There is a rule, surely written down somewhere and probably carved in granite, too, that requires all desired objects to be placed at the bottom of whatever pile is being searched. Longarm wasn’t sure just who decreed that this be so, but he was pretty sure the rule existed somewhere, somehow.
And sure—damn enough, his carpetbag was smack on the bottom of the jumble of bags, boxes, duffels, and pokes belonging to the ball players.
“You want me to fetch it out for you, Mr. Short?” the equipment boy offered in a tone of voice that was half- hearted but nonetheless decent of him.
“No thanks, Jerry. Mr. McWhortle wants to talk t’ you, and you wouldn’t want t’ keep him waiting.”
The clubfooted kid looked relieved as he hurriedly made his way forward into the next car and out of Longarm’s sight.
Longarm paused for a moment—but only for a moment; after all his cheroots were inside that bag—then began tugging and shoving at all the bundles so as to extricate his own gear from among all the rest.
Once he had it the first order of business was to find, quickly trim, and gratefully light a smoke. After that he pulled a decent set of clothing out. He hated having to wear the damned clown suit that the baseball players found to be so comfortable. Or seemed to. At least none of them seemed interested in changing clothes.
With proper clothing in hand he glanced around the baggage car with some small amount of concern. It was unlikely anyone would wander in while he was changing. But there were some ladies present in the passenger coaches forward and it was not inconceivable that one of them would choose to traipse along to the baggage car to replenish an empty perfume bottle … or to sneak a nip of Lydia Pinkham’s mostly alcohol elixir.
Unlikely, sure. But somewhere on the same slab of granite that held the immutable rule about wanted items being on the bottom of available piles there surely was a closely related law proclaiming that any embarrassment that could happen surely would happen. Same author, same chisel.
So he figured the sensible thing would be to step out of sight before dropping his drawers.
In no great hurry he finished his smoke, then picked up his clothes and carried them down to the far end of the car where a stack of crates labeled MacEachern’s Ready to Wear, Fine Fabrics at Reasonable Rates, extended nearly to the ceiling. A little pushing and shoving gave him room enough to slip in between the crates and the end wall of the boxcar.
Longarm dropped the stub of his cheroot onto the floor and ground it out underfoot, then took his things into the makeshift dressing room.
Uh huh. Damn good thing he’d slid out of sight, all right. He was still buttoning his shirt when he heard the door at the far end of the car open with a thump.
Longarm peered around the side of the crates and saw he needn’t have been concerned. It was only the left- field player, Nat. Nathaniel something-or-other, actually.
Longarm quickly finished with the shirt and tucked it into his trousers, slipping his galluses over his shoulders and intending to step out and speak to the man.
Before he could do that, though, the door opened again and a young man in regular clothes, not one of the ball players and no one Longarm had seen before, came into the car.
There was something about the two of them, Nat on the one hand and the newcomer on the other, that made Longarm freeze in place, watching them from his unintended hiding point nearby.
Although they obviously thought they were alone in the car Nat looked nervously about, as if to satisfy himself on that score.
Then Nat pulled his shirttail out of his baseball uniform trousers and reached beneath it for a packet he’d secreted inside his waistband.
The stranger responded by producing a small package of his own.
This was getting interesting-er and interesting-er, Longarm thought.
He wasn’t a lick inclined to step out and show himself as just another of the boys now. He stayed where he was and watched as the two packets changed hands.
He had no idea what might be in the tiny box—or whatever—that Nat received. It could have been almost anything small enough to fit into a space roughly the size of a jewelry box.
But there wasn’t a whole helluva lot of doubt in Longarm’s mind about what Nat was giving to the other guy.
That flat little bundle was just exactly the size and shape of a tightly wrapped sheaf of currency. No telling how much was in there, of course. And no telling what for. But Longarm had no doubt in his mind, none, that Mr. Nathaniel whozitts was buying something here, or paying off a split, whatever, that he damn sure didn’t want his teammates to know about.
And wasn’t that downright interesting just minutes after Douglas McWhortle informed the team that they weren’t gonna be paid for this ball game because some SOB went and stole all the gate receipts that they’d worked for these past days.
Real interesting indeed, Longarm thought.
He shifted to the back of the narrow niche behind the stack of crates and waited patiently for Nat and his pal to leave.
But he was thinking the whole while he waited.
Chapter 20
The next town on the schedule was a half-horse—it wasn’t big enough to justify calling it one-horse—burg named Hoskin. It really seemed more a freight siding than a village, and as far as Longarm could tell there was neither local law to notify about potential danger nor anything for miles around worth stealing even if there had been a Hoskin police force.
The community consisted of a freight ramp and telegrapher’s shack, but no actual station, and a grand total of
