Unbury Carol(61)

A common hiring of Edward Bunny went as so: Bunny would receive a telegram asking “who is near” and Bunny would respond with a couple of names. Another telegram would come asking, “Who is best for the job?”—not meaning that Bunny knew the details of the hit, but rather that he knew which assassins were sober, stable, and capable at the time of the communication. It was an important job, the hub of a dark wheel. Bunny had no boss but was contacted often by Lafayette up in Harrows, and men and women like her in every town on the Trail. The man Hickory, leaning against the bar now, doing a bad job feigning indifference, meant that it was Lafayette calling, indeed.

None of the hit men particularly liked Edward Bunny. Nobody liked to be followed, and who knew how he picked who was sober and who wasn’t. For this, Bunny often faced death: a barrel between his eyes, a tavern full of mad, drunk crooks. Even the whores disliked him.

And yet Bunny put real money in their pockets.

If Bunny contacted a triggerman, the man knew he was getting paid well for something that might take him less than four days to carry out. Most lawmen knew who Bunny was, but there was nothing in the county laws to lynch a man for speaking with another and Bunny had no blood on his hands. In fact, Edward Bunny had never killed a man in his life. But he’d orchestrated the deaths of a hundred. His intricate system of Trail-watching consisted of a deck of playing cards sewn into his brown jacket pocket: The cards represented the individual hit men and outlaws of the Trail. Sam Jordan was the Jack of Knives. Howard “Bone Ax” Freely the Nine of Darts. Paula Hughes from Kellytown the Six of Bullets. And so on. The way the cards were stacked corresponded with the towns on the Trail: If Freely was in, say, Mackatoon, his card would be on the very bottom of the deck, Mackatoon being the southernmost Trail-town. If Marla Morgan was in Harrows, hers would be on the top, Harrows being the Trail’s northern peak. There were no names on these cards. No faces. No notes. But Bunny knew them very well. And the clever lawmen who cut open the secret pocket in his jacket found nothing but a shuffled deck of cards, a meaningless possession, and certainly nothing to lock a man up over.

Today Bunny was making a couple of outlaws some money in a different way. He was terrible at playing cards.

“Bunny,” Otis Parlance said, his voice rough with smoke. “You gotta practice.”

Bunny, shaking his head, his thin hair barely covering his round skull, did not respond. Behind his small, thick glasses he glared once at Parlance and motioned for another hand.

As Bernie Garland shuffled, Bunny watched Hickory at the bar. His eyes were on the cards on the table, but he paid attention to the leaning shape, doing his customary awful job of trying to hide the fact he was here for business. In all his life Bunny had never known a more obvious informant.

“Bunny!” Lawrence Buchanan said, raising his glass. “A drink. On me. With your money!”

The outlaws broke into laughter, and the bartender looked over to the quartet with concern. For a moment Bunny and Hickory locked eyes. Then Bunny took hold of his cards.

“Lawrence,” Bunny said, thinking of the Seven of Darts that represented Buchanan in his pocket. “I don’t drink.”

There was a moment of bad silence. It was just another reason to dislike Edward Bunny. The man never drank, never got drunk.

The hand went around and Bunny raised, and all the outlaws met him because Edward Bunny hardly ever won. Behind his glasses, Bunny’s eyes sparkled and his round face broke into a slight child’s smile.

At the bar Hickory looked to Bunny and then pretended he hadn’t, shoving a handful of peanuts into his mouth. The bartender watched him and shook his head, knowing well what Hickory was doing in his tavern and who he was here to see.

“Bunny!” Parlance said. “You wouldn’t be holding something good, now would you? You look like you done got asked to the ball!”

Bunny, sweating beneath his vest, glanced at Otis but did not respond.

Then Bunny raised again, and now the three crooks could feel the growing pile of money in their own pockets. When Edward Bunny asked you to play cards, you took him up on it. No other man on the Trail had such a delusional image of himself as a card player.

“High stakes, Bunny.”

“Getting serious, Bunny.”

“Must have all fifty-two in that hand, Bunny.”

Bunny started tapping a small black shoe on the tavern’s wood floor. The men had seen him this way before. Drinks or no drinks, Bunny played like a drunk.

“We’re all still in, Bunny,” Buchanan said. “What are you going to do?”

Bunny stared at his hand in silence. Then he reached into his vest, pulled forth more money, and set it on the table. The men joked but Bunny could hear in their voices they were starting to believe him. Parlance said, “You’re a hard man to read, Bunny,” and set his cards down.

“That’s a pretty pile of coin,” Bernie Garland said. “It’s going to look very nice in my vest.”

At the bar Hickory ordered another drink and then coughed for Bunny to hear. Without looking at him, Bunny shook his head. Hickory was about as well hidden as a sheriff’s badge.

“How about a drink?” Garland asked Bunny, smiling.

“I don’t drink, Bernie.”

Bunny raised again and Buchanan folded without comment. Bunny looked to Garland, who looked down at his cards. Hickory tapped his fingers on the wood bar and it sounded like a clock, ticking.