after that was: What were you going to do with him once you had him captured?
You certainly couldn’t put him in a regular jail or a prison. Had some lunatic devised some kind of jail cell or prison where he wanted to put Longarm for the purpose of feeding him and watching him and seeing how a deputy marshal acted? Like an animal in a zoo? That was just plain insane. Unfortunately, Longarm had been in the law business long enough to know that insanity was not so rare a commodity among the criminal classes. Still, it was a puzzle.
He finally found a poker game to his liking—dollar ante, pot limit. He sat down and took out his roll of money. “Gentlemen,” he said to the other players. “I hope your wallets are longer than your dicks because I plan to skin you.”
One of the players said, “I wouldn’t know about that, Longarm. I try to keep mine worn down, but then, I don’t guess you’d understand what I mean.”
Longarm gave him a wicked grin, thinking about the last two nights. He said, “Just shuffle and deal and get ready to donate.”
He finished playing just in time to make it back to the boardinghouse in time for supper. His mind was full and distracted with the problem of the Nelsons and of Lee Gray, but mostly with young Ross Henderson. He was more and more convinced that the young deputy should not have been sent on such a complicated mission. Normally, you broke a deputy in by pairing him with an older, more experience hand and then gradually letting him take his head and move out on his own as he was able. Longarm was so concerned that he even sidestepped a coy invitation from Lucy that night right after supper. She passed him in the hall, paused, and wondered with a tight smile on her face if he wouldn’t need his bedclothes changed a little later. He said that no, they were fine, that he had a great deal of work to do, and that he’d probably just be staying in and working.
Her face fell and she looked disappointed and hurt. It didn’t hit him until he was halfway to his room that he had just turned down another piece of pie. He remembered the old advice that the more pie you turned down, the less you were likely to get in the future.
But he could not stop worrying about the situation. He resolved that if he didn’t hear something positive in the next day, he was going to be on a train heading for Santa Rosa to get to the bottom of the matter.
He slept badly that night despite several drinks that should have calmed him. He was restless and uneasy and eager to do something rather than just lie in a bed while work was to be done. He got up early the next morning and went out for breakfast rather than having it at the boardinghouse. As it was, he just had biscuits, gravy, and coffee.
After that, he went over to the Federal Building to Billy Vail’s office. Billy was there, but there was no news, so Longarm walked up and down the halls and visited with the various other deputies of the Marshal Service, some of them men who had retired from the field and now worked behind desks, performing the necessary paperwork that he hated so much. They all knew about the case and they were all ready to discuss it, but no one could add a spark of new information or new thinking to the problem.
At noon, he and Billy Vail went over to the Elite Cafe and had lunch together. They each had a big T-bone steak with fried potatoes and fried eggs on the side. Longarm joked about the steaks being nearly bigger than Billy, which certainly would make Billy’s round little belly even bigger.
Billy Vail had always been sensitive about his size, and he had gotten more so in his later years. Now his ears got pink and he said, “Longarm, you sonofabitch. I wish you were as old as I am. I’d whip your ass right out there in the middle of the street. I bet you can’t fight worth a lick with your fist. I might be short but I still pack a hell of a punch.”
Longarm gave him a horse laugh. “The only punch you ever had, Billy, came out of a bowl that some ladies had made up for a party. Quit telling me about that shit.”
“Well, just for those kind of remarks to your superior, you’ll damned well pick up the bill for this lunch. I don’t normally eat in such a place as this, what with my salary and all.”
“Your salary? You mean your salary and what you can steal! If I had a hand like yours, I’d arrest it. My Lord, you spill more money than I make in a month!”
They were only joshing with each other to keep from talking about what was worrying them the most. They both felt an uneasy sense of guilt that they’d sent a young man into a dangerous situation despite the fact that they were experienced and should have known better.
When lunch was over, Billy Vail went back to his office, and Longarm wandered down the street to a saloon he knew had an early poker game. The stakes were smaller than he liked to play, but it was something to do to pass the time while he waited for news. The hell of it was, they should have had a deputy stationed somewhere near that part of the country. Normally, a deputy marshal was kept in the southern reaches of New Mexico, even though most of the deputies worked out of the Denver office. But the man who had been there had just retired and returned to his birthplace in Georgia. The poster that was being sent was coming from a friend of that deputy marshal who still lived in Albuquerque. Longarm was beginning to wonder how long it took to get a package from Albuquerque to Denver. It seemed like a week had passed.
And then there was the matter of Lee Gray and further word from him. Worse was the fact that they hadn’t heard from Ross Henderson since yesterday. He had been told to communicate daily.
Longarm did such a bad job of keeping his mind on the game that he managed to lose $60 to players who were vastly inferior to him and who had far less money. He normally won at poker, not with luck but with money management. Usually the best player with the most money would win in the long run. But he was playing in a fifty- cent, two-dollar game, and somehow still managed to lose a considerable sum. He finally left at about three in the afternoon and went back over to Billy’s office.
The poster had come. Billy had unfolded it and it was lying on his desk. He turned it around as Longarm came in. It was a normal-looking legal poster that could have been put out by any law enforcement agency. It was about eighteen inches by twelve inches, and there was a drawing of Longarm in the upper third. Below that it read:
REWARD
CUSTIS “LONGARM” LONG
$10, 000 ALIVE
$1,000 DEAD
CONTACT THE NELSONS
