This story was first published in 1980. Thanks go to SHaron for scanning and proofing, and to Myha for not eating the entire last page of the zine when it was accidentally left within range of her inquisitive teeth .

THE PROLOGUE

MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN COWBOYS

by

TERI WHITE

PART ONE

Everybody loves cowboy and clowns....
                              Garrett

Cowboys are special, with their own brand
of mis'ry, from being alone too long....
Just old worn out saddles
And old worn out mem'ries
But no one and no place to stay.... 
                              Vaughn

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up
to be cowboys.... 
                              Bruce

I

The man was waiting in the hallway.

Hutch climbed the third and final flight of steps that led to the office and paused to catch his breath, at the same time searching in his pockets for the key. He glanced up and saw the figure in the shadows of the ill-lit corridor. "Hi," he said. "You waiting for me?"

It wasn't a common occurrence to have a client waiting first thing in the morning; in fact, it had never happened before, but there was always a possibility. At any rate, since the only other office on the floor belonged to Madame Olga, the gypsy fortuneteller, he stood at least a fifty percent chance of being right. Unless, of course, the guy was a mugger.

The man studied him a moment before answering. "Yeah, reckon I am," he said finally. "If you're part of Confidential Investigations, Unlimited."

"I am," Hutch replied, unlocking the door. "I'm half of it, in fact."

They both walked into the tiny office, and he hit the light switch. The one bulb that wasn't burned out flickered on. "Ken Hutchinson."

"My name is Tyler Monroe. Hal Dobey sent me over."

Hutch sat in the chair behind the desk and gestured Monroe into another, casually studying him as he moved to sit. Well-worn Levis, a blue-and-white plaid shirt that had seen enough washings to be a little threadbare, and in sharp contrast, a pair of elaborately decorated boots. He held a battered black Stetson in one hand. Monroe was taller than Hutch by at least two inches, lean, tanned. Not, Hutch decided, one of the drugstore cowboys that seemed to be cluttering Los Angeles of late. Tyler Monroe looked like the genuine article.

Hell, he thought glumly, the way my powers of observation have been working lately, the guy probably sells pots and pans door-to-door.

The lanky frame arranged itself somewhat gingerly in the shaky wooden chair. "I know I don't have an appointment," he apologized, "but Hal said it would be okay to just come on over."

"You know Cap'n Dobey?"

"He and I was in the Marines together. Long time ago. Haven't seen him since. Until this morning. I had heard that he was a cop here." For such a big man, his voice was surprisingly soft.

It wasn't the first time their former boss had sent them a prospective client, and his referrals had brought in a few dollars. Every little bit helped. "What's the problem?" Hutch asked briskly.

Monroe didn't answer immediately. Instead, his green eyes surveyed the office slowly. Admittedly, it wasn't a very impressive sight, but as Starsky liked to maintain, the low over-head made their prices a bargain. Hutch was of the opinion that even had they been able to afford more plush quarters elsewhere, Starsky would still have wanted this place. Something to do with image.

The headquarters of Confidential Investigations, Unlimited were certainly sleazy enough to satisfy the most dedicated devotee of private eye lore. The furniture looked just like the Salvation Army stock it was; the walls desperately needed a new coat of paint, the last having been applied sometime during the first half of the century; and the single window over-looking Vermont Avenue was so dirt-laden as to be almost opaque.

Monroe studied it all for a moment, then lowered his eyes to look silently at his own long-fingered hands. "He said you and your partner were real good cops. Used to be his best men."

"Well," Hutch said. He picked up Starsky's copy of THE WAY SOME PEOPLE DIE from the desk and turned it over absently in his hands. "My partner's in San Diego on a case right now." That sounded good, better than telling the whole truth, which was that Starsky was trying to collect an over-due debt owed their client, a used car dealer in Topanga. Jobs like that weren't exactly the stuff legends were made of, but they paid the rent. Sometimes.

