“No, sir. I can’t think of nobody that don’t like my ma. She gets along with most everybody.”
Except at least one person, Longarm amended silently.
“Did you see anyone on the street when you and, uh, Peppy were coming back home? Anybody going toward town from down this way?”
“Just Mr. Terry. But he wouldn’t … Mr. Long, can I tell you a secret? It’s something … promise me if I tell that you won’t tell nobody else. Not never.”
“I won’t tell anyone if there’s any way I can keep from it, son. I can make you that promise.”
“I just … you remember what that damn Rick said yesterday?”
It took Longarm a few seconds to recall who Rick was. And what he’d said. “Oh, yes. Now I remember.”
“Well, what he said … Ma does work for Mr. Terry over at the saloon. I don’t know what she does there, but she don’t want me to know about it. I don’t think it’s real bad like that damn Rick says. But it’s something she don’t talk about. Not to me. Anyway, she like … kinda works for Mr. Terry. So I wouldn’t think he’d hurt her. Do you?” The boy gave Longarm a deeply troubled look.
“I can’t see why he would want to hurt your mother whether or not she works for him sometimes,” Longarm said smoothly. It came out slick as snot on ice. But it was a lie through and through. Longarm could think of exactly why Mr. Cletus Terry would beat up on Angela Fulton this morning.
After all, that poor, sweet woman had seen Mister Musclehead’s nose rubbed in the dirt last night. And by a man who hadn’t even raised a sweat in doing it. She’d seen him humiliated and for some bullies—and Lord knows Cletus Terry seemed to qualify for that designation—that was enough of an excuse and more than enough.
Longarm’s eyes narrowed as he drew smoke deep into his lungs, held it, and slowly let it trickle out again.
Cletus Terry. Entrepreneur and respected businessman hereabouts. Chummy with Harry Bolt. Which meant there was no way, never a chance, that anything—anything—Clete Terry might choose to do to, with, or about Angela Fulton would ever get the man in trouble with what passed for the law in Cargyle. And wasn’t that a shame.
Longarm finished his cheroot and tossed it onto the ground.
“Mister? You don’t think she’ll die, do you?”
Longarm gave Buddy a startled look. Good Lord, the kid all this time had been thinking that?
“No, son. Your mama isn’t going to die.” His eyes narrowed. “She isn’t going to be hurt anymore either.”
“Mister,” the barber called out. “Could you come here for a minute? I can’t get this tape wound tight enough by myself.”
“Wait here, Buddy. We’ll talk some more when I come out again. And don’t you worry none. Your mama is gonna be all right now. I promise.”
Chapter 20
Longarm didn’t recognize the day man behind the bar at Cletus Terry’s saloon. Didn’t have any quarrel with him either. The man, at least as far as Longarm knew, had had nothing to do with the beating of Angela Fulton. “Yes, what will it be this morning?”
Longarm took his time about answering, first taking a slow look around the place. At this hour he was the only customer there.
It’s funny, he reflected, how different a saloon looks at night when it’s busy as opposed to the morning hours when harsh daylight points out all the peeling paint and unsightly scuff marks.
There is even a different smell to a saloon at such times. At night the smell is a lively, active thing— tobacco smoke, sweat, beer, and good times—while in the day a saloon smells empty and stale. By morning’s light all the scent has leeched out of the spilled whiskey and beer, leaving behind only a weary stink like a dim memory of past pleasures. Helluva difference, Longarm thought as he leaned one elbow on the bar, standing sideways so that he could keep an eye on the big empty room. Just in case.
“Was there something …?” The bartender sounded a mite uncertain.
Longarm brought his thoughts back to the moment and gave the man a nod and a reassuring smile. “Sorry, friend. I was wool-gatherin’.”
The bartender’s smile looked to be just the least little bit relieved. After all, he didn’t know Longarm—this tall stranger’s intentions—any more than Longarm knew him.
“I’d like a beer,” Longarm said. “And d’you have any good cigars? I favor cheroots if you have them.”
“The beer I can do, but the only cigars I have are these rum crooks.” He reached beneath the counter and brought a wooden box into view. It was a cigar box, all right, but the dark, rum-soaked things that were tumbled into the box hadn’t been packed there by any factory. Or whatever the hell you call a place where cigars are rolled. The crooks were the sort that came shipped in kegs. Cheap. “Three for a nickel,” the bartender confirmed.
“I’ll have the beer then and a nickel’s worth of those”—Longarm grinned—“good cigars.”
The bartender chuckled and drew the beer. He let Longarm select his own handful of sticky, tacky crooks. The grade of tobacco used in such smokes was so bad, so bitter, that the cigars had to be soaked in a syrup of rum and molasses in an attempt to sweeten the flavor and mask the bite of the truly awful tobacco leaf.
Longarm laid a coin on the bar, pocketed his change, and carried mug and stogies alike to a table at the side of the big room. He paused for a moment to look things over, then judiciously moved the table a few feet deeper into the front corner of the building. He took one of the chairs and turned it so the back was close to the side wall, pulled the chair a few inches forward to give himself room to comfortably rock backward, then settled himself into place beside the table without once touching either beer or cigar.
The bartender gave him a quizzical look. And then as quickly looked away as if trying to convince the gentleman that, no, he hadn’t been staring. He sure hadn’t been.
