Stop Angel! (A Frank Angel Western Book 8) (6 page)

‘
You
know a lot about the department.’

‘
Lorenz
told me a lot.’

‘
So you
knew I was coming?’

‘
Of
course. Your movements from the moment you arrived in Galveston
have been reported to me. You have been under observation every
inch of the way.’

‘
You
seem to have it all buttoned up,’ Angel said.

‘
Ah, do
not think you have an ace up your sleeve, my dear fellow. I’m
afraid your arrival through the mountains was also observed. I’ve
been watching your every move.’ He smiled at the look of chagrin on
his prisoner’s face, and bowed sardonically.

‘
Why did
you let me stay out so long? Why didn’t you send your boys out to
get me?’ Angel asked.

‘
What,
and spoil my pleasure?’ Nix said, throwing back his huge head and
laughing. ‘After I have gone to so much trouble to arrange
everything? No, no, my dear Angel. I wanted you to have every
advantage. I wanted you to know just exactly what you were up
against here in my valley. And I am sure, now, that you do know. So
you, as well as I, may relish what comes next.’

‘
Which
is?’

‘
Oh,
come, not now,’ Nix smiled. ‘This evening you will dine with me. I
want to spend some time with you. It may surprise you, Angel, but I
respect your abilities. I confess myself eager to discover just how
good you are. But that is tomorrow. Tonight … well, perhaps you are
like Scheherazade. Perhaps for you there will be no
tomorrow.’

‘
You’ll
have to excuse me,’ Angel said harshly. ‘I’m not really kitted out
for a dinner party.’ He gestured at his mud-smeared face and hands,
his soiled clothing, comparing it with the fine black broadcloth
suit of his captor.

‘
I’m
afraid I won’t take no for an answer,’ Nix said, showing his teeth.
‘We have plenty of time to take care of your needs.’ He clapped his
hands once, and then again. As if by magic the Oriental, Yat Sen,
appeared in the doorway. He bowed without speaking.

‘
Mr.
Angel’s bath is ready?’ Nix asked expansively. Yat Sen bowed again,
yes.

‘
Good.
Look after him, Yat Sen. We dine at nine, Angel.’

He went out through the tall double
doors, and the Oriental looked at Angel expectantly.

‘
Please
no trouble,’ he said quietly. Like many of his race, he had
difficulty with the pronunciation of the r’s and l’s. ‘Trouble’
came out ‘tlubber.’ Angel nodded as Yat Sen stepped to one side,
and gestured, this way. He reckoned correctly that it would take
five steps to be beside the Oriental, and on the fifth step he was
moving very fast, his hands perfectly right, his body beautifully
set for the blow which he delivered sideways at Yat Sen’s carotid
artery. Nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand,
tenfold, would have been killed on the spot by the blurring hand.
Not one in a million could have done what Yat Sen then almost
casually did. He intercepted Angel’s hand. All Angel’s strength,
all his speed, and all his skill were behind the blow, yet the
Oriental caught it in midair the way a kid catches a bouncing ball,
and he held it totally immobile with the most astonishing strength
Angel had ever encountered.

‘
Please,’ Yat Sen said. ‘Take bath, no tlubber.’

Angel looked at his own hand
held fast in the unbudging fist of the Oriental, and he let out his
breath in one long, astonished sigh.
‘Yat Sen,’ he said. ‘That was
impossible.’

‘
Not
impossibar,’ Yat Sen said, handing him a fragrant bar of toilet
soap. ‘Enjoy bath. I get crothes.’

Angel shook his head silently as
the Oriental padded out of the bathroom. Then he quickly got out of
his dirty clothes and slid into the soft water. He was direly in
need of a bath, and soaped himself vigorously, getting rid of the
accumulated dirt of his outdoor days. As he bathed, he let his mind
range over the things he had learned in the last few hours. The
supreme, almost contemptuous, confidence of the man who called
himself Hercules Nix, formerly Ernie Hecatt, trickster, thief, and
murderer. He was still all these things: he had virtually admitted
responsibility for the death of Tyrrell, and had
indubitably had
Jaime Lorenz killed. This astonishing house, the awesome, casual
power of the Oriental, Yat Sen. The killing country that lay beyond
the safety of the stockade, with the Comanche camp at its heart. A
battalion of cavalry would have its work cut out making a
successful attack on Nix’s stronghold. One man, even if he were
free, would seem to have no damned chance at all. He cursed himself
for allowing Nix to take him with such contemptuous ease, like a
man catching goldfish in his own pond. He looked up as Yat Sen came
back into the steamy bathroom.

