturbed her any. A counter had another bell. I rapped on it a couple of times.
“In a minute,” she said. Her voice had a sweeter tone than I had expected from the size of her cranking arm and the thickness of her neck. She finished running the sheet through and draped it over a line, then ambled on over. Up close, she was younger than I had thought. She had an inch or two and at least ten pounds on me. “What’ll it be, mister?” She leaned across the counter and looked toward my feet. “Don’t see a bag of washin’.”
“Are you Mrs. Farber?”
“Guess so. Haven’t seen my no-account Mr. Farber in ten years. Lawyer said I could call that abandonment and get a divorce, but I ain’t bothered to yet. Well, if it ain’t washing, you must be asking about the space next door.”
“I don’t want to rent it, but . . . I am interested in your previous tenant. What can—”
“That cocksucker?” She smacked the counter harder than Wilson had slapped his desk at the bank. “Gone and owes me six months’ rent. That’s what I know. Marshal didn’t have no interest in my problem. He must’ve done something else. You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
“The marshal didn’t send me.” I pulled out a card. She didn’t say she couldn’t read, but I told her what it said. “These Riverside men cheated some people out of a lot of money. I hope you can help me find them.”
Her description of the tenant matched Owens and Caldwell’s well-dressed Westerner. “Came to me in August. Called himself George Granger. Said he was a land agent needed a new office. I don’t care who I rent to. Last tenant before that was a Mex who said he was a lawyer. Good tenant. This Granger promised he’d pay for six months rent. I had another party couldn’t pay that much at once so I said yes. He moved in a few sticks of furniture, hung a sign. Was there little more’n a month, and I never saw any business going in or out. Sometimes I saw him and an even fancier-dress feller with white hair. Not an old man, but hair all white. Saw him up close later and don’t ever want to again.
“Whenever I went to ask about the rent there weren’t nobody around. One time I let myself in with my key and went through everything.” She stopped and looked at my face.
“What I would’ve done,” I said, trying to sound agreeable. “It’s only his place if he pays for it. What did you find?”
Her gaze shifted over my shoulder; the bell on the door chimed. I turned to see a woman wearing a dark blue shawl on her head along with an equally dark dress.
“Got your things right here, Mrs. Barlow,” Mrs. Farber said to the new woman. She ducked under the counter and came up with a tight-wrapped bundle of clothes. Mrs. Barlow paid and left.
“She’s particular about her husband’s shirts. He’s a preacher. Handsome man too, not like the preacher where my mama took me.” After some sentences about the preacher, she rambled back to the subject. “Nothing in there but a file drawer full of junk: newspapers stuffed in envelopes, old handbills.”
“Things to make it look like a robust business,” I said. “That’s a pretty standard trick. If he needed to impress whoever he was talking to, he could open the drawer and a visitor would think it was filled with important documents.”
“I found me a telegram on the desk. From a Nathan Silver . . . Silver-something. Said which train he was coming in on, next day. I was planning on going down to the station, but had too much washing. The girl who helps me didn’t come in like she was supposed to. I kept a lookout best I could. When I had a chance, I went over there. Three men were inside, that Granger feller, Whitey, and one other. Granger noticed me and tapped Whitey. Whitey got up quick and pushed through the door. His eyes were the color of dried blood. I don’t know why, but that scared me the most. Once I saw those eyes, I couldn’t move nothing. He said they’d pay me when they was ready to. He got really close, put his face up to mine and said to get away from their business. Said he knew I wouldn’t want anything to happen to the building. He backed me down. I’m ashamed to say it. Me, strong as most men. You don’t believe me?”
I assured her that I did, but she wasn’t satisfied. She extended her right arm and flexed it. “You feel this muscle.”
I did, and was as impressed as I had expected to be. “Strength isn’t the only thing,” I said. “Some people are more used to violence. You seem like a kind and gentle person, Mrs. Farber. It’s hard to fight nastiness if you’re not accustomed to it.”
“Thanks, Mister. This building is all I have. My poor late daddy and his family built it right after they got here from Bavaria.”
“Was that the last time you saw Granger, Mrs. Farber?”
“I sure don’t like that Farber name. You call me Angie. My daddy said hold on to the property. He said even if I get married don’t let my husband have title. He must’ve known I’d marry a no-account. My daddy was a good builder. I was sorry to have to rent half the bottom floor, but I need the money. Washing don’t pay enough. Daddy had him a lumberyard. I was sawing wood almost before I was walking, and I sawed wood till I was fifteen and the Yanks burned everything up. Then I lit out with that no-account and prospected for silver. Swinging a pick and hammer is like sawing. Washing’s easy work after that. Least I get to stay inside.”
