House of the Rising Sun (Hackberry Holland 4)

“I’m Irish.”

“Sorry.”

“You are. How about I pay you now?” Hackberry said, dropping several bills through the window on the seat, taking back the torn half of the ten, no longer even aware of the driver’s presence.

Thirty feet away, a handsome woman wearing a riding dress with a lace hem and boots spotted with mud had just emerged from the entrance of the building. Hackberry walked toward her. “What are you doing here, Miz DeMolay?”

“Conducting business. You need to go home, Mr. Holland.”

“That’s what people in the saloon used to tell me.”

“Get out of here.”

“The man inside tried to disfigure your face. I don’t understand why you’re here. Are you trying to he’p me?”

“Please go, sir. Now.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Where is Andre?”

“That’s not your concern.” She glanced at a silhouette in an upstairs window. “Get out of my way.”

He stepped aside. When he reached to open the back door of the car for her, she slapped his hand. “Get away from me. I don’t want to see you again. You’re nothing but trouble. You’re ignorant and uneducated and willful. You’re everything you disdain in others.”

She slammed the car door behind her and turned her face away as the driver started the engine and pulled from the curb, honking at the children in the street.

THE DOWNSTAIRS OF the building had a long hallway with offices in it that contained nothing but stacked furniture and crates of canned food with Oriental printing. Hackberry walked up the stairs and saw Arnold Beckman behind a desk in a cluttered office, a ledger book spread in front of him, paper cuffs on his forearms to prevent ink spills from getting on his skin or clothes.

“Nice building you have. What’s the rent, a dollar a week?” Hackberry said.

Beckman lifted his head, smiling, his silvery-blond hair hooked behind his ears. There was a bandage on his chin and one on his forehead. “My warehouse is one block away. You had a little spat outside with the Great Whore of Babylon?”

“No need for rough language.”

“I forgot. Beatrice is one of the vestal virgins.”

Hackberry gazed around the office. “No painting of Custer at the Last Stand?”

“You’re an admirer?”

“I suspect he was a pretentious asswipe.”

“You’re quite the conundrum.”

“You got my boy. What do I have to do to get him back?”

Beckman put down his pen and knitted his fingers together. “You’ve lost me.”

“I’ll give you the cup and the candlesticks, too. I spent the coins and the currency. That’s everything I took from the hearse.”

“I’ll speak to Beatrice about this. Maybe she’ll understand what you’re talking about.”

“Beatrice DeMolay is your friend?”

“Of course she’s a friend.”

Hackberry tried to refocus his concentration. “I’m the one with the cup. No one else knows where it’s at.”

“Would you like a drink?” Beckman said, opening a bottom desk drawer.