Maybe we can get some more information in here.”
Longarm said, “Better than that, why don’t you send a deputy down there and let him get on the ground and get us some reliable information instead of us relying on some telegrams from heaven only knows who?”
Billy Vail grimaced. “That’s just it. I ain’t really got anybody to send.”
“There’s Ross Henderson. He ain’t doing a damned thing. He’s been laying around this station for the last month, it seems like. You ain’t put him to work yet. When is he going to do some work where he don’t have to back up to the pay table?”
“Oh, Ross is just a kid, Longarm. Hell, I can’t send him out like that, not on a job like this.”
Longarm said, “Billy, what do you think I was? The first job you sent me out on, I wasn’t nothing but a kid.”
Billy Vail leaned forward. “You were never a kid,” he said. Then he fixed Longarm with a gimlet eye. “And by the way, you’re making it sound like me sending you out when you were a kid, well, that makes it sound like I’m a good deal older than you, and we both know there ain’t that many years separating us.”
Longarm laughed loud and long. “Oh, I hope the Good Lord doesn’t strike you down dead for that one,” he said. “Billy, you can go to Hell for lying as well as for stealing. You know, if headquarters ever finds out how old you really are, you’ll be drawing two pensions as soon as they retire you.”
Billy Vail got red in the face. “Now don’t you be spreading none of that kind of talk. You and I both know there ain’t no truth to that.”
Longarm kept on laughing. “Billy, Billy, I’ve been here I don’t know how many years and you sure as hell ain’t got no younger. You looked like old saddle leather the first day I started working here. You looked like a mule that had already put in his career’s work and was ready to be turned out to pasture, and I don’t know how many years have passed since then. Lord have mercy.”
Billy Vail was still glaring. He said, “Well, that kind of talk ain’t going to get you your way. You can see that, can’t you, mister?”
“Look, Billy. Henderson doesn’t have to go down there and blunder into anything. He can just go down there and mealy-mouth and pussy-foot around and get a line on what’s actually going on and then get word back up here. That’ll give me some time to rest. Billy, I ain’t kidding. I didn’t sleep in a bed for ten days. I think the best bed I had the whole time just didn’t have any rocks under it, and that was as good as it got. And I know I didn’t have a hot meal the whole time unless it was warmed up by gunfire.”
Billy Vail gave him a sour look. “My heart is bleeding for you, Custis. You can’t believe how bad I feel.”
Longarm said, “Now, there’s no need to get sarcastic, Marshal Vail. There’s no call for that. What do you say about sending Ross Henderson down there? He needs the work and he’s got to get his feet wet, Billy. I know you think he’s a little slow and a little backwards, but he seems bright enough to me.”
“You’ve never heard me say I thought Ross was slow or backwards. He’s a sworn deputy United States marshal. We ain’t got none, with the exception of yourself, that’s slow or backwards.”
“Well, anyway, I wouldn’t want to see the kid go out on a job like this if he couldn’t handle it. But all you got to do is tell him to be careful.”
Billy threw his hands up in disgust. “All right, all right,” he said. “You’ve got to have a certain amount of time to whore around town and gulp down whiskey. I guess you’ve got it coming, though I’ll be damned if I know of anything else you do. When do you ever work?”
Longarm fixed him with a hard eye. “Don’t you come that way on me. You take a calendar and you mark off how many days I had off last year. I’ve got so damned much leave time coming, if I put it all together, I could retire right now.”
“You don’t have to get huffy about it, Custis. All right, I’ll send Ross down there to see if we can’t get a line on this.”
Longarm stood up. “I still think it’s a joke,” he said. “I still can’t believe that anybody in their right mind would be inviting this kind of trouble. If they can be found to collect a reward, they can be found to be arrested. It doesn’t make any sense, Billy. If you wanted me dead or captured or hidden off somewhere, would you go to advertising it and cause me to be on my guard? Hell, no. You’d slip up on my blind side, take me unaware.”
Billy Vail tilted back in his chair. “I hate to say it, Longarm, but it’s a well known fact that you ain’t got a blind side and you’re pretty hard to slip up on. That’s the only reason I can think of that you’re still alive. No, if this is not a trick, and I don’t think it is, it’s smart. It’s too damned smart to be a joke. There’s just enough people crazy enough to have a try at you—from ambush, naturally. I don’t think they’re very interested in bringing you in alive, but I do think they are interested in putting a hole through you. Now as to the rest of it, I’ve got no idea.”
Longarm put on his hat. “Well,” he said. “I’m going over to the Elite Cafe and have myself a good lunch, and I’m going back to the hotel and get some sleep, and then I’m going carousing tonight. I don’t know when I’m coming in.”
Billy Vail gave him a disgusted look. “Play, play, play. That’s all you know how to do. I just hope this poster doesn’t put an end to your playing.”
Longarm shook his head and walked to the door, saying, “Billy, you’re getting so old, you’re starting to get dotty. I’m telling you, your brain is disengaging itself from your mouth. You’d better get them working together again.”
After lunch, he went to the barbershop and had a long luxurious bath and a shave, and then had his hair trimmed. After that, he went back to his boardinghouse and gratefully climbed between the clean sheets. He intended to sleep until about eight o’clock, and then he was going to call upon Pauline, a lady friend of his who had a dressmaking shop. She was a very well-proportioned thirty-year-old widow who was just as ladylike as a china doll until you got the clothes off her and got her into a bed. Then she turned into a wildcat. Longarm was pretty sure he’d ridden some broncs that hadn’t bucked as hard as she did. He could swear that after some nights with her, he had black and blue marks all over him. She was a very nice lady, very independent, who wanted what he wanted without any ties or connections or commitments. It was a good arrangement. She liked being single and she liked sex, and he felt the same way.
He slept solidly and peacefully, but unfortunately, too long. When he opened his eyes and looked at his watch, he was shocked to see that it was ten o’clock. He had missed his visit with Pauline, or at least the first part of it. He was still of a mind to try to make the important part of it happen. He dressed as quickly as he could, just the
