Kun hung his hat on a wall peg, not shy about his baldness, and turned to a brandy decanter and some cut- crystal glasses on his chest-high cabinet as he easily replied, 'I know her better, if only in the Biblical sense. I know it's wrong to boast of one's conquests, but who conquered whom is debatable, and you are a federal lawman and this is an official investigation, is it not?'
Longarm tipped his Stetson back and accepted the fancy glass of Austrian Kognak as he said, 'I reckon. I was hoping you could tell me what I'm investigating. They say you like the gals, and it seems you don't worry yourself too much about what their menfolk might have to say about your, ah, hobby.'
The almost handsome Hungarian sat on the bed with his own drink as he nodded and replied, 'You would have to be Magyar, I mean Hungarian, to understand. Most of these peasant coal miners were born into a much lower class than mine. Also, as you see, I am not a small man or a poor man.'
Longarm sipped some kognak--it was good stuff--and said, 'In other words you have the Indian fellow sign on your immigrants. I noticed a similar situation over in New Orleans, when I was looking into that Black Hand shit amongst the newly arrived Sicilian folks. There was a white-suited wonder they called their Artichoke King because he got a rake-off on all the fancy vegetables peddled in the produce market by furriners. Plain old Americans, black or white, might not have taken him so serious, without a fight.'
Zoltan Kun nodded easily and said, 'That's why I never try to push my luck with your kind, or your women. I don't enjoy a fight when the odds might not be in my favor.'
Longarm growled, 'I said I followed your drift. Can we get back to Attila Homagy and his safer wife to fool with now?'
The Hungarian looked pained and said, 'Magda Homagy was one of those exceptions that proves a rule. Attila was even crazier to pay her way from the old country with no more than a tintype to tell him what he was getting. She got a man old enough to be her father and, according to her, not much of a man to begin with.'
He got up to pour another round of strong kognak as he continued in a thoughtful tone. 'That may not be fair to the poor fool. I like women as much as you say, and the one I just took home had no complaints about our buggy ride. But a night in bed with Magda Homagy leaves any man squeezed dry, like a lemon. I've never met anyone as mad for a man's juices before or since. I had to break off with her before she ruined my health.'
Longarm grimaced, allowed he wasn't there to discuss anyone's health, and demanded, 'Are you sure you didn't tell her you were a famous American lawman who could have her and her man deported if she didn't give you a French lesson?'
Kun laughed incredulously and said, 'She knew who I was. I never said I was anyone else, and nobody would have to threaten that wild little blonde with anything to get her to suck him off! Magda volunteers to take it all three ways, and yes, I had her all three ways, more than once, while her husband was away on union business. But I never told anyone I was you, and I can't tell you how anyone got us confused. I'm well known in the Magyar community over by the coal mines.'
Longarm refused a third drink with a silent shake of his head and said, 'You ain't as well known here in town. American gossip only has you down as a skirt-chasing simp, no offense. So, assuming old Attila told someone he was going to clean my plow for screwing his young wife, and others had seen you with the flashy young sass...'
'Why would even a fool like Homagy say I was you?' the Hungarian demanded.
Longarm said, 'He must have been confused. He was out of town and never saw his wife with either one of us. His story is that she told him I'd screwed her against her will whilst he'd been out organizing for the eight-hour day. My first notion was that she'd confessed to cover up for you, after he'd heard she fooled around on the side. But you say you busted up with her?'
The Hungarian Romeo shrugged and said, 'Not in too bitter a way. She said she understood when I confessed I simply couldn't get it up again without some celibate rest. She might have been trying to protect her husband, you know.'
'By send ing him out to fight with me?' Longarm asked without any false modesty.
Kun shrugged and declared, 'I have my own reputation, and I was much closer. Magda might not have expected her fatherly husband to quit his job at the Black Diamond and go all the way up to Denver after a man he'd never met. You would have to be Magyar, but it is not the same if a total stranger seduces your wife or daughter.'
Longarm smiled thinly and said, 'Hill folk where I grew up see it about the same. But Homagy did traipse up to Denver, and right now he's stalking me through the Indian Territory, I hope. I don't want to fight over a gal I've never met. So I'd like to meet her and ask what got into her. I don't have to get her to name you, as long as I can get her to admit she never laid me, see?'
Zoltan Kun nodded gravely, but said, 'I can't lead you to her. She's not out there now. I rode out to ask my own questions when I heard crazy gossip about you and me. Her neighbors told me she'd left like a thief in the night with some other man. I say other man because some of the fools thought she'd left in a buggy like mine with me!'
Longarm slitted his eyes to picture a curtained buggy winding down a cinder lane on a dark night, and said, 'All right. Let's assume she ran off with yet another lemon she aimed to squeeze. Knowing she wasn't with you, Homagy would have no call to doubt her confession naming me. I hate to have to tell you this, old son, but it looks as if she wasn't out to protect either of us.'
'The scoundrel was a total stranger to everyone but Magda!' the Hungarian gasped in an injured tone.
Longarm said, 'I wasn't finished. The cuss she rode off with in that covered buggy must have been known on Bohunk Hill. She'd have had no call to say he was me if he was a total stranger, right?'
Kun stared at Longarm with more respect and said, 'You're good at what you do. I'm glad I don't have anything to hide from the law!' Longarm couldn't resist bringing up an under-aged miner's daughter. The Hungarian shrugged and said, 'I understand such a charge would have to be made by the girl's legal guardian, no?'
Longarm grimaced and declared, 'That's the way they wrote the state laws. Fortunately for you, I have no jurisdiction unless you screw her on an Indian or military reservation. How does her father feel about them buggy rides, since you brought up your own sterling character?'
Kun shrugged and quietly said he'd had no complaints from any of the greenhorns around Trinidad.
Longarm said, 'That Artichoke King in New Orleans had everybody scared skinny too, until some of 'em had had enough and started to whisper to the law. If I was you I'd keep it in mind that little Eva Nagy could cost you some
