House of the Rising Sun (Hackberry Holland 4)

“Don’t worry about money. Where’s Maggie?” he asked.

“How would I know? Why did she take Ishmael out of the army hospital? Why this sudden surge of charity?”

“I quit trying to figure her out many years ago. Who put Ishmael in the cage?”

“There were three of them. One said his name was Fred Beemer. Fred J. Beemer.”

Hackberry wrote on a pad. “They’re deputies?”

“No.”

“How do you know they’re not?”

“Do deputy sheriffs in San Antonio carry ax handles?”

“I’ll do everything I can to get there as soon as possible,” he said.

“Maggie said she was arranging an executive position of some kind for Ishmael. Who is she working for, Hack?”

“I’d like to say the devil. But it’s probably worse. The name Arnold Beckman comes to mind.”

“Who?”

“I want to see you, Ruby. I’ve been wanting to see you an awful long time.”

“Hurry, please,” she said.

He gave her the name of a hospital. “Make sure the ambulance takes him there. It’s the best. They’re all busting at the seams with influenza patients.”

WILLARD POSEY SENT a deputy to pick up Hackberry. An hour and a half later, he was at the hospital in San Antonio where he was supposed to meet Ruby, except there was no sign of Ruby and no record of a patient named Ishmael Holland. “They were here,” Hackberry said to the woman at the admissions desk.

“I’m afraid they were not,” she replied. “But I’ll tell you who is: all the influenza patients on the gurneys in the hallway.”

He and the deputy drove to the fairgrounds. It was Saturday night, and except for the carousel, the rides and concessions were open late, the ragged popping of rifles and the smell of gunpowder drifting from the shooting gallery. The deputy was a tall redheaded boy named Darl Pickins who wore a knit sweater with his badge pinned to it. Up ahead, on the midway, Hackberry saw a dunking booth where a waterlogged man of color was wiping himself off with a towel, preparing to retake his place on the dunking stool. A little farther on was a cage with a sign over it that read THE MISSING LINK.

“Darl, why don’t you go back to the café across the street and have a cup of coffee?” Hackberry said. “I’ll be along directly.”

“Sheriff Posey said I’m supposed to stick with you.”

“I bet he did. But right now I’ve got everything covered. I need you at the café in case Miss Ruby shows up there. If you’re not there, she won’t know where we’re at.”

“Yes, sir, I see what you mean.”

“Then why aren’t you headed to the café?”

“Sheriff Posey says you tend to get into things.”

“The sheriff exaggerates and is a big kidder on top of it. Trust me on this.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good-bye, now.”

“I’ll be at the café.”

“That’s the place to be,” Hackberry said.

He walked to the cage. A man in rubber boots was hosing off the floor, skidding a gray froth of straw and water through the bars. Hackberry opened his coat, exposing his badge. “I’m looking for Fred Beemer and a couple of his colleagues.”