Longarm tried to look worried. He said, “Not much. Few hundred dollars. Man with any sense don’t carry a lot of cash in this country. You ought to know that. I done business this way for years and never had no trouble. Hell, Mister Caster, what is the rush? You’ll have my cattle in your pens when they get here, and I won’t be able to move them without your say-so. Ain’t that security enough?”
Caster leaned forward and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. “That’s the only kind of security I believe in, Long. Tell you what … How long will it take you to get hold of your money?”
“Two days, three at the outside.”
Caster stood up. “All right,” he said. “I’ll give you three days starting Monday morning. By Wednesday you better have twenty-five hundred dollars to put in Raoul’s hand. You savvy?”
Longarm stood up, too, put on his hat, and worked it around to get it set comfortably. “Put like that, I don’t reckon there’s much way I can’t savvy. All I can do is find me a bank Monday morning and get them hopping. You give me to the close of banking hours Wednesday?”
“That’s three o’clock. Yeah, you can have until then. But if you’re wise, you’ll get it to Raoul as quick as you can. You’re just about to get where you ain’t worth all the trouble.”
Longarm stared at the customs man for a long moment, wondering what all the rush was about. It sounded like Caster was up to something on his own. He was setting up to cheat someone, but Longarm couldn’t figure out if it was him or maybe even James Mull. But he let it pass just as he let pass the casual insulting remarks that Caster liked to make. All he said was, “You drive a hard bargain, Mister Caster. And I don’t see no call for it.”
“Don’t you? Well then, I reckon you wouldn’t. But then you ain’t spent ten years dealing with the likes of yourself. Now go on. I’ve got work to do.”
Longarm walked out of Caster’s office very deep in thought. Letting the screen door bang behind him, he stepped off the porch, climbed into the saddle of the roan, and looked around, half expecting to see San Diego watching him, but the gunman was nowhere in sight. He rode slowly back to the hotel, and turned the animal in at the stable, figuring he wouldn’t need him for a while. Still deep in thought, Longarm went into the old hotel and walked across the empty lobby. It was almost noon, but he wasn’t hungry. He went in the bar, got a large whiskey and a mug of beer, sought out an empty table in a back corner of the almost deserted bar, and sat down to think. The first problem he had to deal with was where in hell he and Austin were going to get the kind of money they needed. He could wire Billy Vail and the money would be sent without any question, but he sure as hell couldn’t telegraph from Laredo to the headquarters of the U.S. Marshal Service in Denver, Colorado. And there wasn’t another telegraph office within seventy-five miles. And the hell of it was he didn’t know where Austin Davis was or when to expect him. Caster seemed determined to have the money and have it within the time specified. Longarm could not figure out why the customs man was being so adamant about it, but the reason didn’t really matter. If they were to catch Caster, and Mull, he had to have some cash money in his hand to pass across. That dodge about handing it to San Diego wasn’t going to protect Caster, no matter what he might think. He’d already made it clear that San Diego was his employee, and handing the half-breed the money was the same as giving it to Caster.
But there was still the puzzle about Mull. Longarm wasn’t sure if Caster was trying to pull a fast one on Mull or not. He was halfway persuaded that Mull had been contacted and was willing to go along with the scheme; he just wasn’t willing to be directly linked to it in person.
The money, though—that was a real poser. He guessed, once Austin Davis got in with the cattle, he could take what money the junior deputy had and put it with what they both could scrape up and maybe they’d have the twenty-five hundred that Caster was demanding. Then again, how much money Austin would have depended upon how much the Texas coastal cattlemen had given him and how much he’d had to pay for the Mexican cattle. Longarm pressed his hand against his forehead trying to remember what Davis had said having to do with bribing Caster. Had he been going to actually bribe him, hand over the money? Or was he just planning on making the offer and arresting Caster when he accepted? Longarm could not recall. They’d talked about so much, and he hadn’t been on the scene, and he really hadn’t paid that much attention. Not that he hadn’t been interested—it just hadn’t seemed necessary at the time, and he’d figured there’d be plenty of other opportunities to get matters straight. Besides, he hadn’t much planned on using anything that Austin had mapped out, anyway.
He sighed and took a drink of whiskey, chasing it with a long swallow of the cool beer. Longarm didn’t much care for beer unless he was thirsty, but it went down well enough when a man was doing hot work, like heavy thinking about where to lay his hands on a lot of money.
He was chewing the matter over in his mind when Jasper White suddenly appeared in the door of the saloon and, after pausing to look around, came marching straight over to Longarm’s table. Longarm glanced up as the lanky man with the pale eyes came to a stop. “I reckon you owe me money,” Jasper White said. “And I reckon you know why you do.”
Longarm stared at him for a moment. Finally he said, “Well, Jasper, I think I counted that hundred out right, but if I made a mistake, you set down here and tell me about it. You want a drink?”
“Don’t drink,” Jasper White said. But he sat down stiffly in a chair across from Longarm. “Never did drink. Don’t hold with it.”
Longarm half laughed. “Well, all right. That’s your business. Just leaves more for the rest of us. Now, what is this about I owe you money.”
“You jest paid me fer Mister Jay Caster. Was a hunnert dollars for him. Wasn’t nothin’ said about Mister James Mull.”
Longarm frowned. “What are you talking about, Jasper?”
“I’m talking about Mister James Mull of Brownsville, the high mucky-muck for the Customs down in this part of the country. You gone and got him ringed in on yore deal. Well, that figures to cost you another hunnert dollars.”
Longarm shook his head slowly, but his mind was working fast. It wasn’t hard to figure how Jasper knew about Mull. Raoul had told his brother Raymond and Raymond had told Jasper. It was good news in a way. It meant that Mull was actually coming to Laredo, that he was actually part of the scheme and not just some bluff that Caster was going to try to run. But it wouldn’t do to let Jasper know how fair things had progressed. “Jasper,” he said, “where you getting your information? For all I know, you’re trying to do me out of more money. What makes you so sure that Mister Mull is involved?”
Jasper began nodding his head. “That’s all right, how I know. The thing is, I know. People tell me things because they want me to know. Sometimes so I’ll talk and get word around, and sometimes when they don’t want me to talk. Fact of the business is I know the difference. They don’t want it knowed about Mull. He’s coming in on the Q.T. Telegram is gonna get sent to him saying a certain thing and he be getting’ on the train and come straight here. Now, about my money-“
