have a black hood covering his face and once the trap springs he’ll drop out of sight entire.”
“I fear I’ve too vivid an imagination to see just surface images,” she said. “I confess that when I first met you, downstairs, I was able to picture you with your pants off, quite accurately, as it turned out.”
He chuckled and told her, “I could tell how you was built without your duds on, too, albeit you turned out a mite more athletic than any man has a right to dream.”
She kissed his shoulder and insisted, “I just know I’m going to be able to read the tortured expression on that poor man’s face, no matter how they cover it, and when he drops down to the end of that awful rope … Tell me something, dear, is it true what they say about a hanged man dying with an erection?”
He laughed and replied, “I might have known you’d be interested in a thing like that. Save for a few Indians, most of the gents I’ve seen dying that way had their pants on. But I have it on the authority of an army undertaker that it depends a lot on whether they die slow or sudden. Slow strangulation raises the blood pressure and other matters. The Great Costello is getting a first class hanging by a professional crew, so he’ll likely die more dignified than a Cheyenne renegade I recall With some disgust.”
He didn’t think she wanted to know that, either way, they always voided their bladders and often shit their pants, so he didn’t mention it.
Still, she said, “It seems so cruel. I won’t argue with you that he went astray and deserves to be punished, but he swears he wasn’t the one who shot that guard who surprised them in the act of, well, an act. He says nobody would have been hurt, or even known about that robbery, if things had gone the way he planned.”
“The Northfield Raid didn’t go the way the James-Younger gang planned. One of the innocent bystanders killed that day was only in his teens. Cole Younger was lucky as hell to get off with life at hard. Had I been his judge, he’d have swung for certain. I don’t know as much about the Great Costello’s botched robbery, but the law says that it don’t matter who pulls the trigger. That cuss they’re fixing to hang in the morning had his chance to turn state’s evidence if he wanted to say who done the deed. But he hung tough with the federal prosecutor, refusing to name even one other member of his fool gang, and so now they’re hanging him alone, and if he don’t like it, tough.”
“Brrr,” she said. “I like you better when you’re talking about a lady’s tits. I think I need some of that nerve medication I was talking about earlier. Let me up, the bottle’s in my overnight bag, under the bed.”
He didn’t argue as she rolled away from him, sat on the edge of the bed, and bent over to fish a bottle of whatever from her luggage. The view might have been even more inspiring if the room had been lighter. When she sat up, he heard a cork popping in a way that suggested she might have been steadying her nerves earlier. Then she gurgled an amazing swig for such a petite person, neat, before she half turned and held the bottle out to him, asking, “Won’t you join me? It’s not wise for a lady to drink alone in the company of a naked gentleman. He might take advantage of her.”
Longarm laughed, took the bottle, and sniffed the muzzle before he protested. “Thunderation, this stuff is pure corn squeezings, over a hundred proof.”
“I think I have a water pitcher on my washstand in the corner if you can’t take Kansas corn neat, dear.”
“It ain’t that I’m a sissy. Like I said when I left that pitcher of beer behind, a man can enjoy his women neat, or he can drink late at night on an empty gut. He can’t do both.” Then he handed the bottle back and said, “You go on and knock yourself out if you want. I got to stay wide awake.”
She laughed, put the white lightning away, and they stayed wide awake indeed for quite a spell.
Chapter 4
The atmosphere of the Mile High city was too thin to hold heat through the night, even in high summer. So it was a mite cold as well as sort of gray outside when the fully dressed Longarm kissed the naked Cynthia Morton a fond farewell in her open doorway, and promised he’d see her to the Union Depot, after the hanging.
Her kiss was warm enough, but her green eyes were troubled as she shook her head and told him, “I think we’d better quit while we’re ahead, dear. It was grand, but I do have a reputation to consider and-“
“Say no more,” he interrupted. “My boss will likely be expecting me at the office early, for a change, You see, he’s sure to think he knows where I’ve been all night.”
She dimpled up at him, sighed, and said, “God, the things I have to do for the Kansas City Star. Please don’t flirt with me at the hanging, Custis.” Then she shut the door in his face.
He shrugged, turned away, and as he passed Room 214, he hit the door with his fist and called out, “Up and at ‘em, Guilfoyle.” Then he went downstairs, through the lobby, and across to the federal lockup.
He’d been worried about being a mite late, but as he entered the guard room he saw he was just as likely too early. A pair of uniformed guards playing checkers across an empty chair glanced up as he entered. Another gent wearing civilian duds put aside the magazine he’d been reading to ask Longarm if he was the hangman. Longarm shook his head and said, “Not hardly. I’m from the marshal’s office. My sidekick ought to be along any minute, and you have the advantage on me, Mister ?”
“Wagner, Orville Wagner, of the railroad-dicking Wagners,” the slightly older man explained. “I’m only here on behalf of the Denver & Rio Grande. The Great Costello scared the shit out of us with that razzle-dazzle that almost worked. I’m here to make sure he won’t ever scare us like that no more. They was sort of hoping I could get him to tell us how he did some of it, too, but every time I try to get him to talk he shows me a damned old coin trick.”
One of the checker-playing guards chuckled and said, “He sure is an entertaining prisoner. We’ve strip- searched him over and over and he still makes coins appear outta thin air.”
Wagner growled, “If they’d only give me a few minutes alone with the sassy son of a bitch I’d get more than fool coin tricks out of him. Thanks to the sissy views you feds have about such methods, the son of a bitch is fixing to take a mess of secrets with him in a little while.”
Longarm nodded soberly and said, “Don’t take it so hard. I got a swell confession out of an owlhoot one time without messing him up enough to matter. But the judge wouldn’t let us use it against him in court—you know how picky federal courts can be.” Then he shot a questioning glance at the guard and added, “I may as well have a look at him before they hood his fool face, if it’s all the same to you boys.”
One of the guards jumped a black checker with his red, laughed, and said, “Sure, go on back, Longarm. Our other boys are watching him too close for you to torture him serious.”
