Chapter 5
It was just purely amazing, Longarm thought, how in a town no bigger than Addington, Texas, something as unusual as a murder could take place—well, he assumed it was unusual for there to be a murder here although he supposed that was not necessarily true—and yet nobody in town seemed to know a damn thing about it. Even more incredible, nobody in the whole town seemed so much as curious about it.
Nobody made any guesses as to who it was that shot the postmaster. None of the Addington’s citizens seemed inclined even to talk about the murder.
Hell, there was one sawed-off little runt of a fellow who looked Longarm square in the eyes and swore he hadn’t been aware that the postmaster was killed. Incredible!
After a couple hours spent walking through the business district of Addington, Longarm hadn’t managed to find a solitary soul who was willing to talk to him about the murder of a fellow citizen. A man as prominent as the postmaster, at that. Why, a coincidence like that was damn near enough to make Longarm think folks here didn’t want an outsider messing about in their business. Or something.
Still, he had an ace in the hole, a tried-and-true, never-fail method for extracting information—or at the very least some good ol’ rumors—when all else failed. He headed for the nearest barbershop and asked for a shave and a trim. He hadn’t yet met the barber who wasn’t anxious to spill everything he knew to every customer whose butt hit his chair.
“Trim those nose hairs for you, mister?” the barber offered.
“Yes, thanks.” Longarm closed his eyes and let the barber take control, the sound of clattering scissors a pleasant, rather soothing undertone.
“I don’t believe you’ve been in before today, have you?”
“No, sir. New in town.”
“Uh huh.” The barber’s shears clicked and rattled as the man began trimming the back of Longarm’s neck. “Figure to stay a while?”
“Likely not. I have to take care of a little business here, then I’ll have to move along.”
“Uh-huh.” The barber switched to a different set of clippers, the blade chill on Longarm’s skin, and snipped away.
“Somebody on the stagecoach said you had some excitement here a while back,” Longarm ventured.
“Is that so? He must have meant the county fair. You missed that by a couple weeks. Pity too. There was a tent show where if you paid an extra dime you could go into the little tent out back of the big one. They had them some dancing girls there whee-oow, mister, you should of seen them. Took off every stitch, I’m telling you. Every stitch. One of them women, mister, had her pussy hair shaved into the shape of a heart. Now I been a barber going on thirty years and I never seen a thing like that before, let me tell you. And her titties, they were hanging right out, bouncing and jiggling and flopping all over. Yes sir, that was some excitement, all right.” The clippers nipped and rattled as the barber deftly, rapidly squeezed them.
“That, uh, isn’t what this fellow on the coach meant, I think. He said something about there being a murder here? Now that surprised me, see. A nice-looking town like this, you don’t think in terms of murder and shootings and the like.”
“You don’t?” the barber asked.
“Well I wouldn’t think so.”
“Really? Now friend, I would’ve thought that a United States deputy marshal would pretty nigh always be thinking in terms of murders and shootings and things like that there,” the barber offered.
Longarm opened his eyes. The barber was grinning.
“You got to understand that this is a small town. Word goes around fast anyway. And, Marshal, you’ve been stomping up and down our streets for the better part of two hours now. I would have noticed you even if folks hadn’t been talking about there being a federal man snooping around.”
“That’s what I like,” Longarm declared. “An honest man.”
The barber chuckled and went back to cutting hair. “I think you will find, Marshal, that most folks hereabouts are honest. A mite shy with strangers sometimes, but honest.”
“That’s real nice to know, friend.”
“Lay your head on back now. I’m ready to lather and shave you.” He picked up the strop that dangled from a hook attached to the back of the barber chair and began freshening the edge of one of his razors.
“You have a nice touch,” Longarm said a few moments later as the thin sliver of tempered steel moved feather-light across his flesh.
“Thank you. Like I said, I been at this near thirty years now.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know-“
“About those girls in the tent show? Sure. Be glad to tell you everything I can about them, marshal. What is it you’d like to know?”
Apparently even this otherwise friendly man was not going to tell him anything about the death of Norman Colton. Dammit. Longarm shrugged and accepted the inevitable, letting the barber finish without further distraction.
Chapter 6
The post office was closed by the time Longarm got there, locked up for the night and with no sign of the acting post master who was replacing the murdered man. Longarm gave it up for the time being and walked back to his hotel.
Supper was a dull affair, the beef boiled, stringy, and tough and the mashed potatoes gray and unappealing.
