Valley of Skulls (Fargo Book 6) Read online

  “I’m afraid not,” Fargo said. He reached for the bottle one more time. “I’ll be movin’ on, Carla. I’ve stayed put too long already. Two weeks in San Antone, eatin’, drinkin’, and—” He looked at her and grinned. “That’s about as long as I can take the peaceful life. I got to head out again, scratch up a job.”

  “Where will you go?” Her voice was a whisper.

  “Don’t you read the papers? Madero, president of Mexico—he’s just been assassinated. That means more revolution down yonder. Revolutions mean money for a fightin’ man. I’ll likely haul freight soon. Meanwhile, I’ve got to get everything in shape. So … This is the end of it. Today.”

  She stared at him. She read the seriousness of what he had said on that ugly, rock-hard face. Not a stupid woman, she accepted that this was indeed the end of it, that no protest she could make would change it. She drew in a long breath that made her breasts rise. “All right,” she said at last, dully. “If this is the end of it, it’s the end of it. But ... I don’t have to leave right now, do I?”

  Fargo looked back at her and grinned.

  “No,” he said, and he moved toward the bed again.

  Chapter Two

  She was a smart woman, Fargo thought; she could accept the inevitable and had managed not to cry. When she had gone, a trace of her perfume lingered in the room. He dressed slowly, had another drink. He had meant what he said. He had been in town too long; he was getting soft and flabby. Everything in him cried out for action, combat. He was, he told himself, too much like that bronze rooster—and, undoubtedly, he would end up the same way someday in some godforsaken corner of the world. But for the chicken, it had been better than having its neck wrung in a barnyard to make Sunday dinner for some fat paisano; for a man, that kind of death was better than the one in bed—slow, lingering, hanging on to life when life was useless. He slipped the Colt into its scabbard, adjusted it carefully beneath his arm, put on his jacket and left the room. The way to die was with your spurs deep in the enemy.

  Now, he thought, he’d head down to Mex Town, range the cantinas there, pick up what information he could about events across the border. If battle flared between all the contending factions after Madero’s death, gun-running should be profitable …

  He passed through the lobby, out the door, onto the sidewalk.

  He turned right, strode along, not faltering, giving no sign that he had just realized he was being followed.

  But they had, he knew, been waiting for him in the lobby. Now they had come out on the street, too, not far behind. As he walked along, they stood indecisively by the hotel entrance, giving him a chance to widen the gap between them. He saw them in the slanted plate-glass window of a store, heads close together, muttering to one another. He knew who they were immediately, those two, thick-bodied men in business suits and Eastern hats. Pinkertons: detectives.

  Fargo smiled faintly. Pinkerton was hiring an inferior breed of agents these days. He walked on until they fell in a hundred yards behind him. There were not many people on the street at this time Sunday night. They came slowly, tentatively, pretending to be strolling, looking into store windows.

  He teased them along like that until he had walked the long way down into Mex Town. Here the buildings were of adobe, and there were no street lights. Torches flared on corners where sidewalk vendors had their carts; mangy dogs ranged the gutters. There was guitar music, the sound of voices singing the sad love songs of Coahuila and Leon. The Pinkertons had moved in closer now, as if afraid they’d lose him. Fargo turned into a cantina, pushed through its swinging doors.

  It was a grubby place, with a dirt floor, a rude bar, a few tables; it was lamp lit, and what patrons there were seemed shabby. A few beat-up girls moved among them, listlessly. Fargo found a vacant table where he could sit with his back to the wall, eased his big frame into a chair, ordered tequila. The barman brought the bottle, a plate of quartered limes, and salt. Fargo went through the routine with salt and lime and the sharp, raw alcohol, leaned back, waited, aware of the curious eyes on this big gringo in the army hat who had ordered what he wanted in perfect border dialect.

  In a minute, now, the Pinkertons would have to come in. They would be at a disadvantage, facing him in the sort of place neither was used to. He wondered again why the agency was trailing him with Easterners. They stood out like sore thumbs.

  Then he saw their fedoras above the batwing doors. Hesitantly, almost reluctantly, they pushed in. They could have been twins; short, but powerful of body, pale faces thickly mustached. They stood blinking inside the door; then they saw Fargo.