I let her talk. Sometimes, people have to say their bit. You never know what useful things you can pick up by listening, and showing an interest helps you gain someone’s trust. Not that all I’m after is making someone tell me things. I do care about people, sometimes even the people I’ve shot or had arrested.
Once she got back to the subject of the renter I asked if I could go next door to look around. She handed me a key. The desk was clean. The file cabinet still held its worthless filler. The only useful thing I found in the place was a receipt from Ubder’s Furniture. Maybe they hadn’t been paid either. Multiple creditors would be useful with the local law. Finished there, I went back to the laundry to return the key, and went off to chase my next objective.
3
Poker
Galveston kids learn to deal poker soon after they start walking, sometimes before. All port cities are like that. If not poker, then whatever form of gambling is popular in that particular nation. Sailors came off their ships ready to blow their money on whores and gambling. If they were newcomers to our fair isle, kids lounging at the docks would show them where to go. Tavern owners hired kids to round up new business. From watching the games to dealing our own was a short ride. As a kid I played my share. I learned about spotting cheats and how to use the odds to keep from losing too much. Mostly because I had a good teacher, a Galveston tavern owner named Tarpon Bill. The Tarpon could detect his opponents’ tells like he was reading their minds, and he played according to the odds and the hierarchy of the cards, playing with what he considered the best and folding on everything else.
The same patience that helps with detective work is good for poker. I have a group I play with in Chicago. Not high stakes, but high enough. There has to be sufficient money involved to make you care about what you’re doing. Otherwise, it’s just a game.
Wherever you go, you find crooked games and honest ones. Some towns are able to run off all the card sharps. Some sharps work for a particular saloon; those are harder to eliminate. I suppose if no one gambled with them, they would move along, but I’ve never heard of that happening. Too many people have trouble believing the evidence of their vanished money (and property); they keep playing, hoping to win everything back. Your occasional player doesn’t understand that he is no match for a professional, whether cheat or honest.
Am I a gambler? I sift facts. I plod along. I choose a winner.
So, finding this gambler Stephens with the white hair and red eyes required visiting saloons, many saloons. I played the role of visitor from Chicago, looking for a good game. Here’s how it went at the first saloon I tried, a place called Poison Alley. I found the owner, a bald man with a body so thin I had trouble finding him when he turned sideways. “I’m looking for some poker. The man at the hotel said to stay away from a sharp named Stephens. He ever play here?”
“No sharps. How do I know you ain’t a sharp looking for an easy game? Cow hands, meat packers, they come here, drink, play cards, go home.”
Poison Alley occupied the kind of shack that usually appears at mining camps or end-of-the-line towns that pick up and move along with the track-layers. Surprising that the hurricane hadn’t sent it to Oklahoma or farther. I suppose it could have been slapped together from wreckage after the storm, but its bar showed too much grime and gouging.
Despite the owner’s glares, I played a few hands with a couple of cowboys.
Part of being a detective is effective play-acting. When I first went to work for Llewelyn, he made me spend two months apprenticing with the Ronald P. Smith Theatre Company. They were a Chicago-based outfit that toured the West. Professor Smith, as he liked to be called, was a former Englishman. It was pretty well known that his name had been different in the old country, but whatever it was, and why-ever he changed it, he taught me makeup, costuming, and creating a character. I even had to perform.
One of the products of this training was Irish Shannon, based on the mistake people make about my name. He was the friendly one, the one people like to talk to. I decided to let Irish Shannon do some work.
The afternoon was going to involve drinking.
I went into Wykline’s and ordered a whiskey. The proprietor cultivated a thin, gray mustache to go with his fat, gray head, but he was friendlier than the man at Poison Alley.
“Now then,” I said. “This drink looks very fine, and I smell a pot of venison stew bubbling away like a Kerry brook, but it’s poker I’m after. I’ve just arrived in your lovely town and don’t know a soul. Poker is the game of the gods, you see. Played on Mount Olympus. Invented by Apollo himself, did you know? We poor mortals are allowed to partake, of that I’m glad. The gods have their Rules of Play and I am but a follower. Those who follow the rules will never be turned away. Now, as I have overcome the inertia of youth and learned these rules, here I am. What say you about this fine establishment?”
The man paused his mopping the bar with a dirty rag. “I don’t chase gamblers away. They’re good for trade. If you’re a gambler—sharp, I mean—you do what you want. You get caught cheating, someone will shoot you. Or I will.”
“That’s very fine,” I said. “Always best to know the house rules. And I’ll not ask to see your weapon of choice because with me, there’ll be no cause for your using it. I won’t call myself a sharp, though I do play better than most. If I’m needing some money for my pocket, I’ll take a game with simpletons. If I want to exercise my brain, I choose a game with the best of the lot.
