dapper Anglo in a different outfit. But he preferred to dress like a vaquero in mourning, with his black wool and leather trimmed in shiny ebony and black lace. The friendly eyes he saw so well with in the dark could have been brown, dark blue, or even purple as they shifted constantly in the tricky hall light.
When Longarm repeated his urgent need to catch that boat, El Gato said, “Is too late. The night boat for Yuma left some time ago. Let us hope Inspector Gomez thinks you caught it. In either case they are certain for to turn this poor town upside down in search of you!” Longarm swore softly and asked where El Gato was taking him.
The rebel leader pointed at the stairway down at the far end as he explained. “Next door to the room in which our good Inspector Gomez is in the habit of taking his siestas with a woman of La Causa, is the last place Inspector Gomez would expect to find you, no?”
Longarm laughed incredulously and demanded, “Jesus H. Christ, you expect me to hide out in a whorehouse?”
El Gato shrugged and replied, “Were you planning for to hide behind a cactus? Is no better cover for two days’ ride in any direction!”
Chapter 12
They led the thoroughly battered Sam Ferris from his cell at dawn, then out of town a mile, where they made him dig his own grave by the side of the road. When Inspector Gomez finished his morning coffee, he rode out to join them.
Gomez smiled in a fatherly way and declared, “Everything you told our midnight shift would seem to hold together, gringo. Was three other men and one woman staying at that waterfront hotel you named. They left, as you said, on the night boat for Yuma. Perhaps they will get there. Perhaps not. I have wired los rurales at San Louis Rio Colorado, where their vessel must pass through customs before proceeding on up the delta into your own country. The descriptions you gave of your leader and two henchmen were not too helpful. But how many blondes pass through San Luis Rio Colorado in a given period, eh?”
Ferris failed to puff the lit cigarette a guard placed between his bruised lips. He pleaded, “I told you that was the real Longarm you had in the very next cell. So how come I’m standing here in this old hole?”
Gomez pleasantly replied, “Because you would stink terribly in this heat if we did not bury you. Tell me for why you and your band came all this way down from Arizona Territory if Arizona Territory was where you wished for to live.”
Ferris sobbed, “I’ve told you over and over! We were holed up fine near Yuma when old Harmony went into town and got picked up by the law. Harmony was wanted on federal charges. So when we heard they was sending Longarm to transport him back to Denver, we had time to set up a bluff. We knew Longarm was too good to die the way we left him. We wanted him to bust loose, flag down a train, and tell everyone we’d run off to Mexico, see?”
Gomez wrinkled his nose and asked, “You really ran for where you wished him for to say you were running?”
Then, before Ferris could answer, the wily manhunter nodded as if to himself and said, “That explains all those boat tickets. Your friends are doubling back to a hideout that would have been ideal if this Harmony Drake had only behaved himself. No Yanqui lawman knows of it to this day. Or should I say no Yanqui lawmen knew of it until he tracked you this far? El Brazo Largo had booked passage aboard that same night boat before he somehow slit the throat of the desk sergeant from an impossible distance.”
Ferris cried, “I told you some Mexicans came to bust him out. I can tell you where Harmony, Goldmine Gloria, and the boys are headed too!”
Gomez grimaced and coldly replied, “Is not important to me. I know it was El Gato or some of his people who helped a known friend escape. I have no jurisdiction in Arizona Territory. I intend to catch the one I am really after on my own side of the border. Whether your friends go to Yuma or to Hell is of no interest to me.”
As he started to turn away, Ferris pleaded, “What about me then? If you don’t give a shit about anyone but Longarm, what am I standing in this hole for?”
Gomez shrugged and quietly replied, “Is the best place for us to dispose of an unimportant stink. Is no reward posted for you on either side of the border, and you pests make so much noise at the Americano Consulate every time we bruise you just a little. So all in all, I feel this may be best for all concerned, eh?” Then he said “Ahora” in a conversational tone, and turned to leave as they shot Ferris to a bloody mess in the bottom of his shallow grave.
Once he got back to his headquarters, Gomez wired San Luis Rio Colorado for further news on that night boat, and ordered his men to keep the pressure on in the unseemly Parts of town, observing that low-lifes who were not being paid to hide wanted men were inclined to want them caught, if only so they could get back to their own shady business.
Then, after a tedious morning defending his country, the ponderous patriot enjoyed an early snack and waddled over to his favorite house of ill repute to enjoy a few hours of sensual siesta time.
As he was being serviced by a slender mestiza with hips that just kept moving and eyes that held no expression at all, the man he had his whole force searching for in other houses of ill repute was in the next room, pacing the floor and puffing furiously on the big claro cigar El Gato had brought him. The saturnine Mexican himself sat on the windowsill, idly staring down at the street through the slats of the blue pine shutters.
The walls of the solidly built chincheria were too thick for them to hear what Gomez was begging for next door. It was just as well for Gomez’s peace of mind that he couldn’t hear El Gato’s answer when Longarm asked why they were letting the fat lawman live.
El Gato said, “Is a matter of the devil we know against a new one who might be better. Gomez is good, but not as good as he thinks he is. Nobody could be. His weakness is that when the putas tell him how much everybody fears him, he believes them. But about that government payroll shipment my friends and me are here for. Do you wish for to be in on it or not? Your share would be better than ten percent, if you could spare a few extra days down this way.”
Longarm didn’t want anyone calling him a sissy. So he said he just loved to take part in payroll robberies as a rule, but had to get on down the road. When he asked again about any other boats headed north, El Gato said, “Patience, my idealistic youth. I told you there were boats and then there were boats. Would be suicide for anyone on our side to put out to sea before sundown. This tiresome government we’ve been suffering under has bought a fleet of steam cutters from that old cosita Queen Victoria for to guard our coasts against piracy. That is what El Presidente calls catching fish without paying him off, piracy.”
