The University Showdown Read online

  Armed with a beer each, they went to a table and sat. Fitzgerald was in his fifties, and if he actually was in charge of building the university, it was the biggest job he’d ever had.

  “I’m directing the action,” he told Clint. “We had an architect—”

  “Let’s go back further,” Clint said.

  “The legislature was supposed to meet to decide who got what. The jewel was the hundred thousand dollars allocated for building a mental institution. We’re in Pima County. The Pima County contingent ran into a flooding Salt River. By the time they found another route to Prescott, the deals had been made. That money changed hands under the table, or in a back room, there is no doubt. Pima County did not get the hundred thousand for the mental hospital. They got twenty-five thousand to build Arizona’s first university.”

  “And they would have preferred to have an insane asylum outside of town?”

  “They would have preferred to have the hundred thousand,” Fitzgerald said. “More money to skim off the top.”

  “So people are upset.”

  “To say the least. But they hired an architect, and they hired me to oversee the project. I got held up on the site, or I would have been here at six.”

  “They told me about some…what? Sabotage?”

  “That’s as good as any definition of what’s been going on,” Fitzgerald said. “I need help, Clint. I need somebody to watch my back.”

  “The chief told me he’s got his best man on the job,” Clint said.

  “A detective, I know,” Fitzgerald said. “His job is to find out who’s doing it. His job is not to keep me—and my men—alive.”

  “I understood there was only property damage.”

  “So far,” Fitzgerald said. “But each case escalates until…who knows? Somebody’s going to get hurt, Clint. Somebody’s going to die.”

  “So you want me to be…what? Security? A bodyguard?”

  “I’ll announce that you’ve been hired to be my assistant, my number two. I’ll put you on salary.”

  “And how’s the town going to react to that?”

  “I don’t know,” Fitzgerald said. “Let’s see. I’ve got to deal with the mayor, the town council—which is in charge of allocating the twenty-five thousand. I’ve also had dealings with the sheriff and the chief of police, as well as other prominent citizens.”

  “Like Patrick Bodeen?”

  Fitzgerald looked surprised.

  “How do you know about him?”

  “I met his wife.”

  “Christ,” Fitzgerald said, “already? I should’ve known. She approached you, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Yeah, she’s poison, Clint. Trouble.”

  “And what’s he do?”

  “He’s a very prominent rancher, and doesn’t like the university being built so close to his property.”

  “Where did the land come from?”

  “There was almost no land,” Fitzgerald said. “The town actually discussed giving the money back, but then two gamblers and one saloon owner stepped and donated the necessary property.”

  “So do you think Bodeen is responsible for the sabotage?”

  “Maybe,” Fitzgerald said. “He’s got the money to hire it done. But his wife has so much of his attention, keeps him running, I don’t see where he’d get the time.”

  “Anybody else you suspect?”

  “A few people, but hey, that’s the job of the police. That’s not what I want you to do.”

  “I’m not a night watchman, Fitz.”

  “I know it. I don’t expect you to sit out there at the site with a shotgun.”

  “Okay,” Clint said, “just so we’re agreed on that.”

  “I’ll give you a good salary.”

  “That come out of the twenty-five thousand?”

  “No,” Fitz said, “I don’t think I’d be able to justify that. I’ll pay you out of my own pocket.”

  “Okay,” Clint said, “I’ll take five dollars a day.”

  “Five dollars? That’s all? Clint, that’s hardly—”

  “It’s enough for beer and steak and some other odds and ends.”

  “Well, I’ll handle the hotel, then. I can put you in a better one—”

  “This one’s good enough.”

  “Then it’s done?”

  “It’s done,” Clint said. “I’m hired.”

  The two friends shook hands across the table.

  “What do you say we get out of here and get something to eat?” Fitz said.

  EIGHT

  Patrick Bodeen looked up from his desk as Andrew Leland entered his office.

  “Good evening, Sheriff.”

  “Patrick.” Leland walked to the sidebar and poured himself a brandy. He held the glass up to Bodeen, who nodded.

  They were in Bodeen’s house, about three miles outside of town. Bodeen’s property adjoined the property the university was being built on.

  Leland handed Bodeen a glass of his own brandy, and sat across from him.

  “We got a visitor in town today.”

  “Is that a fact? And why does that concern me?”

  “It’s Clint Adams.”

  “The Gunsmith?” Bodeen sat back in his chair. “What’s he want here?”

  “Apparently,” Leland said, “he’s friends with Fitzgerald.”

  “Did Fitzgerald call him here?”

  “He says he stopped in to see his friend,” Leland said.

  “Just by coincidence?”

  Leland shrugged.

  “Can’t be,” Bodeen said. “Fitzgerald must have sent for him.”

  “A man like that is trouble, no matter how he got here.”

  “Does the mayor know?”

  “I’ll bet. His bird dog, Fairman, must have seen him ride in.”

  “All right,” Bodeen said, “thanks for letting me know.”

  Leland sat where he was and sipped his brandy.

  Bodeen opened a drawer in the desk, took out an envelope, and tossed it across the desk. Leland leaned forward, picked it up, and set his empty glass down.