  He raised a big, scarred hand. “Hey, you fellas. Come over, sit. I’ll buy a drink.”

  They hesitated, looking at one another. Fargo’s wolf grin spread across his face. “Come on, it’s on me.”

  One said something to his companion. Then they came to his table. The one on the right had a black moustache; the other had a red one. Red Mustache said, “Much obliged.”

  They sat down. Fargo called in dialect for two more glasses. Then he looked directly at him. “You damned private dicks always do things the hard way. You want to talk to me, why didn’t you stop me in the lobby?”

  Their faces paled. They stared at one another.

  “Goddamn it,” Fargo said. “Don’t you think I know Pinkerton agents when I see ’em?” Suddenly his good humor vanished. “What the hell are you doin’ on my trail? I don’t have any rap against me. Who sent you?”

  Black Mustache licked his lips. “All right,” he said. “All right, don’t get your back up. You’re Neal Fargo?”

  “You know confounded well who I am.”

  “We wanted to be sure.” Red Mustache had the deeper voice; he was obviously the leader. “Another thing, we didn’t want anybody seeing us talk together.”

  “Talk about what?”

  Red Mustache cleared his throat. “My name’s Dolan. This is Torrence. We were sent here to look you up and make you a proposition.”

  “What kind of proposition?”

  Dolan’s dark eyes flickered. “I don’t know. All I know is that somebody wants you in New York City. It’s our job to take you there.”

  Fargo sat up straight. “Take me?”

  “We mean, escort you,” Torrence said hastily. “Look, Mr. Fargo. Somebody in New York—I don’t know who, neither does Dolan—hired the agency to find you and ask you to come to New York, all expenses paid. We were told to promise you that it would be worth your while if you went.”

  “Worth my while,” said Fargo. “What do you mean ‘worth my while?’ ”

  “There’s money in it for you,” Dolan said, “A lot of money.”

  Fargo looked at him sardonically. “That a fact? How much did whoever this is send with you to pay down?”

  Torrence blinked, chewed his mustache. “We’re to pay your way, all expenses, to New York City.”

  Fargo laughed softly. “That all?”

  “All we’re authorized to do.”

  “Sorry, gentlemen. I ain’t lost nothing in New York. My time’s valuable, and I don’t have a couple of weeks to spend traveling back and forth on a wild goose chase. You got some deal you want to put up to me, put it. And lay some money on the table when you do. That’s the way I work.”

  “We don’t have anything to lay on the table,” Dolan said. “All we’re authorized to do is find you and get you to New York.”

  Fargo’s mouth twisted. He took a brown cigarette from a pack, thrust it between good white teeth, scratched a match with this thumbnail, lit it. He blew the strong smoke at them. “I don’t go nowhere with no money down. I got to have the cash in front; that’s the way I work.”

  “You’ll get it in New York.”

  “I don’t know that.”

  “You will, we’re authorized to promise that.”

  His twisted mouth warped itself farther into that terrible grin. “Promises? Pinkerton promises especially? A Pinkerton would sell out his own grandmother witho
ut flappin’ an eyelash if he thought it would help him on a case.”

  Dolan sucked in a deep breath. Then he leaned forward across the table. “Look, Mr. Fargo, they don’t tell us a whole lot, except what we’re supposed to do—no questions asked, it’s our job. But I can say this to you. There is a very powerful man who wants you in New York. He might just be the most powerful man in the whole United States. One thing’s damn sure, he’s just about the richest.” He hesitated. “I understand, off the record, he’s the one who hired the agency to round you up. He wants to see you, size you up, and if he likes the cut of your jib, he’ll tell you the rest himself.”

  “And if he don’t, I’ll have wasted maybe two valuable weeks when I could have been turning a little profit on my own.” Fargo’s voice roughened. “I told you, God damn it, I don’t work in the blind. I don’t know who this joker is that hired you, and I don’t give a hoot. If he’s got so much money, let him lay it out, then I’ll talk to him. But put it up in front; that’s the only way I deal.”

  They were silent for a moment. Then Dolan said heavily, reluctantly, “Mr. Fargo, he has a job for a fighting man. He can afford the best there is, and that’s supposed to be you. But he didn’t get rich by dealing in the blind either; he wants to see you face to face before he lays out the cash. And I’ll tell you now, if you cross this man, you’re in bad trouble. He don’t like to be crossed, and the man that does it to him, well, this country ain’t big enough to hold him.”

