“Mr. Brand,” Willard said, but he didn’t answer. “Mr. Brand,” he said, louder.
Brand finally turned. His face was pale, shiny with sweat.
“I’ll be in the study,” Willard said.
Brand pointed with the papers to a stool on his left. Rye remained standing. “How are you, Ryan?” Brand asked. “None too worse for wear, I hope?”
And if Rye hadn’t known before, he knew then: Lem Brand was behind what had happened in Taft, what had almost happened.
“I’m not a man who apologizes very often,” Brand said. “But things occasionally get beyond my control.” He took and let go a deep breath, as if that had been the apology. “Where’s Early Reston?”
“I don’t know,” Rye said. He cleared his throat. “And I wouldn’t tell you if I did.”
Brand flinched. He held out the pages he’d been reading. Rye hesitated, then took what looked to be some kind of report. The first page featured a photograph of a young man with the words: “Ennis R. Cooper. Pinkerton Agency. San Francisco, California. May 1, 1894.” There were other names listed below that one: William Baines. Ennis Crane. Thomas Baines. William Crane. Ennis David Baines. Ennis Thomas. Thomas Reston. Ennis Reston. And the last one. Early Reston.
Rye’s thoughts came together like badly shuffled cards. “Wait.” He looked up from the pages. “This is Early?”
Brand took a drink of the whiskey.
Rye looked back at the photo. Could it really be him? Suddenly, he was having trouble remembering Early’s features. He could recall his hat, his clothes, a certain look in his eyes. But was this his face? It seemed close, sure, but it made Rye realize how strangely similar all faces were—nose, mouth, eyebrows—really, what made a person himself?
“I hired him two months ago. I was told he could go deeper than most agency men. Rile things up, get the union throwing bombs and the public turned against them, keep the police from going easy like they did in Missoula. We agreed to a price, half up front, half to be paid later.” Brand swirled his drink. “He told me, ‘When it’s anarchy you need, best to hire an anarchist.’ ”
Rye flipped through the pages—interviews, newspaper clippings, an arrest report.
“He went too far, though, and I came to regret it. So I sent my man Willard to figure out what, exactly, I’d hired: a detective posing as an anarchist or an anarchist posing as a detective. The stories you hear: that he’s an agent who got in so deep he forgot which side he was on. Or that he was never on a side. The Pinkertons won’t even acknowledge that he worked for them. And the rumors? That he planted bombs. Caused a cave-in that killed six miners. Blew up a town marshal. Killed a labor man’s pregnant wife.”
Rye looked up from the report.
“And some say it was his wife who was killed. Or that there was no wife, it’s just a story he tells. That he’s killed scabs and millionaires and loggers and bounty hunters and children. The stories are like his names—every possibility and combination. Or he’s just a thief who doesn’t care about anything. That’s Willard’s thinking—that he’s in it for the sport. Or the money.”
Rye recalled his conversation with Early on the train—Everyone does everything for a little bit of money—
“This was delivered to my house this evening.” Brand handed Rye what appeared to be an identification card from a decade earlier. It read: “Dalveaux, Delbert, Allied Detective Agency.” It was the old detective Rye had met in Seattle.
“Del was last seen downtown this afternoon. Being helped out of a café by his brother.” Brand laughed bitterly. “Of course, he doesn’t have a brother.”
Rye handed the pages back. He tried to be firm, “Doesn’t have anything to do with me,” but his voice cracked.
“Sure it does,” Brand said.
“I don’t work for you!” Rye sputtered. “It was a mistake.” He felt frantic. He pressed the box of gloves into Brand’s hands.
“What’s this?” Brand opened the box.
“It’s half of your twenty dollars. I’ll get the rest, but I’m done.”
“I don’t think a pair of gloves gets you out of this, Ryan.” Brand tossed the box on the table. “What if your union friends knew that I had you on retainer, that you were the one who told Del about Montana?”
Rye felt sick.
“Or if your brother knew? Imagine if Ursula were to mention our meeting. How would Gregory feel about it?”
“You said you’d get him out of jail.”
“I said I’d try. And I will.” Brand reached in his coat, took out an envelope, and set it on the table. “But I need you to get this message to Early Reston. Or Ennis Cooper, or whatever his name is.”
Rye stared at the thick envelope.
“It’s five hundred dollars,” Brand said, “the second half of what I agreed to pay him. It might not be enough, after what happened, but tell that I’m willing to reopen our contract, settle our differences. Tell him to give me a number.”
A number. Rye thought about the armed men outside. Early’s fake names, the stories, it must be unbearable for a man like Brand, so used to being in control. “You’re afraid of him,” Rye said. “You’re scared to death.”
“Of death,” Brand said, “yes, like any man.”
Rye looked from the envelope to the stack of pages to Del Dalveaux’s ID card. He remembered the questions Brand had asked, and then Del’s questions—how many of them had been about Early. “It was him you were after—Early? In Taft?”
Brand muttered something into his drink.
“So it wasn’t even about Elizabeth or the union?”
“It was both,” Brand admitted. “She is a problem. My partners certainly thought so. And I wouldn’t have minded solving that, too.” He shrugged as if they were talking about mice in his barn. “But I got greedy, two birds . . .”
“And me?”
Brand shrugged again, which Rye took to mean, You? You were nothing.
Rye’s arms went slack against his sides.