  “I’ll keep an eye on him, let you know what’s going on,” he said, standing up.

  “You do that. Has he seen Fitzgerald yet?”

  “Not when the chief and I saw him,” Leland said, “but maybe since then. I don’t know. He hasn’t been out to the site.”

  “All right, Andy,” Bodeen said, “thanks.”

  Leland left, and Bodeen sat back in his chair. Moments later, his wife entered the room, wearing a silk nightgown that left little to the imagination. She did this to tease him, he knew, because he hadn’t touched her in years.

  “What did that little bug want?” she asked.

  “It’s no concern of yours.”

  “Really?” she asked. She got herself a glass of brandy, remained standing while she drank it. “Was he here to tell you that Clint Adams is in town?”

  He narrowed his eyes.

  “How did you know that?”

  “I met him.”

  “When?”

  “This afternoon.”

  “Where?”

  “In the restaurant,” she said, “after you stormed out like a petulant child.”

  “Now there’s the pot calling the kettle black. What did Mr. Adams have to say to you? Did you fuck him?”

  “No, of course not,” she said, and then added, “not yet.”

  “Get out, Cynthia,” he said. “I don’t have time for you.”

  She put her glass down and headed out of the room. At the door she turned and said, “But I’ll let you know when I do.”

  NINE

  The door to Mayor Darling’s office opened and Chief Coleman stuck his head in.

  “Your girl’s not here,” he said.

  “Of course not,” Darling said. “She keeps regular business hours. Come on in, Chief.”

  Coleman entered, closed the door behind him, and then seated himself across from the mayor.

 
“What’s on your mind?” the mayor asked.

  “The Gunsmith.”

  “I heard.”

  “I figured,” Coleman said.

  “What’s he want here?”

  “He says he’s passing through, stopped in to see a friend.”

  “And that friend would be…”

  “Ted Fitzgerald.”

  Darling laughed sharply, sat back in his chair.

  “That figures.” The mayor drummed his fingers on the arms of his chair for a while, then folded them across his belly. “Has he seen Fitzgerald?”

  “Not that I know of. They were supposed to meet at six at Adams’s hotel, but Fitzgerald never showed up. Of course, they could have met by now.”

  “Dennis will let me know,” Darling said. “He’d better.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Nothing,” Darling said. “You’ve still got your man looking into the business at the university. Let’s see how this shakes out. Maybe he’ll see Fitzgerald and leave town.”

  “Yes, maybe.”

  Darling pinched the bridge of his nose with his right thumb and forefinger.

  “Did you speak with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did that come about?”

  “Leland brought him to me.”

  “How did that happen?”

  Coleman explained the circumstances.

  Darling laughed. “You have a man working for you who never heard of the Gunsmith?”

  “Apparently.”

  Darling laughed again. It seemed to do him some good. He sat forward in his chair, his elbows on his desk.

  “All right, Chief,” he said, “thanks for letting me know. Just keep me informed about your investigation.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Coleman left, pulling the door closed behind him. Mayor Darling took a bottle of whiskey from his bottom drawer, pulled directly from it, and then replaced it.

  This job was going to kill him.

  TEN

  “So,” Clint said when he and Fitz were seated in a restaurant with bowls of stew in front of them, “tell me who’s aligned with who.”

  “Well, you met both the sheriff and the chief of police,” Fitz said. “Coleman reports right to Mayor Darling.”

  “Darling?”

  “That’s the least of his problems,” Fitz said. “Now Leland, he’s aligned with Patrick Bodeen.”

  “So Bodeen is at odds with the mayor?”

  Fitz nodded and said, “That’s because Bodeen was mayor before Darling came along and beat him. Now if Bodeen can make Darling look bad, he’ll run again and get this office back.”

  “So he’s willing to use the university to make that happen?”

  “He’ll use anything.”

  “Including his wife?”

  “No,” Fitz said, “you’ve got to understand that relationship. She’s the user there.”

  “Why doesn’t he divorce her?”

  “The money is hers,” Fitz said.

  “So why doesn’t she divorce him?”

  “That’s a good question,” Fitz said. “Maybe she likes torturing him. Maybe it’s easier for her to cat around while she’s married.”

  “Who is she catting around with lately?”

  “Don’t know,” Fitz said. “It seems like she might be taking a break.”

  “So when she’s sleeping around, it’s no secret?”

  “Nope,” Fitz said. “She doesn’t care who knows.”

  “Okay,” Clint said, “let’s talk about your site. Where do you sleep?”

  “I’ve got a room in town, at the Silver Spur, but we built a shack out there and most of the time Art Sideman and me sleep there.”

  “Sideman?”

  “He’s the architect.”

  “And he’s being paid out of the twenty-five thousand?” Clint asked.

  Fitz nodded and said, “Same as me.”

  “Who else is out there?”

  “We built a bunkhouse for the construction crew.”

  “You trust all of them?”

  “Hell, no,” Fitz said. “They’re for hire, like anyone else. If somebody got to them with enough money, I’m sure they’d sabotage the project.”

  “So you have to keep a close eye on them.”

  “I have a foreman.”

  “Trust him?”

