Brian Garfield by Tripwire Page B

across. They had to ship it out of Boston and probably it got held up wagoning acrost Panama. Then they bring it up to San Pedro on an ocean steamer and they transfer it onto one of the Johnson-Yaeger steamers up there, and it got to come all the way back around below Baja California and up to the mouth of the Colorado and then they got to transfer it again over onto one of the riverboats. I mind that rocking horse Mrs. Watson ordered from Baltimore took eight months getting here. You just never can tell.”
    Boag sipped his beer and watched with his eyes half closed. A man who could afford to order a cherrywood bed shipped from Boston wasn’t poor.
    One of the other players said, “Hey talking about steamers and all, what the hell happened to the Uncle Sam? ”
    Lee Roy said, “What you mean?”
    â€œShe was due in yesterday. Still ain’t showed up. My cousin Brill supposed to be on board, comin’ back down from Hardyville. I hear he made two thousand on pelts this season. Man we want to rope him into this poker game, he shows up.”
    â€œWell two days ain’t much overdue,” Elmer said comfortably. “I raise you three dollar, Sammy.”
    â€œFold,” Lee Roy said. “I wouldn’t worry much. She might of got hung up on a sand bar. Sometimes takes them three, four days to work loose of them sand bars in the river.”
    â€œI call,” Sammy said, “give me two cards.”
    Now that gave Boag something to think about. The Uncle Sam hadn’t showed up in Yuma yet but Boag hadn’t passed her anywhere on the river and he’d come all the way down by raft behind her. He’d expected they would probably ram right through Yuma on the river and keep going right down to the estuary of the Colorado, which was in Mexico and out of Arizona’s jurisdiction. But she hadn’t come through. Now where the hell did you hide a hundred-foot paddlewheel steamboat?
    It took him fifteen minutes’ thinking but he finally worked out how they must have done it, and that made him feel better. A good deal better because it meant he wasn’t as far behind them as he had feared.
    He watched Elmer’s stake grow steadily for two and a half hours until Lee Roy suddenly stood up and pressed both fists into the small of his back to lean back and stretch. “That’s it for me, Elmer, your luck’s running too good tonight. I’ll see you boys.”
    It broke up the game. New players started to move in to the table and once three of the original players had left, Elmer didn’t seem to see any reason to stay around and let the others try to get even. He scooped his winnings into a canvas poke and pulled the drawstring shut and stuffed the poke down in his hip pocket, finished off his drink—it was the fifth shot of whiskey Boag had seen him down—and meandered out of the saloon, pausing twice to talk to acquaintances. While Elmer was talking to the second one, at the bar, Boag moved slowly to the door and went outside.
    It was about midnight and the traffic had thinned out on the street. Boag put his boots down into the loose dust of the thoroughfare and walked across the way to the dark passage between two red-light houses opposite the saloon. He posted himself in the shadows until Elmer emerged from the saloon and when Elmer turned up-street Boag let him get a block away before eeling out onto the boardwalk and following him.

2
    At the mouth of an alley Boag caught Elmer from behind, clamped his palm over Elmer’s mouth and lifted the revolver from Elmer’s holster. Boag jammed it in Elmer’s back and hissed in Elmer’s ear:
    â€œEef you don’ keep es-shut op, I goeen to keel you. Onnerstan’?”
    Elmer nodded and Boag removed his hand from the man’s mouth. “Now don’ turn aroun’.” He lifted the fat poke from Elmer’s hip pocket and stuffed it into his own.
    â€œNow you