Monroe lifted one hand and ran it through his chestnut hair. The gesture seemed somehow out of place; he didn't look like the kind of man to get easily rattled. But then, visiting a private detective did that to a lot of people, and Hutch was getting used to it. One thing he'd learned during the past year was that you didn't rush the client.

"I went to the police first," Monroe said finally. "But Hal told me they were so busy and..." He paused, then raised his head. "I need you to look for somebody. You do that kind of work, don't you?"

"Oh, yeah," Hutch said. Runaway kids. Flaked-out wives. Errant husbands. "We do a lot of that kind of work." As much as they did of any other, which was to say, not enough. A little of the tension seemed to ease from Monroe's craggy face. "Good." He shrugged. "Hal explained to me that the first priority or whatever of the police has to be for kids and like that."

"That's the way it is," Hutch agreed. "So who's the missing person?"

"Andy Jones."

"Relative?" Hutch jotted the name down.

Monroe shook his head. "A friend of mine. We're both with the rodeo out in Newcombe right now."

Hutch vaguely remembered seeing the brightly colored posters around the city. He nodded, then stood. "Hot in here. You want a beer?"

"Thanks, wouldn't mind one."

Hoping the drink would help relax the other man a little, Hutch pushed aside the curtain that separated Starsky's living quarters from the rest of the office proper. The small refrigerator held half a pizza and a six-pack. He took two beers from the pack and returned to the desk, handing one to Monroe.

Monroe turned the cold can in his hands. "Andy disappeared two days ago."

Hutch pulled the tab on his beer. "When you say he 'disappeared' just what does that mean?"

Monroe drank absently. "He went out and he didn't come back." The words were flat and emotionless.

Hutch nodded again. That was something else he'd learned in the last months; it was good to keep nodding so that the client knew you were really listening. "Why don't we start at the beginning?" he suggested, pulling the notepad closer. "What's his full name, his age, all that?"

"Andrew Jones. He's thirty. Five eleven, hundred and sixty or so." Monroe fumbled in his pocket for a moment. "I have a picture. Hal said you'd want to see it." A worn leather wallet flopped open on the desktop.

Hutch picked it up for a closer look. The picture wasn't very good. It was a grainy black-and-white photo of a smiling young man with dark blond hair, but there was something anonymous about the image, almost as if it were one of those pictures that came free when you bought a new wallet.

Monroe frowned. "I know it isn't very good. There's a better one back at the motel." At Hutch's glance, he added, "Most of the folks from the rodeo are staying at the Traveller's Inn in Newcombe."

Hutch made another note. "Okay. You say he went out. Where was he going?"

There was a pause. "I don't know."

Hutch sighed. The damned cowboy wasn't much of a talker; some clients came in and spilled their guts at the first sign of a little interest. A lot of them really didn't even need a detective at all, but only someone to listen to their troubles. Not Gary Cooper here, though. "Could you just tell me exactly what happened, Monroe?" he urged gently.

Monroe leaned back, stretching his long legs across the office. "We had dinner Tuesday night in a place called the Last Round-up. Most of the rodeo regulars were there." His voice was low and as he spoke he kept his eyes on the complimentary calendar from the Wise Insurance Agency. "After dinner, Andy and I went into the backroom to shoot some pool. About ten, he said he had an appointment."

"With who?"

Monroe shrugged. "He didn't say; I didn't ask. We just finished the game and he left." There was a pause. "I should've asked, I guess, but..."

"But?"

"I didn't. Sometimes I ask too damn many questions, you know?"

Hutch didn't know, but he didn't say so. "Nothing else?"

"No." Monroe looked at him and there was a strangely childlike confusion in the jade gaze. "I haven't seen him since." The slender fingers gripped the beer can tightly, crushing the sides together. "Nobody has. He's just...gone. Disappeared, like I said." He drained the last of the beer and threw the can into the wastebasket. "Will you find him?"

