She listened as he tried to reproduce the more dismal way the wanted man had sounded off in the Parthenon until she decided, “You’re flat. I think I know that tune. It’s an old Irish jig, and it goes like this.”
He listened as she tinkled a few bars. Then he said, “Well, he must have been flat, too, but that’s about the way it sounded last night. How come you say it’s an Irish jig? Slade ain’t an Irish name, is it?”
“I think it’s an old Saxon name. That’s not the point. Half our so-called cowboy songs are based on Irish, German, or old English folk songs. You could hardly expect a semi-literate with a poetic streak to compose original music as well. Is there any point to this discussion, Custis? By either melody, this attempt at a ballad is pretty awful.”
He said: “You’ve helped me a heap, Miss Mavis. For now I know two things I didn’t know for sure before. I am looking for a kid who don’t read music and just admired the words of that song about his hero. Better yet, I know he never learned it riding with other cowhands, for had he done so, he’d have known the tune and not just one he’d heard in his modest travels.”
She leaned closer and told him, sort of sultry, that she had no idea what on earth he was talking about.
He figured he owed her that much for her help. he commenced to bring her up to date on the crazy case he was working on. She had somehow herded them both over to a purple plush sofa across the room before he was halfway through, and though he hadn’t invited her to snuggle against him so close it didn’t hurt, and he was recovering from the first shock of her perfume. He had an interesting view down the open V of her loosely tied kimono as well, and he was beginning to suspect he was supposed to. But she must have felt she’d make him nervous if she moved in on him any faster, which was true, so she said, “My, that poor boy does sound strange. But what good does it do you to know he’s devoid of any musical talent as well as common sense, Custis?”
He caught his arm about to slip off the back of the sofa behind her, warned it to behave itself, and said, “The kid has never met anyone who knew the real Black Jack Slade Well enough to sing about him. He memorized the words of that ballad, likely reading them over and over in his lonely room, until he had them down pat, even if he had the tune wrong.”
She repressed a yawn. “Oh, this warm weather makes me so drowsy! Do you mind if I rest my head on your shoulder like this? Go ahead, I’m all ears. Tell me some more about the Wild West.”
He figured he’d better. The widow woman who’d introduced him to this enthusiastic listener had warned him she’d feed his heart to the hawks if he ever went near her and, right now, he was so near her it was starting to make him tingle where he knew he’d promised not to. He said, “I told you young Joe Slade had just about every penny dreadful ever printed about real and made-up desperate characters. I found stories about Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill, Billy the Kid, and a female bandit named Billie Bangs. I don’t think she could be real. I didn’t find one fuller account of the notorious Black Jack Slade, and I know more than one such story has been published. I’ve seen ‘em on many a newsstand.”
She shrugged or nestled closer, it was hard to tell, and said, “You found the sheet music he’d bought. Maybe that was all he had to know about the dreadful man.”
Longarm shook his head. “I don’t think so. Once he’d memorized that simple-minded song he didn’t need to look at it no more. But I think he took a longer printed account of the one and original Black Jack Slade with him. Are you aware of where your hand is resting at the moment, ma’am?”
She giggled. “I am. Aren’t you? Go on. Why would he want to carry around a pulp penny dreadful about the real Jack Slade?”
“As a Bible. Anyone who’s so tired of being his puny original self that he’s convinced his fool self he’s somebody else might want written directions as to his new, proper conduct. If I knew which of the many versions of the story he was using for his research I’d have a chance of outguessing the mean little brute. But so many have been written since the real Black Jack was lynched, years ago, that his would-be second coming could be out to do wonders that never happened, and… Madam, are you aware that what you’re doing with your head in my lap is a violation of the criminal statutes of the state of Colorado?”
She didn’t answer. She must have thought it impolite to talk with her mouth full. Longarm stared down at her bobbing red head with ever growing fondness and reflected that he was, after all, a federal lawman, and that Colorado could worry about its own dumb laws. The widow woman down the avenue who’d introduced him to this literal man-eater was going to cry fire and salt if she ever found out about this, and the odds were fifty-fifty she would, since women could brag as bad as men about such matters. On the other hand, this one was sure to say far meaner things about him if he tried to stop her at this late date, and what man born of mortal clay was about to stop at a time like this, in any case?
So they both went deliciously crazy for a spell, and Longarm was only mildly surprised, when they stopped for breath at last, to find himself bare-ass under the piano with her smiling up at him adoringly, with her bare feet pressed against the bottom of the sounding board. He’d been wondering what those funny harpish drummings he’d been hearing were. They sure had a fine grip on one another with her wide-spread heels braced that way.
He kissed her some more and said, “Well, howdy, pard. I was wondering where you might be whilst I was up in heaven. But don’t you have a bed on the premises?”
She sounded serious as she demurely replied, “Oh, never. That would be downright indecent, Custis! Whatever would you think of me if I went to bed with you in broad daylight?”
“I’d think you were being practical about splinters in your sweet bare behind. This is a sort of silly place to screw, no offense.”
“None taken. I’m lying on my kimono, if you must know. I like a firm surface under me when you thrust so hard. It makes it feel so hard.”
He noticed that as he moved experimentally in her, but she said, “Wait. I do think my tailbone’s getting bruised. Let’s try it a more comfortable way, dear.”
He said he was willing to try anything that didn’t hurt. So they crawled out from under the piano to try it on the rug with her on top. He found that was inspirational indeed. As she moved up and down atop him he judged her waistline to measure no more than twenty-odd inches, without a lick of whalebone or India rubber to help, and her heroic breasts bounced proud and firm in defiance of the laws of gravity.
It felt so good he would have been content to do it some more, but she said, “We have to think of my reputation,” and popped off him to add, “Come on. The neighbors have big ears.”
He had no idea what she was talking about as she led him back over to the piano. She lowered the big lid and climbed atop the bed-sized instrument, patting the black varnish beside her naked flesh as she asked him what