  Fargo blew pale smoke. “Dolan, you threatenin’ me?”

  “Telling you,” said Dolan. “Our job is to find you and bring you to New York.”

  “Even if I don’t want to go?”

  “Even,” Dolan said, “if you don’t want to go.”

  Fargo snorted softly. His eyes shuttled back and forth from one of them to the other. He raised his hand slightly, in position for a shoulder draw. “The two of you?”

  “No,” said Dolan. “The eight of us. This man doesn’t play small, Fargo. Besides, there’re six more Pinkerton agents here in San Antonio to make sure we bring you in. I think, one way or another, we can do the job.”

  Fargo was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I don’t go anywhere I don’t choose to. You’ll lose some Pinkertons, Dolan.”

  “That’s part of the game,” Dolan said. “You can’t fight us all.”

  Torrence put in, voice placatory, “Mr. Fargo. Why stir up a fuss? There’s money in it for you, we’ve promised you that. We don’t want to have to use force. But if we have to, we will.”

  “Eight Pinkerton agents,” Fargo said thoughtfully. “This is a high mogul, ain’t it? I don’t suppose it occurred to him that if he had sent me the cash he’s spending on you people, I would have come right away.”

  “That’s not the point of it,” Dolan began.

  “It is to me,” said Fargo. “I’ve already found out how this guy who hired you operates and I don’t like it a damned bit. He may be the most powerful man in the United States, but maybe I am the most independent. I never met but one man in this country yet that I would run to when he snapped his fingers. I served under him in Cuba. He got to be President after a while, and he was pretty powerful himself. Sorry, you guys, but your big operator don’t impress me a damn bit. If he wants me to gamble two weeks of my time, you tell him to lay about five thousand dollars on the table and I’ll consider it.”

  “Mr. Fargo,” Torrence said sadly. “You’ll make us resort to force.”

  “No,” said Fargo easily. “You make me do that.” In the same instant, he kneed over the table and it slammed into the two men and knocked them backwards. His hand whisked to the Colt and pulled it out. They sprawled on the floor. The laughter and chatter in the cantina broke off, and Fargo stood over them, menacing them with the gun.

  “It’s loaded with hollow points,” he said. “They make an awful hole in a feller’s head. Lie still, because if you don’t, Pinkerton’s gonna be short two men.”

  Fargo backed away, holstering the Colt. “All right, you two greenhorns. Up and on your feet. Now, you can go off and round up your other six and lose some men, or you can go send a telegram. Bring me five thousand hard cash and a ticket to New York and I’ll go see your boss man. But don’t you come after me again talkin’ about making me go anywhere unless you want to lose some blood. You got it?”

  They stared up at him with frightened eyes. He threw a gold piece on the bar and stalked out as they scrambled to their feet. He went quickly, alertly, back to the hotel, but they did not follow him and there was no more trouble.

  Eighteen hours later, the two of them appeared again. This time, they knocked at the door of his room.

  When he opened it, the first thing they did, hastily, as if afraid, was to pass over a sheaf of fifty one hundred dollar bills.

  ~*~

  It was an enormous brownstone on lower Fifth Avenue. A liveried butler answered Fargo’s ring, and his eyes widened at the sight of the sweat-and-weather-stained campaign hat, jaunty and disreputable on the side of Fargo’s white-thatched head.

  “I’m Neal Fargo. Your boss is expecting me.

  “Oh. Oh, yes, sir. Come in, please, sir. I … I’ll let the master know you’re here. Shall I take your hat?”

  “No,” said Fargo.

  The butler vanished. He stood there looking around the foyer.

  Money. You could see it, touch it, smell it in the furnishings of the place. Oil money, railroad money. Fargo’s mouth twisted. The Pinkerton agents hadn’t exaggerated. Ned D. Stoneman was probably the richest man in the United States. Maybe the most powerful, too, for his billions could buy Congressmen, Senators, Governors—even Presidents. He had got those billons by being totally, completely ruthless, by ruining his competitors without mercy, buying only what he couldn’t steal or grab. He was old now, in his seventies, Fargo guessed; but according to the papers, his rapacity had not diminished one bit. He had more money than he could spend if he lived to be two thousand, and still he clutched for more. His railroad empire webbed the whole Northeast; his oil empire encompassed Oklahoma, Texas, and Pennsylvania. He would, Fargo thought, be interesting to deal with.

