Longarm and the Shivaree Riders

Besides, dammit, he was tired. He didn’t want to be the object, no matter how affectionately, of some crazy woman’s fantasies. And besides that

…

Too late. Janie was naked by then—and if he ever wanted an enemy for life he was sure he knew how to get one: just let a woman, any woman, get naked and offer herself to him, then reject the offer; that would do the job all right—and she was on her knees, busily unfastening the buttons at his fly.

Longarm smothered a sigh and let the fool woman go ahead with what she was doing, She would find out for herself soon enough that she was pursuing a lost cause. He just plain didn’t have anything left down there to give her.

“Oh. Beautiful. This is just so pretty, sweetie. So nice.”

She had his shorts down around his ankles now, leaving only a middling growth of pubic hair in place to defend his modesty.

“If I could paint, honey, I’d do a drawing of this thing,” she cooed. “Better yet I wish I could sculpt.” She laughed. “That way I’d have a little something to fall back on whenever you weren’t around.”

He could feel her breath on his skin. Very sensitive down there at the moment. Worn-out but sensitive nonetheless, oh yes it was.

He could feel her breath and then he could feel her lips and next her tongue. Damn, but the woman’s mouth was warm. It felt almost hot around him. And nicely wet. it was … soothing. Pleasant. He was too tired to say it excited him exactly. But it felt mighty nice regardless.

She played with his balls while she sucked and gobbled at him for a spell, then with a wink turned herself around and kind of slithered underneath his crotch, forcing her head between his legs so that she could reach his asshole with her tongue. Janie Sproul was no shrinking violet, uh-uh. She gave him a rimming and a bit of a reaming and came up grinning at herself because by the time she was done doing that, he had a hard-on that a cat couldn’t have scratched. Damn thing was like polished marble. Hell, the head was engorged so full of blood that the skin was shiny. Longarm was impressed. Also amazed.

“Are you gonna put that pretty thing in me, honey? Or what?”

“Reckon I can handle that if you insist, ma’am,” he said in an exaggerated drawl.

Janie laughed. And grabbed him by the pecker to lead him the few steps across the room to the bed. The woman, he thought, was not exactly shy, was she?

Chapter 32

He was drowsing, half-asleep, when a light tapping on the room door wakened him. He sat upright with the thought that he’d already done this, He remembered it for certain sure. Except it wasn’t an exact repeat of a previous experience, couldn’t be, because this time Janie Sproul was occupying the right-hand two thirds of the rumpled and sweaty bed and was snoring just a little. A delicate and ladylike creature. Uh-huh.

Longarm shook his head, bit a yawn back behind chattering teeth and stood upright. Groggy and disoriented though he was, he plucked the Colt from its holster draped over the bedpost, and carried the revolver with him as he stumbled his way to the door.

“Who is it and do you have an awful good reason t’ be there?”

“It’s me. Amos.”

“Oh, Lester. Right.”

“Let me in.”

“That wouldn’t be, uh, convenient right now.”

“Then meet me downstairs in the lobby. Ten minutes?”

“That sounds all right, Lester.” He glanced back toward the bed where Janie was awake and listening. He hoped she hadn’t heard “Lester Colton” announce himself as someone named Amos. Particularly not after Longarm had mistaken her knock for the arrival of someone named Amos just a few hours earlier. “Ten minutes.” He waited until he heard footsteps receding down the corridor, then started gathering up the clothes that were scattered hither and yon throughout the room, tossing the female items toward the bed and dragging on his own things as he came to them.

“Something important?” Janie asked.

“A friend wants t’ buy me a drink.”

“You’d leave my bed for that?”

“T’ begin with, it ain’t your bed, it’s mine. Secondly, in my line o’ work you never know when or where you might find out something worth knowing. If somebody wants t’ have a talk, then I reckon I’d best set down and keep my ears open. You know?”

“No, but I’ll take your word for it.”

“Thank you.”

Janie began getting herself dressed. He was glad to see that. He’d been quite frankly worried that she might want to stay the night. He really was not up to that tonight. What he wanted now, badly, was about eighteen uninterrupted hours of sleep. That and a breakfast they’d have to serve in a bushel basket. If he could just manage those two things, then maybe he could face the world again.

He finished dressing first—what is it about women that makes it impossible for them to pull a pair of bloomers over their asses in less than seven minutes by an actual, timed clock?—and lighted a cheroot. Janie took it from him, and he lighted another for himself.

“Tell me, sweetie,” she said.

“Hmm?” He wasn’t entirely sure he was awake. It felt more like he was pretending to be while in reality he was sort of viewing things from somewhere high and to the right of his real self.

