?I heard you like Jack Daniel?s.?
?The word is ?liked,? past tense.?
?I?ll meet you at that joint down the street,? Ethan Riser said.
One block from
the jail, behind the Eat Café, was a saloon with a sign over the bar that warned the customer YOU ARE STANDING ON THE HARDEST FLOOR IN TEXAS, SO YOU BEST NOT LAND FACEDOWN ON IT. The floor was made from old railroad ties that were grimed black with diesel and creosote and cinders and smoke from prairie fires and anchored to their crossbeams with rusted steel spikes. The bar itself was fitted with a brass footrail that had three cuspidors pushed neatly under it. On top of the bar were a bowl of hard-boiled eggs and a jar of pickled hogs? feet and another jar that contained a urine-yellow liquid and a rattlesnake whose thick coils and open mouth were pressed against the glass. The lights behind the bar were hooded with green plastic shades, and a wood-bladed fan turned slowly on the ceiling. Ethan Riser was standing at the far end of the bar, a cone-shaped glass of draft beer in one hand, a leather cup in the other.
?What?s up?? Hackberry said.
Ethan Riser rattled five poker dice in the leather cup and rolled them on the bar. ?Your grandfather really put John Wesley Hardin in the can??
?He locked him in chains and nailed the links to the bed of a wagon and drove him there personally, after first raking him off the top of his horse.?
?Know how Hardin died??
?He was rolling dice in the Acme saloon in El Paso. He said, ?You got four sixes to beat? to the man drinking next to him. Then he heard a pistol cock behind his head. Then next thing he heard was a pistol ball entering his skull just above the eye.?
?I wish I could roll four sixes, but I can?t,? Riser said. ?I?ve got a psychopath on the loose that some other people want to cut a deal with, even if this lunatic has murdered a federal agent.?
?Jack Collins??
?These people I work with, or under, think Collins can help us nail somebody we?ve wanted to take off at the neck for a long time. A Russian by the name of Josef Sholokoff. Ever hear of him??
?No.?
?I think my colleagues are wrong on two counts. I believe Collins is a button man others hire and discard like used Kleenex. I don?t think he?s wired in to people of any importance. Second, I don?t believe in making deals with the killers of federal agents.? Riser saw the expression in Hackberry?s eyes, a brief flicker of disappointment that seemed to make Riser reexamine what he had just said. ?Okay, I don?t believe in making deals with guys who mow down defenseless women, either.?
?Why tell me all this??
?Because you?re smart and not political. Because you?ve been around awhile and you don?t care a lot about what people think of you or what happens to you.?
?You know how to say it, Mr. Riser.? Hackberry signaled to the bartender. He leaned on his elbows and waited for Riser to continue. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the beer in Riser?s glass going flat.
?We think we got a break down by the Big Bend,? Riser said. ?A guy caused a commotion in a convenience store, and the clerk called it in. The guy had been putting gas in his SUV, and his buddy had gone inside to buy beer. Except the buddy left the beer on the counter and went out the back door and hauled ass.?
The bartender set a glass of ice and carbonated water and lime slices in front of Hackberry.
?You drink that?? Riser asked.
?Go on about the guy.?
?He came into the convenience store and wanted to know where Pete went. The clerk said he didn?t know. The guy called him a liar and pulled a semiauto out of his overalls. The clerk called nine-one-one, and the sheriff decided to lift some prints off the fuel-pump handle. They got a hit. The guy with the semiauto is Robert Lee Motree, also known as Bobby Lee Motree. He did six months in the Broward County stockade for illegal possession of a firearm. He?s also worked for a New Orleans private investigative service owned by a guy named Arthur Rooney. You recognize that name??
?Yeah, but I thought Rooney ran some escort fronts in Houston or Dallas,? Hackberry said.
?That?s the same guy. Rooney got blown out of New Orleans by Katrina and is in Galveston now.? Riser seemed to hesitate, as though his words were leading him into an area he hadn?t fully given himself consent to enter.
?Go on,? Hackberry said.
?Rooney is a careful man, but we put a tap on his current punch of the day. He made a call from her apartment to a contract hitter by the name of Hugo Cistranos. On the tape, it sounds like Rooney and Cistranos are going to clip Jack Collins.?
?Why??
?Get this. Collins cut off Rooney?s finger with a barber?s razor on Rooney?s own desktop.? Riser started laughing.
?What?s the Russian?s role in all this??