A Disgrace to the Badge Read online

  A DISGRACE TO THE BADGE

  AND OTHER WESTERN STORIES

  Ed Gorman

  A Disgrace to the Badge and Other Western Stories by Ed Gorman

  Copyright © 2013 by Ed Gorman

  Cover Design L. J. Washburn

  Rough Edges Press

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This collection is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used in a fictional manner. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  "A Disgrace to the Badge" copyright © 2002 by Ed Gorman. First published in Boot Hill

  "Killer in the Dark" copyright © 2003 by Ed Gorman. First published in Stagecoach

  "A Good Start" copyright © 2003 by Ed Gorman. First published in Black Hats

  "A Small and Private War" copyright © 2002 by Ed Gorman. First published in The Blue and the Gray Undercover

  "Love and Trooper Monroe." Copyright © 1992 by Ed Gorman.

  "Deathman." Copyright © 1992 by Ed Gorman.

  "On Roy Rogers." Copyright © 1986 by Ed Gorman. First published in Mystery Scene.

  Contents

  A Disgrace to the Badge

  Killer in the Dark

  A Good Start

  A Small and Private War

  Love and Trooper Monroe

  Deathman

  On Roy Rogers

  A Disgrace to the Badge

  HERE LIES MICHAEL JAMES BRADY ONLY THE LORD IS PERFECTION

  Around ten o'clock, Deputy Jack Corey heard the scraping on the back of the jailhouse wall and knew he had a visitor.

  Johnny Hayden was bringing provisions to his drinking partner Mike Brady. The provisions would be a pint of bourbon to get Brady through the night in his cell, the same cell Corey had tossed him into an hour ago. Happened every time Brady visited the jail, which was frequently. Brady was the town bully, a mean, reckless drunk who would, everybody knew, kill somebody someday. But his father was a powerful merchant and so about the worst punishment anybody was willing to inflict on him was a night rolling around in the vomit and piss of cell two, where the drunks stayed.

  Couple things about this particular night.

  One being that Jack Corey was a little old to be a night deputy. Night deputies were usually strapping youngsters eager to break a few knuckles on the faces of such men as Mike Brady. But Corey was none of these things. He was a worn forty-one-year-old man who'd known nothing but law his entire working life. And most of his working life he'd also known, all too well, the bottle. Which accounted for him working in so many towns. Till the bottle got him fired. At his age, this was his last chance. And as of tonight, he'd failed it. Twenty-eight days dry, he'd been, on this new job in Dodge. Then tonight he stole a pint from a rummy in an alley and drank the quarter-inch or so that remained. This was around eight. Right now, he shook pretty bad. You know the way some folks wait for the cavalry to appear on the hill and come to their rescue? Well, Jack Corey was waiting for a whiskey bottle to come strutting in the door and come to his rescue.

  The second thing was his concern that the town marshal would pay him a surprise visit. He'd done that a couple times. He knew all about Corey's bottle problem and so he kind of spot-checked him. The town marshal and his wife would be at the opera house or maybe a barn dance or maybe just out enjoying the spring weather—and then all of a sudden, there they'd be. The wife would always bring Corey a pastry or piece of bread slathered with jam, something that would make the visit seem social. But Corey knew why they popped in. They were testing him. And tonight he would fail the test. Sure as hell they'd smell the liquor on him— the marshal had a nose a hunting dog would envy—and then what would happen to forty-one-year-old Jack Corey?

  He was grateful for the distraction Johnny Hayden gave him. He raised himself from his desk chair, touched his holstered Colt .45 as if to make sure it hadn't run off and left him the way his wife had that time, and then he went out into the sweet chill spring night.

  You couldn't give Hayden any points for being subtle. From somewhere he'd borrowed a ladder, which now leaned against the wall next to the open barred window three-quarters of the way up.

  "Evening, Johnny."