“Have you gotten any information about where to find Buddy?”

“Who?”

“My first husband. The one who’s been murdering all these people. Remember?”

“Oh. Right.” He yawned. He didn’t know if he should tell her that she was wrong about Buddy Matthews or just let her enjoy her own delusions for the time being.

“I heard he was seen over in Avondale,” Janie said.

“Do tell.”

“That doesn’t mean a thing to you, does it?”

“Never heard of the place,” he admitted.

“It’s a community of mostly Hungarians southwest of here about five miles. They raise chickens, most of them. They sell eggs as far away as New Orleans. And buy more water glass to store their eggs in than all the rest of Texas put together. How’s that for a fascinating point of interest?”

“Fascinates me, all right.”

“Are you going to arrest him?”

“Not without proof that he’s committed a crime,” Longarm said.

“I told you, sweetie, he’s the one killing all these men. Every one of them was a member of that shivaree party that kept Buddy out of my pants on our wedding night. He hasn’t forgotten. Believe me, Longarm, I know him.”

“Janie, you thought you knew him when you married him. You was proved wrong that time. What makes you think you know him now when you haven’t seen him in something like a hunnerd damn years?”

“I know what I’m telling you is true, Longarm. I swear to you it is.”

“Look, Janie, I know you mean well. I know you believe what you’ve told me. But all the evidence points t’ this string o’ killings being political. Starting with a bunch o’ silly sons o’ bitches who think they can secede from the Union all by themselves when the whole of the Confederacy couldn’t manage to accomplish that just a little while back. Now I hate t’ tell you this, but I think you’ve made a mistake about your former husband an’ his capacity for vengeance.”

“You can’t be serious! Surely, honey, you aren’t as blind as all these other idiots around here.”

“I’m sorry, Janie. Really I am. But what I just told you is the truth as I see it.”

“I thought you were different, Longarm. I thought you would listen to me.”

“I have listened, Janie. And I’ve given your ideas considerable thought. Now what I got t’ do is find out who really shot an’ killed Postmaster Colton, never mind opinion or prejudice or whatever.”

“Then go down to Avondale and look for him there, Longarm. You’ll find your murderer in Avondale. Unless he’s come back here to kill again.”

Longarm didn’t feel up to arguing with her any more. He said, “Stay here long enough t’ finish your smoke, Janie. Then it should be safe enough for you t’ come downstairs.”

She gave him a sad smile and shook her head. “Don’t you realize that everyone in this place already knows what room I’m visiting? You just don’t understand us here, do you?”

“Maybe not, Janie. Maybe I don’t at that.” He tugged his Stetson on, bent to give her a chaste kiss on the cheek, and got the hell out of there. Amos—Lester Colton these days—was waiting in the lobby downstairs.

Chapter 33

“Having fun, Longarm?”

“Not really. It’s beginning to feel like work.”

“If you’re looking for sympathy…”

Longarm grinned and offered his friend a cheroot, which Amos declined.

“Anybody I know?” Amos asked.

“That’s always possible, ain’t it?”

“You’re just a regular little old fount of information this evening. Feeling kinda smug after this afternoon, huh?”

“This afternoon?”

“You know. The chief of police? Last I heard, him and the magistrate were talking about could they make an assault charge stick.”

“Talking about could they make sure all the witnesses would stick to the party line in other words.”

“I will admit that one hears two widely varying accounts about what happened,” Amos said. “But I’ll tell you what I think.”

“What’s that?”

“You should have hit the son of a bitch.”

“Come again?”

“You should have punched him, Longarm. Kicked him. Beaten the shit out of him. Any one of those would have been fine. I mean, a man can stand being beat up. I never heard of anybody, you or me included, who isn’t ever going to come up against somebody else who’s stronger or quicker or just plain luckier on a given day. But what you did to him, Longarm, picking him up and dumping him into a rosebush.”

“It was only a lilac,” Longarm protested. “No thorns.”

“The man is skinned up pretty good.”

Longarm shrugged.

“Okay, lilac, fine. The point is, his pride could have taken being beaten by you. But what you did, treating him like he was some sorry-ass kid that you didn’t even have to bother whipping, that cut deep. Bone deep. Bender won’t ever forgive or forget, I can tell you that much.”

“T’ tell you the truth, I don’t much give a shit. All I want out of Addington is out of Addington. You know?”

“With your murderer.”

“Well, yeah, with a murderer. That’s what I come here t’ do.”

