Naughty Marietta

Marietta had no retort. He was right. She couldn’t dare tell the overly possessive Maltese about this meeting. Fuming, bested, she snapped, “You deceitful bastard, pretending to be a fan!”

Cole grinned. “Sweetheart, I could take lessons in deceit from you.”

“Oh! You can go to blazes, Texan!”

“I probably will, but not before I get you safely home to your grandfather.”

Eight

“Madam Sophia, you of all people know very well that opera is all about the soprano!” stated a disdainful Andreas. “After an evening in the theater, a patron barely recalls the preening tenor, the mezzo or even the forceful baritone. When the curtain comes down, it is the effect of the soprano that lingers!”

“I know, Andreas,” said Madam Sophia calmly. “I’ve done all I can with Marietta. She tries so hard. And she is a wonderful actress. She has a riveting, instinctive stage presence. You have to give her that much.”

“It’s not enough. Marietta cannot sing!” said the artistic director.

Sophia smiled indulgently and waved away his concern. “Well, do not despair. We are not in New York or Paris. This is Central City, Colorado, and in case you’ve failed to notice, the theater is filled every evening.”

The two were having afternoon coffee in Sophia’s comfortable little cottage. Andreas and Sophia had become good friends since arriving in Central City. Veterans of European opera houses, they had a lot in common. Both were alone, both loved the opera and both were very fond of the mercurial Marietta.

Andreas replied, “Yes, the seats are filled, but we know the reason. If Marietta were appearing anywhere but here in this remote alpine village, she’d be playing to an empty house. Marietta cannot meet the vocal demands of grand opera, she hasn’t the God-given talent. She definitely does not possess the voix d’or—the golden voice.”

The rotund Sophia carefully set her coffee cup aside. She sighed and said, “I’m well aware, even if Marietta is not, that she has no bright future in opera. But I am not too worried about her. She is young and full of life and very beautiful. Men are drawn to her like moths to the flame. My hope is that she soon meets and marries someone more suitable than Maltese.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” commented Andreas. “Maltese is one of the richest men in America. She could do worse.”

Sophia shook her head knowingly. “He could never make her happy. Marietta needs a man with fire and passion to match her own. Someone who will not put her on a pedestal and worship her. A devilishly handsome rascal who is consistently and stubbornly all male who will not allow her to dominate him.”

“The way she dominates poor old Maltese?”

“Exactly.”

Andreas mused aloud, “You’re probably right.” He smiled when he added, “I only wish she’d meet such a man tomorrow and leave the opera.”

Andreas chuckled then and so did Sophia.

Cole remained seated after Marietta had rushed angrily out of the Far Canyon Café. He poured himself another glass of wine and lit an expensive Cuban cigar. He calmly considered his next move.

He had no idea what Marietta had against her grandfather, but he knew that she was not going to go peacefully. The prospect of whisking her out of Central City and delivering her a thousand miles south to Galveston was not a pleasant one. Long days and longer nights with an irate woman whom he couldn’t let out of his sight. No stroll in the park, to be sure.

Still, her grandfather had stayed the hangman’s hand and paid him handsomely and he had promised the old gentleman that he’d bring his granddaughter home. Had given his word. He would do just that.

Cole finished his wine and cigar and left the empty café. His chore, for the next several days, was to stay away from Marietta. He intended to let her get lulled into a false sense of security.

The tall, spare man with the long, nasty-looking scar on his right cheek slowly withdrew the knife from its leather scabbard. The razor-sharp blade gleamed in the sunlight streaming in through the store’s front windows.

He smiled satanically.

He gripped the knife’s smooth handle, liking the feel of it in his palm. His beady, narrowed eyes gleaming, he slid his thumb and forefinger the length of the blade several times, caressing it as if deriving sexual pleasure from the act.

“You might like this one better,” said Jake Stone, standing behind the counter of Stone’s Weaponry Store. He placed a black-handled, short-bladed knife before his customer. “This one might be easier to handle.”

The man stroking the long shiny blade never glanced at the other knife.

“I’ll take this one,” he said and slipped it back into the leather scabbard.

He was strapping the sheathed knife onto the back of his low-riding gun belt, when the proprietor said, “A good choice, Lightnin’. Perfect for skinning trout or what have you.”

Lightnin’ finally looked up, nodded, paid for the knife and left. He stepped out onto the wooden sidewalk just as Cole happened past Stone’s Weaponry. Cole was lost in thought, head down. The two men collided.

“Why don’t you watch where you’re going?” snarled Lightnin’.

“Sorry,” Cole apologized and hurriedly walked on, silently cursing his timing.

Maltese’s scar-faced bodyguard was the last person on earth whose attention he wanted to attract.

Lightnin’ stared after Cole. He knew everyone in town, so he recognized Cole as a stranger. He wondered what the man was doing in Central City. He meant to find out.

He trailed Cole back to the hotel. After Cole had gone up to his suite, Lightnin’ went directly to the front desk. The clerk looked up and smiled nervously.

“May I help you?” he asked politely, recognizing Taylor Maltese’s evil-looking bodyguard.

Unsmiling, Lightnin’ said, “That tall, dark fellow who just went upstairs. Who is he?”

The desk clerk cleared his throat needlessly. “I’m sorry, sir, but the manager of the Teller House, Mr. Darren Ludlow, has made it a strict policy of this hotel that we not divulge the identity of our guests.”

Lightnin’ looked around. The high-ceilinged lobby was almost empty. Only an elderly couple sat on one of the many sofas. Both were reading. Lightnin’ whipped out the shiny new knife he had just purchased at Stone’s. The blade flashed as he held the sharp point an inch from the frightened desk clerk’s chest.

“I’m making a new policy,” he said. “You have exactly one minute to tell me who that stranger is.”

“Yes, of course,” said the jittery clerk who quickly turned the registration book around so that Lightnin’ could look at it. “The guest to whom you’re referring is Mr. Cole Heflin from Texas.”

“Heflin, Heflin,” Lightnin’ repeated the name, re-sheathing his knife. “When did Heflin get into town?”

“A week…no, eight days ago, I believe.”

“What’s he doing here and how long is he staying?”

“That I couldn’t tell you,” said the clerk, then quickly amended, “I mean, I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

Lightnin’ turned away and walked out of the hotel. His curiosity aroused, he headed for the opera house. The Burnetts were standing guard in the alley. Maltese was upstairs with Marietta.

Lightnin’ went into the downstairs gaming hall. He stepped up to the bar and questioned Harry, the barkeep. Harry told him a Texan had come in for a drink the night of the opera’s debut, but didn’t give his name or say why he was in Central City.

“He ask you anything about Marietta?”

Harry’s mouth fell open. “Ah, he might have mentioned seeing her perform, I don’t recall.”

Lightnin’ scratched the long scar going down his right cheek. “You tell him anything about her?”