Hutch doodled on the notepad for a moment, reading what he'd written there. Instinct, nurtured by his years as a cop, was telling him not to take this case. Friend of Dobey's or not, and the fact that they needed money aside, he should just tell Tyler Monroe that they couldn't handle this. There was bound to be something here that he wouldn't like. Some cases looked bad from the beginning, and this was one of them. He couldn't have explained that to anyone else, but he could feel it deep in his gut.

He put the pencil down. "Jones disappear like this a lot?" he asked.

"No."

"Maybe he's just off on a bender, you know, taking in the city. It happens."

Monroe shook his head.

"You sure about that?"

"Yes, I'm sure." He met Hutch's gaze, looking very sure. "I've known Andy for fifteen years. He's never done this before."

"Always a first time." Hutch knew damned well that he was grasping at straws, but he really wanted it to be that simple. He wanted Andy Jones from the rodeo to be off drunk someplace, maybe holed up in a cheap hotel with a Hollywood hooker. The answer to a cowboy's dream.

Monroe shook his head again, sharply. "No, Andy is...." Two calloused hands picked up the Stetson from the desk and turned it over idly. "Andy's a quiet kid, you know? Shy, I guess you'd say."

"Uh-huh." With every word Monroe uttered, Hutch became more convinced that something was very wrong here. Something that he didn't want to get involved in. The routine jobs they'd handled so far in this business were usually boring, and he sometimes bitched about it to Starsky, who approached every case—even the ones like the used car dealer in Topanga—with the unbridled enthusiasm of Sam Spade going after the Maltese Falcon or whatever. But although he complained, Hutch was also a little relieved at the humdrum simplicity of their cases. People, for the most part, had petty little problems that could be either solved or not solved with a minimum of effort. Either way, the fee was collected. It was a fairly safe niche he'd carved out for himself, and he didn't want to let anything in that might screw things up.

He sighed. "You don't have any idea at all where he might have been going?"

Monroe retrieved his wallet before answering. He looked at the picture for a moment, then snapped the billfold closed and shoved it away. "Nope. I just figured it was business."

"Rodeo business?"

"No, I handle all that. Andy's been talking to some people about making a record. I figured maybe the appointment was with them."

"A record?"

"Yeah." For the first time since they'd started talking, Monroe smiled. The leathery skin creased, sending lines fanning out from the corners of his eyes. "He wants to be a country-western singer. Plays the guitar real good, and even writes his own songs."

"No kidding?" Hutch said politely.

As suddenly as it had appeared, the smile was gone. "Will you find him?"

Hutch really wanted to say no. The bad vibes were still pounding in his head. There was something in Tyler Monroe's hopeful eyes that made him nervous. Maybe it was just that there was so much hope, more like a desperate need. "Our rate is $150 a day, plus expenses." There was always a chance that the cost would discourage the cowboy.

But he only shrugged. "That doesn't matter. I have money. Just find him." He cleared his throat. "Please."

"We'll try," Hutch said with a sigh.

"Hal said you were real good at your job."

Hutch didn't know how to reply to that, so he kept quiet, studying Monroe again. The man looked like he hadn't slept in a while, and he wasn't as young as the first impression had led Hutch to believe. Probably forty-five or so; if he and Dobey had been in the Marines together, he realized, that would be about right. "I can't force anyone to come back against their will, you know."

"It isn't that way," Monroe said firmly.

"Okay," Hutch snapped, wanting to jolt him a little. "How do you think it is?"

The big man was quiet for a long moment. "Well," he said finally, "I figure maybe he had an accident or something, and he's in a hospital. Maybe he got hit on the head and can't remember who he is."

"Amnesia?"

"Right." Whether Monroe really believed that, or whether he only wanted to, Hutch didn't know. "That's maybe what happened, don't you think?"

"Maybe," Hutch said, not believing it for a moment. Still...things like that did happen. People disappeared and then they came back okay. Like what happened to Starsky last year. Shit, being kidnapped off to hell and back was about as unlikely as this theory about sudden forgetfulness. "Okay," he said. "We'll see what we can do. I have a couple of other things to clear up this afternoon, then I'll come out to Newcombe. Can I reach you at the motel later?"