‘
Crothes
leady,’ Yat Sen said. ‘Want shave?’

‘
Leave
the razor on the shelf,’ Angel said casually. ‘I’ll do it
myself.’

Yat Sen
’s face changed slightly, and Angel
realized that he was witnessing the nearest expression Yat Sen had
to a smile.

‘
Ah,
solly,’ the Oriental said. ‘Might cut Yat Sen thloat
instead.’

‘
Yat
Sen!’ Angel said reproachfully. ‘Would I do a thing like
that?’

‘
Bet you
ass,’ Yat Sen said. ‘Get out bath. I shave.’

‘
OK,’
Angel grinned. ‘But you turn your back, now.’

Yat Sen
’s face contorted again in its
strange impersonation of a smile. ‘You damn blave,’ he said. ‘Or
damn stupid. Not know which.’

‘
Flattery will get you nowhere,’ Angel said.

Half an hour later, immaculate in a
dark blue three-piece suit with wide lapels cut in the latest
style, and a fine cambric shirt with diamond studs and buttons
which fitted him quite well, Angel descended the ornate staircase
and followed Yat Sen into the drawing room. It was beautifully
furnished to disguise its main fault, a low, beamed ceiling, and
managed even so to appear light and spacious. The furniture was
very old and obviously very expensive. Angel knew very little about
antiques, but he knew when he was looking at them. There were not
many pieces in the room less than a hundred and fifty years
old.

Hercules Nix came beaming to
meet him, as if Angel were an old and honored friend arriving in
his own coach at some Georgetown dinner. Nix handed him a glass of
Amontillado and as he did, the gentle music from the
ornate rosewood
piano in the far corner of the room stopped. One of the most
beautiful women Frank Angel had ever seen stood up behind it and
smiled at him.

‘
My
dear,’ Nix said, smiling at Angel’s expression, savoring the
moment. ‘Come and meet our guest, Mister Frank Angel, who works for
the Department of Justice in Washington. Angel, this is my wife
Victoria.’

‘
Well,’
Victoria Nix said, rising from her seat at the table. ‘If you will
excuse me, gentlemen?’

She smiled at Angel, who smiled
back as he and her husband rose and stood silently as she went out
of the dining room, the silk of her gown rustling, the piled-high
auburn hair catching bright highlights from the shining
chandeliers. She had hardly spoken during the meal, and it had
become immediately apparent to Angel that whatever her relationship
to Hercules Nix was based upon, it was not love. She had flinched
visibly
every
time he turned toward her, the way an often-beaten dog will. Unless
spoken to directly, she had kept her eyes cast down, a dreamy
expression behind them.

Angel turned to see Nix watching
him.
‘She’s
very beautiful,’ he said.

‘
Of
course,’ Nix said, offhandedly, the way a man will acknowledge a
compliment about the horse he is riding.

‘
Where
did you meet?’

‘
We
first met, ah, near her home. Her father owned a ranch on the
Brazos above Waco.’

‘
How
long was it after your escape?’

‘
Quite
soon, as a matter of fact,’ Nix said urbanely. He selected a cigar
from the humidor that Yat Sen had brought into the room on
noiseless feet. He rolled it between his fingers, listening to the
crackle of the leaves. He sniffed it, and then nodded, giving it
back to Yat Sen, who trimmed it with a gold cigar-cutter and then
came around the table to perform the same service for Angel. The
cigars were fine Havanas, and the smoke curled lazily toward the
brilliant lights in the still air.

‘
So
that’s where you went to ground,’ Angel mused aloud. Nix
smiled.

