Longarm smiled and replied, 'If you don't make me eat no more. Should anyone ever ask, my only honest answer would have to be that it takes a smart man to play convincingly dumb.'
He sipped some pulque--another acquired taste some compared to alcoholic snot, although it was mostly fermented agave--and just said right out he was looking for a Mex cow thief called Chino who'd been riding with the Anglo outlaw caught next door a short spell back.
Gordo answered simply, 'We heard about it. They had the stolen stock in the vacant lot down on the other side of us. I did not wish for to get any of us into it. So we stayed inside during most of the excitement. But I don't think anybody riding with the one they caught was of La Raza. Chino can mean Chinaman as well as a Mexican with a moon face and muy indio eyes, no?'
Longarm finished off as much of his pulque as he meant to, and got back to his feet. 'A regular Chinaman riding the owlhoot trail sounds even wilder than a Mex, no offense. Maybe I can get some answers next door, at that meat-packing plant Baldwin got his fool self arrested in. Is it all right with you if I leave my mount out front for now?'
Gordo grinned and said, 'No. When you wish for to ride again you will find El Brazo Largo's caballo out back, watered and fed fresh corn I save for such honored guests!'
So they shook on it and Longarm went back outside. The sun was almost directly overhead now, and some drunk was already holding up the corner of the meat-packing plant with his back, wrapped in a red serape with his big straw sombrero down over his face to keep the sun out of his eyes.
Longarm had to explore some before he found a sheet-metal-covered door that wasn't locked on the inside. The one he found had a sign that said, 'Office.' So he knocked, and when nobody answered, went on inside. He found himself at the foot of a long wooden stairway. As he mounted it he saw a few chinks in the vertical planking to his left, the wall to his right being solid brick. When he paused to peer through a knothole, he saw a cavernous space that reminded him of that cold-storage hold aboard the northbound steamer. The same brine pipes, frosted with ice, ran along the far brick wall. At least a hundred sides of beef hung down there on hooks you could roll along the overhead network of single rails. Longarm was more interested in such industrial details than some, but he wasn't there to study meat packing, so he went on up to the second floor and knocked on a frosted glass door. A male voice invited him in, calling out, 'It's open.'
The older but still spry-looking gent in his late forties regarding him from behind a desk like Billy Vail's was sitting in his shirt and vest with his expensive frock coat and pearl-gray hat hung up near the window on the far side of him. When Longarm introduced himself, the man identified himself as Mister Doyle of Pryce & Doyle, poured them both some real bourbon, and asked how he might be of service to the federal government.
Doyle's bourbon was good and his manners were polite, but Longarm got the feeling he was wasting time. Doyle told the same tale to Longarm as he had to everyone else. He'd only seen Clay Baldwin when the rough-hewn cuss had surprised the hell out of him with an offer of stolen beef-cows, as close as Doyle could recall the tally. He said the local law had read the brands and cut up the herd the outlaws had left behind in a salt marsh on their way to parts unknown. He suggested Longarm check the exact tally with Constable Purvis. But he was sure none of the cows recovered had worn those fancier brands Mexican stockmen went in for, and allowed he'd never heard of anyone, Anglo or Mexican, called Chino.
Longarm agreed Clay Baldwin had been known to fib about a lot, and then said, 'Let's talk about sick cows, whether stolen or bought fair and square. You'd have noticed if any of the cows you slaughtered and butchered here were sweating like hell, shivering even harder, and so forth, right?'
Doyle pursed his lips. 'It should have been reported to me, of course. Naturally I don't do any butchering myself these days.'
But when Longarm asked if he might talk to the hands who did, the meat packer told him, 'You'll have to come back tomorrow, when my senior partner and head butcher get back. They're on a buying trip further west, hoping to make up our next shipment at the right price.'
Longarm smiled thinly and said, 'I was told you gents drove a hard bargain, no offense. Stockmen around here seem to feel they'd as soon drive their beef on up the coast. Where do you reckon Clay Baldwin or his mysterious pard Chino got the notion you'd be in the market for even cheaper beef?'
Doyle looked less friendly as he primly replied, 'I'm not sure I like your tone, Deputy Long! Isn't it mighty obvious that we'd have simply bought that beef from Baldwin if that was our game? I'll have you know I threw down on him and turned him over to the law after he offered that stock at five dollars a head C.O.D. after dark!'
Longarm nodded soberly. 'That's a bargain in beef on the hoof or off, and once you'd run 'em inside downstairs, you'd have skinned 'em out of their branded hides before anyone was any the wiser. I ain't the only one who's allowed you acted honest as well as brave when those crooks approached you, Mister Doyle. It's going to take us some time to carry Baldwin back to Colorado, give him as fair a trial as he deserves, and stretch his neck as far as it can go. So he'll likely fill in some details for us between now and then. I've seen condemned crooks turn in kin for an extra slice of pie with their last meal.'
He put down his shot glass and turned toward the door, saying he'd be back, maybe the next day, to talk with Doyle's senior partner and head butcher.
Doyle rose to follow him out on the landing, demanding, 'Why? I just told you all that any of us know about the matter.'
Longarm nodded. 'I'm sure you have, no offense. But this ain't the first meat-packing plant I've ever visited, and I'm sort of puzzled about just a few points somebody who gets his hands dirtier might be able to clear up.'
He went down the long stairway as Doyle went back in his office. Then he headed back to the chandlery, noting that same sleepy cuss was still propped against the bricks. But what bothered him about the stranger taking an early siesta didn't sink in all the way before he heard a distant window open and somebody he couldn't see tossed a bottle, or glass, out to bust and tinkle on the cobbles.
Then Longarm had his gun out, covering the serape-wrapped figure at his feet as he snapped, 'Tenga cuidado, hombre! Soy tengo el filo, aqui.' And when that didn't work he tried, 'I said I have the drop on you, asshole! I didn't think a real Mex drunk would be sporting those expensive Justin boots under a dirty blanket and straw sombrero!'
The fake Mexican tried shooting up at Longarm through the grimy red wool. He got off two rounds and one came close, but not as close as Longarm's pissed-off burst of fire aimed at point-blank range. So the treacherous rascal wearing a dapper Anglo riding outfit and.45-28 Starr wound up stretched out on the dust with that dumb hat blown away but half the red serape covering his face.
