Oh, the dying might’ve been accident enough. Could be whoever killed her didn’t especially want for it to go that far. But the beating, Mr. Mayor, that wasn’t no accident. That was cold and cruel and deliberate as a man taking a fence post to the side of his mule’s head. No, whoever killed that girl beat up on her a-purpose, whether he figured for her to die or not. And I tell you the truth, sir. I’d kinda like to talk to that fella and ask him just how this thing happened and what it was that he intended.”
“As I understand it, Longarm, as a deputy U.S. marshal you only have authority here if competent local authority asks for your help. Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“And with Clay Waring dead and gone, well, I think I am probably the only local official capable of inviting your, um, assistance.”
“Which of course you ain’t done.”
“Which I have not done,” Parminter agreed, “and which I do not intend to do. And before you make any assumptions, Deputy, it is not a question of who votes or who does not. It is a matter of what I honestly feel is best for this community. I simply do not believe that the distress of accusations and murder charges and the like … well, I just do not think that could accomplish any worthwhile purpose.”
“It could bring a murderer to justice,” Longarm said softly.
“You are entitled to your beliefs, sir. I am equally entitled to mine. As it happens, I do not want to, as they say, rock the boat.”
Longarm shrugged. And began buttoning his coat. “That’s your decision to make, Mr. Mayor. I won’t try and deny it.”
“Thank you.”
“If you do happen to need my help …”
“I know where to find you, thanks.”
Longarm turned his collar high and tugged the fur hat snug, then let himself out into the wrath of the snow and icy wind.
Chapter 9
Longarm was in one sonuvabitch of a mood when he left the mayor’s store. He felt frustrated. Useless. Dammit, if a lawman couldn’t tend to the law, what the hell good was he? For that matter, what the hell good was the law if nobody wanted to bother tending to it? Walking away from that girl’s murder—and murder it damn sure was, regardless of how Parminter wanted to skew his view of things—churned Longarm’s gut into sour knots.
He was halfway back to the hotel when he changed his mind about his destination, and headed instead for the Old Heidelberg. The barman there remembered him. “Rye whiskey is it, Marshal?”
“Later,” Longarm told him. “I’ll be back for a drink later on. Right now I could use some directions.”
“Anything to help,” the bartender offered. “Where d’you want to go?”
“A place run by a woman name of Norma Brantley,” Longarm said.
The barman frowned.
“I know Miss Forsyth has her own, uh, competing business to think about,” Longarm said. “But it isn’t a roll in the hay that I’m looking for. Just information.”
The bartender’s expression softened. A little anyway. “I don’t know that she’ll be open for business this early.”
“I told you, friend, it isn’t business that I have in mind. Not that sort anyhow.”
“Yeah, well, all right then.” The barman used his fingertip dipped in some recently spilled liquor to sketch a crude map on the bar surface. “You can’t miss it,” he concluded, prompting Longarm to wonder if there was some rule written down somewhere that required all persons engaged in giving directions to conclude with that oh-so- inaccurate assurance.
“Thanks,” Longarm said. “You been a big help.”
“Any time.”
Longarm turned and touched the front of his cap first to Miss Forsyth, who was seated demurely at a table in a far corner, and again to the friendly cowboys he’d played poker with earlier. Come evening, he thought, he just might have to return for that glass of rye and another round of cards.
Longarm had a bit of trouble locating Norma Brantley’s whorehouse from the Old Heidelberg bartender’s directions, but he chalked that up to the low visibility rather than to any chance that he could somehow “miss it.” After all, it wouldn’t have been possible for him to miss it. He had that on reliable authority.
As it was, he crossed the tracks just east of the railroad depot, skirted the fringes of the livestock loading chutes and acres of holding pens, picked his way through a warren of frigid, litter-strewn alleys, and found his way eventually to what was essentially a collection of tumbledown shacks tied more or less together beneath a common roof. Miz Brantley’s hog ranch seemed not to have been planned but just sort of to have grown. Like a rather noxious mushroom.
Longarm investigated several of the niches and crannies along the front of the place until he decided on one that looked like an entryway. As he came nearer he could hear the bright, brittle tinkle of a cheap piano leaking through the walls. Apparently the barman had been wrong about one thing. Probably because of the storm keeping everyone indoors and mostly bored, the refuge of soiled doves was not only open, it was doing a land-rush business.
Longarm didn’t bother knocking. Hell, he wouldn’t have been heard over all that din going on inside anyhow. He found the latch and let himself in, stepping out of the sting of the wind and into the steamy, perfume-saturated heat of a very crowded parlor.
“Welcome, friend,” a painted and grinning whore screamed in the general direction of his ear. “Take a number, mister, the wait won’t be very long. Drinks over there. Billiards down that way. Relax and enjoy yourself. Your