“At least in that, you have an ally you might not have counted on. Sergeant Braxton is four-square in your corner on letting you get your man quick as possible and then get the hell out of here. Brass seems to be about the only one around who recognizes that Norm Colton’s killing should be handled as a separate matter so you federals can be satisfied and the local affairs can take place without any outsiders looking on.”

“If I were planning what those boys are, I think I’d follow good advice when I heard it,” Longarm said.

“You, uh, wouldn’t ignore a threat to the Constitution of the United States, would you?”

“Of course not. But I got to tell you that I think it would take an awful lot more than a bunch of east-Texas assholes like these Texas Firsters to represent any kind of a threat. So until or unless I see good reason t’ change my mind about that, all I’m looking at here is the death of one federal employee. Any other killings the same party or parties may’ve done are strictly the affair of the local law, far as I can see it.”

“I’ll make sure Braxton understands that. Could be he’ll convince Bender to cooperate with you instead of raising his hackles every time you come into view.”

“I’d appreciate that, Lester.”

“All right then. Oh, and by the way. This afternoon while you were off dancing with the police chief, I did some asking around. It seems there is some doubt about whether all the town records are intact.”

“Oh?”

“And guess what sort of records they think are missing?”

Longarm waited. Hell, Amos didn’t want an answer anyway. Not really.

“I heard someone at City Hall say they think the poll records and voter-registration books are missing.”

“Mm, now imagine that. The Whig party secretary dead and now the town clerk. Records missing from both. This is beginning to look kinda interesting.”

“Sure does give somebody room to make a fresh start, doesn’t it?” Amos said.

“All I got t’ say is that it’s a damn good thing everybody in politics is honest, because a situation like this could give an unscrupulous person opportunity to rewrite history just about any way he wants it.”

“Like excluding names off the registration lists if those people are likely to vote the wrong candidate.”

“Yep, it’s just a damn good thing nobody around here would stoop so low as t’ do a thing like that. You thirsty, Lester?”

“I could stand a drink.”

The two men stood and turned to leave the lobby. Their attention was caught, though, by a breathless messenger running in to ask the hotel clerk if he’d seen the night patrolman.

“Not for half an hour or so—why?”

“Because there’s been another killing, that’s why,” the young man puffed. “The worst yet. It’s the police chief himself that’s been shot this time.”

The distraught fellow bent over for a moment to gulp for breath, then turned and dashed back out into the night. “Aw, shit,” Longarm mumbled. He shook his head. “Reckon we better put that drink off till later, Mr. Colton.”

“Yes, I expect we should at that.”

Chapter 34

Longarm and “Lester Colton” made the steep climb to the top floor of City Hall in record time. They found the expected scene of confusion there with virtually every cop on the force—there weren’t really all that many, one night man, two day officers and a part-time relief officer who worked weekends and the occasional day off for the others—getting in each other’s way along with Ranger Sergeant George Braxton and a handful of civilians who no doubt worked for, or anyway drew pay from, the town.

In his role as an interested spectator Amos couldn’t say much, and he tried to fade into the woodwork as much as possible while Longarm stepped into the middle of things.

At that middle was the focus of all the fuss and feathers, namely the very dead body of Police Chief J. Michael Bender. The man had changed to fresh clothing since Longarm last saw him—something without brush scrapes and grass stains—and was dotted here and there with a salve to heal the scratches he’d gotten from Mrs. Deel’s lilacs. Not that he need have bothered. There was a dark-purple depression in the center of his forehead. The dime-sized hole was surrounded by a black ring where burning gunpowder had scorched the skin. Apart from that little flaw, though, Bender looked pretty good. His hair was not even mussed. He was still at his desk, seated in his chair almost normally, though slumped back into a more relaxed posture than he had allowed himself in life. There wasn’t any great secret about the way the man died. He’d been sitting peacefully at his desk, expecting no difficulties, and then he was shot at virtually point-blank range.

The dead man’s eyes were open, which Longarm always found a mite disconcerting. Since no one else seemed inclined to do it, Longarm went around behind the desk and pushed his eyes shut. They stayed closed without having to be weighted or sewn, which Longarm considered something of a small blessing. He hated it when you couldn’t make the eyes remain closed.

Brass Braxton looked at Longarm, opened his mouth as if to protest, and then thought better of it. Which Longarm thought damned odd. The sergeant was not a shy fellow and would almost certainly want to take over this investigation himself.

Something else occurred to Longarm, though, that was of more immediate interest than thinking about the actions and reactions of a stray Ranger sergeant. When he’d touched Bender the man had felt downright warm. He put his fingertips on Bender’s throat and confirmed that fleeting impression. The body had barely begun to cool.

