Chapter 15
When they finally did return, just as Longarm was about to go looking for them, he was mighty glad old Felicidad had turned out to be so cold-natured. For they were not alone—El Gato had enlisted a whole posse of young Mexicans. Half of ‘em were carrying bags of stuff the Great Costello had picked up at south-of-the-border prices.
Just the same, he’d spent more than twenty dollars, U.S., and thought Longarm ought to reimburse him.
Longarm told him not to be silly and asked what all the stuff was good for. So Costello said, “Misdirection. They may find some use for the two-bit watches and bugle, later.”
“You bought a bugle, too?”
El Gato said, “We have been very busy—you were so right about this one moving fast. These muchachos have their own instructions. Now it is time for us to go meet the girls.”
Longarm gulped and said, “Hold on, I never come all the way down here to get laid, even though sometimes things don’t work out as planned.”
The Great Costello explained, “Not those kinds of girls. Our handsome young friend here has recruited three reasonably respectable-looking dance-hall gals to go along with the act. Come on, they’re waiting for us downstairs in the carriage.”
Longarm shrugged and went along with the act, whatever it might be.
Downstairs, he found that, sure enough, three not-bad giggling gals were seated in this closed carriage the others had hired. It would have been close enough with all six of them piled in—all the cheap luggage the Great Costello had picked up as well made it worse—but at least one of the Mex gals needed a bath.
But the drive to the depot hotel was mercifully swift, and as he helped the one he was supposed to be with down from the carriage, he could tell from her hairy armpit that she was not the really stinky one. He still felt sort of red-faced as the six of them walked into the lobby, bold as brass, and El Gato hired three adjoining rooms for them. Longarm assumed the luggage was meant to make it look less indecent. But from the smirk on the room clerk’s face, it hadn’t.
They couldn’t get rooms on the top floor. The ones they got on the fifth, however, were almost under the suite they were holding Valdez in, overlapping by one room, according to El Gato. The rooms the conspirators had booked separate could be turned into a suite by opening some inside doors, with Longarm’s lock-pick blade—so that’s what they did. The girls asked how come, as one of them bounced playfully on a bed and asked who she was with. El Gato told her to shut up and be serious.
The Great Costello opened a hatbox he’d carried in and took out a more sedate black dress as he told El Gato, “Oh, let her have fun. She’s going to have to take that red satin dress off anyway, and if you don’t want to enjoy the experience, I can’t say when I’ll ever get a chance to get laid again.”
Longarm said, “Hold on, damn it. This surely is a lot of fuss if you mean to stage an orgy, Costello. Can’t you ever do anything plain and simple?”
“I’m not sure just what I mean to do, yet.” Then he opened a closet door, laughed like a mean little kid, and said, “Oh, yes, perfect! I hoped this would be an up-to-date as well as first-class railroad hotel!”
Longarm stared over his shoulder at the full-length mirror stuck to the inside of the door where guests of fashion could make sure they were dressed right before going out. He started to ask what all the fuss was about, then he gasped and said, “Oh, shit. A magic box yards away on the far side of the footlights may be one thing, but now you’re really talking foolish.”
The Great Costello took out his watch as he observed, “It won’t work unless your pal, Valdez, has plenty of nerve. You’re going to need even more.” Then he told them the plan.
When he’d finished Longarm and El Gato were staring at each other soberly, and the three girls were crying and pleading with them not to talk so scary.
El Gato sighed and said, “I do not enjoy staring down from trees any more than any other cat, but you are the stronger of the two of us. Plus, I am wearing black, and Valdez knows me.”
Longarm didn’t argue. His palms were sweating just thinking about it. The Great Costello said, “You two work that part out as you go along. Could I borrow that pocketknife, Longarm? We haven’t much time and the screws holding this big mirror look a bit rusty.”
They weren’t. As the nimble-fingered little man removed the mirror from the door he warned, “Don’t drop it. It may be the only one.” So Longarm was careful as he took the big fragile sheet of glass from him.
El Gato already had his coil of braided reata handy. He said, “Bueno, let’s get up to the roof, poco tiempo. I understand the part about the bullring.”
Longarm wished he’d spent all that time with the Great Costello. He could only carry the fool mirror as El Gato led the way, rope in one hand and drawn gun in the other.
They made the stairwell without incident.
Then they were up on the roof. Even away from the edge it seemed higher than Longarm felt the last time he’d been up in the capital dome in Denver. They moved over to the edge above their own hired rooms and, they hoped, the ones Julio Valdez was being held in. Longarm leaned the big mirror against the parapet and said, “Well, we’d best rig an ass-sling for you, old son. Are you sure you know how this trick with a mirror works?”
El Gato said, “I think so. I just shove Don Julio in the closet and place the mirror over him, no?”
“You don’t know how it works,” Longarm said. Then he moved over to a vent pipe and fastened one end of the reata snuggly to the rusty iron. He gave it a couple of tugs and said, “That ought to hold me. I’ll never speak to you again if it don’t.”
El Gato protested, “Pero no, I won’t be able to haul you back up, you moose.”
“I know,” Longarm said. “Why don’t you run back down and make sure my prisoner don’t escape? If he was half as smart as me, he’d know this is a one-man job, and he just may be.”
El Gato said he wanted to watch, at least. But Longarm told him to go on down.
Longarm took a deep breath, got as good a hold as he could on the glass with one hand, and backed off
