Longarm told El Gato, “That’s how he walked out of the Denver House of Detention. Of course, to walk anybody out of any door we got to get him out of that top-floor suite, first. How far up are we talking, El Gato?”
“Six stories.”
“Ouch. A six-story running gunfight down a stairwell might not be all that bad if there was some way to avoid a reception committee at the bottom. No handy rooftops we might be able to scamper across?”
El Gato shook his head and said, “The hotel is the most imposing edifice in that part of town. Perhaps if we spliced our reatas together …?”
Longarm said, “I don’t carry a throw-rope on my old army saddle, and even if I did that’s just too damn far to dangle with gents shooting at you in the full glare of city lights. Do they ever turn the lights any lower in downtown Juarez?”
“Si, at sunrise. My people are more casual than your own about bedtime. Some go to bed and others get up, as the spirit moves them. But the city never sleeps, unless one wants to count the afternoon siesta, of course.”
“We can’t afford to wait that long,” Longarm said. “I for one would feel chagrined as hell if they loaded Valdez aboard a morning train after making me ride all this way.” He turned to the Great Costello and said, “You seem awfully quiet for a man who delights in doing the impossible, old son.”
The sly little magician sort of smirked and said, “I have a couple of ideas. It depends on what I can find to work with.”
He turned to El Gato to ask, “Can you get us some extra stooges to plant in the audience?”
Longarm had to explain that before El Gato said, “If I had my regular gang with me I would not have had to ask Longarm here to help me. Many here in Juarez love me, as well they should, since I rob from the rich and give to the poor, within reason. But I could not ask any of these pobrecito townsmen to ride against the government with us. If they had the balls, we would have a different government.”
“We don’t need anyone to risk his neck,” the magician said. “We only need more confusion than any three men could hope to stir up, see?”
El Gato nodded and said, “Oh, one can always arrange a riot after dark in Ciudad Juarez.”
“Good. Now it’s time to do some shopping. I know we’ll need some stopwatches, or at least some cheap watches that keep time for say, an hour or so, without losing track by more than a few minutes. I’m sure about the fireworks. I’ll cross the other bridges when you get me to them. Let’s go.”
El Gato rose, but told Longarm, “You’d better wait here. He’ll need me to speak Spanish for him. The three of us, together, may attract more than fireworks, no?”
Longarm considered. It would have been a waste of time to tell El Gato to keep a sharp eye on Costello. El Gato was called “The Cat” because his sharp eyes didn’t miss much, even in the dark. So he nodded and contented himself with saying, “Don’t come back without him. What time are we likely talking about, Costello?”
“Hard to say, before I see the merchandise. If we’re not back by midnight, start without us.”
Longarm waited until they’d left before he fished out his pocketwatch, struck a match, and read it as going on ten. He hadn’t wanted the little rascal to suspect he didn’t know just everything.
He finished his pulque and got up to wander back inside. The only furniture worth sitting on seemed to be the bunks against the ‘dobe walls. He sat on one. The mattress was stuffed with corn husks and sounded like it. He tossed his hat and coat aside, crunched his back to the wall, and settled down to wait a spell, wishing he had something to read, or at least that he wasn’t sitting on a fire hazard.
He’d about decided to go ahead and smoke, anyway, when the plump little mestiza came in for the tray. He waved her on out to the balcony, and when she came back in with it she told him he should be ashamed for to leave so much on his plate when people were starving all over Mexico. He smiled up at her and asked, “What happens if I swallow another bean? Does a kid in Yucatan sit up and burp?”
She laughed and left, if only for a little while. He’d just finished a cheroot, decided it tasted awful on top of peppeland pulque, and gotten rid of it when the mestiza came back, with nothing but herself to offer. He suspected that had to be what she was offering—he saw she’d changed her blouse for a clean one two sizes too small and smelled the rose perfume in her hair. But it wasn’t considered polite to just throw a gal down and tear her duds off, even in Juarez. So she got to sit down beside him and jaw about la revolucien and how brave he was to help El Gato save her people. He decided it was time to mention that El Gato would be back around midnight, and that they’d all be leaving soon after if she was really feeling dedicated to la revolucien.
She said she sure was and that he might have warned her sooner that he’d be riding off to battle any time now. Then she asked him to help her with the buttons on the back of her blouse and, one thing leading to another, they were making a hell of a racket atop those corn husks before they got around to each other’s names. She said she was called Felicidad and that she was a virgin, when it came to Anglos. He’d figured she had a healthy curiosity about such matters when she first went down on him before he could get his pants off.
Felicidad seemed grateful as well as surprised when he pounded her to glory the second time. But when he left it in she sighed, kissed him regretfully, and said she had other guests to take care of. Since she’d never mentioned money, he assumed she hadn’t meant that the way it could be taken, although, considering her warm and willing nature, anything was possible.
He watched her dress up innocent, standing over him in the soft dim light, and while it made a pretty picture, he couldn’t help wondering what she really looked like.
She bent over to kiss him a fond farewell, and then she was gone and he was getting dressed again himself. He had to chuckle as he considered what the others might have said if they’d come back early.
He got out his watch, lit another match, and marveled, “Hell, it’s already after midnight. Ain’t it a caution how time flies when you’re having a good time?”
Then he rose and began to pace back and forth, starting to worry about what he’d tell Billy Vail if the Great Costello had escaped again, or whether he was going to live or not, if the sneaky rascal had something else planned for this evening.