“Did anybody hear the shot?” he asked of no one in particular.

Since no one volunteered an answer, he selected the uniformed cop whom he recognized as the regular night officer and repeated the question to him.

“No, sir. Not that we know about.”

“Any idea as to time of death then?”

“Yes, sir, we pretty much know when it has to’ve been.”

“Care to explain that, officer?”

“Yes, sir. The chief’s habit is … was, that is … to come in every night at ten. Never failed to do that, sir, not as long as I’ve been on the payroll. I never knew him to be late and he wasn’t often more than five or ten minutes early. He always checked the incident log”—the young officer pointed to a large leather ledger book that lay on a counter at the side of the room—“and had a word with the night duty officer before he’d go home and go to bed. Every night including weekends he did that.”

“And tonight?”

“The night officers know his routine, of course. We always come up between ten and ten-fifteen. Tonight I got here about ten or eleven minutes past the hour. That’s when I found the chief, just like you see him now.”

“So he was killed between 9:50 and, say, 10:12,” Longarm said.

“Yes, sir. And by somebody he knew, of course, which I guess you can see for yourself. I mean, he was sitting down at his desk. He wasn’t alarmed, wasn’t worried about nothing. Whoever killed him just walked right over to him and opened up right in his face.”

“Uh-huh, I … Sergeant, what’s that you have there?”

Braxton broke into a half-trot for the door, then realized his error and stopped, turning and trying to look casual and unconcerned. He was somewhat too late for that, however. The man was caught red-handed—and red-faced too. At least he did have the good grace to blush about it. He was standing there holding a pair of ledger books, neither of these quite so fancy as the official police log book. One was a large, canvas-bound volume of the sort often found in public agencies, the other a smaller paperbound book.

“May I see what you were about to walk out with?” Longarm asked in a deceptively pleasant tone of voice.

He held his hand out and started across the room.

Brass Braxton looked once again like he would much rather run than stand still.

Chapter 35

“My oh my, will you just lookee here,” Longarm muttered happily. “Now this one I’d say looks t’ be the Whig-party minute book that was taken from Peter Nare’s place t’other night. You ask why I’d suspect that?” he said, although no one in the room had asked any such thing or for that matter made the first bit of noise. “I kinda suspect it because it says right here on the first page that that’s what it is, an’ it’s signed there by P. Nare. That’s the first one.” He set it aside, dropping it onto the corner of Bender’s desk. “An’ this other one here,” he opened the larger more substantial volume, “this here one claims t’ be an official record of voter registration for the county of …” He looked up at the Ranger sergeant. “Damn good police work for you to’ve spotted these missing pieces o’ evidence, Sergeant. I’m sure your captain will be right proud o’ you when this is reported. Yes sir, real good police work here.”

Braxton squirmed as if his shirt collar was entirely too tight. Pity about that, Longarm thought. A man ought to be careful about what he put around his own neck.

Longarm deposited the voter record atop the Whig minute book and folded his arms across his chest. “Tell me, Sergeant, with the normal civil authority in Addington disrupted by the untimely death o’ the chief here, which one o’ us d’you think oughta take charge o’ the investigation now?”

“We, uh, both could claim jurisdiction, couldn’t we?” Braxton said.

“Yeah, I expect we both could. But we wouldn’t wanta work crossways to one another, I’m sure.”

“No, of course not.” Braxton didn’t really look so sure of that. “I was naturally assuming that as an officer of the state of Texas I would, um, take control of the continuing murder investigations.”

“I c’n see how that’d be logical,” Longarm acknowledged pleasantly. “Or we could go down t’ the telegraph office an’ send messages off t’ our respective bosses. Ask, say, the U.S. attorney in Denver an’ your top Ranger in Austin. What’s his name again? Major Stone? I reckon we could ask him what t’ do. In fact, that’s likely a pretty good idea. I mean, I shouldn’t put my nose in without an official request from some local or state officer, right? So let’s just do it that way. We’ll get a message off to Austin asking Major Stone what t’ do here.”

“I … don’t think that will be necessary,” Braxton said.

“No? What about the extension of jurisdiction here? I only have official authority when it comes t’ the murder of the postmaster, y’know. I need somebody local …”

“I can make an official request for federal assistance on behalf of the Rangers,” Braxton volunteered. Which seemed to confuse the local cops all the more. And purely startled the hell out of several of the civilians who continued to mill about underfoot.

