Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
THE SPENSER NOVELS
The Professional
Rough Weather
Now & Then
Hundred-Dollar Baby
School Days
Cold Service
Bad Business
Back Story
Widow’s Walk
Potshot
Hugger Mugger
Hush Money
Sudden Mischief
Small Vices
Chance
Thin Air
Walking Shadow
Paper Doll
Double Deuce
Pastime
Stardust
Playmates
Crimson Joy
Pale Kings and Princes
Taming a Sea-Horse
A Catskill Eagle
Valediction
The Widening Gyre
Ceremony
A Savage Place
Early Autumn
Looking for Rachel Wallace
The Judas Goat
Promised Land
Mortal Stakes
God Save the Child
The Godwulf Manuscript
THE JESSE STONE NOVELS
Split Image
Night and Day
Stranger in Paradise
High Profile
Sea Change
Stone Cold
Death in Paradise
Trouble in Paradise
Night Passage
THE SUNNY RANDALL NOVELS
Spare Change
Blue Screen
Melancholy Baby
Shrink Rap
Perish Twice
Family Honor
THE VIRGIL COLE/EVERETT HITCH NOVELS
Brimstone
Resolution
Appaloosa
ALSO BY ROBERT B. PARKER
Double Play
Gunman’s Rhapsody
All Our Yesterdays
A Year at the Races (with Joan H. Parker)
Perchance to Dream
Poodle Springs (with Raymond Chandler)
Love and Glory
Wilderness
Three Weeks in Spring (with Joan H. Parker)
Training with Weights (with John R. Marsh)
Published by the Penguin Group
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Copyright © 2010 by Robert B. Parker
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Published simultaneously in Canada
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Parker, Robert B.
Blue-eyed devil / Robert B. Parker. p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-42942-6
1. Cole, Virgil (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Hitch, Everett (Fictitious
character)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3566.A686B
813’.54—dc22
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
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1
LAW ENFORCEMENT in Appaloosa had once been Virgil Cole and me. Now there were a chief of police and twelve policemen. Our third day back in town, the chief invited us to the office for a talk.
He was tall and very fat in a derby hat and a dark suit, with a star on his vest, and big black-handled Colt in a Huckleberry inside his coat. Standing silently around the room were four of his police officers, dressed in white shirts and dark pants, each with a Colt on his hip.
The chief gestured for us to sit. Virgil sat. I leaned my shotgun on the wall by the door and sat beside him.
“Heard ’bout both of you,” he said. “Heard ’bout that thing, too. What’s it fire, grapeshot?”
“It’s an eight-gauge,” I said. “Good for grouse.”
“Or fucking hippopotamuses,” the chief said.
“Them, too,” I said.
“Name’s Amos Callico,” he said. “Thought we should have a chitchat.”
Virgil nodded.
“You’re Virgil Cole,” Callico said.
“I am,” Virgil said. “Big fella here with the eight-gauge is Everett Hitch.”
“I know who he is,” Callico said.
Virgil nodded again.
“What I hear ’bout you is mostly good,” Callico said.
Virgil looked at me.
“Mostly,” he said.
“Probably meant ‘all,’ ” I said.
Callico paid no attention. He took a ci
gar from a box on his desk, didn’t offer us one, trimmed it and lit it, and got it burning right. The four policemen stood silently, watching us.
“I know your reputation, Cole,” he said. “And I know that you ran the town, ’fore I got here. And I want you both to understand that you don’t run it now.”
“That would be you,” Virgil said.
“And I’ve got a dozen officers to back me,” Callico said.
Virgil didn’t say anything.
“On the other hand, none of them are like you,” Callico said. “I could use couple of gun hands like you.”
Virgil shook his head slowly.
“Pay you fifty a month,” Callico said.
“Nope,” Virgil said.
“Make you a sergeant,” Callico said.
“Nope.”
“You speakin’ for Hitch, too?” Callico said.
“Yep.”
“Why the hell not?” Callico said.
Virgil looked at me.
“You think you’re important,” I said to Callico. “Virgil don’t think anybody’s important. Bad match.”
Virgil nodded.
“That right, Cole?” Callico said.
“ ’ Tis,” Virgil said.
Callico puffed on his cigar and blew some smoke past the lit end. He studied it for a moment.
“So, what are you going to do in town?” Callico said.
“Sit on my porch,” Virgil said. “Drink a little whiskey. Play some cards.”
“That’s all?” Callico said.
“See what develops,” Virgil said.
Callico smoked his cigar some more. Then he looked at me.
“You boys done a nice job when you was in this office,” Callico said. “Bragg and the Shelton brothers and all.”
Virgil nodded. Callico looked at me.
“Heard you killed Randall Bragg ’fore you left town,” Callico said.
“I did,” I said.
“Why?”
“Self-defense,” I said.
“Heard it was over a woman,” Callico said.
“I got nothing to do,” I said, “with what you hear.”
“Was it over a woman?”
I shook my head.
“You know why he killed Bragg?” Callico said to Virgil.
“Bragg come at him with a gun,” Virgil said.
“Why?”
“Have to ask Bragg,” Virgil said.
“Bragg’s dead,” Callico said.
“So he is,” Virgil said.
We all sat and thought about that. Callico nodded slowly.
“Don’t want no trouble from you boys,” he said.
“Don’t plan to give you none,” Virgil said.
Callico looked at me.
“Me, either,” I said.
“I’ll hold you to that,” Callico said.
Virgil stood.
“Nice meeting you,” he said.
