***
“You sure this is the place? It doesn‘t seem much like the sort of place a respectable lady hangs out,” Quimby Burton asked skeptically. He screwed up his face, peering up at the large, hand painted sign swinging precariously over the door to the dilapidated saloon on the corner of the main thoroughfare. The street was quiet, and the saloon seemed to be the only blight on the otherwise respectable face of Fortune City, New Mexico. Loud, boisterous music and raucous laughter drifted through the open door.
“Yeah, well, she ain’t so respectable, from the sounds of it.“ I replied and stepped inside the Ace-High Saloon.
The saloon was dusky despite the brilliant sunlight outside and packed with all manner of man, woman, child, wrangler and dandy even this early in the day. Most of the patrons were gathered in the center of the room, around a small woman with long, curly blonde hair who was dancing spiritedly on a table. She swung her skirt as she kicked up her heels in time to the piano playing an upbeat two-step in the corner. The men around her clapped their hands, laughing and cat-calling.
I sighed, drawing a small, woodcut of Mrs. John Harley from my belt. “That’s our girl,” I said, glancing at my companions.
Quimby’s brilliant white teeth were bared in a grin, but Vaughn looked completely unruffled by the drunken dancing lady. Nothing ever ruffled Vaughn. The large, hairless black man eyed our bounty impassively.
“Vaughn?”
His large, dark eyes rolled towards me. “Nah, Tess. You got this one. You don’t need me to take down a little girl.”
“You got that right.“ I smirked and stepped forwards. My hand hovered instinctively over the gun still strapped in its holster on my hip.
Lightning Hazel Harley spotted me as I approached. Her reaction was so violent and so unexpected, I hardly had time to dive for cover.
She leapt off the table and whipped a gun from under her skirt, firing it at me. The damn thing didn’t fire bullets, though; blue arcs of lightning streaked through the air from its strange, bulbous barrel. The table in front of me exploded in a shower of splinters.
The patrons scattered, and I upturned a table to huddle behind it for cover.
“What the hell’s she shooting?” Quimby demanded, dropping to the ground beside me and pressing his back against the tabletop.
I scowled. “Damnit. He didn‘t say she had a damned death ray.”
“I ain’t seen one of those since we went up against Fire Eyes Murdock,” Vaughn commented mildly.
“I reckon I should’ve asked more questions ‘bout why she’s called Lightning Hazel,” I said, peering cautiously around the tabletop.
“That might’ve been helpful, Tess.”
“I ain‘t goin‘ with you, Pinks!” Lightning Hazel screamed. Her unruly blonde head appeared over the top of the bar. She brandished her pistol in the air, and I flinched. It had made short work of the other table; our cover wouldn’t be worth a damn against that thing.
“We ain’t Pinks!” I shouted quickly. “Your husband sent us!”
Hazel paused with her finger on the trigger. She looked puzzled. “I ain’t got a husband.”
I glanced at Quimby and Vaughn, but they were as dumbfounded as me. “Are you Hazel Harley?”
“Who’s askin’?”
“I’m Tess Mercury.”
“I ain’t ever heard a’you.”
“John Harley sent me to find you.”
“My husband is dead. I don’t know no John Harley!”
I rose up on my knees and peered over the top of the table at Lightning Hazel. She still held her pistol at the ready, but she didn’t seem as keen to fire it as she’d been before.
“Well, who sent me, then?”
Hazel screwed up her face. “I don’t know. What’s he look like?”
“He looks like the devil. Black hair, little pointed goatee. Black suit. Top hat.”
Her posture changed dramatically, and she rose to her feet like an angry cat on its haunches. “That ain’t John Harley. And it sure ain’t my husband. That’s Rudy Ricone. He’s a loan shark out of Chicago.”
“Rudy Ricone?” Quimby muttered, his brow furrowing. His smooth, handsome sun-burnished face suddenly lit up. “I know that name. They call him Rudy the Roll. He’s wanted by the Feds for extortion and murder. Five hundred dollar bounty.”
I ducked back behind the table and met Vaughn’s sly eyes. “You thinkin’ what I’m thinking, Vaughn?” I asked.
His thick, dark lips turned up in a smile. “You know I am.”
“Hey, Hazel,” I called, popping my head back over the table top. “I think we might we able to come to some arrangement.”