Part 2 (1/2)
”Wait a minute,” O'Conner said, eyes narrowed, head c.o.c.ked to the side. ”Hold on. You told Doc Holliday that what he said was absurd?”
”Well, I could hardly let him get away with that, could I? I mean, one has only to place their poems side by side to see-”
O'Conner was frowning. ”How come I'm having a hard time believing all this?”
”Your innate skepticism, perhaps. You've only to ask Dr. Holliday.” Oscar smiled. ”I'm sure he'll verify what I've said.”
O'Conner looked at him for a moment and then he grinned. ”You're good, Wilde. I've gotta hand it to you. You're good. And whatever else happened, there's no denying that you had a drink with Doc Holliday.”
”Or that he,” said Oscar, ”had a drink with Oscar Wilde.”
From the Grigsby Archives.
February 25, 1882.
DEAR BOB,.
How are you, you old b.a.s.t.a.r.d?
We been busy here in El Paso. We had a killing here night before last, one of the local hookers. Susie Morris, maybe you remember her, the redhead with the big honkers worked at Sadies place. Come to think, I believe you had her once yourself-that time you was here to pick up Sid Carver & we spent all of Sat.u.r.day night & most of Sunday at Sadie's? I never drunk so much rotgut whiskey or dipped my wick so many times ever in my life. Its a wonder the two of us are still alive. Anyway, Susie isnt, shes dead as a doornail.
I never seen anything like it before. I still get sick just thinking about it, & you know how I got a pretty strong stomach. He used a knife on her, whoever it was did it. Doc Amundson figures on account of the blood that he cut her throat first & thats what killed her, but then its like he went crazy. He took a knife to her innards, filleted her like a catfish, & tossed everything out onto the ground. All her parts, I mean. Well, not all of them, because according to Doc, he walked off with her privates. Just cut them out & maybe stuck them in his pocket & sashayed out of there. This was in the alley around the corner from Sadie's place, by Buchanon's livery stable.
Did you ever hear of such a thing?
We dont got no idea at all who done it. Probably it was some hopped-up Mexican from across the river, which means well never get him. Makes me madder than h.e.l.l that some loco b.a.s.t.a.r.d could do that to poor Susie & get away with it. I been in this law & order business too long, maybe.
Your friend Doc Holliday is in town this week, gambling over to the Longbranch. I had me a talk with him, warned him I didnt want no trouble, & he just nodded & looked right through me with them funny black eyes of his. He is one spooky son of a b.i.t.c.h, Bob. I wont be sorry to see him leave, Ill tell you.
We had another famous visitor this week, that English poetry fellow, Oscar Wilde. Maybe you heard of him. He gave a lecture on art at Hammersmiths. I didnt go myself, but Connie did, & she says he was smart as a whip. I met him at the Mayor's house & he looks like a pansy-boy to me, if you want the truth. He acts like one too, very lah di dah. But hes sure a big one-must be six foot four or five. I reckon pansy-boys can come in just about any size, though.
Well, time for me to mosey on. You take care of yourself. When are you heading down this way again? You let me & Connie know & well fix up the spare room. (Ill let Sadie know too, so she can warn the girls!) Are you writing to Clara these days? If you are, you send her our love & tell her from me & Connie that we hope the two of you can work things out & get yourselves back together. Youre too old & ornery to be on your own.
Sincerely, Earl.
INSIDE THE NARROW HORSE-DRAWN CARRIAGE, swaying an irritating beat or two behind the sway of the carriage itself, beginning to feel like a strand of seaweed tugged left and right by the rhythms of a relentless tide, Oscar Wilde was displeased.
”Look, Vail,” he said, ”couldn't we just give all this a miss? There must be some more engaging way to pa.s.s the time. Peeling an orange, say.”
