Ticket to Yuma Read Online Free PDF

me out of town?”
    â€œYes,” Chief Blake said. “You’ve called me a liar. I want you gone, Mr. Adams.”
    Clint smiled at the chief.
    â€œWhat’s so funny?” the man demanded.
    â€œDriving me out of town,” Clint said. “How very Old West of you, Chief.”

TEN
    Clint left the police department, having learned nothing, but he’d made an enemy of the chief. The man wanted him out of town by tomorrow, but if Clint didn’t find Harlan Banks by then—or, at least, word of him—it would be time for him to leave anyway. His next stop would be Yuma, but first . . . the mayor.
    * * *
    He went to City Hall, presented himself to the mayor’s secretary.
    â€œYou don’t have an appointment,” the severe, middle-aged woman said.
    â€œNo, I don’t,” Clint said, “but I think he’ll see me. The chief of police sent me.”
    â€œChief Blake?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œOne moment, please.”
    She stood up and went through a door behind her, presumably into the mayor’s office. When she came back, she said to Clint, “He’ll see you.”
    Clint had gone this route many times before, been in the offices of many mayors in many towns. Certain rituals were repeated from town to town. There was no way around it. Leaving his horse at a livery, registering at a hotel, that first beer and first steak after the trail.
    The mayors he had met in the past usually fell into two categories. All were politicians, but some were satisfied with their job, while others wished to use it as a stepping-stone to bigger things. Having already met the chief—and talked to the sheriff—he had a feeling he knew what kind of man Mayor Halliday was.
    He entered the office. The mayor was a large man, broad in the shoulders, had not gone soft like many politicians did behind a desk.
    The man didn’t look happy.
    â€œI understand you just came from the chief of police.”
    â€œI have.”
    â€œWhy would he send you here?”
    â€œHe didn’t send me,” Clint said. “I told him I was coming.”
    â€œYou told my secretary—”
    â€œI lied,” Clint said. “It was a little white lie, though.”
    â€œI don’t like jokes, Mr. Adams.”
    â€œThis is no joke, Mayor,” Clint said. “I’m here looking for a man named Harlan Banks. Everyone I’ve talked to—bartenders, storekeepers, the law—all claim to have never heard of him.”
    â€œWhat’s that got to do with me?”
    â€œI’m giving you a chance to be the only one to tell me the truth.”
    â€œThe truth being?”
    â€œThat Harlan Banks was here,” Clint said. “And while you’re at it, you can tell me where he went. Or what happened to him.”
    â€œI could do that, except . . .”
    â€œExcept?”
    â€œExcept that I’ve never heard of Harlan Banks,” the mayor said.
    â€œWhich is what everybody else in town says.”
    â€œMaybe that’s because it’s the truth,” the mayor said. “Maybe this Banks fellow is in Yuma.”
    Clint stared at the mayor. Was he telling him that Banks was in Yuma?
    â€œWhy don’t you go there?”
    â€œAnd get out of Prescott?” Clint asked. “Funny, that’s what the chief told me.”
    â€œThen he’s doing his job.”
    â€œSo,” Clint said, “let me get this straight, Mr. Mayor. Nobody in this town has ever heard of Harlan Banks?”
    â€œThat’s correct.”
    â€œOkay,” Clint said. “Well, then, I guess I’m done here.”
    â€œSo you’ll be leaving?”
    Clint stood and nodded.
    â€œIn the morning, yes.”
    â€œI hope you enjoyed your stay in Prescott, Mr. Adams,” the mayor said.
    â€œWell, no, I didn’t,” Clint said.
    The mayor did not respond to that.
    â€œThank you