the cell and extended a hand through the bars.
?I think this is yours??
The prisoner looked at him with suspicion.
?A good-luck piece??
The man shrugged.
?You can have it back if you want.?
This time the man smiled. He came forward and took the bit of quartz from Longarm. He handled the pebble with a degree of tender concentration and pleasure that was surprising. Longarm got the impression that the prisoner felt much better now that he had the pebble in his possession again. There was something here that was slightly askew, not quite right, but Longarm could not nail it down.
?My name is Long,? Longarm told him.
The prisoner smiled and nodded. He cupped the pebble in one palm and stroked the pretty stone with the fingers of his other hand.
?What?s your name??
?Donald James Potter,? the prisoner said. His voice was
odd. Almost with a hollow sound to it.
The name meant nothing to Longarm. He was sure he had never seen it on any poster or wanted notices.
?Have you had breakfast, Donald??
Potter shook his head. ?I?m hungry.?
?Me too. The hotel will send something over soon.?
Potter grinned and looked about as happy as a bee in blue clover. Now that he had his pebble back and breakfast was on the way, Potter looked like he hadn?t a care in the world.
Longarm cocked his head to the side and studied the man for a moment. Donald James Potter seemed poor pickings for a desperado.
?Tell me about yourself, Donald,? Longarm suggested.
Potter shrugged and continued to admire the cool, pink depths of the quartz. He stroked it again and smiled.
?Well I?ll be damned,? Longarm said softly to himself. Potter ignored him, giving his full concentration to the stone in his hand.
Donald James Potter was simpleminded.
Was this how the leader of the White Hoods had been successful for so very long? By using carefully directed men with mush for brains who hadn?t the wit or initiative to get out of line or give things away? Or for that matter, to demand more than what they were given?
It was a damned interesting thought, Longarm reflected.
But it might be something of a challenge trying to get hard information out of a man like this. Certainly bullying would just make the poor devil sull up like a cranky old steer. Bullying was something Donald James Potter would have had all too often in the past. Likely he would deal with it by simple withdrawal into himself. Perhaps, though, they could have a friendly chat over breakfast.
?Do you need anything, Donald??
Potter shook his head. His hair was too-long uncut, and greasy from being long unwashed as well. If he had been wearing a hat he must have lost it. He concentrated happily on the pretty stone in his palm
Longarm shrugged and went to sit at the desk that once had belonged to Paul Markham while he waited for the breakfasts to be delivered.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
No man can exist as an invisible entity. Someone had to know something about Donald James Potter. How long he had been in Thunderbird Canyon. What he did here. Who he associated with. Someone had to have seen him, had to have had contact with him. Longarm had to find whoever that might be because unfortunately, poor Potter himself was incapable of giving that information.
Longarm did not believe Potter was lying to him or trying to hide anything. It was just that the poor soul had not the mental capacity to remember what he had for his last meal, much less any information that would help lead Longarm to the man or men who had put Potter up to the bombing of the bank, where men of the community had died during the night. Exactly how many men was still in doubt, as no one was yet sure if all the bodies had been recovered, and searchers were still hauling wreckage away from the ruins of the building.
It was something of a wonder, really, that Potter was able to recall anything about the affair, but the explosion had made some impression on the fuzz and fog that was his feeble brain.
He freely told Longarm what little he knew. There had been a loud, loud noise and a marvelous burst of flame. He?d found the bright flame in the night very pretty, apparently. Almost as pretty as his pebble. That was probably the reason he was able to recall something about having been there and seen it all. Potter dimly remembered something about a smaller flame too. He may have been the one to light the fuse that set off the explosion. He was not really sure about that, though.
Longarm shuddered when he thought about the dim, dark shadows that were Donald James Potter?s thought processes. But there was nothing he could do to help the man nor, it seemed, to get much more in the way of information out of him.
He left Potter safely, and quite contentedly now, locked inside the jail cell and went out to see if anyone else in town could add to the little he knew about the White Hood prisoner.
