She looked away and murmured, “I know. That’s why I tried to find you there, earlier, when there might have been more time.”
He bent to haul her gently but firmly to her feet, insisting, “Not time enough is better than no time at all, honey. Come on. Lord knows when we’ll meet again and we’ve plenty of time for a quicky.”
She didn’t resist, but told him he was just awful and added, “I just got all cleaned up for that long train ride and Oh, hell, what are we waiting for?”
He laughed, put an arm around her waist, herded her out, and got them headed for his hotel before she could change her mind. She said she was too embarrassed to pass through the lobby bold as brass with a man they had to know had checked in single. So he steered her into the stable and, ignoring the bemused look from a groom currying a horse, smuggled her in the side entrance. She protested he was taking her to the moon as he helped her up the stairs. When he unlocked the door she stepped in first, turned to him with both arms held out to him in the dim light, and murmured, “Come and get it, sweetheart.”
So he did. Knowing he’d never get a better chance he just whipped the cuffs out from under the tail of his coat, snapped one loop around her right wrist, and sat her on the bed with a quick shove to finish cuffing her to the brass footrail. Then, as she wailed in dismay, he turned away to slam and lock the door, then struck a match to light the lamp close to the other end of the bed.
Cynthia protested, “Custis, I don’t go in for any of that Marquis de Sade business, and how am I to get undressed for you with my hand in such an odd position?”
He sighed, tossed his hat aside, but remained standing as he told her, “I know what you go in for and it sure puts me in a bad spot as the arresting officer. But sometimes the law just has to take what it can get.”
She gasped in dismay but tried, “You idiot, why would you want to arrest me? Since when is it a federal offense to work for the Kansas City Star?”
He reached for a smoke as he told her, “It ain’t, but you don’t. The only star you’ve been working for was at best a star on the small-time stage. I could brag on being smart enough to know no one newspaper sends two reporters out on the same story. Or I could brag I noticed you don’t seem to be traveling with no luggage in your hurry to leave town so innocent. But the truth is that it’s been a good six weeks since last you misdirected me in Denver, pretending to be working for that newspaper. In that much time a lawman worth his salt has time to make a certain number of inquiries, and while Crawford of the Post couldn’t say one way or the other, the Kansas City Star wrote back that they just didn’t have any female reporters by any name, let alone a beautiful redhead with Irish eyes.”
She gulped and said, “Oh, I can explain that, dear.”
“Let me explain it to you. Your job was to fuck up my head with that same magic potion Guilfoyle and the others got sick on. When I left behind that pitcher of beer you’d likely spiked and turned down your kind offer of another drink up in your room, there was nothing left for you to do but fuck, and for that I’ll always remember you fondly.”
She wiped at her eyes with her free hand and called him an unfeeling brute. That reminded him he hadn’t felt her up for concealed weapons yet. He shoved her flat across the bed and proceeded to do so as he continued, “For a reporter gal with easy access to any police blotter you cared to look at, you sure went to a lot of trouble trying to find out from me, personal, what went wrong with the telephone repairs up here, earlier.”
She grabbed his wrist with her free hand to guide his down her belly and between the thighs she’d spread for him under her skirt. He said, “I would have got to that, anyway. But it’s nice to know you ain’t packing a gun or even underdrawers there.”
Then the telephone rang and she sobbed and went stiff all over. He said, “No it won’t. Lie still whilst I see who it is.”
He rolled away from her, picked up the part you were supposed to hold to your head, and said, “Howdy. Quien es, or who’s that, as the case may be?”
The Great Costello replied, “Longarm? I fear you have me at a certain disadvantage.”
Longarm said, “That’s true. Were you hoping to blow us both up or did you have something to say to me?”
“If you look in your closet you’ll see we got that other set while you were out. That match stem in the door was clever, but such simple tricks were never meant to fool a professional. I’ve called to talk about my daughter.”
“I was wondering who she might be. Where are you calling from, seeing they told me this is a house phone with no lines running to the outside world?”
The Great Costello sighed and said, “You’re too dangerous by half. But needless to say, I could make it out of the building in a few seconds, and will, if you hang UP.”
“I’m still listening. I wouldn’t want to leave my prisoner unguarded long enough to run down all them stairs in any case. You may have taught her too many escape artist tricks.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Longarm. Earlier today you killed the only one of my young helpers who was really a killer, and for that I’d thank you if he wasn’t a blood relation. It was Tommy O’Horan who wanted to kill you, just as he killed all the others. I couldn’t turn the lad away to fend for himself. But he was a loose cannon on the deck indeed and, well, you got him. Now about Maureen …”
“I thought her name was Sin,” Longarm said. “Spare me the yarns about her purity, old son. Whether she ever killed anyone personal or not, I got her on Murder One and, whilst I admire her pretty neck a heap, she’ll have to sing like a mockingbird to save it now. So how’s about hanging up so I can call down to room service for someone there to fetch me some backup?”
The Great Costello said, “It’s not her you want. It’s me. I’m the one who planned the tricks and failed to control Tom O’Horan.”
Longarm smiled fondly at the handcuffed redhead at the far end of the bed and said, “That’s true. But you and the others are still birds in the bush, so I’ll just have to settle for the redbird in my hand, for now.”
The Great Costello sighed and asked, “How do you feel about an even trade? Me for my daughter, with an hour’s lead for her and the others?”
