Frame Angel! (A Frank Angel Western) #7 by Frederick H. Christian Read Free Book Online Page A

he was convinced of it. Pinkerton
told him that Leaven and Ruzzin were as anxious to lay hands on the
other two robbers as he was; if anything, more anxious, because the
robbery reflected upon the Pinkerton Agency and by definition upon
Leaven and Ruzzin personally.
    Yet Angel felt strongly that the
robbers were nothing more than that – especially if Briggs was a sample. Good
men, cool, resourceful maybe. With local knowledge certainly. But
not the kind of men who’d know about a shipment of that size, of
that kind. Which led to another piece of the puzzle.
    Suppose
Briggs ’s
$20,000 share was the same as that of the other two? A total of
$60,000. Why would they accept so little when they had a quarter of
a million in their hands – unless they didn’t know that the money couldn’t be
traced? Which
meant that they had been told it was. And that in turn meant that
someone had told them about the shipment, how to take it, and where
to take it. Planned every move of the whole robbery: only to be
thwarted by Briggs’s capture and Sheriff Curtis’s pursuit. It had
put the others to flight. Now they were hiding out, awaiting –
what? Further instructions? Briggs knew. Briggs was the
key.
    These thoughts and many others twirled
around and around in his head until finally he went to sleep. In
his dreams a dark shape pursued him through mist. He could see
where the mist ended and knew that when he reached that point
someone would be waiting to kill him. He was not afraid of being
killed. But he was afraid of finding out who was waiting. When he
came to the place where the mist ended, he woke up. The bells were
clanging, and it was morning.

Chapter
Seven
     
    The arrangements Angel had made
through Wells with the warden of Folsom Penitentiary were simple to
the point of imbecility. Since, as Angel had put it, he had no
knowledge of the warden ’s intellectual powers, the best thing to do was
avoid any chance of straining them. In actual fact, Warden Harry
Abrams was a model penologist who loathed the conditions in which
he had to keep his prisoners and was constantly campaigning through
the Territorial Legislature, the Prison Board, and newspapers for
funds with which to alleviate Folsom’s problems. He was a short
man, middle-aged, and running to florid fat as a result of the many
formal lunches he had to attend or speak at. But he was shrewd and
intelligent. He had listened to Wells carefully, made one or two
pencil notes on a pad by his side, and nodded briskly when Wells
had finished speaking. ‘No problem with any of that,’ he had said.
‘How many others do you want let in on this?’
    ‘ The
fewer the better,’ Wells said. ‘Let’s work out the
minimums.’
    Abrams had been not only helpful but
sensible. They had realized that Angel might receive same bad
treatment (although neither man had any idea of exactly what the
guards did to some of the prisoners, and since neither guards nor
prisoners were likely to tell them, they had no way of preventing
or changing it). But they decided against letting the guards in
Cell Block A or in the main administration building in on the fact
that the escape was rigged.
    ‘ It’s
got to look damned real,’ Wells told him. ‘Or Briggs will smell a
rat.’
    ‘ I have
to tell the guards in the wall sentinels,’ Abrams told him.
‘They’re picked men, crack shots. They could pick both men off like
flies from up there.’
    ‘ All
right,’ Wells said. ‘But only the guards who are likely to see
Angel – the others, no.’
    That agreed, they settled down
to more mundane details – clothes, horses, weapons.
    ‘ I don’t
think Briggs will wonder too much about the clothes and horses and
guns,’ Wells assured him. ‘Angel will have told him about his
powerful friends on the outside. He ought to swallow it. He’s
swallowed all the rest.’
    Abrams nodded in
agreement. ‘I
suppose so,’ he said. ‘Then all we have to do now is wait for
Angel’s signal.’
    Wells