”Peeling an orange,” repeated Vail, and chuckled. In the dimness, magically, he would slowly disappear and then slowly reappear as bars of light, cast through the carriage windows by the streetlamps, slid obliquely across the interior. Business manager for the tour, he was a squat plump man who spoke in hearty gusts through snow-white dentures clenched around a squat plump, and now unlighted, cigar. His head was round and lumpy and it was topped with a gray toupee, flat and s.h.i.+ny and seamless, which curled upward at the sides and back, making it resemble a halibut in rigor mortis. At the moment, fortunately, this was entombed beneath a squat plump derby hat. ”You kill me, Oscar. You really do. You think these things up ahead of time, or do they just come to you?”
”Henry invents them for me. He writes them down on my cuff.”
”'On your cuff,'” Vail repeated, and chuckled again. ”'Henry invents them.'” He shook his head in admiration. ”You kill me.”
”I mean, is this visit really necessary?” Oscar asked. The carriage swayed again, bypa.s.sing some obstacle in the road. A cadaver, no doubt. Another gunfight victim.
”You handle the Art, Oscar boy, and you let me handle the business. This Tabor guy is the big cheese around here. Richest guy in the state. Used to be lieutenant governor. Won't hurt to b.u.t.ter him up some.”
Oscar nodded. ”Now there's an image to conjure with. A lieutenant governor dripping b.u.t.ter, like a scone.”
”Not Left-tenant,” Vail said. ”Loo-tenant.”
”According to O'Conner,” Oscar said, ”he was never elected to office. Some other fellow died and this Tabor bribed his way into the post.”
Vail shrugged. ”A lieutenant governor's a lieutenant governor. Listen, Oscar boy, you got a real future on the circuit. You could go a long way. I mean it. You got cla.s.s, you got wit. The way you wrap these yokels around your little finger, that's a real talent you got. So this guy wants to shoot the breeze with the famous poet. What's the problem? A little shoulder-rubbing never hurt anybody, right? You give him a couple minutes, you keep him happy. No big deal.”
Oscar smiled. ”I appear to be dripping some b.u.t.ter myself.”
”Hey, I mean it. Sincerely.” A pale rectangle of light glided over and illuminated a pair of eyebrows knotted sincerely together below the derby's brim.
Oscar said, ”There's a name, you know, for the sort of person who makes someone happy for a few minutes in exchange for cash.”
His sincerity evidently spent, Vail was looking out the window at the houses slipping past in the night. ”Yeah? What's that?”
”Business manager.”
Vail looked at him, blinked, and then chuckled. ”You kill me, Oscar.”
”How, exactly, do I address him?”
”Huh?”
”Tabor. What do I call him? Lieutenant?”
”You call him Governor.”
”Bit of a misnomer, isn't it? He was never actually a governor, and he was only the lieutenant thing for a few months.”
Vail shrugged. ”Respect for the office.” He sat back and clasped his hands together atop his round stomach.
”Why not Your Highness? Or Your Majesty?”
Vail considered this for a moment. ”Nah,” he said finally. ”That's overdoing it some.”
Oscar laughed.
It was a genuine liveried butler, the first Oscar had seen since London, who opened the front door to Tabor's huge brick sprawl of a mansion. Tall and thin, middle-aged, he stood with stiff, typically butlerian arrogance; but when he spoke-”Yes, gentlemen?”-it was with the nasal tw.a.n.g of an American, and Oscar very nearly giggled.
Vail took the cigar from his mouth. ”Jack Vail and Oscar Wilde, the poet, to see Mr. Tabor.”
”Yes. Mr. Tabor is expecting you. May I take your coats?”
”Long as we can get them back,” said Vail, and chuckled around his cigar. His elbow thumped merrily into Oscar's liver; he wasn't tall enough to reach Oscar's ribs.
At Vail's remark, the butler produced a smile whose wan politeness managed to convey bottomless depths of contempt; no British butler could have done it better. Vail, naturally, never noticed. He handed the man his topcoat, as did Oscar, and the butler draped them on a towering rack that could easily have held the coats of the entire House of Commons. Vail gave the man his derby; in the lamplight his toupee shone with a soft piscatorial glow.
As they followed the butler down the hallway, Oscar leaned to Vail and whispered, ”Poet isn't a tradesman's t.i.tle, you know, like plumber.”
”It pays to advertise,” said Vail from the side of his mouth.