Read Online Black Hats by Patrick Culhane - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Patrick Culhane
Tags: Fiction, Historical fiction, General, Suspense, Historical, Mystery & Detective, Crime, Private Investigators, Detective and Mystery Stories, Mystery Fiction, New York (N.Y.), Los Angeles (Calif.), organized crime, Adventure fiction, Gangsters - New York (State) - New York, Mafia - New York (State) - New York, Private Investigators - New York (State) - New York, Earp; Wyatt, Capone; Al
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shoulders on the medium frame. No typewriter for those gunfighter’s hands: Bat was working with pen and ink, scratching away at foolscap.
Wyatt knocked on a sliver of woodframe, rattling the window that said sports editor but lacked Bat’s name, and Bat swiveled on his chair and the familiar light-blue eyes widened under the thick slashes of dark eyebrow.
From the start they’d been dissimilar in appearance—Wyatt tall and slim, Bat a good four or five inches shorter with a broad chest and compactly muscular. When they’d met in the buffalo camps in ’72, Wyatt was at twenty-four an old hand at frontier life, Bat at seventeen a greenhorn.
But not enough years could pass to prevent Wyatt recognizing those blue-gray eyes—intelligent, perceptive, sharp and, when called for, cold. He recognized them because he had them, too. Doc had once commented on the effect the two “spooky-eyed lawmen” could have, side by side, upon some “poor pitiful miscreant.”
In his shirtsleeves, a dark brown Windsor-knot tie loose around his collar, and crisp-creased light brown trousers (a matching coat hung with a black flat-topped derby on a coat tree), Bat was out of his chair like a man shot out of a cannon. He ushered Wyatt in, shaking his hand pump-handle-style and guiding him to a leather-cushioned couch under the row of windows, putting the city room to his guest’s back. Hands on his hips, Bat grinned and shook his head and chuckled, as he appraised his old friend.
“Wyatt,” Bat said, “you just don’t change—your hair goes white, and that’s about the sum total. I know it sure as hell isn’t clean living!”
Bat, considering he was in his late sixties, hadn’t changed much, either—a slight paunch and his hair was more salt than pepper, and the trim mustache was gone. But even now Bat had a snub-nosed, dimple-chinned boyish quality.
“Bartholomew,” Wyatt said, “you look well-fed.”
Half a smile dimpled a cheek as plump and rosy as a baby’s. The wordsmith seemed to appreciate the layered insult expressed so succinctly, starting with Bat despising his given name “Bartholomew” and having long ago affected “William Barclay” Masterson.
Bat drew his swivel chair up and sat facing Wyatt with hands on knees and both sides of the smile going, now. “If you’re implying I’ve gone to seed, I’ll have you know I cleaned the clock of a younger man just last week, in the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria.”
“I was thinking more along the lines you’d got fat. Who was this crippled youth?”
Bat drew a package of Lucky Strikes from his breast pocket, did not bother offering a cigarette to Wyatt, knowing his friend smoked only cigars, and lighted up. “Remember Colonel Dick Plunkett? Arrested Ed O’Kelly in Crede for killing Bob Ford?”
“I remember him. I don’t remember him being a colonel.”
Bat let out a smoke-exhale laugh. “He was just another deputy. Deputies were a dime a dozen in those days.”
“Yeah, and we were two of ’em. Only this Plunkett’s surely no youngster.”
“No, but he was in the company of a cocky young editor from some Texas paper or other, feller setting up interviews. The two were telling every reporter in town except yours truly, of course, that Bat Masterson was a fraud and a fake and a phony and held in low opinion by real Westerners.”
“A shame,” Wyatt said.
Bat shifted in the swivel chair. “I believe the point was to get Plunkett enough publicity to land himself a spot in a Wild West Show. Which is a fine place for a broken-down nobody like Plunkett and I would not begrudge him—but making a goat out of me to get himself some glory? Would I put up with that?”
“Likely not.”
“Anyway, Plunkett was carrying this old six-shooter with him, and you know, I still carry a marshal’s badge in the state of New York, Teddy Roosevelt arranged it some years ago…it’s mostly honorary now, but as I say, I showed the ‘Colonel’ the badge and
Wyatt knocked on a sliver of woodframe, rattling the window that said sports editor but lacked Bat’s name, and Bat swiveled on his chair and the familiar light-blue eyes widened under the thick slashes of dark eyebrow.
From the start they’d been dissimilar in appearance—Wyatt tall and slim, Bat a good four or five inches shorter with a broad chest and compactly muscular. When they’d met in the buffalo camps in ’72, Wyatt was at twenty-four an old hand at frontier life, Bat at seventeen a greenhorn.
But not enough years could pass to prevent Wyatt recognizing those blue-gray eyes—intelligent, perceptive, sharp and, when called for, cold. He recognized them because he had them, too. Doc had once commented on the effect the two “spooky-eyed lawmen” could have, side by side, upon some “poor pitiful miscreant.”
In his shirtsleeves, a dark brown Windsor-knot tie loose around his collar, and crisp-creased light brown trousers (a matching coat hung with a black flat-topped derby on a coat tree), Bat was out of his chair like a man shot out of a cannon. He ushered Wyatt in, shaking his hand pump-handle-style and guiding him to a leather-cushioned couch under the row of windows, putting the city room to his guest’s back. Hands on his hips, Bat grinned and shook his head and chuckled, as he appraised his old friend.
“Wyatt,” Bat said, “you just don’t change—your hair goes white, and that’s about the sum total. I know it sure as hell isn’t clean living!”
Bat, considering he was in his late sixties, hadn’t changed much, either—a slight paunch and his hair was more salt than pepper, and the trim mustache was gone. But even now Bat had a snub-nosed, dimple-chinned boyish quality.
“Bartholomew,” Wyatt said, “you look well-fed.”
Half a smile dimpled a cheek as plump and rosy as a baby’s. The wordsmith seemed to appreciate the layered insult expressed so succinctly, starting with Bat despising his given name “Bartholomew” and having long ago affected “William Barclay” Masterson.
Bat drew his swivel chair up and sat facing Wyatt with hands on knees and both sides of the smile going, now. “If you’re implying I’ve gone to seed, I’ll have you know I cleaned the clock of a younger man just last week, in the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria.”
“I was thinking more along the lines you’d got fat. Who was this crippled youth?”
Bat drew a package of Lucky Strikes from his breast pocket, did not bother offering a cigarette to Wyatt, knowing his friend smoked only cigars, and lighted up. “Remember Colonel Dick Plunkett? Arrested Ed O’Kelly in Crede for killing Bob Ford?”
“I remember him. I don’t remember him being a colonel.”
Bat let out a smoke-exhale laugh. “He was just another deputy. Deputies were a dime a dozen in those days.”
“Yeah, and we were two of ’em. Only this Plunkett’s surely no youngster.”
“No, but he was in the company of a cocky young editor from some Texas paper or other, feller setting up interviews. The two were telling every reporter in town except yours truly, of course, that Bat Masterson was a fraud and a fake and a phony and held in low opinion by real Westerners.”
“A shame,” Wyatt said.
Bat shifted in the swivel chair. “I believe the point was to get Plunkett enough publicity to land himself a spot in a Wild West Show. Which is a fine place for a broken-down nobody like Plunkett and I would not begrudge him—but making a goat out of me to get himself some glory? Would I put up with that?”
“Likely not.”
“Anyway, Plunkett was carrying this old six-shooter with him, and you know, I still carry a marshal’s badge in the state of New York, Teddy Roosevelt arranged it some years ago…it’s mostly honorary now, but as I say, I showed the ‘Colonel’ the badge and
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