Chapter Five
Me, I’d rather face a gunslick wanting to put me in my grave than to track down a burglar. Catching a thief is a skill I never got born with. It takes a lot of figuring to track down a thief. You’ve got to see what got took, and figure out who took it, and that’s harder than it sounds, especially for someone born a little slow, as my ma used to say. So I always gave the thief business to Rusty, or one of my part-time deputies. But Rusty, he’s been swooning over his lost Ukrainian mail-order women, so I got stuck with it.
“All right,” I said to Professor Zimmer, “let’s have a look.”
He took me over to the second wagon. The show was rolling in front of the first wagon, and a mess of townspeople and cowboys were watching in the torchlight that spring eve.
He led me inside the second one, dark as pitch, but he lit a lamp. It was mostly hammock bunks in there. Them show people sure lived poor and crowded. But Zimmer had a corner to himself, and on the floor was a strongbox, bolted down tight. But the cover was opened, and there was a sawed-up padlock on the floor. The burglar had gone to work with a hacksaw while the show was running, cut through, scooped up the loot, and beat it.
“I know to the penny,” Zimmer said. “That scoundrel, that swine, lightened my purse by two hundred seventy-nine dollars and forty cents.”
That was a heap of money. But he had payroll and all the costs of manufacturing his tonic, and his transportation to pay for, so maybe it wasn’t so much.
“Now I’ll have to buy a padlock. I don’t suppose there’s one available in Doubtful. Nothing’s safe. I’m near broke!”
“Ah, professor, you mind telling me when this happened?”
“How should I know? You think I’m a witness? You think I have eyes in the back of my head?”
“Well, when was the last time you checked?”
“Why, this is our dressing room. This is where I don my costumes. Everything was perfectly proper at the start of the evening.”
“So it happened just now?”
“I admire your powers of deduction, sheriff.”
“You get a look at this crook?”
“He’s probably standing out front right now, mixing right in. You might arrest the whole lot and frisk them.”
“I need a little more to go on, professor.”
“All right. Whoever buys a lot of bottles, arrest him. My tonic is so much in demand that people buy it by the case, the carton. There’s nothing like Zoroaster Zimmer’s Tonic to cure the ills of all creation.”
“You sure it wasn’t one of your own people sawed this padlock?”
“Do you think my people run around with hacksaws?”
“Well, it’s a handy little tool, Your Honor.”
“Ah, finally some respect from you, sheriff. How did you know I once was a judge?”
“You look sort of judgey, if you ask me.”
“Well, I was a Supreme Court Justice of the state of West Virginia, second circuit, three terms, before I answered a higher calling, which was to make the world a happier place, and to offer the suffering some relief at just two dollars the bottle.”
An accordion act was winding up on the other wagon, and there was a scatter of applause.
“I’ve got to go make the pitch, tell the world about miracles and blessings,” Zimmer said, and hastened into the darkness.
The lamp on the wagon cast an eerie glow. It was hard to imagine how a company of six managed to live in such tiny quarters. I studied the padlock, which had been expertly sawed apart. The cashbox, tiny like everything else here, lay empty. I didn’t even know what sort of bills and coins had been in it; probably pretty small ones. There wasn’t anyone around Doubtful that could pull a twenty out, or even make change for a twenty.
It sure was not anything I was going to solve very soon, but I’d give her a wrestle. If someone had cash, then someone would probably spend it pretty quick. That’s how it went in Doubtful. Them cowboys came to town on paydays, and spent every last dime before riding out. So I figured I’d just start asking around a little. Some unseen crook, big or little, was probably going to push some bills across the bar tops.
I watched Zimmer pitch his tonic to the grinning crowd. He wasn’t making much headway until he switched to new ground. The cowboys looked like they were ready to head back to the welcoming saloons along Saloon Row, and I spotted a yawn here and there. The chill night air was eddying through the small crowd, reminding them that summer was yet a month off.
“Now, friends, listen close, because this may affect your happiness more than anything you’ve ever come across,” Zimmer was saying. He was leaning forward, almost falling off the wagon into his audience, the lamplight throwing light and shadow over his craggy red face.
“I also have compounded, from my own secret and priceless recipes, a special Manhood Improver and Conditioner. Now, this precious liquid, well, you’ll find yourselves transported to heavenly bliss, beyond your wildest imaginings, and your romantic partners will thank you and bless you and shout hurrahs to you. Now, this is absolutely guaranteed. Ask anyone who’s tried it. If I only had some tiny bottles I’d give each of you a free sample, knowing that you’d soon be flocking back to buy out every bottle in stock. But alas, gents, I have no samples. But I do have countless testimonials, which are written in this brochure, here, for you to read.
