Thompson as a human being, the sons-of-bitches have run up a score of five whole federal employees!”
Vail said, “I make it four. Oh, yeah, that guard up near Leadville does make her five. But that case was solved, Longarm. We got the goods on Costello and they convicted him of that killing, just down the hall.”
“Ain’t busting out of a federal lockup a federal crime?”
Vail beamed across the blotter at him and said, “it is. So’s desertion from the army. In either case, the army police or prison administration get to chase the son of a bitch. Unless some other son of a bitch of a judge issues me an arrest warrant on Costello and Company, I don’t have to worry about it. I don’t want to worry about it. So for Christ’s sake pull in your horns and let sleeping dogs snore.”
Longarm gripped the cheroot between his teeth too tightly for any smoke to get through as he growled, “Damn it, Billy, they made a thundering fool of me and I’ve already got a lead or so simmering on the stove.”
Vail shook his head and said, “I don’t care about your personal likes and dislikes. Have I ever ordered you to stay away from that Sherman Avenue widow woman my wife meets every sabbath at the same damn church? I ain’t exactly fond of the Great Costello, neither, but I got an office to run with too heavy a case load and not enough help. No matter how dumb you and Guilfoyle might feel, nobody can point a finger at either of you and say you done one thing wrong. So don’t do anything that could leave you looking dumb. That’s a direct order.”
Longarm could see he meant it. So that was that for the time being and might have been the end of it if the Great Costello had been content with simply vanishing forever.
Orders or no orders, Longarm had made a deal with Pearl of Wisdom and, seeing she’d gone to so much trouble to get the name of a certain Chicago booking agent, Longarm wrote a letter on his own time. By the time Pearl of Wisdom had to leave town, walking sort of stiff, Longarm was able to establish that the Great Costello had indeed been using what amounted to a Celtic clan for his elaborate magic act. The booking agent wrote that while he couldn’t give exact names or dates of birth, Costello had last performed along a so-so theatrical circuit accompanied by five young gents and six young gals. Nobody knew which of the gals Costello slept with, assuming he was content with just one. The oversized act had been dropped three years back by the helpful booking agent, and even the small-time circuit, because of their reputation for causing trouble with the other performers. Nobody had ever charged the Great Costello with being anything more than sort of spooky, but the wild kids he used in his act seemed to go in for an unseemly amount of fighting, fornication and, it was hinted, petty theft. The best way to get into a backstage fight with one or more of the clan at once was to even hint at sticky fingers or dressing-room orgies. The booking agent closed by suggesting the act could have shrunk some or grown some since the Great Costello had been forced to book himself as best he could in out-of-the-way show places.
Longarm never showed the information to his boss—Billy Vail was surly enough when he thought you were following his orders. Longarm still drank with Sergeant Nolan whenever their paths crossed at the Parthenon Saloon near the federal building, so he was able to keep up with the investigation of those mysteriously silent hotel murders. But after a time Nolan’s boss decided that, what the hell, it was up to the feds to worry about dead federal guards if it was all that big a deal. Longarm had managed to almost forget the gnawing annoyance himself by the time, nearly six weeks later, the damn-fool Great Costello acted up again.
It was payday, the one day of the month Longarm really did his best to get to work on time, and hence the one day of the month Billy Vail didn’t get to fuss at him, as a rule. But as Longarm walked into the inner sanctum, putting his wallet away with a less desperate if not entirely satisfied expression on his own tanned face, he saw Billy Vail’s pudgy features were beet red and that he was doing a sort of Cheyenne war dance behind his desk. Longarm ducked the ink well Vail threw at him and said, “I give up. You don’t look young enough to be having a litter, no offense, and I’ve been too broke to take your wife out. So what’s left?”
Vail threw a balled-up wad of yellow telegraph papers at his senior deputy and wailed, “Read ‘em and weep. Then go do something about it, damn it to hell!”
Longarm bent over to pick up the yellow ball before he sat down in the usual leather chair. It took some time to unwad it and flatten the wires enough to read. By the time he was finished Vail had managed to resume his own seat on the far side of the desk, growling, “Wipe that silly grin off your infernal face. What’s so goddamned funny about a gut-shot post office clerk in El Paso?”
Longarm said, “It says here that the Texas Rangers don’t want the case as a gift, seeing as a federal escapee seems to have cleaned out a federal post office and murdered yet another federal employee in the process. I’ll allow footprints coming and going, left by a clubfooted suspect wearing a special boot, could lead one to assume the Great Costello needed money some more. But if it was him, he sure has a lot to learn about magic, stage or criminal.”
Vail growled, “You read too fast. As I read it, it has to have been him. The job was planned slicker than most. They even had a fight staged out front to make sure nobody was watching the back, just after that post office closed for the day. The only thing that went wrong was that one postal clerk was working late on the books, after hours. They couldn’t have expected him to be there any more than he could have planned on them opening the back door with a lock-pick.”
Longarm nodded and said, “It was dumb of that clerk to go for a gun in a drawer, but even dumber for them to kill him so half-ass that he was able to give a description before he died. You’d think a professional magician would know better than to leave distinctive footprints out back, as well. Another magical pal I know says Costello was more flash and dazzle than skill.”
“Never mind how you’d have done it, damn it. Thanks to that gunplay, they had to open the safe and make tracks without taking the time to cover ‘em. By now it’s a safe bet they’re spending the money in Juarez. Anyway, the Postmaster General has fond memories of you in connection with other such cases, and the purple-pissing bastard went over my head to ask for you by name. So I have to send you down there. Poke about some, make sure the sneaky little bastard ain’t lurking in the United States no more, and then you can come on home.”
Longarm frowned and said, “Billy, I share your view that the Great Costello would have clubfooted it across the nearby border poco tiempo, assuming he has the brains of a gnat. I also know your views on me entering Mexico without an invite from that son of a bitch El Presidente Diaz. So can’t you see it would be sending me on a fool’s errand if I’m not allowed to chase the rascals south of the border?”
“Don’t you dare. President Hayes has been cutting the military budget to the bone, so we ain’t in shape for another war with Mexico. I know it’s a waste of time—I tried to tell Washington that—but fools will send grown men on fools’ errands. So just run down to El Paso long enough to make it look like we tried. Nobody expects you to catch the sons-of-bitches, now that they’re long gone.”
Longarm rose to his feet with a sigh and said, “I’m on my way. Don’t bet on me coming back empty handed. I may have more than one bad habit, but that ain’t one of ‘em.
Chapter 10
The train ride south to El Paso was uncomfortable and tedious. When the infernal gal he’d been buying soda pop for all afternoon got off at Trinidad, cuss her thirsty hide, he consoled himself with the thought that his Pullman berth was too hot and gritty for decent
