White shrugged. “Is it? You’ll have to find out how he does it before the law can step in.”
Longarm said, “I ain’t interested in the law stepping in. I’m just interested in getting some cattle across the border fast.”
“Well, now you know, don’t you?”
“Yes, and I’m much obliged. Mind telling me how I go about it?”
“You be so damn smart, you figure it out.”
“How about you approaching him for me? I got a feeling you already know how.”
White glared at Longarm with his close-set eyes. “Mister,” he said, “I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ except I don’t want to do no bid’ness with you. Not no more, not the way you do bid’ness.” He lifted his injured hand and looked at it as if in silent accusation.
“Now, c’mon,” Longarm said. “You brought that on yourself, and if you’re fair about it, you’ll admit as much.”
But Jasper White shook his head. “I don’t know nothin’ about you, feller. You could be the law for all I know.”
Longarm gave a short laugh. “That’s a hot one. I’m standing here talking to you about rushing some cattle, and you think I might be the law. Look, there’s nothing to know about me. I got a herd due up from the interior of Mexico in the next couple of days. I want to get them on the road to market as quick as I can. I ain’t going to make any money with them standing around in cattle pens waiting to see if they got tick fever.”
White pursed his mouth and seemed to be contemplating. “I don’t know,” he finally said.
Longarm gestured at the forty dollars he was holding, “I got the balance of that would make a hundred-dollar bill in your pocket was you to introduce me to Jay Caster.”
White looked interested. “Sixty dollars more?”
Longarm put his hand in his pocket. “Cash money. On the spot. All you got to do is walk up with me to the man and give him my name. Give me a howdy and a handshake to him. Nothing more.”
“You don’t want me to tell him what you be looking for?”
Longarm shook his head. “Nosir. Not at all. Wouldn’t ask you to do a thing that might seem like trouble. Ain’t no law against introducing one man to another, now, is there?”
White glanced toward the cafe, looking thoughtful for a moment. “I reckon not,” he said at last. “But I want the money in advance.”
“When you want to do it?”
White spit on the ground and scratched his head. “Well, I don’t exactly know. I don’t know if Mister Caster is in his office right now or not.”
Longarm pulled a look. “You mean you don’t know if you ought to go in the cafe and check with your partner first. Ain’t that about it?”
White raised his head. “I don’t got to ask Raymond nothing about this kind of bid’ness. He ain’t my boss.”
“No, but you two are in some kind of business together, ain’t you.”
“That wouldn’t be none of yore affair.”
“Well, while we’re at it, seeing as you’re a man knows his way around the town, can you tell me where I can scare up some drovers? I’d be willing to pay you for your help on that score.”
Longarm could see the greed starting to build in White’s eyes. He had counted on it.
“How many men you looking for?” White asked.
“Enough to handle a thousand steers. Say eight drovers and a cook. You find me good men and I’ll pay you ten dollars a head.”
White hesitated only a beat. He said, “I reckon I could handle that. Let’s see, that would bring it up to a hunnert and fifty dollars what you’d owe me. That right?”
Longarm said, “Only if I can make a deal with Caster. I’ll pay you the sixty for that as soon as you can get me met up with him. But I can’t pay for no drovers until I get a herd through. Now, what about it? Reckon you can make time to get me within handshaking distance of the customs man?”
The lure of money was proving irresistible to Jasper White. He glanced at the cafe and then over his shoulder toward the river. “Well,” he said, “I don’t see nothing wrong with us walking down to the pens and seeing if Mister Caster ain’t handy.”
“Let’s go,” Longarm said. “Ain’t me holding us UP.”
Still Jasper hesitated. He looked down at the money in his hand, slowly folded it, and slipped it into his pocket. “When was you thinkin’ ‘bout payin’ me that other sixty?”
Longarm gave him an impatient look and jerked out his roll. He peeled off four tens and a twenty. “Hell,” he said. “How about right now? One of us has got to start trusting the other. I guess it might as well be me.”
“What if Mister Caster ain’t there?”
Longarm took White by the shoulder and turned him toward the river and the holding pens. “Then you’ll make me acquainted with the gent at some other time. Hell, Jasper, quit acting like you ain’t already done this a hundred times before.”
Jasper White looked at him. “You been talkin’ to folks about me.”
Longarm shook his head. “No, I’ve been talking to you about you. That’s been enough.”
