He deliberately slowed his pace, keeping three yards between himself and the bandy-legged figure. Dangling from a dusty hat, a faded gray ponytail thumped against the red fabric stretched across the clearly visible hump.
“Pappy” Pikeman...no, Pickman. Burke pulled the name from the dozens he’d committed to memory. Pappy was a notorious, if aging, bank robber, specializing in dynamiting safes. Burkes’s right hand drifted to the Colt 45 on his hip.
The man bearing a startling resemblance to Pappy paused on the corner. Across the street, where McClintock and Larimer intersected, rose the bank’s new four-story structure, completed three months earlier. Burke also stopped, moving to the inside of the boardwalk so as not to block the pedestrian traffic that flowed in both directions around him.
The humpbacked man was peering into one of the French plate-glass windows. Burke still wasn’t sure if he was trailing Pappy or someone who looked enough like the criminal to be his brother. Before the man entered the bank, Burke would know.
The anger that had been growing within him for the past few months climbed another notch. What was going on? If indeed Pappy Pickman was studying the building with robbery in mind, he would be the fourth thief in as many months to choose the First National and Trust as his target. It didn’t make sense. There were at least a dozen other financial institutions in Denver with poorer security measures than he maintained.
Burke stepped onto the boardwalk and walked past the man raptly staring into the front windows. The brief glimpse he caught of the profile shadowed beneath the hat stoked his wrath. With a certainty he didn’t question, he knew Pickman had joined the ranks of those who thought they could successfully steal from the First National.
Burke drew his .45 from its holster and shoved the barrel against Pickman’s side. “Put your hands against the window.”
He felt the shudder of shock that rocked the smaller man.
“What’s going on?” The high-pitched protest bristled with outrage.
Burke leaned close and spoke through tightly clenched teeth. “I know who you are. If you want to see tomorrow, don’t make any sudden moves.”
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! There’s been a mistake!”
“You’re right about that.” Burke cocked the Colt. “Reach into your pocket and take the gun out by its barrel.”
“I ain’t got no—”
Burke pushed the .45 deeper into his side. “Do it.”
Uttering an oath, the man plunged his hand into the pocket concealed by the baggy coveralls. What came into view made Burke suck in his breath.
“I told you I wasn’t packing a pistol.”
Burke gingerly retrieved the stick of dynamite from Pickman’s shaking fingers. “Now, we’re going for a walk. Inside.”
“Inside?” Pickman squeaked. “Ain’t you gonna take me to the sheriff?”
“I might be willing to turn you over to Sheriff Donner after you answer some questions.”
He turned pasty-colored. “I ain’t answering no questions.”
Burke spun the man around to face the doors closest to them. “Walk.”
Pickman dragged his heels but managed to stumble forward. Burke eased the stick of dynamite into his coat pocket while keeping his gun pressed discreetly, but firmly, against his prisoner’s ribs. They stepped in tandem through the glass doors.
The teller closest to the entrance looked up from the plump matron he was assisting. “Good morning, Mr. Youngblood.”
“’Morning, Jamison.” Burke nodded in the general direction of the customers standing in five short lines. If lowlifes like Pickman continued to view his establishment as their personal source of ill-gotten loot, the First National and Trust would soon be an empty shell of a building.
And, without your business, you’d be an empty shell.
The rogue thought stunned Burke. When had he started thinking of himself only as an extension of the banks he owned?
“Up the stairs,” Burke ordered gruffly.
“Okay, okay, I’m going. Don’t push.”
They went up two flights. By the time they reached the top, Pickman was sweating heavily and wheezing. “Slow down. I don’t see why you’re in such an all-fired hurry.”
Burke opened his office door and shoved his prisoner inside. “Better save what little breath you have.”
Burke was surprised to find he had a visitor. Gideon Cade lounged casually in one of the chairs that faced the mahogany desk. Gideon got to his feet, eyeing Pappy with obvious interest.
Burke forcibly guided Pickman to an empty chair. “Sit.”
“All right, all right.”
“Is this where I offer to get the rope?” his friend drawled.
“If Pappy’s feeling chatty, we won’t resort to force.”
“Knowing that your father is the president and owner of an eastern conglomerate of banks, I pictured him as being more of a dapper dresser.”
Despite his anger at being the target of another robbery attempt, Burke grinned. “Allow me to introduce Pappy Pickman—not my father, but a low-down, bank-robbing scoundrel with the mistaken notion he could walk into the First National and help himself to some easy money.”
“You can’t prove anything,” the older man grumbled.
“With a reward on your head, I don’t have to prove anything,” Burke replied. “Grab Pappy’s picture off the wall, Gideon. It’s the third one from the left in the fourth row.”
Burke gave the directions without taking his gaze from Pickman.
Gideon sauntered to the cluster of Wanted posters that covered almost one wall of Burke’s office.
“I never did care for all these ugly mugs staring at me every time I visited you, but I can see you’ve put them to good use. You’ve probably memorized the face of every outlaw within a five-state radius.”
“Just about.” Burke trained his Colt on the sweating man. “Before I turn you over to Donner, you can satisfy my curiosity.”
“Why should I? What’s in it for me?”
Burke shrugged. “Is staying alive reason enough?”
Pickman’s Adam’s apple wobbled beneath his grizzled chins. “You’re bluffing. No fancy-dressed banker is gonna shoot somebody in cold blood.”
“I wouldn’t count on that.”
Sullenness tinged by fear clouded the prisoner’s face. “I don’t know why you’re so riled. You got so much money, you wouldn’t even miss the piddling amount I might make off with. It’s not like it was personal.”
“I happen to take being robbed very personally. Tell me why you chose my bank to hit.”
Pickman’s pale eyes shifted from Burke. “No special reason.”
“I think there is,” Burke said softly. “And, before I have you hauled off to the sheriff, you’re going to tell me what it is.”
Two hours later, Gideon and Burke were alone in Burke’s office. Three security guards had transported Pickman to jail. He’d seemed eager to accompany them.
“Look on the bright side.” Gideon tore Pappy’s Wanted poster in half.