"Yeah. The rodeo don't start until tomorrow."

"What's your event?" Hutch asked.

"Saddle bronc rider." The man pulled his long body out of the chair, looking tired. "Been doing it for twenty-five years."

"Jones do that, too?"

Monroe shook his head. "Andy's a clown. And he rides pick-up on my event." He walked to the door. "I'll see you later then?"

"Sure." Hutch flashed his most encouraging smile. "Tonight. And don't worry," he added. "Most people turn up sooner or later."

"I reckon you know your business." He opened the door, then stopped again "Oh—one thing about Andy maybe you better know."

"Yeah?" Hutch said, not really wanting to hear anything else that would make him like this case even less than he already did. "What?"

"He has a stutter."

"Stutter?"

"Yeah. It's pretty bad, especially if he's feeling nervous or something, you know?"

Hutch frowned. "Thought you said he wants to be a singer."

"He does." Monroe shrugged. "Don't happen when he sings. Just when he's talking."

"Okay." Hutch made a note of it, more for the client's sake than his own.

The door closed carefully behind Monroe.

Hutch listened to the sharp click of boots against the wooden stairs, until the sound became an echo, then faded away. When the office was quiet again, he reached for the phone and dialed San Diego.

**

click illo to see larger image

II

Dobey was in the middle of something, and he didn't have time for Hutch. "I don't have time for this today," he growled.

Hutch lounged against the chair. "In that case, I'll make it fast," he said easily. "What can you tell me about Tyler Monroe?"

The captain glanced up. "So he came to see you?"

"Yeah. He was waiting on the doorstep this morning. Starsky would have been delighted."

"You take the case?"

Hutch shrugged.

Dobey picked up another file and began to read it.

"Monroe?" Hutch said softly.

"I knew him years ago, in the Marines," Dobey said, still reading. "He was a nice kid. I was a nice kid. We got drunk together a couple of times. I guess we sort of became friends because we both felt out of place. I was a nigger and he was a hick. He used to wear an old Stetson and I used to read Dick Tracy. He grew up to be a cowboy, and I grew up to be a cop. A busy cop," he emphasized.

"Uh-huh." Hutch was quiet for a moment.

"Where's your partner?"

"San Diego. Coming back today. What do you think about Andy Jones?"

"I don't know Andy Jones," Dobey replied reasonably. "But I hope you find him."

"Yeah. So do I." Hutch stood, walked to the door, stopped. He frowned. "Jones is a rodeo clown, who has a bad stutter, and wants to be another Willie Nelson."

"Mel Tillis," Dobey corrected.

"What?"

"He stutters, too. Not when he sings, though. Strange."

"That's what Tyler said about Andy. A bad stutter when he talks, but he sings okay."

Dobey closed the file and shoved it aside. "Well, if Tillis made it, maybe he will, too."

"Maybe." He put a hand on the knob, then took it off again. "No John Does in the morgue the last couple of days? Thirty, five-eleven, one-sixty or so?"

Dobey looked at him sharply. "No, I checked that, of course."

Hutch nodded.

Dobey was still looking at him. "Any reason for you to think there might be a John Doe like that on ice?"

"No reason at all," Hutch said. "Just trying to touch all the bases before I go to Newcombe."

"What's Starsky going to do?"

"Sit tight for a little while anyway." Hutch rubbed the back of his neck. "Too early for any kind of a battle plan yet. I'm still stumbling in the dark. No matter what Tyler thinks, the guy just might be off on a spree someplace. Hell, maybe he'll turn up today." He smiled faintly. "Thanks for the help."

"Just do the job." Dobey picked up a pen and scribbled his name on something. "Monroe's a nice guy."

"Yeah, seems to be." Hutch opened the door. "Well," he said with seeming irrelevance, "Starsky came back, right?"

"What?" Dobey asked, closing the file.

"When everybody thought he was dead." Hutch shrugged and left.