‘
You’re
perspicacious, Angel. I’ll tell you the rest to save you guessing.
Old Tom Stacey—Victoria’s father—was not only the man who saved my
life. He was the very foundation of my fortune.’

‘
You had
nothing,’ Angel pointed out. ‘How come?’

‘
Good
management. Good fortune. And a little manipulation.’

‘
You
stole it.’

‘
Oh,
come, let’s not be crude, my dear fellow. I prefer to think of it
as long-term forward credit.’ Nix smiled like a man pleased with a
turn of phrase.

‘
Like I
said,’ Angel repeated. ‘You stole it. What did you do, sell dud
bonds?’

‘
You’re
quite close to the truth, actually,’ Nix admitted, leaning back in
his chair and stretching expansively. ‘But it wasn’t quite so
blatant. I really am not the blatant type, you know.’

‘
You
know what I said about rats,’ Angel reminded him, and was rewarded
by a quick flare of anger in the yellow eyes. But it lasted only a
moment, and Nix smiled his self-satisfied smile again.

‘
My dear
Angel, I know you are not a stupid man. You will oblige me by not
pretending to be obtuse. Do you wish to hear the story or
not?’

‘
Go
ahead. I’ve got no place to go at the moment.’

‘
I like
that “at the moment”,’ Nix purred, ‘but let it pass. So: the story.
Actually, it was almost childishly easy. I went to live with the
Staceys when I was well again.’

‘
Well?
You were sick?’

‘
I was
sick, all right,’ Nix snarled. ‘I had to cross half of Texas on the
dodge, Angel! I had to fight off a bunch of Comanches who put a
hole in my arm that caused this—’ He raised his iron hand and
slammed it down on the table, making the coffee cups jangle. ‘I was
three-quarters dead of hunger and thirst and loss of blood. If it
hadn’t been for Victoria finding me, getting help, I’d be dead
now.’

‘
No way
she could have known that,’ Angel said, sardonically. ‘I won’t hold
it against her.’

‘
Ah,
yes,’ Nix said, relaxing, smiling like a skull. ‘I remember you had
a penchant for mordant humor. That’s as well, for you’ll be in need
of it ere long.’

‘
You
were saying how sick you were,’ Angel said, impatiently.

‘
Yes,’
Nix hissed. ‘I was ill. But I pulled through. Do you know how I
pulled through?’

‘
Because
you’re such a wonderful human being?’

‘
Because
I wanted revenge, Angel!’ Nix said, ignoring the other man’s shaft.
‘I wanted revenge! I swore as I lay dying that I would survive,
that I would pull through. I wanted to live so that one day I would
be able to kill you!’

‘
Join
the club,’ Angel said. ‘There’s a lot of members.’

‘
I don’t
doubt that,’ Nix said, drawing in a deep breath. The angry light in
his eyes faded again, and Angel again noted the big man’s iron
control. ‘At any rate, I discovered that Tom Stacey was a poor
enough rancher and an even worse businessman. He was one of the
directors of a cattleman’s bank in Waco, and it was going to the
dogs. I soon showed him where he was going wrong, and how to put it
right. He was—grateful.’

Angel nodded. Nix had obviously
chosen to forget that as Ernie Hecatt he had been a liar and a
cheat and a thief. He
was proud of having helped to set the little
cattleman’s bank on its feet—no doubt so that he could rob it the
better. Not for the first time, Angel marveled at the capacity of
the human race to delude itself. But there was no point in saying
this to Nix. Angel leaned back and listened.

‘
Pretty
soon, old Stacey asked me to look after his interest in the bank.
Then they made me manager. Soon after that, I discovered that among
the assets were half a million dollars’ worth of twenty-five-year
government bonds. They were just sitting in the safe, waiting for
the 1890s to roll around when they’d mature. Ready money. Nobody
would dream of checking on them for years. It was a perfect
opportunity and I took it. I sold them, taking a thirty percent
discount on face value, and used the money to buy guns in St.
Louis. Then I did some trading with the
Comancheros.
Within a year I had multiplied my
original stake tenfold.’