him.”
“I don’t care that he’s dead,” Lorraine said bluntly. “But now the law is after me, and I need money to get out of town. I did some asking around about you, Mr. Browning. You’re a rich man, even if you did come into the office with mud all over your clothes. I figured you could pay me enough to get me out of Carson City so I can start over somewhere else.”
“You mean you intended to rob me at gunpoint. That’s why you sent that telegram and paid some fellow you probably found in a saloon to come and knock on my door. You figured I’d be suspicious and try to spy on my visitor, and that alcove was the best place to do so. It was a cunning little trap.”
“But you figured out what was going on and turned the tables on me.” Lorraine’s voice held some grudging respect along with the anger. “I underestimated you, Mr. Browning.”
“So what do we do now? Do I turn you over to Deputy Wallace? I know he’d like to talk to you. He probably has a lot of questions about what went on in Monroe’s office.”
“They’ll lock me up,” Lorraine said with a slight quaver in the words. “I couldn’t stand that. I ... I’ll do anything you want, Mr. Browning, as long as you don’t turn me over to the law.”
The invitation was plain in her eyes and her voice. Conrad shook his head. “That’s not going to work.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. But I might be more inclined to let you go if you can tell me what this means.” He reached inside his coat and brought out the piece of paper he had taken from the filing cabinet in Monroe’s office. He held it out to Lorraine, who took it tentatively and studied the words printed on it.
“Who or what is D.L.?”
Lorraine shook her head. “I have no idea. You can see from the date that Mr. Monroe wrote this note before I came to work for him.”
“That’s Monroe’s writing? You’re sure about that?”
She nodded. “Yes, I’ve seen it often enough.” She pointed to the memorandum. “This other part, with the initials and the three hundred dollars ... I can tell you that was written fairly recently. It’s in a shade of ink that we never used until I bought some a couple months ago.”
That was an interesting bit of information, Conrad thought. It indicated something or someone had triggered the deal Monroe had made three years earlier. Conrad figured that trigger had been him setting out from Boston to search for his missing children. He had suspected all along that Pamela had hired spies to keep an eye on him. The conspiracy against him stretched across the country like a giant spider.
“Is there anything else you can tell me?”
“Well ... the initials have to refer to Ed Gillespie and Walt Farley, but you know that already.”
“What about Golden Gate?”
Lorraine shook her head. “That’s something to do with San Francisco, isn’t it?”
“But you don’t recall Monroe ever saying anything about it?”
“No, I’m afraid not.” She sat forward a little in the chair. “I’ve told you everything I know, Mr. Browning. I’m sorry about, well, about what happened outside.”
Conrad smiled. “About trying to rob me, you mean.”
“I was desperate. I still am. Since you were responsible for Mr. Monroe getting killed, I thought it was fitting that you help me get away.”
“Monroe was responsible for his own death. If he’d been honest, it wouldn’t have happened.”
“Honesty might postpone death sometimes. It doesn’t prevent it.”
She had a point there, Conrad thought. He opened the cylinder of the little pistol he had taken from her and shook out the bullets, then snapped the gun closed and tossed it in her lap.
“You can get more bullets. I don’t want you being tempted to point that thing at me again. I don’t like it.”
“You’re not going to turn me in?”
He slid his wallet out of his coat pocket and removed a few bills. Lorraine’s eyes widened at the sight of them.
“Take the money and get out.” Conrad extended the bills to her. “I don’t want to lay eyes on you again. A while back I ran into another pretty young blonde who kept trying to murder me. She wound up dead.”
That was true enough, although Conrad wasn’t the one who killed her. He was going to let Lorraine Eastman draw her own conclusions, however.
“If I see you again, I’m liable to get suspicious,” he went on as Lorraine took the money. “I won’t ask questions, and I won’t wait to do something about it. I’ll take action right then and there.”
“You don’t have to worry, Mr. Browning.” The bills disappeared somewhere inside her dress. “I promise you, you’re about the last person I want to see again. There’s an eastbound train this evening. I intend to be on it.”
“I’d be careful if I was you. Deputy Wallace will probably have men watching the depot.”
She laughed coldly as she got to her feet. “Those lawmen will never see me unless I want them to.”
Conrad kept his hand on the butt of his gun as Lorraine went to the door. She paused and looked back at him.
“What is it that’s so important about you? Why would someone in San Francisco pay five thousand dollars to have you killed?”
“It’s a long story.”
Lorraine shrugged. “I don’t really care. I was just curious for a second. You’d better be careful. There are probably more people out there who want you dead.”
“I think you can count on that.”
Chapter 7
Considering the hour, Conrad ate an early supper instead of a late lunch. The rest of the evening and the night that followed passed quietly. He couldn’t help wondering if Lorraine Eastman had managed to get on that eastbound train and leave Carson City, but he didn’t care enough to find out.
He and Arturo had been traveling light on their cross-country journey, but once he was in Carson City Conrad had bought more clothes, as well as the new Colt. Even so, he had only a couple small bags to take with him to the train station the next morning, and he carried them himself rather than have the hotel send them over. At one time in his life he had been accustomed to having servants take care of his every need, but now he was more self- sufficient.
He wasn’t surprised when Deputy Wallace strolled up to him while he was standing on the platform, waiting for the westbound train.
“Good morning, Mr. Browning.” Wallace touched a finger to the brim of his soft felt hat. “You didn’t have any more trouble after the last time I saw you yesterday, I trust?”
“Not a bit.” Conrad wasn’t going to mention the encounter with Lorraine Eastman at the hotel.
“No one tried to kill you? No shots were fired?”
Conrad shook his head. “It appears Monroe and his hired guns were the only ones after me.”
“The only ones here in Carson City, anyway.”
Conrad shrugged. “It’s hard to predict what a person will run into elsewhere, isn’t it?”
“Not always,” Wallace said. “For example, I predict that when you arrive in San Francisco, you’ll find yourself in more trouble. I did some checking, and that seems to happen all the time with you.”
“It’s not my idea,” Conrad snapped. “I just want to be left alone to go about my business.”
“From what I could tell, you have teams of lawyers in Boston, Denver, and San Francisco who take care of your business for you. Or were you referring to something else, Mr. Browning?” The deputy was digging, trying to find a reason for the violence that had occurred in his city.
Conrad wasn’t going to satisfy Wallace’s curiosity by spilling the story. “I’m leaving town, Deputy,” he said without answering Wallace’s question. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Fine,” Wallace said. “I won’t be sorry to see you go.”
With some apparently idle curiosity of his own, Conrad asked, “Say, did you ever find that woman who
