Hell's Half Acre Read online

  “Maybe, but I aim to find out for sure,” Jess said.

  Dr. Sun was silent for a while, then said, “Sheriff, have you ever been alone in the forest and sensed the presence of something very large, very evil?”

  “You mean like a bear or a cougar?” Jess said. “Sure, Doc, plenty of times.”

  “No, I mean something larger, a creature without face or form that lurks in the darkness biding its time, waiting to strike.”

  Jess smiled. “No, can’t say as I have.”

  “I sense it,” Dr. Sun said. “I can feel its evil and its intelligence.”

  “Koenig?” Jess said.

  “No, not Koenig. Something far worse and much more dangerous. And Jess, it means you great harm.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Dorothy Mills lived uptown in Jessie Reeve’s Female Boarding House on 11th Street. The rambling, two-story timber building was painted yellow, allegedly to make it look like a prairie flower, and it had a neat green yard with a swing, a porch front and back, and was ruled with Teutonic strictness by Baroness Bathilda Von Wendt, the scion of an ancient Hessian family. There had never been a Jessie Reeve. The baroness thought that an American-sounding name would be better for business.

  The thin, mousy little maid who answered Jess Casey’s knock on the door never raised her eyes to his face.

  Yes, Miss Mills was at home. Yes, she was allowed gentleman callers and no, he couldn’t see her.

  “Why not?” Jess said.

  Visiting hours for gentlemen were after lunch, between two and four o’clock when a chaperone could be present, the maid said.

  “I’m here in the name of the law,” Jess said, aware that he sounded pompous. He pushed through the door and the timid maid told him to take a seat while she talked with the matron. Jess looked around at the uncomfortable straight-backed chairs and decided to remain standing.

  The woman who swept into the hall in a rustle of black taffeta was as tall as a man. Her bosoms were enormous, strapped up high, and her black eyes were as sharp as obsidian. She had an angry expression on her face, so settled into permanent creases that Jess figured infuriated thoughts were her daily burden.

  “I am Baroness Bathilda Von Wendt, the owner of this establishment,” she said.

  Jess thought she expected him to bow.

  “Whom do you wish to see?”

  “One of your young ladies,” Jess said, playing the game. “Dorothy Mills.”

  “In what regard?” the baroness said, her heavy, Germanic jaw jutting a belligerent challenge.

  “Police business,” Jess said.

  “Very well then, police business but no monkey business. Eh? I run a very respectable house with rules as strong as Krupp’s steel.”

  “I’m sure you do, ma’am,” Jess said.

  “You may talk to Miss Mills here,” the baroness said. “And of course I will be present at all times.” Without waiting for Jess to speak she rounded on the timorous little rodent of a maid. “Ruby, don’t just stand there, you silly creature. Ask Miss Mills to come down here on a matter of the greatest moment.”

  The girl curtsied and fled upstairs.

  Baroness Von Wendt stood beside a potted plant that made her look like she was emerging from a jungle. She stared at Jess with intolerant aristocratic eyes, and made no effort to disguise the fact that she didn’t care for what she saw.

  “I take it you are the local sheriff,” she said, her gaze switching to the star on Jess’s shirt.

  “Indeed I am, ma’am.”

  “Then stand up straight and don’t slouch. It’s a most unbecoming posture for both man and woman.” The baroness laid a forefinger against her cheek. “You have a passing resemblance to the soldier who was slaughtered by savages. His name escapes me at the moment.”

  “General Custer,” Jess said. He didn’t think he looked anything like the great hero.

  “No, not that silly fellow. Now I remember, I mean General Gordon, the one who was just killed by Fuzzy-Wuzzies in the Sudan. Surely you read about it in all the newspapers.”

  “I can’t say I did, ma’am,” Jess said.

  “Well, it doesn’t really matter. I’ve decided that you don’t look like him in the least. He was very handsome. Ah, here is Miss Mills at last.”

  Dorothy Mills was a small, shapely blond girl with large, baby blue eyes, a Cupid’s bow mouth and a little pointed chin. Jess decided she didn’t seem very intelligent.