“Uh, Chuck … Deputy, that gentleman there is the vice mayor of Addington, Charles Henley … Chuck, why don’t you make a formal request on behalf of the city that Deputy Marshal Long here, um, join us in the investigation into, uh, recent murders or other incidents of,” he paused for a split second, a barely noticeable but rather telling delay, “incidents of violence.”

Longarm damn near smiled about that. Limit the invitation to incidents of violence. Clever. Or so Braxton thought. But then there were a couple of things that Longarm knew. And that George Braxton did not know that Longarm knew. Yeah, this was going to work out all right.

“Are you sure about this, George?”

“Chuck. Please. Trust me.”

The vice mayor shrugged. “All right, if you say so.” He turned to Longarm and said, “I hereby request that you assist us in the … how was that, George?”

“Assist in the investigation of recent murders and other acts of criminal violence.”

“Yes. That.” The vice mayor nodded briskly, then smiled and, like any politician, extended a hand so he could grab Longarm’s hand and pump it.

“All right, gents. Thanks,” Longarm said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m kinda tired. I’ll see you all in the morning. You,” he pointed to one of the older police officers, “I’d like you t’ arrange for the chief’s body t’ be cared for. An’ did he have family? Yes? All right, then I’d like you,” he pointed, “to break the news to them. That’s something that oughta be done by somebody they know an’ not a stranger. Mr. Vice Mayor, maybe you could go along to visit the family along with the officer, please? Thank you, sir. Is there anything else? No? Then I’ll say good night.”

He picked up the ledgers that Braxton had been trying to make off with and the police log too and walked out with all three of them under his arm.

Amos quietly followed. And once they were on the street and far out of hearing by the gentlemen back at City Hall, broke into laughter.

“That poor son of a bitch,” Amos said. “I almost felt sorry for him.”

“Yeah, I’ll admit that I had Brass by the short hairs. An’ he knew it.”

“He’s over here playing politics, the dumb bastard, and maybe his captain knows it and approves of it … that’s something we’ll want to look into later on … but I can guaran-damn-tee you the major doesn’t know anything about it or Brass wouldn’t be carrying a badge right now. Did you see his face when you mentioned sending a wire to the major?”

Longarm nodded and grinned. “Buckled his knees, didn’t it?”

“I thought he was going to piss his britches there on the spot,” Amos said. “Right now he’s hoping the Rangers never have to find out about his activities here. Not until or unless his cronies are in power in Austin. I expect then he’d feel safe.”

“He’s going to have one hell of a surprise when he finds out there was another Ranger in that room watching him learn to crawl tonight.” Amos’s expression became more solemn. “Come to think of it, Longarm, I guess I don’t feel sorry for him after all. Guys like that give the rest of us a bad name.”

“No they don’t, Amos. Because bad apples like that one get weeded out by good people like you and Major Stone.”

“You can count on that, my friend.”

“I do, Amos. I do.”

“Getting back to the main business at hand here, what do you think about Bender being murdered like that? Do you agree with that officer’s theory that the chief had to know and trust whomever it was that shot him?”

“Looks that way on the surface, don’t it,” Longarm agreed in a too cheery tone of voice.

“Why do I get the impression you don’t really mean that?” Amos asked.

Longarm shrugged. And handed Amos the bulky ledgers he’d confiscated from Braxton. “Do something t’ keep these safe, will you? Me, I’m purely worn out. I got t’ get some sleep else I’ll be walking into walls soon.”

“Good night, Longarm.”

“G’night, Amo … Lester.”

Chapter 36

Longarm hadn’t so much as had time to get through his breakfast before the locals began making courtesy calls. Courtesy hell, he realized. What they were doing was pleading for protection. Now that the police chief was dead, himself a victim of the unknown killer he had been sworn to apprehend, the Addington bigwigs were worried that their own asses might be on the line next. If J. Michael Bender could be shot down at his desk, then so could any of the rest of them. They knew it. And it scared the shit out of them.

“As mayor of this magnificent city,” Hiram Worthington declared in a rich, mellow tone as if from a speaking dais, “I do concur with my vice mayor’s action of last night, sir. I do hereby, and I might add quite heartily, request the assistance of the United States Justice Department and of you as a United States deputy marshal, sir, in upholding the laws of Texas and of this nation. And, um,” he glanced about on all sides and lowered his voice considerably, “I would ask in particular that you protect the elected officials of our city and of this county.”

“Anyone special that you have in mind?” Longarm asked, knowing damn good and well who the mayor was most interested in but curious as to whether he would admit it.

“Well, um, naturally I am concerned for the well-being of all our officials and indeed of all our citizens.”

“But …?”