“Most of all, I prefer an establishment that doesn’t serve customers drinks made from the same formula they use in their lamps. Though if an establishment has gas lighting it becomes difficult to observe that distinction.” I raised my glass and sipped.
Nine saloons later, I knew less than when I started. This Stephens was a man whom no one wanted to talk about, if they even admitted knowing him. I wasn’t happy, but at least I wasn’t hungry. Most places have a free pot of stew or beans going—food helps keep the customers inside. The biscuits and beef stew at Barring Saloon had been excellent, though the owner, an elephant of a man with a nose like a mushroom, didn’t like my questions. Could be he just didn’t like questions. Could be he liked having Stephens or another gambler run a crooked game. By day’s end, I learned that Stephens sometimes played cards at Dixon’s, Friedlander’s, and the tent in an alley with no name, but no one could—or would—recall when they last saw him or say when they thought he might be back.
Evening came, time to meet Owens; I accepted the invitation from his landlady and sat down to cornbread, German sausage, and greens. I’d been eating and drinking all day, but the solution for excess is to keep going. Tonight, the only other diners were the landlady and her mother, a mostly silent woman of advancing years who ate nothing but well-buttered cornbread. Owens talked about California after the war. I had the impression there was more unsaid. We avoided the subject of the bank till the old lady left the table. Getting back to her knitting, she said. The landlady cleared our dishes. Owens pulled a satchel from under his chair and led me to the parlor.
“I found things,” Owens said. His voice shook with suppressed excitement. He took a bank ledger from the satchel and opened it. “See here, September twelfth, Silverberg transferred everything into the Riverside account and closed his. The Riverside account is still open, but most of the money was withdrawn . . . in cash . . . two days after Silverberg’s money was transferred into it.”
He flipped to the first page and pointed—“Here’s where Silverberg signed when he opened his account”—then back—“and here’s when he closed the account. It isn’t the same signature.”
I agreed that the signatures didn’t match, though I only had his word that the first signature was truly Silverberg’s. “Who was the clerk?”
“Says Paxon, Mike Paxon, but I know it wasn’t him. Paxon’s writing is neat. His mama was a schoolteacher. She taught all the kids around here how to write properly. The only man in the bank who writes messy like this is Wilson.”
I thanked him for the information. “Wilson told me Silverberg closed his account on the twelfth. He didn’t say anything about moving the money to Riverside’s. Didn’t mention Riverside at all. Does he know this Riverside man?”
Owens said he wasn’t sure. The address he showed me for Riverside matched what I had gotten from the clerk. He said he had to return the ledger tonight, before anyone noticed its absence. Wilson had been in the office that morning but had left to inspect out-of-town properties. Otherwise Owens wouldn’t have dared take the book. I told him where I was staying, in case he needed to send me a message. We left the rooming house. I said we should avoid being seen together, and went off down an alley. Partway, I turned and went back, reaching the street in time to see him growing smaller with distance. I followed.
Blaming Wilson, finding the forged signature and the sloppy writing was too easy. I don’t trust easy. Forging Silverberg’s signature on the account—they only could have done that if the clerk didn’t know what Silverberg looked like, or if he helped them.
The forged signature meant that Silverberg was dead.
I tugged off my reversible sack-coat and turned it inside out, transforming it from brown to gray, pulled my crushable bowler from a pocket, and dressed my head with it. A plug of tobacco in my cheek altered the shape of my face, and I affected the rolling gait of a cowhand. I was confident enough of Owens’s destination to keep a lot of distance between us. He turned up the alley between the bank and the next building, and I stopped behind a stack of crates. The alley was empty of passersby. He unlocked the back door and went in. A few minutes later, he exited, minus the ledger, and walked back to where he had entered the alley, passing my hiding pace. He turned the corner; I waited another minute and followed.
His next stop was Sitterle’s, one of the saloons I had visited earlier, a block down from my hotel. Sitterle’s was long, narrow, and clouded with tobacco smoke. It was mostly bar, with a few tables toward the back. Owens approached a skinny man wearing a brown vest. I tilted my hat to hide more of my face and found an empty stool. The smoky atmosphere helped with my hurried disguise. Owens and the other man talked. I couldn’t catch anything. The skinny man did most of the listening. Owens handed him something in an envelope. The skinny man looked down at the envelope, looked inside, then nodded. That’s the universal language of accepting money. Owens went over to a table where a game of draw was in progress. The skinny man left. I considered following, but thought it more important to stick with Owens.
