Longarm smiled sheepishly and said, “You have my word I shot them rurales on our side of the border, Billy.”
Vail tried not to smile as he replied, “Well, far be it from me to call anyone big as you a liar, but they do say a gringo answering to your description left one rurale sort of bent out of shape in a Juarez hotel. But all’s well as ends well, and Don Julio was a pal of mine when I was riding with the Rangers. What are we going to do about them magical outlaws I sent you after?”
Longarm reached for a cheroot as he protested, “Hell, Billy, if you’d pay more attention to wires from me than wires from that piss-ant Diaz, you’d know all six of ‘em must be planted by this time. They said, down El Paso way, it’s ever a good notion to dig graves as soon as possible after a good rain, down yonder.”
Vail beamed at him and said, “It ain’t true that Ned Buntline writes pure bull about the wild west. You treated them rascals wild as hell. But whilst the male members of The Great Costello’s traveling act have all been accounted for, the women they was traveling with ain’t.”
Longarm shrugged and said, “I noticed. But what the hell, none of their gals took part in any hanging offenses and, without Costello and his clan of wild Irishmen to lead ‘em from the straight and narrow, they’ve no doubt split up and gone back to just being wild and wicked. The gents in the outfit were all related, and two of the gals were Costello’s daughters, but the rest was likely stage-struck gals they picked up along the way.”
“Back east, some time ago, before they went from bad to worse,” Vail said. “They have neither kith nor kin out west. They don’t know the parts they ain’t been to before. I figure they’ll stick together and backtrack along the primrose paths they know so well.”
Longarm sighed and said, “Well, they ain’t in El Paso, and I don’t want to go up to Leadville. I got better things to do here in Denver than round up poor scared doxies the federal prosecutor down the hall has no real use for. Can’t we call the case closed, for Pete’s sake?”
Vail shook his head and said, “Not until it is, old son. You may have nailed all the more murderous members of the gang, but what about the money?”
Longarm lit his cheroot and said, “I wish you’d read the reports that give me writer’s cramp. I told you we found around four hundred plus change in the pockets of them gents now buried in El Paso. They was carrying no luggage. With the help of El Paso P.D., I backtracked ‘em all to the various hotels they’d been holed up in. Needless to say, they hadn’t left any money behind. I reckon one of Costello’s twin daughters was holding on to the bulk of the loot for safekeeping. It wasn’t the one called Maureen, I searched her just before she lit out of town with no luggage, either.”
He took a thoughtful drag on his smoke before he nodded and said, “All right. Say they spent a good part of the loot from that first robbery, but never had time or reason to spend all the money from that post office safe in El Paso. We’re talking about … Ouch, more money than you and me figure to draw from Uncle Sam together in the next dozen years or more. But the trail is cold, Billy. I only know what one of them gals looks like for sure, and they could have gone most anywhere by now.”
Vail said, flatly, “One of ‘em, at least, was here in Denver about the time you was shooting it out with her father, lover, or whatever. She cashed a couple of hundred dollars worth of stamps at the main post office a spit and a holler from this very office. Ain’t that a bitch?”
Longarm scowled and said, “It was dumb as hell, too. They just couldn’t have spent all that cash they stole already.”
Then he blew a thoughtful smoke ring and studied it as he mused on, “Wait a second. It works if only one of the gals was packing most of the cash and a sister in sin run low on funds before they could all meet up again. I hope the post office gave some thought to what the gal cashing all them stamps might have looked like?”
Vail nodded and said, “They did. They saw no call to grab her until a supervisor recalled the flier on them special delivery stamps, too late. But the clerk who made the awful mistake says them stamps was redeemed by a mighty pretty redhead. How do you like them apples?”
Longarm whistled and said, “Unless they get a buy on henna rinse it don’t make sense. Costello might have entrusted one of his twin daughters with the proceeds of that last robbery, but I suspicion one of the other men grabbed them sheets of stamps as icing on the cake for his own lady love.”
“Whoever she was,” Vail said, “even a hundred dollars is enough to rent them a house or fancy French flat for two or three months. She’d have never risked cashing that many stamps if all she’d planned on was a fancy dinner and a Pullman berth east. So it adds up to them meeting somewhere here in Denver, dividing up the loot, and leaving town together or separate by, say, election time, when anyone who wasn’t as smart as you and me should have given up on ‘em, see!”
Longarm blew another smoke ring and said, “You surely are a poor loser, boss. What am I supposed to do now, canvas every real estate agent and beauty shop in town?”
“Nope. I got lesser lights doing that already, and since Denver P.D. wants in on the case, they’re searching for a gaggle of good-looking wild geese as well. I was hoping you’d be able to come up with one of your more clever notions. So why don’t you?”
Longarm shrugged and said, “Well, since the twins leading the female fugitives was brung up in the magical trade, they’ll no doubt make some sneaky moves above and beyond the usual fugitives. Can I borrow Smiley, Dutch, and Guilfoyle this evening? Like me, old Guilfoyle has reasons for not being the arresting officer in the case of one such gal. But I reckon we can work it out so nobody has to arrest anyone he screwed, when the time comes.”
Chapter 20
It was a weeknight, so even the Denver Dry Goods & Department store was closed by sundown. When he met Susan in the lobby of her hotel, she said they already had her line of goods in stock at Denver Dry Goods, but that she’d made a few modest sales and was looking forward to an evening of less walking and more healthy exercise.
As he carried her sample bag upstairs for her Longarm said, “Well, there went a great notion I had about a dance hall up on Colfax. But what say, after we have supper, We take in a Vaudville act on Larimer?”
She unlocked her door and stepped in ahead of him, protesting, “I don’t want to see any damned dancing poodle dogs or listen to any damned trained seals play music, Custis. Take off your duds and let me entertain us both, right.”
He cast a wistful eye on the big bed in the one small room and told her, “It’s early. We got to eat if you expect me to survive another night with you.”