He looked around the room at the four policemen.
“And you fellas,” Virgil said.
He turned and left, and I followed him.
On the street, I said to Virgil, “We’re gonna have trouble with him.”
“I believe we are,” Virgil said.
2
VIRGIL’S HOUSE hadn’t changed much in the time we’d been away. Allie and Laurel cleaned it up as soon as we arrived back in Appaloosa, and we moved right in. I bunked with Virgil in one bedroom, and Allie slept with Laurel in the second.
All four of us were sitting on the front porch sipping whiskey in the early evening while it was still light, when a tall, thin man with a big mustache walked up the front path. It was Stringer, the chief sheriff’s deputy.
“Ev’nin,” he said.
“Stringer,” Virgil said.
“I’m down to pick up a prisoner, heard you folks was back in town. Thought you might be drinking whiskey.”
“Sit,” I said. “Have some.”
“Allie,” Virgil said. “You remember Deputy Stringer.”
“I don’t recall us meeting,” Allie said.
“You was with the Shelton brothers,” Virgil said. “Probably thinking ’bout other things.”
Allie nodded.
“At the train,” she said.
“That’s me,” Stringer said.
“How do you do,” she said to Stringer, and made a small curtsy.
“Glad you’re well,” Stringer said. “Who’s this young lady?”
“Her name’s Laurel,” Virgil said. “She don’t say much. Laurel, this here is Deputy Stringer.”
Laurel looked at Stringer and nodded slowly and made her small curtsy. Then she went to Virgil and whispered to him. He whispered back. She whispered again.
“Well, sure, sort of like Pony Flores,” Virgil said.
“She shy?” Stringer said.
“Indian took her,” Virgil said. “She had a pretty bad time till we got her back.”
“Her folks are dead,” Allie said. “I’m looking out for her.”
“Since we got her back,” I said, “won’t talk to nobody ’cept Virgil.”
Stringer sipped some whiskey.
“Who’s Pony Flores?” Stringer said.
“Tracker,” Virgil said. “Helped us get her back.”
Laurel whispered again to Virgil. He listened and nodded.
“He gave her a gun,” Virgil said. “She wants to show it to you.”
Stringer nodded. Laurel took the derringer out of the pocket of her pinafore and held it out in the palm of her hand. Stringer looked at it carefully.
“That’s a very fine derringer,” he said.
He looked at Virgil.
“Loaded,” he said.
“She knows how to use it,” Virgil said. “Makes her feel safer.”
Stringer nodded.
“What are you boys gonna do here?” Stringer said.
“We’re posturing that,” Virgil said.
“Or pondering,” I said.
“Pondering,” Virgil said. “That’s what we’re doing. Everett went to the Military Academy.”
“Could speak to the sheriff for you,” Stringer said.
“Foraged up some money in Brimstone,” Virgil said. “We figure to take some time and look around.”
“You boys good at anything but gun work?” Stringer said.
“Might be,” Virgil said.
“Like what?” Stringer said.
“We’re ponderin’ that, too,” Virgil said.
“Meet the new chief of police?” Stringer said.
His voice was neutral, but there was something in the way he said “chief of police.”
“Yep,” Virgil said.
“And?” Stringer said.
“Offered us a job,” Virgil said.
“Which you turned down,” Stringer said.
“Everett and me don’t like him,” Virgil said.
Stringer studied the surface of his whiskey for a moment and then drank some.
“How come?” Stringer said.
Virgil looked at me.
“He annoyed Virgil,” I said. “Kinda full of himself.”
Stringer nodded.
“Don’t make no mistake with him,” Stringer said. “He’s a horse’s ass, okay, but he knows what he wants. He’ll do what he needs to get it. He can shoot, and he will. Got some people working for him can shoot.”
“Twelve people working for him,” I said.
“Town got big fast,” Stringer said.
“Virgil and me ran it with two,” I said. “It get six times bigger?”
“More people work for you, more power you got,” Stringer said. “Callico’s ambitious.”
“He want to be sheriff ?” I said.
“It’s the next step,” Stringer said.
“To what?” Virgil said.
“Governor.”
“Why’s he want to be governor,” Virgil said.
“Probably ’cause it’s th
e next step to senator,” Stringer said. “I don’t know what Callico wants.”
“What kind of lawman is he?” Virgil said.
“Tough, strict, fair enough, I think,” Stringer said. “But he got no heart.”
“Heart don’t do you much good,” Virgil said.
Stringer smiled.
“ ’ Course it doesn’t,” he said. “Makes you soft.”
“Get you killed,” Virgil said.
Stringer said, “You think Virgil Cole got heart, Laurel.”
Laurel was sitting next to Virgil with Allie on her other side. She showed no sign of having heard Stringer’s question.
“She hear me?” Stringer said.
“She don’t much talk with anybody but Virgil,” I said.
“Hell,” Stringer said.
Laurel leaned in close to Virgil and whispered to him. Virgil smiled. He looked at me for a moment, then at Stringer.
“Laurel claims I got the most heart in the world,” he said.
3
THE BOSTON HOUSE had changed hands twice since I had killed Randall Bragg. But Willis McDonough in his starched white shirt was still the head bartender. And he bought us each a drink when Virgil and I went in to say hello.
“New owner’s a fella from Chicago named Lamar Speck,” Willis said. “Nice enough fella, I guess. You boys looking for work?”
“Might be,” Virgil said.
“No peace-officer work, I guess,” Willis said.
“I guess,” Virgil said.