  Then the butler reappeared. “Mr. Stoneman will see you within the hour, sir.”

  “Will he?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You tell Mr. Stoneman that he will see me within the next five minutes or he won’t see me at all.”

  The butler looked shocked. “But, sir.”

  “Get your ass in gear,” said Fargo. “And tell him that.”

  “Yes, sir!” Pale-faced, as if doomed to human sacrifice, the butler vanished again. Two minutes later he reappeared, slightly dazed. “Mr. Stoneman will see you now.”

  “I figured he would,” Fargo said, and followed the man up the stairs.

  On the second floor, he entered a corridor faced with many doors, crowded with curious objects on pedestals and in alcoves. His eyes ranged over them with interest; he had seen their like in Mexico. Idols and carvings: Aztec, Toltec, Mayan, Olmec: apparently the old man had a craving for Mexican prehistoric art. Then the butler rapped on double doors with a carved bronze knocker.

  “Come in,” a thin, dry voice said irritably from behind them.

  The butler opened the door and announced: “Mr. Neal Fargo.”

  Fargo entered. The room was huge, high ceilinged, and it had a reek in it like the effluvium from a rotten tooth. That reek could only have come from the old man behind the desk before the huge Italian marble fireplace.

  He sat there, motionless, the only things alive in his gaunt and withered face the two blue eyes, cold and blue as chips of ice. His head was nearly bald, save for two or three greasy strands of limp hair laid across it at random—his cheeks sunken, his mouth puckered with toothlessness—too cheap, Fargo guessed, even for dentistry to save his teeth. His nose was the most striking thing about him … enormous, curved and hooked like a hawk’s bill. “Mr. Fargo,” he said. “Welcome.” A handful of d
ead leaves, crumpled in a fist, would have produced exactly the same dry, whispering, rasping tone.

  “Hello, Mr. Stoneman,” Fargo said.

  Stoneman arose, slowly. He wore a cheap, almost threadbare suit, and it hung on his gaunt frame like a bag. Slowly, reluctantly, he put out a hand that was a withered claw. Fargo touched it briefly, but its cold waxen texture was not pleasant, and he took his own hand away at once.

  “Sit down, Mr. Fargo.”

  “Yes. Thank you.” Fargo pulled up a carved chair before the desk and sat. He still wore the Colt under his jacket. Stoneman lowered himself behind the desk again.

  “Look around, Mr. Fargo.”

  Fargo accepted the invitation. He surveyed the room with the wariness of a hunted animal, although he had already sized it up upon entry. It was full of the same sort of objects that clogged the hall: more of the ancient Indian carvings of Mexico. In addition, there were suits or armor which Fargo recognized as ancient Spanish.

  “What do you see, sir?” the dry, crackling voice inquired.

  “You’re interested in the old-time Indians.”

  “Of Mexico and Central America, yes. I … understand you know those regions well.”

  “I’ve fought in revolutions all through them. Not always on the winning side.”

  “Oh? That discourages me. A man should always be on the winning side.”

  “I disagree. Losing once in a while keeps a man’s skin loose and his blood running.”

  “Your philosophy, not mine. Well, that makes no difference now. You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Fargo.”

  “Next time you want me, just send money, not detectives. It makes things easier.”

  The puckered mouth, not unlike the opening of a drawstringed bag, built a parody of a smile. “That is more in the line of my own philosophy. We will understand each other.”

  “Maybe,” Fargo said. “All right, Mr. Stoneman, let’s cut out the rigmarole. You paid five thousand to bring me here. For that you get an hour. Maybe you’d like to get to the point.”

  “Yes. I’ll do that. My own time is worth something like three thousand dollars an hour. Yours seems to come higher. All right, Mr. Fargo, I have checked carefully. You are the best freelance fighting man available, despite your price. Also, you know lower Mexico and Central America. Have you ever been in the Mexican state of Chiapas?”