“Now if you are looking for a true manhood expander and gateway to the highest peaks of human experience, then you’ll want Doctor Zimmer’s Private Stock Manhood Improver. It will take you to places you’ve only dreamed of. Now, it’s not cheap. It costs four dollars the bottle, but it lasts and lasts, and improves with age. Why, year-old Manhood Improver is even more powerful than day-old Manhood Improver. This is absolutely guaranteed. On each bottle is a return address. Send the bottle back, if it fails you in any manner, and you will soon receive a gift certificate from Doctor Zimmer for any of his products.”
That sure was entertaining, and them cowboys, they sure were listening hard. They didn’t have much opportunity to make good use of Zimmer’s Manhood Improver, since they lived in bunkhouses on ranches around Puma County, but that wouldn’t make any difference to them. A cowboy’s a cowboy, even if he’s fifty miles from the nearest female.
Sure enough, about then one of them performers, the big lady in the grass skirts, she carries out a carton of the Manhood Improver, and those cowboys, they’re already digging into their jeans for loose cash, while Zimmer kept on yakking on stage. I squinted at that bunch, looking for a big spender, but they were having trouble coming up with the bucks, and some were going fifty-fifty on a bottle.
I sure had to hand it to Zimmer. Broke one moment, coining profits the next.
That reminded me I had to start hunting down a thief, which for me was like eating sour apples. Zimmer’s show was going to wind down pretty soon, so I drifted back to Doubtful, past the cottonwoods along the creek, useful for a good hanging, and began with the Last Chance Saloon, because Sammy Upward was my friend, and he often helped me out.
The place was mostly empty because Zimmer’s show had drawn the usual saloon crowd. But that was fine; it gave me a chance to talk quietly with Sammy, who was washing glasses behind the bar.
“Sammy, I’m looking for big spenders,” I said.
“Someone’s got something to spend?”
“A lot to spend, and it ain’t his.”
Sammy grinned. He was a redhead, with a good freckle-faced grin. “Gotcha,” he said.
I did the same at the Lizard Lounge, Mrs. Gladstone’s Sampling Room, and McGivers’ Saloon. The barkeeps listened to me skeptically and nodded. They weren’t going to squeal on a paying customer setting up drinks for the crowd, not if they could help it, but they also knew I’d come after them if I found out they were going along with a thief.
“Something got stole?” asked George Roman, who ran Lizard Lounge.
“If you’re smart, you’ll keep cash in the bank, and not around here,” I said.
Roman eyed me, a faint smile building. “Maybe the town needs new blood in office,” he said. He was referring to me.
When I got back to the sheriff office, there was Rusty, lying in a cell, staring at the ceiling and leaking tears.
“You found your missing twins?”
“They’re gone forever. Happiness is gone forever. My life is ruint.”
“There’s a lot more Ukrainian blondes there. Just order a new one.”
“But they ain’t joined at the hip, Cotton. Two fer one; best bargain I ever come acrost.”
“Well, dry your tears. We got a crime to solve. Zimmer, he’s been robbed of pretty near three hundred smackeroos.”
That got Rusty’s attention. That was almost a year’s deputy salary. “What happened?”
“He’s got a lockbox in the wagon, and someone sawed through a padlock while the show was rolling, and made off with the profits.”
“Yeah, sure,” Rusty said.
“You saying it ain’t so?”
“I’m saying maybe Zimmer robbed himself.”
“You got no faith in human nature, Rusty. The loss of your blondes has made you downright cynical.”
But Rusty, he just grinned. “Watch and see, Cotton. We’ll find out who got robbed of what, and why.”
“You’re just saying that because you’re feeling mighty blue, Rusty.”
“You want me to solve it? Tomorrow I will.”
Rusty was sure acting strange, like he was disgusted with me or something.
“I’ll tell you what’s going to happen next. There’s going to be robberies and thefts all over Doubtful.”
“You mean that burglar that cleaned out Zimmer’s not done?”
“He’s just getting started, Cotton. And he’s going to be hard to catch, even if I know who he is right now.”
“So who is he?”
But Rusty only laughed at me. He sure was being ornery, but that’s what lost love does to people.