“But I, uh, think perhaps the most vulnerable would be those in, ah, the highest and most exposed positions.”

“Namely?”

“Yes, well, uh, in truth, sir, I would suggest that as mayor …” Worthington didn’t want to complete the sentence. He did not want to seem the coward. On the other hand he was even less desirous of seeing himself bravely dead. He dropped his voice to a bare whisper and leaned close, hissing practically into Longarm’s ear, “Dammit, sir, I need protection.”

“Yes, sir, I think perhaps you do. And if I had any authority over the local police …”

“Is that what you want? Fine. I can, um, I can offer you a temporary appointment, complete with remuneration in the same amounts …”

“No pay,” Longarm said. “I draw my salary from the Justice Department. We don’t take anything on the side, not for services rendered nor even rewards. That kinda keeps things on a even keel if you see what I mean.”

His honor the mayor seemed slightly disappointed to discover that he did not have the leverage of cash to apply to his own future welfare. But he recovered quickly enough. “You would accept the appointment, though, if not the pay?”

“Yes, sir, I reckon I could do that for you.”

“Then consider yourself to be the new police chief pro tempore of Addington, Texas, Mr … excuse me, what is your name again?”

Longarm hid his amusement and settled for answering the question.

“Long. Yes. Of course.” The mayor smiled. “Deputy Long. Or perhaps I should say Chief Long, mm? I have the authority to make the appointment now on a temporary basis and we will convene a special meeting of the city council, say, tonight at eight o’clock in the second-floor chambers at City Hall. Your appointment will be confirmed then. You are, uh, welcome to attend if you wish. In fact, uh, I would be particularly grateful if you could be with me on a rather regular basis for the next few days and …”

“Mr. Mayor, excuse me for interrupting here, but I reckon I know what it is you’re getting at. An’ I got t’ tell you, being a bodyguard, however valuable that service would be, ain’t exactly what I come here t’ do. Besides, guarding one fella would just tell our killer he should go after someone else as an easier target. No, what I gotta do is find out who’s doing the shooting an’ put a stop to it that way. Howsomever, sir, as chief o’ police I expect I can assign one o’ the duty officers to keep a special eye on you an’ on the other, shall we say, more vulnerable folks.”

“That would be, uh, entirely acceptable, Chief.”

“Yes, sir. Now if you’ll excuse me?”

The mayor left, and the duly appointed police chief pro tempore finished his breakfast with not more than three further interruptions by public and party officials who were worried about protecting their butts.

Once done with his meal he stopped at the hotel desk to ask that a tub and hot water be carried up to his room, then walked over to City Hall to inform the day shift that they had a new, albeit temporary boss, and to instruct them that the powers that be should be mollified with a show of interest on the part of the uniformed officers.

“Make yourselves conspicuous as hell,” Longarm told the cops, all of whom had come in, including those who were not technically on duty at the moment. “You aren’t expected to accomplish much. No killer in his right mind will try anything with you boys around. Which o’ course is the whole idea. Keep the killer away by showing yourselves an’ at that same time you’ll be pleasing the fellas that come up with your pay. All right?”

The Addington police weren’t really all that bad a bunch, Longarm thought. They couldn’t much like the idea of a stranger taking over from their dead boss, but they were polite and didn’t offer any public mutiny. That was about as good as he could have hoped, and he was satisfied with it.

“I got an appointment over at the hotel,” he said without bothering to mention that his appointment was with a bathtub, “but I’ll come back over later an’ see what we can figure out about this mess. In the meantime if any o’ you has any ideas about what we’re looking for, get your thoughts in order ‘cause I’ll want t’ hear your arguments soon as I get back. Okay?”

The cops seemed to like the idea of being consulted—Longarm had the impression that listening to the thoughts of his subordinates might not have been among Michael Bender’s habits when he was chief—and were already conferring among themselves when Longarm departed.

When he got back to the hotel the desk clerk motioned him over. “I hope you ain’t gonna tell me that my bath isn’t ready,” he said.

“Not at all. Your tub and water are waiting for you. So is a visitor.”

“Pardon me?”

“It seemed … inadvisable for this particular visitor to wait in the public lobby. Not seemly, if you know what I mean.”

“No, I reckon I don’t know what you mean.”

“She said it was official business, deputy. She said she had to see you regarding an investigation?”

She, Longarm thought. Janie again. Damn, but that was one horny woman. Well then, she could just scrub his back for him. He supposed there were worse ways to spend a morning. He thanked the clerk and started up the stairs.

