and then to forget what she’d seen and be ready to swear the man had left her and gone to Mexico and that was that.
But he had the uneasy feeling that the volatile and voluptuous Dulcima would not be willing to go along with the idea. It was clear that she wasn’t very upset about San Diego getting killed. And maybe she really had been through with him. But she didn’t seem to Longarm like a woman who could keep a secret, or even wanted to. He had an idea she would want him to cut the man’s ears off and go parading around town with them like he’d seen a matador do in a corrida he’d once been to in Mexico City. That would be more her style. He went over to the bed and looked at her, trying to think of how to broach the subject. Just as he was about to open his mouth, he heard a sound from downstairs. He instantly put his finger to his lips, warning Dulcima to be quiet. But she said, “That ees just one of my servants coming een. Maybe they hear the chooting.”
And that was another problem; the servants. If they got a look at Raoul San Diego, there would be no way at all to keep the news of his death from reaching Caster’s ears. Or, worse his brother’s.
Longarm turned toward the door, still signaling Dulcima to be quiet. He’d stuck his revolver in the waistband of his jeans, and he drew it out and softly pulled back the hammer as he moved to the door. He stood just inside the bedroom, mostly covered by the left side of the door frame. He could see the landing and most of the way down the stairs. He could hear a voice, either speaking to someone or calling something out in low tones. Longarm stepped through the doorway, crossed the landing, and plastered himself up against the wall next to the stairs. He peeked around the corner, his revolver at the ready. He could see down into the main room at the foot of the stairs. He heard the voice again and, just as he recognized the words, Austin Davis suddenly stepped into view, his revolver in his hand. He moved slowly, looking around, calling out, “Mister Long? Mister Long?”
Longarm relaxed and shoved his gun back in his waistband. “Austin, up here,” he said, “Here, at the top of the stairs.” He stepped out, standing over San Diego’s body.
Davis looked up, relief on his face. “Longarm, wh-“
“Watch that.”
“Mister Long, what the hell are you doing? I heard gunshots.” Then Davis came near enough to the stairs to see the body. “Who the hell you got there? Looks like he come in second in a two-man race.”
“Never mind. Get up here. We got some figuring out to do.”
Longarm watched as his partner came slowly up the stairs, staring at the body. Halfway up, he cocked his head around so he could see into the face of the dead man. “Hell, that’s Raoul himself,” he said. “Had a gun in his hand. There it is. And he’s got two holes in him that he didn’t have before.” Davis glanced up at Longarm. “This your work?”
Longarm nodded. He stepped to the door of the bedroom to give Davis room to come up. “He didn’t give me no choice,” he explained to Davis. “He come through the door shooting. I’m lucky he either missed me or wasn’t shooting for me.”
Davis got to the landing and looked down at San Diego. “I thought you didn’t want to kill him.”
“Damnit, Austin, of course I didn’t want to kill him. I told you he didn’t give me no choice. Hell, I wasn’t going to take a bullet myself or let him shoot somebody else. No, I didn’t want to shoot him. Right now I’m trying to figure out what to do. Caster ain’t going to like this one little bit.”
The young deputy was standing just back from the door. “You said shoot somebody else?” he asked. “What else? Who else? And, by the way, what the hell are you doing up here? This his office, or something?” And with that, he stepped in front of Longarm and into the doorway. The move caught Longarm off guard and all he could do was turn with Davis so as to see what Davis did.
Dulcima was standing on the far side of the bed, near the foot. She had put on some sort of thin silk robe that barely came below her knees—but she had not bothered to close it, much less tie the wide sash. She was standing there, her feet a little apart, all of her left breast showing and some of her right, and her lustrous pubic hairs shining against her pale tan skin.
Austin Davis stopped short at the sight of her. “GREAT HORNED FROGS!” he exclaimed, and his mouth fell open. Almost involuntarily he took a step backwards, as if he had intruded upon a private scene.
Longarm moved into the room, saying, a trifle sharply, “Dulcima, cover yourself!”
“Why? He look like a beeg boy who has seen eet before.”
“Damnit, just cover yourself! This is a mess.”
Austin Davis turned to him. “I see who else you was talking about. That is some kind of an ‘else’. What happened, San Diego catch you stealing his cookies?”
Longarm gave him a weary look. “How long you figure you’ll have to go on about this before we can get down to the real problem? I mean, how much talk you got to make about it? I can understand you can’t just let it go for what it appears like.”
Davis shrugged, then turned and glanced at Dulcima. She had closed the robe, but the thin material did very little to hide her nakedness. He said, to Longarm, “I don’t have to say nothing. But it’s kind of hard not to. I don’t reckon the second man on the scene after somebody had just struck gold could keep his mouth shut either.” He nodded his head toward Dulcima. “I call that oro puro. And if you dipped your biscuit in that gravy, all I can say is that I wish it had been me and you’d had a feather up your ass and we’d have both been tickled.”
Longarm sighed. “All right, all right. Get it out of your system.”
Davis grinned. “I’m just jealous. You come out here to deliver a man some money and instead you wind up taking some of his pie. You got my admiration. I’d call that some pretty slick work.”
“Listen,” Longarm said as patiently as he could, “I come out here like I was supposed to. Dulcima said he’d gone to Mexico, and one thing led to another and we ended up here in the bed without our clothes on. Next thing I know I seen a look on her face that told me somebody else had come to the party. I had my back to the door at the time, but I didn’t bother to look. I rolled off the bed and come up shooting. I got to tell you I was blind lucky, because I hadn’t left my revolver in a handy place. I’d been too busy at the time. But I somehow landed with it near my hand and I fired through the holster.” He pointed toward the back wall. “You can see yonder he got one off that missed one of us by a cat’s whisker. I don’t know who he meant to kill.”
Davis shook his head, and let out a low whistle as he looked at the bullet hole. “I’d say you got double lucky, partner. I take it you weren’t exactly set up for action at the time.”