  “You may proceed with your interrogation, Sheriff,” the baroness said.

  Jess asked the girl if she’d been present in the jewelry store the morning of the robbery.

  “Oh yes, sir, I was working that day,” Dorothy said. She seemed eager to please.

  “Can you describe the men who carried out the robbery?” Jess said.

  “Oh yes, sir, I can, just like I told the newspaper reporter and Mayor Stout. It was three black men, sir, one of them very big with bruises and cuts all over his face.”

  Jess felt his heart sink. The girl was describing Zeus.

  “Which one of them did you see shoot Addie Brennan?” he said.

  “The big one, sir.” Dorothy brought out a scrap of handkerchief and dabbed her eyes. “He shot her for no reason, sir. No reason at all.”

  “Dorothy, how much were you paid to tell a pack of lies?” Jess said.

  The girl refused to meet his stare. “I can only tell you what my conscience dictates,” she said. Then, after a long pause, “I saw what I saw.”

  “It doesn’t trouble your conscience that your lies will let three guilty men walk free and put a noose around the neck of an innocent black man?”

  “The Negro did it,” the girl said. “I . . . I saw him shoot Addie.”

  “What kind of gun did he use?”

  “Gun . . . what . . .” the girl stammered, blushing.

  “Yes, gun. Was it a revolver or a rifle?”

  Dorothy hesitated, then said, “A revolver.”

  “Did he shoot once or twice? Three times maybe?”

  Dorothy burst into tears. “I can’t remember. I don’t want to remember.”

  “Miss Miles, you’re a damned liar,” Jess said.

  “Sheriff, that will do,” the baroness said. “You have upset the poor child enough. Miss Miles told you what she saw, and now I want you to leave. Search for three Negroes and you’ll have your bandits.”

  She put her arm around Dorothy’s shoulder. “Go back to your room, child. I’ll have Ruby bring you a nice cup of tea directly.”

  “Thank you, matron,” Dorothy said. She threw Jess a wounded look then ran quickly up the stairs, hiking her skirts high.

  “Your business is concluded here, mein Herr,” the baroness said.

  “The girl is lying through her teeth,” Jess said. “She’s been paid.”

  Baroness Von Wendt stared into space and her thin mouth flexed.

  “Perhaps she has,” she said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  It was yet early in the morning when Jess Casey made his way to the hotel where Nate Levy still lay abed. Jess’s face was becoming better known in the Half Acre and people nodded to him and a few even smiled.

  When he reached the hotel he found Levy’s room empty, the bed unmade and the little man’s clothes were gone. There was no sign of Zeus.

  Worried, Jess stood on the hotel porch and surveyed the street. He saw the usual chaotic mix of people, wagons, and riders and a solitary puncher in a bright red shirt driving three steers toward the slaughterhouse.

  Jess made his way through the noisy, jostling throng to his office and stepped inside. Sitting in the chair behind the desk was Nate Levy, looking pale and ill, and smoking a cigar. He looked up when the door opened, saw Jess and said, “They’ve taken him.”

  “Taken who?” Jess said, fearing the answer.

  “Zeus. Some men busted into his room this morning and dragged him away. I heard a shot, but I don’t know if Zeus was the target.”

  “Tak
en him where?” Jess said.

  “If I knew that would I be sitting here instead of in my sickbed?” Levy said. Then, passing a piece of notepaper, “Read this. It was left on the desk for you.”

  The note got right to the point. The real killer of Addie Brennan was in custody and the innocent victims of the sheriff’s bungling had been released. It was signed by Hank Convery and under his name the ominous addition: and the Fort Worth Vigilance Committee.

  “‘Vigilance Committee’ is just a polite name for a lynch mob,” Levy said. “I’ve seen the like a few times before in my life.”

  Jess walked past Levy to the cells. The door of the holding cell was flung wide open and his ripped-up mattress and bedding had joined the bacon and beans on the floor.

  He returned to the front of the office and said to Levy, “I’ll help you back to the hotel. You’re still too weak to be out.”