Chapter 37

It was not Janie Sproul who greeted Longarm on his return to the hotel room but slim and vibrant Clarice. She was smiling hugely when she ran lightly across the room and flung herself onto him, demanding kisses and hugs.

“I have the day off and I got to thinking that … well … the first time was so nice that I thought we should do it again just to make sure I really do like it as much as I think I do,” she told him.

Longarm chuckled and carried her over to the bed where he unceremoniously dumped her on her butt. “Some things oughta be checked out real careful before you reach conclusions,” he agreed.

Clarice smiled. And began unfastening the buttons at her throat.

Longarm stroked the soft curls of her pubic hair, petting her there while he gently sucked and licked at her nipples. Clarice liked that uncommonly well, and he’d discovered it was a surefire way to arouse the girl.

Not that either of them likely could stand much more in the way of arousal right now. He’d made it twice and she’d climaxed at least three times already. But the activity was still pleasant. And kind of friendly. He lightly stroked and licked while she fondled his limp, wet pecker and sighed repeatedly in his ear.

“You like?” he asked.

“Better than being with any old girl,” she said. “Can I tell you something?”

“Um-hmm.”

“I think I might not be a lesbian after all. Isn’t that awful?”

“Oh, I don’t think I’d call it awful. Hell, I think it’s kinda nice.”

Clarice shivered. “It sort of frightens me. I mean, all this time I’ve thought I knew who and what I was. Now I’m not sure at all. That is scary.”

“I expect I can see how it would be. But let me tell you something, Clarice. You are one sweet, lovely, sexy lady. You got a lot t’ offer. To anybody. You know what I’m telling you?”

She smiled and kissed him. “I think so. Thank you.”

Longarm squeezed her tit and returned the kiss. “Tell you what.”

“Yes?”

“By now that bath water is prob’ly cold as a fresh mountain stream in springtime, but me, I feel rank an’ nasty as a old billy goat.” He grinned. “And if you don’t mind me mentioning it, lady, you don’t smell like no petunia your own self. Let’s wallow around in that tub a while. Then after, well, maybe we’ll have recovered enough that we can have another go at makin’ the beast with two backs one more time.”

“Promise?” she asked.

“Promise.”

Clarice laughed. “I’ll scrub your back, dear, if you’ll scrub mine.”

“Deal,” he said.

It was some considerable time afterward that, thoroughly sated, he lay on the bed with a cheroot in one hand and Clarice’s soft tit in the other. “I’m glad you got a day off,” he said sleepily.

“Me too. Aunt Edith is so mad it’s a wonder she doesn’t spit. But I’m glad.”

“What’s she s’ mad about?” Longarm asked.

“I’m really not sure. Something to do with Uncle Herbert.”

“Oh, yes. I remember now. Herbert the black sheep. But I’d kinda got the impression he wasn’t around much.”

“He wasn’t. Not for about as long as I can remember. He was away for simply years and years. Now he’s back. At least I think he is. I haven’t seen him, but I heard Aunt Edith talking last night, something about Uncle Herbert. I didn’t hear what exactly. And then this morning when I got up she was already gone. Barb said she came downstairs in time to see Aunt Edith on her way out and when Barb asked about the store Aunt Edith said don’t bother to open it—she didn’t know when she would be back and she couldn’t be bothered having to think about ice cream and stuff right then. That isn’t at all like her. I’ve never known her to do anything like this, so it must be serious, whatever it is.”

Longarm shrugged and puffed on his cigar, then after a moment he stroked the back of Clarice’s head and nudged her in the direction of his right nipple. Damn but it felt fine when she got to work on that thing.

Chapter 38

Longarm hadn’t any more than reached the street than they were on him like a flock of vultures on a week-dead burro.

“Are you the new police chief? You are, aren’t you? Well, you have to do something about that awful Tommy Meacham. He’s been peeking in at my little girl’s bedroom window and …”

“Mr. Long, is it? I am Alice Fowler, Mr. Long, and my husband is a county commissioner, and I want to tell you a few things before you …”

“Could I have a moment of your time, sir? It’s about a new line of uniforms, badges and fancy leather goods of the very highest quality, and they are all available to you and to the members of your fine department at discount rates that …”

“Just want you t’ know, chief, that you and your boys are always welcome at the Red Cat. If you don’t know where it is, why, you just ask anybody. Six girls working every night, chief. More on weekends. And if you want something special you can ask for …”

“Lewis. His name is Lewis Peabody, and I know he is the one stealing eggs from my hen house. The only reason I haven’t caught him at it is because he’s so clever, but I know if you set your mind to it …”

“Chief?” The voice was low and even. And came from a cop in uniform.

