LONGARM AND THE WHISKEY WOMAN
By Tabor Evans
Synopsis:
U.S. Deputy Marshall Custis Long has been sent to Arkansas to investigate an unusually large moonshining operation. Shutting down the operation is, of course, the responsibility of the Treasury Department, but the agents assigned to that area don't seem to be doing their jobs. Longarm goes under cover, posing as a wealthy land-owner from Arizona who wishes to get into the whiskey business in order to find out exactly what's going on. 217th novel in the 'Longarm' series, 1997.
CHAPTER 1
Longarm stood up suddenly, drawing his revolver with his right hand and kicking his chair backward with a snap of his leg. He said, pointing the revolver, 'Freeze!'
Before him were five other poker players and a waiter from the bar of the saloon. They were playing poker in a small, private back room and the waiter had just come in, ostensibly to bring them a fresh round of drinks. The waiter had come up and put his tray down on the table next to the man at Longarm's immediate left. The man had been in the act of picking the tray back up when Longarm had suddenly erupted, drawing his revolver. Now all the players and the waiter, who had been caught while straightening up, stared at him. Longarm reached out his left hand, taking the waiter by the shoulder and moving him back. He said, 'Get over there against that wall.'
The player on Longarm's left looked up, his face blustering. 'Now what the hell is this? What call you got to be drawing a gun in this game?'
Longarm said, 'Everybody just keep their hands where I can see them. I'm going to show you a little bit of magic.'
One of the players said, 'What kind of magic?'
Longarm said, 'We started off this hand with just one deck of cards. I had just cut them when the waiter came in and set his tray down and began handing out drinks. I'm going to show you how that tray sitting down on that one deck turned it into two.'
The player to his immediate left went slightly white in the face. He was a youngish man--Longarm guessed him to be not quite yet thirty--wearing a broad-brimmed plantation hat and a white ruffled shirt with a string tie. He had taken off his tan waistcoat and it hung over the back of his chair. He began to bluster, 'Now hold-'
Longarm let him get no farther. He put the revolver squarely between the man's eyes and said evenly, 'Shut up and keep your hands flat on that table.' He turned to the rest of the players and said, 'Watch this, gentlemen.' With that, Longarm picked up the waiter's tray with his left hand and flipped it behind him. There were two decks of cards sitting on the table that the tray had covered. They were identical in color and pattern. Longarm said, 'Looky here what I found.'
A little murmur ran about the table and questions came thick and fast. 'What is this?'
'What is going on here?'
'Where did them two decks come from?'
'What is all this?'
Longarm said with a small smile on his face to the man wearing the string tie, 'Mr. Colton, how about dealing out the first round of cards. Let's see how they go.'
The man he was speaking to, Morton Colton, said, 'I'll be damned if I'll do any such of a thing.' He looked at Longarm with hard eyes, his face a mask.
Longarm said, 'Then maybe the gentleman next to you won't mind dealing them out, face-up, like you were dealing them. Use the deck closest to you, if you don't mind, sir. The other one was the deck I cut. This deck, the one closest to Mr. Colton, is the one that the waiter brought in for him. He carried it underneath that tray and he was supposed to change the decks. I think you'll find out that this deck will give Mr. Colton a pretty good advantage in this hand of cards.'
The man in the plantation hat started to rise. Longarm put out his big left hand and shoved him back down into the seat. 'Sit back down there, Mr. Morton Colton. I think these gentlemen need to see how you play cards.' Behind him, his eye caught movement and he turned, bringing his revolver around. The waiter was trying to edge away from the wall. Longarm said mildly, 'Going somewhere?'
The waiter moved carefully and plastered himself back up against the wall.
Longarm turned to the card player on the far side of Colton. He said, 'Now, if you will sir, deal those cards, just as if Colton was dealing them, beginning with yourself and turning them face-up.'
Colton said, his voice hard, 'You trying to get yourself killed?'
Longarm looked at him. He said, 'That don't sound real sensible to me. Here's a man standing over you with a drawn revolver. True enough, the hammer ain't cocked, but that won't take but an instant.' With that, his thumb came back and the clitch-clatch was clear and distinct in the room as the cylinder turned and the hammer came back to full cock, needing only the slightest pressure on the trigger to send the bullet exploding through the barrel. Longarm let the barrel drift slowly toward Colton's face. The man paled. Longarm said, 'You still got any pronouncements you want to make about who's likely to get killed first?'
Colton said through clenched teeth, 'This is dishonorable, sir, dishonorable. You will pay, and you will rue this day.'
Longarm said dryly, 'Deal the cards, neighbor.'
The player to Colton's left reached over and took the deck Longarm indicated. He dealt himself a card face-up, then one to the man next to him, and then on around the table. As he dealt, Longarm said to Colton, 'As I recall, you had announced five-card draw. Let's see what we all end up with.'
