Even the Butler Was Poor by Ron Goulart

see, mean that I don't look like a natural born example of what it is I am."
    Rubbing his fingers across his palm Ben said, "Wait now, I'm starting to get something. Let me see. Yeah, that's it. I am getting a strong image of a horse. . . yes, a great white stallion. You're in the saddle, galloping across the plains of the Old West. What else am I getting a hint of? Yep, there's a faithful companion to you for many a long year. I am also getting. . . Yeah, you're wearing a mask and a white Stetson. And I think maybe silver bullets play a part in your profession. Am I at all warm?"
    "Say, what the hell is wrong with you?"
    "Listen, I was just trying to pass the time pleasantly. There's no reason for you to razz me." Ben said, "You mean you didn't used to be the Lone Ranger?"
    "You know, I haul a lot of people around Fairfield County, rich and poor alike. Most of them respect me and few razz me." Making a grieved noise, he fell silent.
    Ben looked at his watch.
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    T his time there was a note. Ben found it on the front seat of his car, weighted down with his keys. The car itself he'd found parked halfway up H.J.'s short weedy drive. The message, printed in his ex-wife's personal mix of upper and lower case letters, read—
    Â 
    Thanks for the loan of the car. All is well, trust me. Will contact you soon.
    Â 
    Love, H.J.
    Â 
    He stood there in the sunshine, reunited with his car yet far from happy, holding the note in his hand. H.J. had printed it on the back of a gas station credit card receipt she'd borrowed from his glove compartment.
    "I bet she's going to try it," he said to himself, shivering once. "That lunatic is going to attempt to get money out of Kathkart and Beaujack and the rest of them."
    Unless he found her, cut her off before she made contact with anybody. Otherwise, she was almost certain to end up like Rick Dell.
    Folding the note and sliding it into his hip pocket, he shut the car door and started along the doorway toward the garage. Maybe H.J.'s auto was still in there, which would mean she hadn't gone anywhere yet. He looked over at her small house, spotting no sign of life inside.
    Now might be a dandy time to look up your contacts in the Brimstone police, he suggested to himself. Either Sergeant Kendig or Detective Ryerson. Probably Kendig would be the better bet, since he's a shade more liberal.
    He looked in through the dusty window in the garage door, and let out a disappointed sigh. Her car was gone.
    How liberal would a cop have to be, though, to condone what he and H.J. had been up to? Maybe if they'd been able to go to them this morning with the pictures in hand. Sure, with pictures to back up their story, their activities over on Long Island could have been downplayed.
    "A little grave robbing, sarge, sure, and a touch of burglary. And there was some shooting in the streets. But, hey, it was all in a good cause and we have this evidence of a murder."
    Absently he rubbed some of the dust away from the window with the heel of his hand. One of H.J.'s old suitcases, the one she'd taken that time they'd gone up to Cape Cod, was sprawled against the back wall.
    Without the photographs, be couldn't prove a damn thing. Except maybe that he and H.J. had broken into a funeral parlor and that H.J. had fled the Eastport Mall just after Rick Dell expired.
    And now, with the photos and the negatives in her possession, she was probably contemplating blackmail.
    "How would the police react to my telling them I think my wife is about to start blackmailing somebody? Even cops I did fifteen minutes of comedy impressions for at a benefit show."
    Not too favorably probably.
    "Officers, my wife—make that my former wife—is planning to blackmail some very influential people. Could you guys, please, toss a net over her and keep her out of trouble? Don't arrest her or anything rough like that, because she means well and is just overly mercenary at times. She's a terrific person down deep and good