  “What about Zeus?” the little man said.

  “I’ll have words with Mr. Convery.”

  “Jess, I love that boy as though he was my own son,” Levy said. “Find him.”

  “He’s your meal ticket, Nate. You know it and I know it.”

  “You think you’ve got your hand on it, huh?” Levy said. “Well, you’re wrong. I love that big pug and I don’t want any harm to come to him.”

  Jess stood at the window, his mind racing. Where was Zeus? Who had paid Dorothy Mills to lie? Convery? Koenig? Somebody else? Luke Short maybe?

  He had plenty of questions with no answers and now Nate Levy asked him another. “Jess, did you ever find out who paid that Porry McTurk feller to kill you?”

  “I reckoned it was Kurt Koenig,” Jess said. “Or Luke Short.”

  “Koenig does his own killing and so does Luke.”

  “Why are you asking me this?” Jess said.

  “Because maybe it was Convery. He sure doesn’t seem to have any liking for you.”

  “Not liking a man is hardly a reason for killing him,” Jess said.

  Levy said, “It’s been plenty enough reason in the past.”

  “I’ll hear what Convery has to say,” Jess said. “And now you’re going back to bed and I’m confiscating that cigar.”

  “The hell you are,” said Levy. “At my age it’s about the only pleasure I have left.”

  * * *

  Hank Convery’s law office was a converted yellow and gray house with a wide porch and a stone chimney at its gable end. The porch was unfurnished, no chairs or even a potted plant. The house gave off a hostile energy as though visitors were unwelcome. But since Half Acre lawyers like Convery dealt with the dregs of society maybe his clients weren’t encouraged to linger.

  But even more unwelcoming was the broken-nosed bruiser who stepped out the door just as Jess was coming up the steps to the porch.

  “What the hell do you want?” the man said. He had small, tight eyes and his stubbly blue chin was the size and shape of a split cannonball.

  “I’m here to see Convery,” Jess said.

  “Mr. Convery ain’t seeing clients today, so beat it,” the man said.

  When Jess reached the porch, the man towered over him like a massive oak growing next to a willow tree.

  “Give me the road,” Jess said, his anger spiking.

  The big man shot out his hand and grabbed Jess by the throat. He grinned, hoisted him three inches off the ground and shook him like a terrier with a rat.

  “You don’t listen too good, mister,” he said.

  Jess Casey’s mind was in an extremely delicate state and he was not in the mood to suffer bullies gladly. He reached down, skinned his Colt, judged where the man’s left foot would be and fired.

  It was a well-judged shot. A first-rate piece of work.

  The big man roared as the bullet crashed into his foot and neatly severed his pinkie toe and the one next to it.

  Jess left the agonized tough to perform a dervish dance on the porch and stepped through the door into the office. A slim, efficient-looking woman sat behind a desk, an opened register in front of her. Ignoring the recent shot and the animal bellows of the tormented thug on the porch, she said, “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Where is Convery?” Jess said.

  But it seemed that the gunshot and the roaring thug had indeed affected the woman. She quickly said, “The door at the end of the hallway.”

  “Thank you most kindly,” Jess said.

  “You’re quite welcome, sir,” the woman said. Her eyes were cool and gray.

  Jess stomped down the hallway, his spurs ringing his wrath, and kicked in the door. Jess was pleased that the glass panel with HENRY CONVERY, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW picked out in gold paint, shattered into a hundred pieces.

  It was a pity that Convery had chosen the moment of Jess’s dramatic entrance to make his own entrance into the woman who was bent over his desk. His pants around his ankles, the lawyer stood frozen for a moment then made a fast dive for his open desk drawer.

  Jess was aware of the woman fleeing the room as he quickly crossed the floor, slapped away the Colt. 30 caliber belly gun in Convery’s hand and landed a right hook to the man’s chin. Staggered, the lawyer squeezed off a shot into the ceiling before he fell flat on his back and his revolver skittered away from him across the polished floor.

