Part 13 (2/2)

”Yeah, well, sure. But a soldier, wouldn't he use a gun instead?”

”Depends.”

Vail shook his head. ”Nah. Not von Hesse. All you got to do is talk to the guy and you'll see what I mean.”

”What about this fella Rudd.i.c.k?”

Vail hesitated. For an instant, his eyes went shrewd-and then, all at once, they became innocent and open. It was the same swift change of expression that Grigsby had seen in bad poker players when they picked up a pat hand.

”Well now, Marshal,” said Vail. ”You ask me about Rudd.i.c.k. Now naturally I don't think he could of done these terrible things you're talking about. And naturally I don't want to say anything bad about the guy. I mean, live and let live, that's my motto. But I got to admit that Rudd.i.c.k, he's a strange one.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. ”Just between you and me, I think he's kind of a swish. A nance.”

Grigsby nodded. ”And that's how come he's traveling with Wilde? The two of them together?”

Vail frowned. ”What?” He sat back suddenly and he laughed. ”You think Oscar's a swish?” He laughed again. ”Nah. That's just part of the act. It fooled me too, the first time. I thought, jeez, whatta we got here? What kinda pansy-pants is this guy? But you should see him with the women, Marshal. They eat that stuff up. They're crawling all over him, like snails on a tomato. And Oscar, I'm telling you, he loves it.” He leaned forward confidentially again. ”The fact is, I happen to know personally that Oscar gets more beaver than John Jacob Astor.”

Grigsby frowned. The idea offended him. Not because it meant he was wrong about Wilde. (Wilde was a nance, whatever Vail said.) But because it suggested that he was wrong about women. Grigsby would bet his life savings-not much of a wager, admittedly-that real women didn't go for the lah-di-dah sissy types. Society women, maybe. All stiff and dried up, like last year's roses. Smelling of dust and talc.u.m powder. Them, maybe. And them, Wilde was welcome to.

But not real women.

He said, ”So you figure I oughta talk to Rudd.i.c.k?”

Vail held up a hand. ”Don't get me wrong. Like I say, hear no evil, speak no evil. All I'm telling you, he's a strange one.”

Grigsby nodded. ”What about this Countess?”

Vail lowered his head skeptically, multiplying his chins. ”Hey. Come on. You don't think a woman could of done that?”

Grigsby shook his head. ”She's travelin' along with the rest of you. Maybe she saw somethin'.”

Vail pursed his lips. ”Well. Maybe. But lookit, Marshal, if you talk to her, could you do me a personal favor and break it to her gentle like? I mean, she's a real lady. A real aristocrat. She's not used to all this kinda stuff.”

Who was? Grigsby wondered. ”She's travelin' with von Hesse?”

”Yeah, sure,” said Vail, ”but nothing like you think. He's her escort, like. They're friends, is all.”

Grigsby nodded. For the first time, he found to his surprise that he was almost liking Vail. At least the little man tried to look out for this Countess of his. ”How's she get along with Wilde?”

”They're friends. Really, Marshal, she's not that kind. She's a real lady.”

Vail reached into his vest pocket, pulled out a gold watch. ”I don't wanna rush you, Marshal-like I say, I'm happy to help out any way I can. But is that it, pretty much? I mean, there's some things I got to take care of.”

”I need a list of all the places where Wilde gave his talks. Since he left New York.”

”Sure,” said Vail. ”No problem.”

HANDS IN THE POCKETS of his overcoat, lips puckered, Oscar pondered his way down the wooden sidewalk of Main Street. He had been unable to remain in his room. After Grigsby's visit, the place had become abruptly smaller; he had felt hemmed in, oppressed. Quickly, ignoring the bright filaments of pain that trembled and twitched against the inside of his skull, he had done his toilet and dressed himself. In basic black, as seemed fitting-although, having no suitably somber topcoat, he had been obliged to wear the ankle-length green velvet coat he had brought from London. Its collar and cuffs, at least, were black.

What he had wanted to do, still wanted to do, was trot off to Elizabeth McCourt Doe. His strange, traitorous doubts had vanished. The dull vacuum he had discovered within himself when he awoke-this had suddenly been filled, swollen, by an almost overwhelming need.

But she might not be at the mansion. Or Tabor might be. And so might the servants ...

And so Oscar was, once again, alone.

Curious how aloneness could remember only itself. The easy, commonplace joys of friends.h.i.+p, the wild joys of love: it could recall none of these. One felt, experiencing it, as though aloneness were the fundamental reality; as though the rest were mere illusions.

He looked around him.

Within the few minutes since he left the hotel, the sun had vanished. The sky now was overcast, crowded with gray brooding clouds so close to the earth that they seemed to sc.r.a.pe along the rooftops of the bleak brick buildings.

Appropriate. Nature mirroring a state of mind. The clouds a reflection of the clouds that lay over his tour. Over his life.

He walked on, looking down again at the sidewalk, oblivious to the pa.s.sersby.

Four women killed. Mutilated. What kind of madman could do that?

Grigsby was wrong. He must be wrong. Impossible that one of the others could be responsible. A madness so extreme, a madness so patent, surely by now it should have revealed itself in a word, a glance, a gesture?

”Ah, Mr. Wilde.”

Oscar stopped, looked up from the gray wooden slats at his feet.

Colonel von Hesse stood before him, as military as ever in a long gray topcoat and sharply pressed gray slacks. Under his left arm, holding it at an angle of forty-five degrees from the horizontal, he carried a large book with a worn brown leather cover.

”What excellent luck,” said von Hesse. ”I was hoping to meet with you. Tell me, how would you translate the word abgeschiedenheit?”

Oscar frowned. ”I beg your pardon?”

”Abgeschiedenheit. You would translate it how?”

Translating from the German was perhaps the last thing Oscar wished to do at the moment. But the good Herr von Hesse was, as always, so relentlessly earnest that Oscar found it difficult to dismiss him. (He had often suspected that this earnestness was something that good people relied upon, in much the way that beggars relied upon their rags.) ”Detachment, I should say. As in a dwelling. Isolation. Separateness.”

”Ah,” said von Hesse, nodding. ”In the spatial sense, yes? I would translate it in this manner also. But Eckhart, you see”-he tapped the book with the forefinger of his right hand-”uses the word in quite a different manner. I should translate his use of it as meaning disinterest. He puts it into the psychological, eh? And it is fascinating, I find, that he ranks this abgeschiedenheit higher even than love in the scales of virtues. The highest of all, he ranks it, in terms of approaching to G.o.d.”

Oscar decided that the two of them could discuss G.o.d some other time. ”Look, Herr von Hesse, obviously you haven't heard about these murders.”

Von Hesse blinked, startled. ”What? Murders?”

Oscar glanced around, suddenly realized that the sidewalk was crowded with people. He took von Hesse by the arm. In German he said, ”Come along. I'll explain.”

”But this is horrible,” said von Hesse.

The two of them sat over cups of muddy coffee at a corner table in a small gray restaurant (EATS, the sign outside had grimly promised). The floor here, like the floors of most of the saloons and cafes in Denver, was ankle-deep in sawdust. Only two of the remaining five tables were occupied: one by an elderly man drooped inside a limp black suit, the other by a pair of grizzled, dour, and spectacularly dusty cowboys.

”Yes,” said Oscar, ”but perhaps the most distressing aspect is that this Grigsby is firmly persuaded that one of us is responsible.”

Von Hesse, sitting as usual with his spine perfectly vertical, nodded thoughtfully. ”Well, of course, this is possible.”

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