it was. Then he’d prance across the stage to the other, with the limelight and drum rolls following him, and show everyone the second one was empty, too. Then he’d go back to the other, talking a blue streak about the wisdom of the ages, and proceed to haul yard after yard of brightly colored silk out of the first one until he was knee-deep in swirling silk. Then he’d go over to the second one and do the same until, moving back and forth, he had that flashy silk all over the damned place and the baffled rubes were so puzzled they were almost scared.
The trick, of course, was that while everyone was watching the magician do his stuff, making sure he wasn’t cheating, his soberly dressed and quiet assistants were just stuffing the silk into whichever jar he wasn’t fooling with, in full view of an audience that simply wasn’t paying any attention to ‘em.
Sensible folk thought from A to B to C and so on. Everyone had been fooled at that botched hanging simply because it wasn’t logical to even consider two uniformed guards hoisting a hooded man to his feet and putting the noose around his neck if he was not the man they’d come to see hanged. Nobody had spotted the Great Costello slipping away through the confused crowd simply because nobody was expecting a man they’d last seen atop the gallows in a hood and shirt sleeves to pass them by in Topkick Thompson’s coat and hat.
Longarm dozed off. He didn’t really need the extra forty winks, but he felt more alert than he might have when an officious knock on the door across the room woke him up and put him on his feet, .44 in hand.
He moved over, asked who it was, and when his caller said he was the law, opened the door a crack to see that it was sure enough an El Paso copper-badge. So he lowered the muzzle of his gun and let the local lawman in.
The uniformed beat man said, “I just come over from the morgue. Sergeant Purvis ordered me to tell you that we got a line on the gents you shot up here, earlier.”
Longarm had just remembered Purvis was the friendly detective he’d jawed with, earlier, when the beat man handed him an envelope and said, “Their yellow sheets are in there. Sergeant Purvis said you’ll find his home address as well, in case you need him. He just went home for the day. Told me to bring them papers to you before I began my own tour of duty.”
Longarm glanced at the nearest window and said, “I must have been more tired than I suspicioned. When did the rain stop and what time might it be right now?”
The El Paso lawman said, “After six. The sun will be down all the way in an hour or so. The rain let up hours ago, God bless it. Looks like we’re in for a nice cool evening after all.”
Longarm thanked him and sent him on his way. Then he put on his boots, strapped on his gun rig, and seeing one could breathe again, put his frock coat on over it to look decent at supper.
He ate downstairs in the hotel dining room while he perused the short but disgusting police records of the two boys he’d had to gun.
The late Tommy O’Horan, devil of a lad that he was, was wanted by the constabulary of County Mayo for robbery and rape, British law setting more value on property than personal injury.
The late Martin Pendergast had immigrated from the same Irish county before getting into trouble as a safe-and-lock man back east. It was said he’d reformed and gone into show business once they let him out of Sing Sing Prison.
Longarm chewed his steak and thought, “That would have been the one working on my lock. Costello said he was from an old Mayo clan, and Pearl of Wisdom said big acts tended to be family affairs. Unless they go in for incest as well, and why not, the gals may just be play-pretties they picked up along the way.”
He put the records away and ordered apple pie for dessert from the Mex waitress. She was kind of pretty, but not as pretty as she must have felt she was. She told him she got off in a little while, and asked him if he was planning on attending the big fiesta in her part of town.
He said he didn’t know they’d still planned on holding it, seeing as they’d just had at least half of Noah’s flood. She said, “Oh, it should be even nicer, now that the air is so cool and the stars will be coming out so romantics. I am called Rosa, by the way.”
He said he still wanted that apple pie and that she could call him Custis. So when she came back with his pie she did and asked if he was going to the fiesta. Before he could ask why she added, “Don Julio Valdez will be there for to make a speech about democracia en Mejico. So everyone will be there, and the dancing will go on until dawn, or until one dances with the right person, that is.”
He said, “Well, seeing as everyone will be there, I just might wander over and see if anyone I’m looking for is there as well.”
Chapter 13
Having made up his mind to view the world with childlike innocence, Longarm found the goings-on in the Mexican Quarter less unsettling than a snooty gringo tourist who wasn’t used to the smell of cactus candy and corn-husk-cooked tamales might have.
Mex Town was downwind of the fancier parts of El Paso, near the river and thus handy for unofficial visits to and from old Mexico. The sky above was deep purple and the brick-paved plaza, washed clean by the recent rain, was illuminated every color of the rainbow by paper lanterns dangling in strings overhead. The official festivities hadn’t started yet, but that hadn’t kept anyone away. The crowd was about three-quarters Hispanic and the rest Anglo. Longarm doubted many of the Anglo-Texicans had come to hear political speeches in Spanish. But, like him, anyone with an open mind enjoyed sprightly music, tangy eats, and the dusky charms of lantern-lit senoritas who simply refused to wear their fandango skirts as long, or their lacey white blouses as high, as Queen Victoria was said to approve.
Somewhere across the plaza guitars were strumming a fandango, or a flamenco, as they would persist in calling what any Texan would tell you was a fandango. Small stands vending everything from cactus candy to straw vaqueros on straw horses that only a gringo might have any use for were set up all around. A bigger platform draped with red, white, and green bunting dominated one end of the plaza in front of the old ‘dobe mission. The folding chairs to either side of the speaker’s rostrum were still empty. That was likely why nobody was making a speech. The ‘dobe walls behind, mud colored by daylight, formed a backdrop of old gold when illuminated by the soft magic light of paper lanterns. The tricky light made folk look sort of mystic as well. A passing senorita could go from a mysterious romantic silhouette to a giggling moon-faced mestiza with gold teeth, or vice versa, faster than you could keep track of. Longarm figured a shadowy silhouette could see and not be seen too well, so he looked about for a shady nook the lantern light couldn’t get at. There were plenty to choose from. He’d tried cactus candy before—it tasted like water melon rind boiled a month or more in brown sugar. He bought a big fat tamale cooked in corn husk and served in a cone of newspaper. Then he backed into a big black shadow to nibble on it with his back braced against ‘dobe bricks. It tasted good, but he’d already eaten supper. His main reason for buying it was an excuse to keep his face hidden even better behind something, in case he noticed anyone in the crowd he didn’t want to howdy. He didn’t think the Great Costello would dare to show his sardonic face in public this soon. On the other hand, the rest of his gang had less to fear. The rogue magician didn’t look much over forty. That could make