It took him nearly ten minutes to sweet-talk Minnie into running Monroe and Jones through the computer. Would have taken Starsk about thirty seconds, he thought sourly. He drank a cup of coffee, which hadn't improved at all since his days on the force, and waited impatiently for the policewoman to return.

The information she brought back wasn't really worth waiting for. With the exception of a DWI conviction on Monroe, way back in 1963, both came up clean. Model citizens, apparently. Except that one of them was suddenly missing. Model citizens shouldn't disappear; it upset the natural order of things.

He stopped at a health food joint and had a banana yoghurt milkshake for lunch, then went by his place and tossed some things into a duffel bag before driving back to the office. The Torino was in its usual spot in front; he parked Belle right behind it.

Old man Weiss, who operated the used bookstore on the ground floor and owned the whole damned building, trapped him in the hall, talking a blue streak.

Hutch tried to edge away. "I don't understand," he said. "It's the other guy who understands Yiddish, not me. I can't understand what the hell you're saying." The man kept talking, poking an insistent finger at Hutch to emphasize his words. "I'm an Episcopalian," Hutch said, making a desperate dash for the stairs and escaping.

He knew damned well what the old guy was yammering about, of course. The rent was a week late again. He only wished he could figure out why the hell the old man persisted in talking Yiddish to him.

His partner was in the hallway, rubbing a wadded handkerchief over the crooked gold lettering that emblazoned the door. CONFIDENTIAL INVESTIGATIONS, UNLIMITED. D. STARSKY - K. HUTCHINSON. The paint job had been done with more enthusiasm than skill by a female acquaintance of the airline stewardess persuasion. Occasionally, when he had nothing more pressing to think about, he still wondered what Starsky had said, done, or promised in order to get himself top billing.

Hutch leaned against the wall to watch the polishing job. "You got my message, I guess," he said.

"Uh-huh," Starsky muttered, carefully buffing the D in his name. "You know what we need?"

"What?"

"A girl friday."

Hutch blinked twice. "A what?"

"You know. A girl to answer the phone and greet the clients and answer the mail."

"Right, Starsk."

Starsky glanced at him, frowning. "Don't you like the idea?"

"I love it. There's only one problem."

"What?"

"We don't even make enough for you and me to survive on. How the heck are we supposed to pay someone else? Unless you could find a chick willing to take it out in trade." He didn't add that knowing Starsky, such an idea wasn't totally unbelievable.

"Well, I didn't mean right now," his partner said, giving a final swipe at the glass and then opening the door. "I just meant it was an idea we might want to keep in mind. For when things get off the ground a little."

They went in. "My partner, the eternal optimist," Hutch said.

"Sure, why not? Doesn't take anymore effort than being a pessimist." He sat down, propping his feet on a corner of the desk. "You have to expect a few rough days, Hutch. Things'll pick up. Like this new case. Sounds big. What's it all about?"

Hutch went and took two more beers from the six-pack, tossing one to Starsky. He shrugged and sat down on the desk. "Not so big, I guess. A missing person. The client's an old friend of Dobey's."

"Yeah? Great." Starsky drank beer, listening as Hutch told him about Tyler Monroe's visit. By the time he was finished, Starsky was frowning. "Okay, blondie," he said. "What's bugging you about it?"

Hutch shrugged. "Feels bad, is all."

Starsky seemed to mull that over for a moment; they had long ago learned to respect one another's gut feelings. "You think maybe Monroe's not on the up and up?"

"No, not that. He's okay."

Starsky tapped the beer can thoughtfully. Hutch always had the impression at times like this that he was asking himself just what one of his paperback heroes would do in the same circumstances. "Well," he said finally, "we can only look for the guy, right? Do our best. We usually find 'em. Maybe we'll get lucky again."

"Maybe." Hutch drained the beer. "I better get out to Newcombe. Never saw a real rodeo before."

"Old farm boy like you?"

He shrugged.

Starsky swung his feet to the floor. "See if you can find out who Jones was talking to about making a record. Get me a name I can follow up on."

"Will do."

"Meanwhile," Starsky said with a grimace, "I better go out to Topanga and deliver Friendly Fred's money."

