we talk about him some more?”
She put down her powder puff and began to paint black eyebrows as she told him, “I can see a dozen ways he could have worked that escape on you. It’s easy enough to fool you rubes when we’re up on the stage and you’re expecting something mysterious to happen. With everyone expecting to see a hanging, not a rabbit out of a hat, an average troupe of stooges under the direction of even a fair illusionist has many an old chestnut to choose from.”
Longarm suppressed a yawn and said, “I had that much figured out already. How do you figure they spirited him off the gallows platform in full view of the crowd, once they’d slipped his hood and cuffs on the wrong man and hung him instead?”
She didn’t answer until she’d finished painting her already lush lips a size larger, fire-engine red. Then she reached for a horsetail of blonde hair to augment her own natural tresses and commenced to comb it in, saying, “You really must have been half asleep this morning. Didn’t you say a couple of men fell through the trap door with the victim?”
“Yeah, one was a priest I know and … Right, in the hangman’s frock coat, with dust all over his face and me staring in misdirection at the dead man I was half asleep. I’d been up all night.”
She rose to her feet to face him, hands on hips, to ask, “How do I look? You look dead on your feet, even sitting down.”
He smiled sheepishly up at her painted face and otherwise naked charms and told her, “You look just swell, and I must be in worse shape than I figured. I fail to see how any man who felt the least bit frisky could keep from leaping up at you right now.”
She dimpled and said, “Down, boy. I have to get into my corset now, and I know better than to ask for your help, fatigued as you may think you are. Why don’t you sleep on the cot behind those drapes over there? I go on in about forty minutes and nobody will bother you back there until I finish my act.”
He yawned again but said, “I don’t know, Pearl. I’m in hot pursuit of a dangerous and tricky killer.”
“Pooh, how are you going to catch even a fly with your eyes half shut? I’m not talking about putting you to bed for the afternoon, you know. But if you’ll just be a good boy and lie down for a quick little nap, Mamma might have time to figure out just where you might want to look for that other naughty boy, see?”
He laughed, got to his feet, and said he’d take her up on her kind offer. The cot he found on the far side of the curtains was no doubt long enough for her, but he didn’t think it had been intended for anyone as tall as he stood. But she insisted, “Hit the sack before you just fall down, you goof.” Then she even helped him into bed, saying, “Now I simply have to get into my costume. Do you want me to close the drapes or do you still like to watch?”
He just laughed weakly and closed his eyes, and just as his head hit her scented pillow, he was out and having awful dreams.
He was stark naked in some spooky woods where the colors were too bright for a moonlit night, like the illustrations in those fairy-tale books. He was walking toward a sort of bonfire. Someone must have thrown salt on the logs, because they were burning green. He didn’t know why he wanted to walk closer, even though the naked ladies dancing about the fire were sort of pretty. The Great Costello was standing on the far side, only his face was red as Pearl’s lips and he’d sprouted horns. Longarm said, “Howdy, you sneaky cuss. How come you had to kill them other gents if all you wanted to do was escape? No offense, but for a famous escape artist, I didn’t find that all that artistic.”
The Great Costello laughed and said, “That was what we call misdirection, and now we’re going to kill you and make Billy Vail feel misdirected, too.”
“I sure wish you wouldn’t. I’m late at the office this morning as it is.”
The Great Costello said, “Fool, can’t you see it’s midnight, and Midsummer’s Night to boot? Your office isn’t open at this hour and, anyway, I mean to sacrifice you to the Devil.”
“Oh, I thought you was him. Who are all these naked ladies, pard?” So the Great Costello told him they were imps of the Devil and Longarm said, “Well, I never. I always pictured imps as runty little shits like you.”
Then the Great Costello said, “Seize him!” and they all did. He knew he ought to be fighting back harder, but it felt so good to have all those impish gals wriggling against him, and one must not have meant him much harm, as gently as she was jerking him off. So he just kissed her spooky green tit like a sport and then she was saying, “Let’s get you undressed, first.” He said he was undressed, damn it, and she called him a fool and then he was awake. But the dream was still shaping up to be a wet one as he realized old Pearl of Wisdom was aboard the cot with him, naked as a jay again, with even her face paint wiped away.
“Howdy. Why don’t you let go of my tool and let me get outta these duds and in you right,” Longarm suggested.
She did. By the time his naked body was pounding hers to glory he was wide awake. She was moving her own lush hips pretty good as well, even as she warned him, “Be careful, God knows where we’ll wind up if we crash through this cot. It wasn’t purchased with this much activity in mind.”
He was willing to slow down. Or at least he was until Pearl moaned, “Oh, hell, forget what I just said, and I promise to forgive you if you break my spine, darling!”
He didn’t, even though she seemed pleased by his sincere effort. As they went limp in one another’s arms after a long sweet mutual climax, Pearl sighed and said, “That was lovely. But you weigh a ton, and this damned canvas has no springs or padding for a poor girl’s frail bones. Let me up. I promise I won’t run away if what I still seem to be feeling is all for me.”
He laughed and they changed positions. She’d been right about how firm the cot was. As Longarm was trying to get comfortable, she pressed her smaller, softer body down against his firmly enough to keep him deep inside her, even at half mast. She appeared to have tired herself out with all those earlier gyrations as well. For she lay still atop him, nibbling his collar bone with her soft lips a spell before she murmured, “Oh, yum yum yum. Would you mind if we just sort of cuddled like this a while, Custis?”
He ran his hands over her bare spine and behind as he chuckled and said, “I’m not sure Queen Victoria would call this cuddling if she walked in on us just now, but it sure feels friendly. You know, I was having a hell of a dream when you woke me up so nice. I’m pleased as punch to see you ain’t really green and wicked looking.”
Pearl started teasing with her internal muscles, just enough to keep their mutual interest about where it was as she laughed and replied, “I’ve heard of men wanting to change their luck, but green sounds just disgusting.
