moment and maybe for the next couple of days, he was going to be too tired and weak to do much about his situation, even if there were something that he could do. He reached into his pocket and rustled around until he found a cigarillo. There were matches by the lamp and he struck one and first lit his cigarillo and then the lamp, trimming the wick so that it threw off a nice glow to brighten up the room as the sun went down outside.
Brown’s ignorance frightened Longarm. He wondered how long it would be before the man finally realized that the federal government was not going to trade out. Once they got such practice started, it could go on forever. Longarm knew what was going to happen. His worry was how long it was going to take Brown to figure out he had nothing to gain by holding a United States deputy marshal. And as for Brown talking about sending in pieces of his body, he thought the man surely wasn’t that insane. For instance, if they sent in his little finger, how would Brown expect the authorities to know that it was Longarm’s little finger and not the finger of some drifter off the street that they dragged in and gave the chop to? Aloud, he said, “Hell and damnation. This is a hell of a mess.”
He was beginning to revive slightly and he puffed furiously at his cigarillo, sending up large clouds of blue smoke, trying to think. After a moment, he realized it was clear he didn’t know enough about the situation to come to any kind of useful conclusions. The best thing was to rock on along for a couple days until he could spy out some opportunities. What form they would take he didn’t know, but he did know that if a man was alert and on his toes, something usually turned up.
Right then he figured the best thing he could do was to try and get himself into as good a physical shape as he could, and that meant some supper and a few drinks of whiskey. He got up off the bed and limped over to the wooden door. He banged on it, partly to get attention and partly to find out how thick it was. He found out it was plenty thick, thick enough so that he regretted pounding on it so hard. After a few more licks with the flat of his hand, a little peephole suddenly opened in the door about head high. It surprised him because it was so cunningly concealed in the curlicues and scrolling on the door. He could barely see the face of one of the Mexicans. It appeared to be the younger one, whose head did not quite come up to the level of the hole. The pistolero said, “Yes, senor, what do you wish?”
Longarm said, “Well, first of all, I want some supper, then I want a bottle of whiskey. Then I want some cigars or some cigarillos, whatever you’ve got, and then I want to speak to Mr. Brown.”
The Mexican said, “The supper, the cigarillos, the whiskey is okay. I don’t know about Mr. Brown. I don’t think he wants to talk to you.”
Longarm said, “Tell him I’ve got a few things he needs to know. If he’s going to go about this business, I want him, for my sake, to get it right. Now, you tell him I want to talk to him.”
Longarm could feel more than see the Mexican shrug and then suddenly the peephole was shut and the door looked as solid as before.
It was a long wait, but at the end of it Longarm was given an idea about how he would be served and trusted. There came a knock on the door, he got up off the bed and went over and waited for the peephole to be opened. He could see the older Mexican’s face. The man said, “When we come, senor, you go way yonder to the back of the room. Then you lay down on the floor and put your arms out and you make no move or we shoot you. You understand? You don’t look up, you don’t get up, you don’t speak, you don’t nothing. Okay? You understand?”
Longarm said, “Yeah.”
The Mexican said, “You stay there until we tell you get up. Understand? We come pretty quick.”
“Yeah,” Longarm said, mimicking the Mexican’s Spanish-accented English. “I understand.”
He thought they were a good long time about it. He looked at his watch when they came in the room. It had been coming seven o’clock and now it was nearly eight. It had been a full half hour since he’d placed his order for food, whiskey, smokes and the presence of Mr. Brown. Finally, there came a faint rapping on the big door. He got up off the bed and walked over. Apparently the peephole didn’t open from his side and they weren’t going to open it from theirs. He yelled out, “What!”
A muffled voice said, “You go where we told you to go. You lay down on you face and you shut you eyes. Do not move, senor, understand?”
“Yeah,” Longarm said disgustedly. “I understand. I’ve been to school. I understand English even if you don’t speak it.”
“You go.”
“I’m going.” He turned and walked to the far end of the room and lay down beside the bed, his face pressed against the cold tile, his arms spread out. He lay listening. He could hear the door latch being turned, then he heard the heavy door swing open. Then he could hear the sound of boots as at least one man and maybe a woman—by the soft sound of low-heeled shoes—could be heard. He heard the sound of furniture being moved and then came the smell to his nostrils of some kind of food. He couldn’t tell but it seemed to be chicken or beef or maybe both. All he cared about was his visitors getting the hell out of his room and letting him have a meal in peace.
He heard the footsteps retreat and this time he was certain it was one pair of boots and someone in a pair of soft leather shoes. He heard the heavy door close and the key turning in the lock and then heard a thump that he took to be a bar being placed across the outwardly-opening door. Finally, he heard the tiny sound of the peephole being opened and a voice saying, “Okay. Go eat. You got whiskey, you got cigars.”
Longarm got up off the cold floor. He yelled as the peephole was closing, “Hey! What about Brown? I want to speak to Mr. Brown.”
The peephole reopened. The voice said, “You eat now. Maybe talk Mr. Brown later. Okay?”
“No, damn it!” Longarm swore. “I want to see Mr. Brown. I want to tell him a few things. Hell, you guys are fooling around with my life here!”
The voice said again through the peephole, “You eat. Maybe talk later.”
The peephole shut.
Longarm said, “Damn, damn, damn.”
The smell of food was too inviting. A table that hadn’t been there before had been set up in front of one of the straight-backed chairs in the room. On top of it was a covered tray. He could see all kinds of dishes and he hurried across and lifted the cloth that covered it. There was a bottle of good whiskey and a steaming plate of something that he didn’t quite recognize and a pot of coffee and a cup. There was bread and butter. There was another dish that he guessed was some kind of flan, Spanish custard that tasted like caramel. He didn’t care. Right then, he would have eaten grubworms if he could have gotten some ketchup to put on them.