  Another man might have jerked around, scared, when he heard the deputy approaching him. Not Hayden. Hayden was secure in knowing that just about whatever kind of trouble he got in, old man Brady could and would get him out of. Hayden was young Brady's keeper and had been since they'd gone to grade school together. It was, from the outside, a curious relationship. Mike Brady humiliated Hayden every chance he got. He had knocked him out, spat on him, stolen various girlfriends, called him unforgivable names—and Hayden stuck by him. But Hayden was being paid a healthy stipend every month to keep Brady in check. Hayden always pulled Brady back from the kind of disaster not even the old man could fix. Without his watchdog Hayden, Brady would have been hanged long, long ago. Not a week went by that Brady wasn't suspected of some kind of trouble, often enough hanging kind of trouble.

  "Evening, Deputy," Hayden said. He was a strong, beefy man given to dark suits and gentlemanly manners. He had a solemn face except for a certain irony in the dark gaze, a weary acceptance of all things human. "I assume you know what I'm doing, Deputy."

  "He doesn't need any more tonight."

  "But he's asked for it. And that means I've got to give it to him."

  He started down the ladder and reached the dirt.

  "In fact, I've already given it to him."

  "Yeah, how d'ya like that, you bastard?" Brady shouted from inside.

  Hayden took the stepladder down. "The livery let me borrow it. I need to get it back to them."

  They started walking to the street. Hayden carried the ladder.

  "You ever get tired of waiting on him?"

  Hayden smiled. "You really expect me to answer that?"

  "Smart man like you, you could get yourself a good job."

  "Smart but lazy, I'm afraid."

  "Oh?"

  "My folks are shirttail kin to the Bradys. They were always nice to us. I got used to their kind of high life. On my own, I couldn't live anywhere near so well. But I've got my own little apartment in their barn out on the estate and a hell of a nice monthly wage. And I don't want to give it up.

  "You don't want a wife?"

  "I'm twenty-three. Plenty of time for that."

  Corey looked up and down the street of false-fronts. Just about everything you wanted to find you could find in Dodge. Daytime, for the legitimate things a feller wanted. Nighttime, for the things a feller didn't necessarily want to talk about. There had been a time when Corey had loved the sounds and scents and heady alcoholic feelings of night-time, the laughter of whores mixing with the snappy rhythms of the player piano and the bawdy fun of the banjo. But there'd always been a wife to go home to in those days, after he was done drinking and whoring. But then one day she wasn't there and she was never there again and something terrible had happened inside of Corey then—his heart had been cut out by his own hand—and it was still terrible and it would always be terrible. And he couldn't even tell you for sure what it was. Just that it changed then and the bottle problems started and he wasn't the same old Corey anymore. Not at all.

  "I should take that pint from him."

  "Who said anything about a pint?" Hayden said. "I brought him a fifth." He laughed. "You think a Brady would settle for a pint?"
/>
  "He'll be some fun tonight. A whole fifth."

  "He can get pretty abusive." He sure can.

  "But at least you got him locked up."

  "Yeah, and his old man's gonna be all over the marshal tomorrow about how hard I hit him. But he was strangling that gambler pretty good. A minute or so more, he would've killed him."

  "You're right. The marshal's going to hear about it from Frank Brady himself. But hell, he won't put up much of a stink."

  "He won't?"

  Hayden leaned close, as if confiding a secret. "He'll raise some hell to keep Mike off his back. But old Frank knows how Mike is. And he's sick of it. Sick of paying out money to all the people Mike beats up. And paying for all the saloons Mike smashes up. And always having people snicker about Mike behind Frank's back. Snicker and hate him. Mike's wife is sick of it, too."

  Mike Brady's wife. A sullen rich girl named Debra who would be even richer when the old man died and Mike came into the entire estate.

  "She's tired of him whoring," Hayden said. "Breaking up saloons and things like that, she doesn't mind. But the whoring—she sees that as a reflection on herself. That she isn't woman enough to hold him."

  "Sounds like you've got a real nice groups of folks out at the mansion."

  Hayden smiled again. "Like I said, Deputy, I sleep in an apartment over the barn. It's a very nice place. I don't have to be around any of them."

