As the silly-looking creation swooped back and forth above the audience, some looked up and laughed while others yelled to cut it out and give the little ladies a chance. Longarm leaned back, satisfied, as his paper glider made it as far as the orchestra pit and vanished. Susan stared at him as if he’d just suggested something disgusting and asked him why he was acting so silly. He said, “Misdirection. I was taught by the Great Costello never to make an expected move when you can manage another.”
She said, “Well, I certainly never expected a grown man to pull a kid stunt like that. Oh, look, one of those harem girls is climbing into a box.”
He said, “I know. She had no way of knowing the Great Costello bragged to me about that trick. I reckon they feel it’s a good trick as well. But let’s see how my trick works.”
Before she could ask him what he meant, two uniformed Denver coppers stepped out on stage to sit firmly on the lids of both magic boxes. Others were coming on stage as the curtain suddenly dropped, so the audience didn’t get to catch the rest of Longarm’s own stage illusion, and booed accordingly.
Susan started to rise, saying, “Let’s get out of here. I fear you’ve started a riot.”
But he hauled her back down and soothed, “No sense getting trampled on the stairs. Denver P.D. and the other federal deputies I invited to the show can control the crowd without our help. What was that shocking sex act you were saving up for later, honey? I’ve always been a curious cuss and we got plenty of time to talk as we wait for things to simmer down.”
She laughed, wildly, and said, “I was looking for adventure, not a police raid, when I picked you up, you goof!”
Then Deputy Guilfoyle parted the curtains of their box and stuck his face in, grinning, to say, “We got five of ‘em—the four on-stage and the one lurking offstage as their manager. Her hair ain’t red no more, but otherwise she answers to your description of the one twin daughter, Maureen. I’m sure glad old Dutch grabbed the one I met at the hotel that time. She keeps yelling rape and Dutch never done a thing but handcuff her.”
“I hope you searched the dressing rooms like I said,” Longarm said.
“I did. Found another sheet of them special delivery stamps, but not much cash. That wicked twin is still at large, so she likely has it.”
Longarm sighed and said, “I was afraid of that. They used the cash from that stamp transaction to buy the new props they just showed off. They had to do something honest-looking while they waited for big sister to get here with the real money.”
Guilfoyle asked, “Don’t you mean the twin to the one we just caught?”
“I thought I did. Costello never denied it, and I jumped to conclusions. I figured they worked that magic box trick with twins. But as you just saw, two gals in the same wigs and outfits are close enough. Costello never saw fit to point out that, like everyone else trying to figure a magic trick, I made it more complicated than it really needed to be. It was dumb of me to conclude Maureen was the boss sister when Costello swapped his fool self for her. As soon as you study on it you can see a fond parent would value all his daughters. It would have been dumb of Costello to entrust the loot to a daughter the law knew anything about, and Maureen got to know me in the biblical sense when she picked me up to keep an eye on me the night before the big Denver bust-out.”
Guilfoyle grinned sheepishly and said, “Oh, I forgot to tell you. The gal who picked me up in the taproom that night was the one who rides magic carpets a lot. That’s why I got Dutch to arrest her.”
Longarm nodded and said, “Smart move. The only one left for any of us to arrest is the one who stayed well out of the picture. The one entrusted with the money. Knowing the way the Great Costello thought, I’m betting she didn’t travel with ‘em and made sure she stayed in other hotels in other parts of town as they traveled.”
Susan had of course been listening all this time, but seemed to find it all distasteful as well as confusing. She rose to her feet and said, “The crowd down there has thinned out enough for us to leave. Or would you rather stay a while? I could meet you at my place, later.”
Longarm said, “Hold the thought, honey. I’m just about done here and I don’t want you on the streets without no escort.”
She started to protest. Then Billy Vail joined them to announce, “Well, Longarm, I’ll allow I thought it was a wild shot, and the judge who issued the search warrant thought it was even wilder. But when you’re right, you’re right.”
Then he held up an all-too-familiar sample case and, as Susan gasped in dismay and Longarm sighed in resignation, Vail continued. “We found this in the hotel room you intimated we might. It sure was heavy, like you said, for a case packed with frilly female notions. That was because of all the silver certificates in high denominations packed in under the false bottom, of course.”
All three lawmen in the box turned to Susan to see what she might have to say about the luggage Longarm had carried to her hotel for her, earlier. But she didn’t say a word. She turned to grab the railing of the box and vault gracefully over it before anyone could stop her.
She almost made it. She landed feet-first on a seat far below. Then the seat folded under her. She crashed down, face up, to snap her spine on the upright backs of the seats one row closer to the stage. They could hear the ghastly crackle of her parting vertebrae, then her body crumpled down between the seats in a series of dull thuds. Then it got very quiet.
Longarm broke the silence by muttering, “AW, she didn’t have to do that. All we had on her for certain was aiding and abetting. But I noticed on the train, coming up from El Paso, that she was sort of excitable.”
Some Denver lawmen were moving toward the dead girl down there, now. Vail said, “I never heard that remark about anyone coming excited on any train, official. But for my own informal curiosity, would someone please tell me how a gal could get that passionate with a lawman who’d just shot it out with her own father, and won?”
Longarm shrugged and said, “Desperation. Knowing I was a lawman still searching for her friends and relations must have excited her more than any desire for revenge and, well, you know what they say about love and hate being close kin. She picked me up to find out how close I might be to figuring the whole deal out—It was a trick she’d either taught or learned from her kid sister, and I have to confess it almost worked on me a second time. Ain’t us men fools when it comes to nice-looking women?”
Guilfoyle sighed and said, “I’ve noticed that, myself. But how did you get on to her, pard?”
