“Well, you gotta understand all this razzle-dazzle took place at sunset, in the tricky light of gloaming. The only break we got was that Costello couldn’t see well enough to notice he wasn’t covering his tracks as good as he must have thought he was.”
Longarm nodded, finished his drink, and got up, leaving the casts as well as the shot glass where they were. He said, “I’d be obliged if you’d hold on to that plaster for me. There Is an outside chance the prosecution might need it as evidence, and I might bust that soft plaster as I move about more than that file cabinet.”
“Sure. We got plenty of room to spare. Where will you be headed next, Ciudad Juarez?”
“Not hardly,” Longarm said. “My office frowns on that almost as much as El Presidente Diaz and his murdersome rurales. If the Great Costello and his gang haven’t lit out entire by rail, I figure they’re holed up someplace close, here in El Paso.”
“We got men watching the railroad depot. We Put out an all-points east, west, north, and even informed the Mexican authorities to watch for an impish little clubfooted gent.”
“That’s what I just said. The Great Costello is the only one who has to stay out of sight entire. He’s got more innocent-looking help to talk to landladies, go out for food and drink and so forth. He has to know he came out of hiding too soon after that Leadville job. This time he’ll figure just to play tar baby until we all lose interest in scouting for him.”
“You still ain’t said where you’re going from here, Longarm.”
“I got to go scout for him until I lose interest, of course. My boss implied I was to go through the motions. So that’s what I’d best do.”
They shook on it and parted friendly. Longarm mounted up out front and rode back to his hotel. He figured he’d have to poke about the center of town asking questions on foot. He put the chestnut in the hotel stable and tipped the Mex in charge extra to make sure the pony got a good rub, as well as water, before the oats. The Mex looked insulted and said he hadn’t bloated a critter since he’d killed his first burro at the age of seven.
Longarm entered the hotel via the side door leading in from the stable. This put him in the stairwell with no need to pass through the lobby. It didn’t matter—like most experienced travelers, Longarm made it his practice to hang on to his room key instead of leaving it at the desk every fool time he went out. Few desk clerks really cared, as it saved them a lot of bother as well. They just weren’t allowed to tell a guest that.
He’d hired a corner room and bath on the fourth floor, as high as he could get above the hot dusty street and horseflies, with cross ventilation if ever the wind chose to blow again in this oven of a town. The hotel tried to live up to its grand name by carpeting even its stairs with medium-priced plush. That may have been why the sneaks in the fourth-floor hallway didn’t hear Longarm sneaking up on them. They were no doubt counting on their lookout in the lobby, as well.
Longarm wasn’t really trying to sneak, until his eyes rose above the level of the stairwell to take in such odd goings-on. There were two of them, both dressed more town than country, just outside the door of the room he’d hired down at the far end. The glare from the window behind them outlined them too black for him to make out just what they were up to. One was standing with a bulky something in his hand. The other knelt on one knee, trying to pick the lock Longarm never would have locked if he’d wanted strangers messing with his possibles.
Longarm grinned wolfishly, drew his .44, and eased on up as close as he could get before the one standing with his back to the window spotted him and gasped, “Oh, Christ!”
“That ain’t my name, but reach for heaven anyway,” Longarm said as he covered both as best he could with one muzzle.
The one kneeling low did no such thing, and as he reached under his coat Longarm fired and put a bullet in one ear and out the other.
Then, as the other made an odd motion with the whatever in his right hand, Longarm shot him dead center and sent him staggering backwards, dropping the object he’d been holding. It thudded hard on the carpeted floor, but he made a lot more noise crashing through the window, landing on the tile roof of the next-door stable, and rolling down and off to wind up in the back alley surrounded by busted tiles and horse apples.
Longarm moved in, saw at a glance that the one still with him was dead as a man could get, with his brains blown out one ear, and it only took a moment later to peer out the shattered window and make sure the other one wasn’t going anywhere.
That gave Longarm time to bend over and pick up the odd thing they’d been stealing, or delivering. It was a brass and mahogany Bell telephone. Longarm frowned and muttered, “Oh, shit, if we just shot up a telephone company crew we could be in one hell of a fix!”
Then he remembered there was a telephone just like this one next to the brass bedstead inside, which he hadn’t tried to use since he’d checked in. The newfangled Bell telephone was only handy when you knew someone else who had one, and he hardly knew anyone in town. He holstered his six-gun and used his free hand to unlock his door and enter his hired room. He saw at a glance that, sure enough, a twin to the modern wonder he was holding was still where he’d last left it. He closed the door behind him and strode over to pick up the handset and ask, self- consciously, “Howdy. Anybody there?”
He heard some funny buzzing, then a female or just sort of tinny voice replied, “Room service.”
Longarm said, “I don’t need no rooms served. Is there any way I can call the law on this contraption?”
The gal downstairs replied, “I’m afraid not, sir. We have no lines outside the building, yet. But if you’re concerned about gunshots you may have just heard, we’ve already sent for the police and they should be here any minute.”
Longarm said that was good enough an hung up. Then he tossed his hat on the bed, sat down beside it, and studied the extra telephone he’d been somehow blessed with.
The one he had worked good enough, so why had someone been trying to leave him its twin? He got out his pocket knife, opened the screwdriver blade, and got to work on what seemed to be holding the contraption together.
He’d read enough to know more or less how Professor Bell’s invention worked. It wasn’t supposed to work the way some sly dog had rewired the innards of this one. He heard noise outside and put the invention Professor Bell had never invented gingerly aside as he got back up, went to the door, and opened it, telling the posse assembled, “I can not tell a lie. It was me as shot the sons-of-bitches and they had it coming.”