  “Yes, I’ve used him before. I’ll introduce you to him.”

  “Anybody wear a gun out there?”

  “Steve, the foreman.”

  “Can he use it?”

  “Yeah, he can hit what he aims at. And he’s not afraid to use it.”

  “Well, that’s good.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d want to come out and stay in the bunkhouse?”

  “I don’t think that’s good idea,” Clint said. “I don’t want to make friends with your crew.”

  Fitz studied him, then smiled and said, “Oh, you want them to stay afraid of you.”

  “Well, wary anyway,” Clint said.

  “You could bunk in with Art Sideman and me if you want.”

  “If it comes to that, okay,” Clint said. “The foreman, he bunk with the men?”

  “Yeah, he prefers to do it that way. Keeps them in line.”

  “I’ll want to come out tomorrow and look things over.”

  “That’s no problem. I’ll stay in town tonight and take you out there.”

  “I heard it’s a straight run east to the main road?” Clint asked.

  “That’s right. Who told you?”

  “Sheriff Leland. In fact, he wanted to take me out there tonight.”

  “That was very helpful of him.”

  “He and the chief seem to get along.”

  “They do,” Fitz said. “They were hired at the same time, and even though they might be on opposite sides, they get along fine.”

  “That’s civil.”

  “Clint,” Fitz said, “I sent for you because I think things are about to get uncivil.”

  “Well,” Clint said, “we’ll see what we can do about that.”

  ELEVEN

  After eating, they went to another saloon and had a few beers. They caught up on what they’d each been doing since they last saw each other, and then they split up. Clint said he was going back to his hotel. Fitz said he was going to do the same. Clint had no choice but to believe his friend. If the man had a woman in town, he hadn’t said so, but Clint knew Fitz to have the normal attraction to women. Clint felt sure that, by this time, Fitz must have had a woman in town.

  But that wasn’t his business. He went back to his hotel, stripped down, read for a while—Dickens—and then went to sleep. He was very happy that no one knocked on his door that night.

  Fitz ran his hands over the smooth, warm skin of her breasts, tweaked the nipples with his fingers, then leaned over and licked them. She sighed as her nipples became distended.

  “I love when they do that,” Fitz said.

  “Does he know?” Cynthia asked, holding Fitz’s head in place.

  “Hmm?” he said, his mouth filled with as much of one breast as he could accommodate.

  “Your friend, the Gunsmith,” she said. “Does he know about us?”

  “Oh, no,” he said, lifting his head and looking at her. “I didn’t tell him a thing. God, you’re beautiful.”

  “Won’t he be mad when he finds out?”

  “Maybe he won’t find out,” he said.

  She looked at him, her eyes moving over his naked body. He had a hard cock, and he had done the job for her over the past few months, but she was ready to move on.

  She pushed him down on his back on the bed, got down between his legs, and holding him in one hand, began to lick him up and down. Finally, she took him in her mouth and began to suck him.

  He grunted as her head began to move up and down on him, lifting his hips to meet her. They continued that way until he couldn’t hold back any longer, and he erupted…

  Later, he slid his cock u
p into her steamy depths and began to fuck her as hard and fast as he could. She gasped and spoke to him, exhorting him on, but in reality she was simply waiting for him to finish. She was just about finished with Ted Fitzgerald, so maybe Clint Adams had come to town just in time.

  He continued to rut, and gasp, and snort until he exploded into her.

  “That’s it, baby,” she said in his ear, “give it to me.”

  He gasped and jerked and finally rolled off her, onto his back.

  “I have to go,” she said, getting out of bed.

  “So soon?”

  “I have to get back, Ted,” she said. She used a cloth to clean herself, and then got dressed.

  “When can I see you again?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “It might be harder with your friend in town.”

  “I need him here,” he said, “but we can work around him.”

  “We’ll have to see,” she said. She leaned down and kissed him. He grabbed for her but she danced away, out of his reach. “I’ll see you when I see you.”

  She slipped out the door, closing it gently behind him. He thought about her for a few minutes, but he was exhausted and that was all the time he was able to give to thought.

  He fell asleep.

  TWELVE

  Clint woke the next morning, went downstairs, and met Fitz for breakfast. They ate right in the hotel, then walked to the livery and saddled their horses.

  “Wow,” Fitz said when he saw Eclipse. “What happened to that other big black you had?”

  “Duke? Same thing that happens to all of us. He got old, put out to pasture.”

  “When are you going to get put out to pasture?”

  “Who’ll put me out?” Clint asked.

  “How about putting yourself out?”

  “No,” Clint said. “I’m going to die in the saddle, I think. Or at the end of a bullet. But not out in some pasture.”

  They walked their horses outside and mounted up.

  “Okay,” Fitz said. “Couple of hours and we’ll be there.”

  “Main road,” Clint said.

  “Let’s hit it.”

  They passed other riders, other vehicles, along the road. Each time a hat was tipped, or a wave exchanged. Fitz said he didn’t know any of them, but people around here did that.

  Finally, up ahead, Clint spotted a partially erected building. Most of it was brick, some of it was wood. It was impressive, but it was still a long way from finished.