They went down the steps together, walking quietly in order to avoid alerting the landlord again. Starsky paused on the sidewalk. "You heeled?" he asked casually.

Hutch patted his jacket.

"Take care. Don't let a horse step on you."

He grinned. "I'm more worried about what I might step in than what might step on me."

Starsky returned the smile, gave his partner a parting shot on the arm, and headed toward the Torino.

Hutch pulled his sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on as he slid behind the wheel.

**

III

Newcombe was one of the many little towns that ring Los Angeles. Unfortunately for the fiscal health of the small community, no one had seen fit to locate a giant amusement park within its environs; nor had a major (or minor) movie company chosen it as the site for a studio. Newcombe, in fact, remained almost anachronistically rural within the mostly urban county.

It took Hutch almost two hours to get from the office to downtown Newcombe. The first thing he did upon arriving was to find a motel that was cheap enough so he could skim a little off the top of his expense account. It wasn't exactly honest, maybe, but he figured that if he was willing to put up with third-rate accommodations, the least the client could do was pay for a second-rate place. The business world had lots of little twists and turns like that, he'd discovered.

After he was all checked in and had unpacked the duffel, he sat down on the unpromisingly lumpy bed to make a phone call.

Monroe must have been sitting on top of the damned thing, because he answered almost before the first ring ended. "Yeah?"

"Mr. Monroe? Ken Hutchinson."

"Oh. Hi." It didn't take many brains to figure out why he sounded disappointed; Hutch's wasn't the voice he wanted to hear. "Call me Tyler, huh?"

"Okay. Did you talk to the Newcombe cops, Tyler?"

"Yeah, sure. That first night, when Andy didn't come back I waited 'til three o'clock and then I went down to the station." He was quiet for a time. "Said they was used to cowboys getting drunk and taking off. Happens every rodeo, they said."

"Does it?"

"Yeah, I guess," he admitted; then his voice hardened. "But not to Andy. He don't do things like this."

Hutch pulled at the sparse threads on the old chenille bedspread. "They checked the local hospital?"

"Yeah."

"And the morgue?"

There was another long silence on the other end. "Yes." It was said very softly. "They checked the morgue." He took a deep breath. "There was a body there, and they made me go look at it. Wasn't Andy."

"Okay. Look, I need to talk to you some more, and maybe to some of the other people who know Andy. When would be my best chance?"

Tyler was a moment answering. "Most everybody will be having dinner pretty soon over at the Last Round-Up. After that, there's the draw for tomorrow's events."

Hutch had managed to pull enough threads out of the bedspread to make a small hole, so he quit. "Why don't I meet you there in about thirty minutes?"

Tyler agreed, and after getting directions, Hutch hung up. He stretched out on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

It was clear that to the town of Newcombe the annual rodeo was a big deal. The entire city was festooned with signs and flags in honor of the big event, and many of the residents seemed to have outfitted themselves appropriately. Unless, Hutch thought, they always dressed that way out here.

He had no trouble locating the Last Round-Up and managed to find a small parking space amongst the pick-up trucks and vans that jammed the lot. Inside, the large room was crowded elbow-to-elbow with cowboys and an almost equal number of females. Willie Nelson and Ray Price reverberated from a jukebox singing something about faded love.

Hutch, glad he'd donned blue jeans for the occasion, worked his way through the mob until he saw Tyler Monroe sitting at a corner table with two other men, and a young woman clad in cut-offs and a T-shirt with the words NEWCOMBE RODEO, 1980 emblazoned across the front. The front wasn't bad, Hutch noted.

Tyler gestured him into a chair. "Just on my way to the bar for another beer, Ken," he said. "Can I get you one?"

He nodded.

Tyler unwound his lanky frame from the chair and walked away.

As he sat, Hutch looked around the table at his companions. The girl smiled; the two cowboys didn't. "Hi," he said pleasantly.

"Hi," she replied.

"I guess you folks all must know Andy Jones?" Folks? Jesus, I just got here and already I'm starting to talk like them.