  Jess bent and pulled the man to his feet. Convery had bit his tongue and blood and saliva pooled at the corners of his mouth.

  “Where is he?” Jess said.

  Convery spoke around a painful tongue. “Where is who?”

  “You know who. Where is Zeus?”

  “I don’t know where he is.”

  Jess shook the man. “Damn you, tell me where he is or I’ll beat you until you can’t stand.”

  “All right, all right, I’ll tell you,” Convery said.

  “Where is he?” Jess said.

  “We left him with the mayor. He’s locked up somewhere in City Hall.”

  Beside himself with rage, Jess drew his Colt and shoved the muzzle into Convery’s bloody mouth. “The truth,” he said. He thumbed back the hammer. “Where is he?”

  “I told you the truth,” Convery said, desperation in his eyes. “We knew if we locked up him in your cell you’d free him. So we took him to City Hall.”

  “We? Who’s we?” Jess said.

  “Me . . . me and the Vigilance Committee.”

  “If you’re lying to me, Convery, I’ll come back and kill you.”

  “It’s the truth. I swear it.”

  “Who paid Dorothy Mills to lie about Zeus?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “She said three black men robbed the jewelry store. You know that’s a lie.”

  “It’s the story the girl told the newspaper in the presence of Mayor Stout as a witness,” Convery said. “I was glad to go along with it because her testimony freed my son.”

  “Who paid her to lie? Tell me.”

  “I don’t know. It wasn’t me. Damn you to hell, Casey, and listen to me. I didn’t pay the girl to lie but I’m glad she did.”

  “You’ll stand by and watch an innocent man hang?” Jess said.

  “Hell, he’s only a nigg—”

  Jess Casey’s punch put Convery to sleep and hurt his hand.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Fort Worth’s City Hall was a two-story brick building at 2nd and Rusk. It housed the fire department and there were rumors that a regular police department would be located there sometime within the next ten years.

  Jess Casey knew he didn’t have the authority or the manpower to storm the huge place and conduct a search for Zeus. All he could do now was talk to Mayor Stout and hear what the fat man had to say. He’d probably deny that Zeus was there.

  Jess made the effort and spoke to one of Stout’s aides.

  “No, you can’t talk to the mayor,” the aide said. “He is very busy with city business. Try again tomorrow.”

  When Jess said he had reason to believe Zeus was in the building,
the aide said, “He’s not. Nor are any other of the Greek gods.”

  Jess fought down the urge to punch the man and returned to his office where he spent the day cleaning the cell area and repairing his mattress and bedding.

  * * *

  After an uncomfortable night Jess washed at the pump and strolled along the boardwalk to the restaurant for breakfast. He was on his second cup of coffee and fourth cigarette, waiting for his order of fried steak, six eggs and four biscuits, when the door opened and Dr. Sun stepped into the steamy interior.

  He stopped for a few moments at a table where a pasty-faced man pointed out different parts of his anatomy that were causing him discomfort. Dr. Sun lingered long enough to give the man some hopefully sage advice and they parted with smiles on both sides. The little physician, dressed in a prissy celluloid collar and striped tie, sat at Jess’s table.

  “Coffee, Doc?” Jess said.

  “No, thank you, I just had tea,” Dr. Sun said. He stared into Jess’s eyes for a moment then said, “I treated a patient yesterday who had just lost two of his phalanges and I harbor serious doubts about a third.”

  “Phalanges?”

  “Toes. He told me the sheriff shot them off and that his lawyer—”

  “Hank Convery,” Jess said.

  “Plans to sue you and the city for damages.”

  “He was notified,” Jess said. “But he refused to cease and desist, as my law book says.”

  “You were trying to find Zeus?” Dr. Sun said.

  “Convery says he’s locked up in City Hall somewhere. He’s in danger and I’ll find him.”

  The physician shook his head. “He who is drowned is not troubled by the rain.”

  “What does that mean?” Jess said.

  “It means that the fate of Zeus has already been settled. He is a dead man.”

  “You heard something?” Jess said, his shocked face expressing his concern.