  Then he was off, carrying his ladder down the street.

  Brady, tonight's only prisoner thus far, started in as soon as Corey got back to his office.

  Another half hour, Corey would make his rounds again. There might be a few drunks but mostly there'd be merchant doors to check, that would be about as eventful as the evening would likely get.

  Brady gave him the full show. Sang dirty songs off-key. Called him names. Threatened to kill him. Dared him to come back there and fight like a man. He puked a couple of times. He was a skilled puker, knew how to clean himself out so he could keep going for another round. They had a Mexican wash out the four cells in the mornings. They paid him a good wage to do so.

  Corey had his own concerns. He kept thinking about that fifth Hayden had brought Brady. The fountain of youth, that bottle was—or the illusion of youth anyway. When you felt better physically and didn't have the burden of your grief and remorse and when it was easy to imagine pretty gals swooning over you and fierce men running away in shamed fear.

  So many things in a bottle like that. Music. And sweet memories. And hope. And dreams.

  And maybe—best of all—not giving a shit. Not having any gnawing fear that you'd lose a job or that somebody had called you a name or that you'd do something foolish and embarrass yourself.

  Not giving a shit. That was the ultimate blessing a bottle like that could bestow on you.

  He went back there just before he made his rounds. He felt better. It was nearly midnight. The marshal and his wife wouldn't be popping in tonight. Too late. The marshal was a man of strict and stringent habit. Up at five A.M. every morning. In bed every night before eleven.

  The cells smelled like a cesspool thanks to Mr. Brady here.

  Brady, a scrappy tow-head, said, "You come in this cell with me, Deputy. Leave your badge and your gun out there and we'll fight like men."

  "Why don't you shut up and go to sleep?"

  Brady preferred light-colored suits and frilly shirts. Gambler's attire. He was handsome in a sullen way but the booze was starting to rob his face of its lines. Puffy, he was. Twenty-three and puffy as a thirty-year-old who'd been boozing since his teens.

  Doubtful he'd be wearing this suit again. It'd gotten torn in his dust-up with the gambler. And blood had streamed down the back of his head and trickled in crusty ribbons down the silk rear of his vest. The crusted puke all over his shirt didn't exactly help, either.

  And then Corey saw the bottle.

  Must be a slow night for the kid, Corey thought. Most nights he would've put half of it away by now.

  For there—a vision almost celestial in its splendor—there on the floor next to the cot on the right-hand side of cell two—there was the fifth that Hayden had brought Brady.

  The bottle was nearly full.

  "C'mon," Brady said, putting up his fists like a prizefighter, and describing a semicircle with his clumsy feet. "C'mon in here and I'll kick the living shit right out of you!"

  But Corey had eyes only for the bottle. Brady was mere unintelligible babble in the background.

  "I'm gonna take that bottle from you," Corey said.

  "Yeah. You just try. You think I don't know why you want it? You're a rummy and everybody knows it. That's why you want it!"

  Corey couldn't stop himself. He was beyond the point of trying. His entire consciousness, his entire existence was focused on that bottle. He'd do what he needed to to get it.

  He drew his Colt.

  He put his key in the cell lock.

  "I want that bottle of yours, Brady."

  Drunk as he was, Brady could still understand what the deputy was all about.

  He hugged the bottle protectively to his chest, the way he'd hold an infant, and grinned. "This is mine, all mine, Deputy. And you can't have it." The more he teased, the louder his voice got.

  "I said I want that bottle. I'm taking it from you because you don't need any more to drink."

  Brady smirked. "Sure you are, Deputy. And I'll bet you wouldn't even think of taking a drink of it, would you?"

  "Give it to me."

  He put his hand out.

  Brady got even sillier, hugged it tighter and tighter, and started to rock it back and forth. "Poor little bottle. Poor little lonely bottle." Eyes watching the deputy all the time he was doing this. Knowing just how his mocking little show here was making Corey even crazier.