They nodded.

"Any idea where he might be?"

They shook their heads. The girl went so far as to shrug. "Kinda funny," she said.

Hutch tried to encourage her with a smile. "What's that?"

"Him just up and taking off like that."

"You know him pretty good?" he asked.

"Everybody knows Andy. I mean, we all sort of know each other."

Hutch looked up and saw Tyler coming back, balancing a foamy mug in each hand. "You like him?"

"Sure, I guess. Why not? He's a nice enough guy."

Tyler sat down, pushing one of the mugs toward Hutch. The conversation, such as it had been, stopped altogether. Everybody drank beer and listened to a song about eating crackers in bed. When that ended, Hutch leaned across the table. "How did Andy leave here?"

Tyler's eyes focused slowly, as if he'd been somewhere else. "What? Oh, in his car."

Hutch pulled out his notebook, flipping it past a shopping list and several pages dealing with how one suburban housewife spent her afternoons while her husband labored in a Santa Monica bank, until he reached a blank sheet. "Yeah?"

"A '68 VW. Red. Wyoming plates, RE 4536."

He wrote all that down neatly. "You have any idea about how much money he might have had on him?"

Tyler sipped beer carefully. "Thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents."

The exactness of the figure surprised Hutch a little, but he let it pass for the moment. "Credit cards?"

"Nope. Don't believe in 'em, neither one of us."

The two cowboys finished their beers and left without a word. The girl in the T-shirt stayed, leaning both elbows on the table, listening.

"What was he wearing?" Hutch asked.

"Jeans. A yellow shirt, I think." He closed his eyes for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah, his yellow shirt. There's blue flowers on the back. Boots, of course. Black ones, with white stitching. His hat."

Hutch was still writing. "Any distinguishing marks? Like a scar or something?"

Tyler set the mug down on the table, frowned, scooted it half an inch, and let it stay. "He had his appendix out five years ago; there's a small scar. That's all." The jade eyes darkened. "Oh, and he has a birthmark on his back, just below the left shoulder."

The girl was tapping out a tune on the table, singing along softly with the jukebox.

Hutch glanced at her, then looked back at Tyler. "Was he wearing any jewelry? Like a watch? A ring? Anything?"

"A watch, yeah. But it's real cheap. Nobody would want to steal it. It was just from a drugstore, you know? And it was old, like five or six years. Not worth stealing. Not worth...hurting anybody over. And neither is thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents. Is it?"

Hutch didn't bother to tell him that he'd known murder to be committed over as little as seven cents. Once, even, over two returnable soda pop bottles. A human life was the cheapest damned thing in the world.

"You know what I read in the Enquirer last week?" the girl said. "This gang mugged some guy and stabbed him so they could take his boots."

Hutch tossed her a dirty look, but she was caught up in the song again. He saw the slender fingers clench around the handle of the mug. "Anything besides the watch, Tyler?" he asked gently.

Tyler nodded. "A Marine Corps ring."

Hutch glanced up, a little surprised. "Andy was in the Marines, too?"

"No."

He didn't say any more and Hutch let that go, too. "Okay," he said, closing the notebook. "How about some food?"

He and Tyler ordered hamburgers; apparently the girl, whose name was finally revealed as Rosie, wasn't eating. Once the waitress had departed with the order, Tyler excused himself and headed for the can.

Rosie took a drink of Hutch's beer. "You wanna dance?"

That was the best invitation he'd had all week, so he nodded and led the way to a postage stamp-sized dance floor. The music was slow and sad. "You really a private eye?" she asked, as they moved in a slow, tight circle. "Like on TV?"

"Something like that."

"Tyler paying you a lot of money to look for Andy?"

"He's paying me. Not a lot." They narrowly avoided colliding with another couple. "You said Andy's a nice guy?"

"Uh-huh. Real sweet. Not like what you might figure, if you know what I mean."

Hutch pulled back a little so that he could look down into her face. "What do you mean?"

