“Well, you’re the boss. You tell me a better way.”
“Damn!” Longarm said. He looked down at the body sprawled on the stairs. “Why did the sonofabitch come in when he did? Damnit!”
“Why? You wasn’t finished?”
Longarm gave him a sour look. “That ain’t the point, Austin. Damnit, if you don’t take the worst side of a situation, I never saw anybody who did. I mean if he hadn’t come in like that, if I could have met him under different circumstances, I might not have had to kill him.”
“How about if you hadn’t been up here in the bedroom with his woman and both of you with your clothes off? Or I guess that was in the line of duty.”
“Oh, go to hell, Austin,” Longarm said. He stood there on the stairs trying to think of a better plan than the one Davis had proposed. There wasn’t one. Until the job was finished he couldn’t let it be discovered that he’d killed San Diego, and he couldn’t leave Dulcima running around loose to talk to the wrong people. But he had no idea how he was going to get her cooperation. “Well, let me go in and talk to her,” he said at last.
“Don’t you reckon I better come with you?”
“Well, hang back.”
Longarm was surprised to find that Dulcima had dressed while they had been talking. She put on a pair of blue velvet charro pants that flared at the bottom over her small, polished boots; little silver conchos ran up the outside sewn of each pants leg. A frilly white shirt with a little black string tie completed the outfit. If anything, the clothes made her look even more desirable. Behind him Longarm could hear Austin Davis let out his breath in appreciation. Dulcima turned from a chest in the corner when they came in. “Dulcima,” Longarm said, “I need to ask you a little favor.”
She looked amused. “You choot Raoul and now you are escared bad thin happen to you from his friends and his brother. So chou want to feex eet so nobody know. What chou want to do?”
“Well, what we thought…” Longarm pointed behind him. “This is Mister Davis here. He works for me. Mister Davis thought we ought to take San Diego’s body across the river and into Mexico—quite a ways into Mexico. He’s got some friends there that will help.”
She peered around Longarm and gave Austin Davis a critical look. “He’s hokay,” she said. “What you want me to do?”
“Have you got a buckboard here?”
“Chure. What you theenk?”
“Can the women who work for you get it hitched up?”
“Of course. Or the buggy. Or the carriage. What you theenk I pay them for?”
Longarm cleared his throat. “Uh, we don’t want them knowing about Mister San Diego. In fact we don’t want anybody knowing about San Diego. So I need you to tell them to hitch up the carriage or the buckboard and bring it around front. Don’t give them no explanation.”
“Buckboard would be better,” Davis put in. “Crossing the river. And a team of horses. Not just one.”
Longarm looked questioningly at Dulcima. “Can they handle that?”
She tossed her head, making her shiny black hair fly. “Chute. What you theenk?”
“Then I’d appreciate it if you would go and tell them to hitch a buckboard up and bring it around to the front. And tell them when they are done to get back to their work.”
He assumed she would go out the door they’d come in, and down the stairs past the body of San Diego, but she surprised him by crossing the room and opening another door that he’d thought led to a bathroom, or the like. She disappeared, and in a few seconds they heard her downstairs, yelling to the servants.
“That is one hell of a good-looking woman,” Davis said. “I ain’t going to mind taking her to Mexico one little bit.” He had been looking toward the door where she’d vanished, but now he turned to Longarm. “How long you figure I ought to keep her over there?”
Longarm shrugged. “I don’t know. Depends on how willingly she goes. Caster has the got the cattle for a week. I’d guess five days. The thing is I might need you here. This has changed a good deal of our plans.”
“I reckon you realize I can’t go down to Brownsville now and take a gander at James Mull.”
Longarm grimaced. “Damnit,” he said. “I think this may be the most complicated job I ever went on. Hell, I wish it had been Caster and Mull that had come through the door. At least the business would be settled.”
Dulcima came back in. “They do eet pretty queek,” she said. “They leave eet in the front. I tol’ them to put the canvas cover een the wagon. I doan theenk you want that peoples chood see Raoul.”
Longarm thanked her, and then he said, “Dulcima, I need you to go along to Mexico with Mister Davis.”
Her eyes suddenly narrowed. “Yes? Why you need that?”
Longarm cleared his throat. “Well, he don’t speak Spanish so good. He might ask you to interpret for him.”
She stared at him for a moment and then laughed her tinkling little laugh. “You make the lie, senor. You want me to go to Mexico because you know peoples will be coming to ask for Raoul and you are escared what I say. No?”
Longarm shrugged and looked around at Austin Davis.
Austin came forward. “Listen,” he told her, “We’ll have a good time. My friends got big hacienda. Maybe we’ll go on to Monterrey. How does that sound?”
She gave him an amused look and then stepped back as if to make a lengthier appraisal. She surveyed him from boots to hat for a long enough time that Davis began to look uncomfortable. Finally she shrugged. “Hokay.” Then she held up a finger and shook it at Davis. “But you no touch me. I do the touching. You unnerstan’?”