  This time when Corey put his hand out, he saw that it was trembling. His mouth was raw with dryness. He could taste the liquor on his tongue; he could feel the mercy—I don't give a shit anymore, you can't hurt me and I can't hurt myself anymore, and I don't give a damn if I'm a falling-down drunk or not—the mercy the mercy the mercy—he could feel the mercy the golden bottle would bestow upon him.

  And then, giggling, enjoying the holy hell out of himself, Brady took the bottle and tossed it up into the filthy air of the cell.

  "No!" Corey cried, picturing drunken Brady missing the bottle as it fell back to him.

  But he didn't miss.

  "That was a close one, wasn't it, Deputy? That sonofabitch coulda splattered all over the floor!"

  Giggling all the while.

  "You give that bottle here," Corey said, moving toward the man.

  "You take one more step, Deputy, and I'm gonna smash this bottle against that wall back there. And you won't be able to stop me."

  "You give it here."

  So dry; so desperate.

  Corey started to reach for it.

  Brady took it by the neck and arched the bottle so that it was only inches from the wall. He hadn't been exaggerating. He could easily smash the bottle before Corey could stop him.

  "Ummmm," Brady said. "Bet you can taste that liquor in your gut now, can't you, Deputy? And this is good stuff. Not like that mule piss you drink. This here's the brand my old man drinks. And he drinks only the best, believe me."

  He made the mistake of falling in love with his words, Brady did. That's what gave helpless Corey the sudden advantage. Here's Brady thespianizing like some traveling-show ham and having such a good time at it that he didn't pay attention to business—said business being, at the moment, keeping himself and his bottle out of the clutches of the deputy.

  Corey actually hit him a lot harder than he intended, too. It didn't take much to knock out a man as drunk as Brady was. But Corey kind've stumbled into the punch, pushing it sort of like, pushing it farther and faster than he meant to.

  Two things happened at once.

  The bottle went flying up in the air. And Brady's head ricocheted off the wall in
a way that turned Corey's stomach. The kind of glancing ricochet that could permanently cripple or even kill a man. Corey had seen it happen.

  The bottle—

  The bottle was just now descending. Corey pitched his drawn .45 to the cot and lunged to position himself beneath the tumbling, falling bottle.

  For now, there was no concern about Brady. The world—the universe—could be found, sum and substance, in the sweet succor of the bottle's mahogany-colored elixir.

  He caught it.

  And just as he caught it, Brady started his struggle to his feet.

  Thank God.

  The bottle safe in his hands now, he could appreciate the trouble he'd have been in if Brady had been seriously hurt.

  Brady put a hand to the side of his head and said, "What the hell happened?"

  Corey had seen this before, too.

  A blow on the head knocking some of the drunkenness out of a man.

  "You don't remember?"

  Before he could answer, Brady puked again.

  Corey said, "I'm gonna get you a cup of coffee."

  He was back in two minutes with a cup of boiling java. He slid it through the rectangle in the cell door. "Shit's hot. Be careful."

  "You sonofabitch," Brady said. An offer of coffee hadn't made him any sweeter. "You're gonna be damned sorry you roughed me up."

  "I didn't rough you up. You hit your head when I slugged you. And I slugged you because you wouldn't turn over the bottle Hayden brought you."

  Brady glared at the bottle in Corey's hand. "I figured that was mine. You can bet your ass I'm gonna tell the marshal you took it from me."

  Brady was on the edge of many things—still drunk but getting sober in the worst sort of way, sick to his stomach and the possessor of a large knob on the side of his head, said knob radiating pain throughout his skull. And confused of memory and barbed-wire pissed about being pushed around by a rummy deputy.

  But Corey was fully sick of Brady by now.

  The way Corey saw it was, he'd take the bottle up front to his desk and have himself a good strong one. One. That was all. Then he'd go make his rounds and then, if he was of a mind, he'd take another one. One. He'd wrap the bottle in his coat and take it home when his shift ended next morning and if the marshal complained about Brady's bottle being stolen, he'd just say, He was so drunk he don't know what he was talking about, Marshal. And the marshal would most likely believe him.