She looked embarrassed. "Well, you know. You hear stuff about some kinds of people, but he's just sweet." The music picked up a little. "I don't think he'd ever run off like this. Especially not now."

"What's so special about now?"

"Didn't Tyler tell you about the ranch?"

Hutch glanced toward the table, where his client sat over another beer, seemingly oblivious to the other people in the room. "Tyler doesn't seem to say much of anything, unless I pry it out of him."

She laughed softly. "That's the way it is with cowboys. They don't believe in wasting too many words. Tyler's even worse than most. He talks mostly just to Andy. Of course, he's about the only one who talks to Andy very much."

"Why?"

"Not that we don't like him," she said quickly. "He's one of us, for sure, and like I said, a real sweet guy. It's just that Andy has this stutter, you know, and it makes people nervous trying to talk to him for very long. 'Cepting Tyler, of course. Reckon he's used to it by now."

Hutch looked down at her again. "Or maybe he just cares enough to make the effort."

She nodded. "I guess so, yeah." Her face brightened. "Like with this boy I used to date. He had this habit of cracking his knuckles. Used to drive everybody else crazy, but I never even noticed it, not for months and months. Then one day, I noticed. I think that was when we broke up."

The waitress was delivering their order, so Hutch was spared the necessity of responding to that tale. Rosie bid him a cheery farewell and joined a group at another table. Hutch returned to his chair across from Tyler, who was holding a hamburger, but not eating. Hutch took a bite of his sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. "Andy have any enemies?" he asked suddenly.

Tyler looked startled. "What? Enemies? No, of course not. Why should he?"

Hutch shrugged. "Why should anybody? But people do."

"No. He doesn't have any enemies. Everybody likes him."

It was a good hamburger and Hutch ate in silence for a moment. "Rosie said people sometimes have a hard time talking to him because of the stutter."

Tyler made no response to that beyond a shrug.

They finished the rest of the meal in silence, and by the time they were done, the place was beginning to empty out rapidly. "Almost time for the drawing," Tyler said.

Hutch looked at him blankly.

"To see who gets what animal tomorrow night," he explained, gulping down the last of his beer.

Hutch tossed a couple of bills down onto the table. "You planning on riding tomorrow?"

"Sure." Tyler started for the door, then stopped. "Need the money," he said. The Stetson moved around in his fingers restlessly. "Usually Andy rides pick-up for me, though. It's gonna seem kinda strange without him being there. You get used to people, ya know?" He went out before Hutch could answer.

The lottery was held across the street from the Last Round-Up, on a wooden stage built especially for the purpose. It was the first official happening of the rodeo and the town played it up big. The high school band performed, and Miss Rodeo 1980 was duly crowned. At last, the names of the cowboys went into one hat and the names of the horses into another. Miss Rodeo, dressed in a sequined Western outfit, did the honors, a beaming smile fixed to her face throughout.

Hutch stood on the fringe of the crowd, watching. After a number of other selections had been made, Tyler's name was announced. He drew a horse called Jason's Fury.

He shrugged and walked over to Hutch. "Been waiting all season to get that nag," he said, not sounding like he cared a damned bit.

Hutch only nodded.

"You need to ask me any more questions, Ken?" Tyler's voice was raspy with weariness.

"Just one for now, buddy. Who was Andy talking to about making a record?"

Tyler thought for a moment, looking off into the night. "Brustein," he said finally. "Guy's name is Al Brustein. Says Andy has a lot of talent."

Hutch began walking toward his car, and Tyler trailed along. "How'd Andy meet this Brustein?"

Tyler took out a cigarette and lit it as he walked. "Andy was singing for Talent Night in the Round-Up. He does that lots of places. Even won top money sometimes. Anyway, the guy heard him and came up after to introduce himself."

Hutch got into Belle and closed the door firmly. "All right, man, that's it for now. I'll see you tomorrow sometime."

Tyler nodded.

Hutch started the car and pulling away, leaving him standing in the parking lot of the Last Round-Up Bar and Grill.

**

Part Two