Free William W. Johnstone by Massacre Mountain Page A

will they be here?”
    “Tomorrow night’s the last show. Then they’re off to Casper. I tell them there’s nothing good in Casper, and they’ll have to play in a root cellar or a church basement, but they’ll give it a try.”
    We steered into Maxwell’s parlor. It was just a tiny place, on the theory that no one in Doubtful had any friends or family or money, but it was the only burial palace in town. It started as a log store with a false front, but now looked like a cottage, with green shutters on fake windows and whitewash covering all the bad carpentry.
    Horatio Maxwell answered the door chime, and yawned. “Up half the night squeezing blood from that turnip,” he said.
    Without my asking or nothing, he led us through a couple of parlors to a dark room in back, where the unknown lay on a zinc tabletop.
    “Nothing in his pockets,” Maxwell said.
    “That you’d admit to,” I added.
    “No gold teeth,” he said.
    “Except what’s in your pocket,” I said.
    Meanwhile, Ralston studied the ghostly white body, which wore underdrawers and no more.
    “Pinky Pearl,” he said. “Oh, no.”
    “You know him?”
    “Advance man for the next show. I spent yesterday afternoon with Pinky. Oh no, this is terrible.”
    Now we were getting somewhere. “Who is this fella?”
    “He’s with the next show, the Grand Luxemburg Follies, doing advance.”
    “What’s that?”
    “He works ahead, making sure the show has what it needs when it gets here. If a magician needs a live chicken to pull out of the hat, the advance man gets the chicken.”
    “Now there’s some job for you,” Maxwell said.
    “Advance men book rooms, book meals, book transportation, make deals with theater owners like me, fill special needs,” Ralston said.
    “What did he want yesterday?”
    “Actually, he wanted to know whether his company would be safe.”
    “Safe?”
    “The Follies are a little daring.”
    “Well, the less safe the better,” Maxwell said, and I worked that comment around in my noggin a little and decided Maxwell was drumming up trade.
    “We’ve got to notify next of kin.”
    “The show will know,” Ralston said. “It’s leaving Cheyenne in the morning. Be here the following eve.”
    “We’ve got a killer around here,” I said. “You got any clues, Ralston?”
    “The deceased is a show man. So am I. That means I’m staying armed.”
    “Who runs the Grand Luxemburg Follies?”
    “The Camel Brothers Circuit.”
    “What’s that?”
    “There’s organizing outfits, some in New York, some in Chicago, that create circuits and put shows on them and hire or own shows themselves. My theater’s a Camel Brothers house.”
    “Roll him over, Horatio.”
    The undertaker flipped the carcass with a practiced hand.
    The stab wound was low, below the rib cage.
    “First stabbing I’ve dealt with,” I said. “Cowboys, teamsters, and vagrant males all use six-guns.”
    “I’ve seen a few,” Maxwell said. “This killer knew enough to thrust upward from a low point.”
    “A professional, then?”
    Maxwell nodded. “We’ve an experienced killer loose in Doubtful. Who’ll he strike next?” He cleared his throat. “Now, Sheriff, about the fee—my little recompense?”
    “Wait for the Grand Luxemburg Follies. They’ll take care of him, all right?”
    “But it would be helpful if the county paid from its Poor Fund. You never know about show people, beg your pardon Mr. Ralston.”
    “Bury Pinky Pearl and send me the bill. And give him a good send-off,” Ralston said. “I’ll tell his company when they roll in. Oh, and Maxwell—get a man of the cloth too, and some flowers if there are any, and something better than a pine box. And a marker on that grave.”
    Horatio Maxwell scribbled away. “Ah, yes, a marker. We have a thousand-dollar granite obelisk, plus shipping from Vermont. Shall I sign you up? The incised legend would be extra, of course. We’d have to bring in an artisan from Denver. So far,