“Oh, yes,” Caster said. “I can understand lying.”
Longarm didn’t hear from Jay Caster for nearly twenty-four hours. He spent the intervening time moving around the town, acquainting himself with the layout and the country, getting to know the horse Austin Davis had furnished him, playing a little poker, and drinking a little whiskey. He avoided the Tejano Cafe, since he felt that Jasper White would be carrying tales back to Caster, besides which he didn’t want to risk a run-in with Raymond San Diego, mainly because he was the brother of Caster’s gunman and go-between. Once on the downtown street, he saw a Mexican woman who was nearly as beautiful and voluptuous as any woman he’d ever seen in his life. She was walking near the plaza, wearing a gaily colored gown and carrying a parasol over her shoulder. She had long, shining black hair and very light skin that set off her dark eyes and her full red lips. Longarm’s eyes fastened on her square-cut bodice, where he could clearly see how her breasts mounded up and strained against the thin material. Even at a distance the sight of her made his mouth go dry. A man standing nearby had looked around at him and smiled crookedly. “I reckon it’s all right to look,” he said, “but I wouldn’t get too close. That’s Dulcima.”
“Who the hell is Dulcima?”
“That’s Raoul San Diego’s woman, and if you don’t know who he is, then more the pity you.”
“Bad, huh?”
The man had spit on the ground and ground it in the dust with his boot heel. “Bad enough for me to stay clear of him.”
Now Longarm was in his room having just finished breakfast in the hotel dining room. He’d been soaking his tooth in whiskey and vowing to go straight to an apothecary and get some laudanum. He’d bit down wrong on a piece of bacon and the pain had nearly killed him. Now however, after five minutes of soaking it was starting to dull down just a little. There was a knock at the door. Longarm swallowed the whiskey, then took another quick drink from the bottle. He was sitting on the side of the bed and he swiveled to his left so as to be facing the door and to clear his draw in case he had to go for his weapon. He called, “Come in,” hoping it would be Austin Davis, though it was a couple of days early.
The door opened, pushed from the outside, but no one entered. A man stood in the doorway. He was tall and slim and was wearing a flat-crowned border hat just like Austin Davis’s. To Longarm’s thinking, he was not Mexican, though he looked Mexican. He might, Longarm reflected, be a half-breed. His face had regular features, and was not unpleasant to look at. But his eyes were flat and hard and looked like agatee. He was clearly a man used to settling disputes with the big revolver he wore at his side, and since he was still alive, it appeared he must have won all of them. Longarm had no doubt that this was Raoul San Diego.
The man made no move to come in. “You Long?” he asked. He had very little accent.
Longarm nodded. “That would be me. As a guess I’d say you’d be Senor San Diego. Raoul San Diego.”
San Diego ignored the remark. He said, “Senor Caster say you are to come see him this morning. You ready?”
Longarm shook his head. “No, not just at this moment. I got a little business I need to tend to. Tell him I’ll be there in an hour.”
San Diego stared at him, not blinking for half a moment. He was wearing a white shirt that appeared to be silk. Longarm figured that being the gunman for a crooked customs official must pay pretty good. San Diego shrugged. “Mister Caster send me to bring you. Maybe he don’t want to see you in no hour.”
Longarm stood up. He often used his size to make a point. “You tell Mister Caster I got a tooth is causing me a lot of pain. I got to go find something for it. Tell him I’ll get there quick as I can. Maybe in less than half an hour.”
San Diego looked at him for a second or two with his flat eyes, and then he shrugged again. Without a word he turned and disappeared down the hall. But he was wearing big roweled Mexican spurs and Longarm could follow his progress by their ching-changing.
He went over and closed the door, thinking the sonofabitch didn’t have manners enough to do that. Manners or not, Raoul San Diego was someone he didn’t intend to give much of an advantage to. If it came near to shooting time, Longarm determined he would kill the man first and worry about if he’d done right later. Any other course of action might result in a man not having any time to think about anything later.
But there was still the problem of his damn tooth. Laudanum made a man a little slow and groggy, and if he was to be coming up against Caster in serious discussion, Longarm didn’t want to be either. Then again, he couldn’t be sure what Caster wanted. Maybe he just wanted to say they didn’t have a deal and Senor San Diego was going to shoot him for all the trouble he’d caused.
But somehow Longarm doubted that. He spent another ten minutes doctoring his tooth with whiskey until it was down to a bearable ache. After that he put a couple of fresh cigarillos in his pocket along with some matches, checked his revolver, put on his hat, and left the hotel.
It was a pleasant morning. Longarm walked around to the stable, got the roan out, mounted him, and set off for Caster’s office. It wasn’t but half a mile or less, but he had no intention of doing any more walking.
The place looked empty when he rode up and dismounted. The sign that hung from the roof of the porch swung gently in the breeze, creaking a little. There was no sign of any horses or wagons. Off to his left the cattle pens hummed with activity, as before. Longarm climbed up on the porch and let himself in through the front door. Caster was sitting where he had been before, at his desk in the back of the office. Coming in from the sunlight, Longarm paused an instant to let his eyes adjust to the gloom. But Caster waved him forward impatiently. “Come in, damnit. I ain’t got all day.”
Longarm walked forward. Once again Caster did not invite him to take a chair, but Longarm did so anyway. “Sorry I couldn’t come right away,” he said. “I expect your Mister San Diego explained.”
“I ain’t interested in yore damn teeth, Long. We’re doing business here.”
“Are we?”
Caster leaned back in his chair and frowned. There was a letter-sized piece of paper on his desk. He nodded slowly. “I sent a letter to Mister Mull outlining your proposition. There’s his answer.”
Longarm looked surprised. “You sent a letter? How the hell did you get an answer so fast?”
Caster gave him a look. “I sent a man down on the train. How the hell did you think? He brought the answer back last night on the return train. What did you think I was going to do, put that kind of business on the