“Yes, uh,” he had to reach for the memory after such hurried introductions earlier, “what is it, Tyler?”

“We got a confrontation over at the Muddy Waters, Chief. I think you’d best handle it.”

Longarm excused himself from all the flies that were buzzing around him—they really weren’t so bad as vultures, after all—and followed the officer down the main avenue and up one of the narrow cross streets. The Muddy Waters turned out to be a small but rather nicely appointed saloon.

At the moment, however, what would normally be a pleasant and welcoming atmosphere was marred somewhat by a taut standoff between two very nervous men, each of whom held a revolver awkwardly at waist level.

“By God, Jennings, you lay that thing down on the bar and walk away.”

“Turn my back on you, Henry? Damned if I will. You and your people shoot decent folk in cold blood. I’ll give you no chance to do it to me.”

“Afternoon, gents,” Longarm put in from the vicinity of the doorway. “That’s good thinking. Keep your eyes on the other fellow, each o’ you. Don’t look away for more’n a split second lest the other’n up an’ fire,” he advised in a soft voice. “When you can, I want you each t’ glance this way. Just for a second. You see who I am?”

Despite the advice he had just given the two would-be combatants, each quite naturally looked to see who the hell it was who was talking like that. Which he had fully expected they would, in fact.

He nodded pleasantly first to one and then to the other. “G’on back t’ watching each other now. Gotta be careful, y’know. Would somebody mind telling me who these fellas are that’re fixing to bloody up the floor in here?”

“I’m Randal Jennings, Marshal.” He held himself stiffly erect with his chin belligerently extended in the direction of his opponent. “I am county chairman of the Whig party, sir.”

“County assassin is more like it,” the other fellow claimed.

“An’ you would be …?”

“Henry Brightwax, Chief. Elected head of the east Texas district of the Democratic party. And one of his intended victims, I’m sure.” Brightwax motioned with his free hand toward the Whig who opposed him. In more ways at the moment than merely politically.

“I take it you boys are having a difference of opinion about something?” Longarm suggested.

“He knows what it’s about,” Brightwax claimed.

“Lying piece of shit,” Jennings returned. “It’s your bunch that’s behind all this …”

“Whoa, dammit,” Longarm said, eyeing the guns the two were holding. And holding rather inexpertly, he thought. Time to put a Stop to this bull.

“Now I know you both mean what you say,” he told them, “and I’m sure you each have good reason for doing what you are doing here. So what I’m gonna do is ask all these other fellas in the place t’ move aside an’ give you boys plenty o’ room to settle your business. That’s right, everybody over onta this side o’ the room. You too, bartender. Come out from behind there for a minute. We don’t want anybody hurt by stray bullets.”

“What?”

“It’s all right. Man has a right t’ defend his honor, his woman, his property or his dog, that’s the way I see it. If you boys wanta blow holes in one another, I won’t try an stop you. Mostly because I couldn’t. Y’know? I mean, if I try an’ take one o’ you, then the other’d be free t’ fire away when my back was turned. That wouldn’t be fair. Wouldn’t be at all right. No, I can’t handle but the one o’ you at a time. So what I’m gonna do, I think, is let you fellas go ahead an’ fight it out. Like as not that means one o’ you will be dead pretty soon.”

Oh, he did have their attention now. Theirs and that of every other man in the place. Longarm took a couple steps forward, clear of the crowd behind him, and without any rush or hurry dragged the big Colt out of his cross-draw holster, holding it pointed in the general direction of the ceiling so everyone—especially Jennings and Brightwax—could get a good look at the weapon.

His double-action Colt would fire perfectly well with a single pull of the trigger. But there was something nice and dramatic about the smooth, oiled click-clack of a well-fitted hammer being drawn back into a full-cock position. And the room was damn sure quiet enough for everyone to hear. Longarm drew the hammer of the Colt back nice and slow, letting everyone in on the fact.

“T’ make this fair,” he said, “I’ll count t’ three. You’re each free t’ aim an’ fire at the count o’ three. All right? Then after … you got t’ remember that dueling is outlawed in this whole country, by federal law that is … then after you boys shoot … I got to tell you that it will be my bound duty as a sworn peace officer, both o’ the United States gummint an’ now of the town of Addington, Texas, also … when you boys are done shooting, I will have t’ arrest whichever one of you is the survivor. You’ll forgive me, I hope, but I didn’t stay a peace officer this long by taking chances, an’ one of you boys will be standing there, a criminal sure as hell, with a loaded gun in his hand an’ me having to arrest him. Which I will be duty bound t’ do. So what I got t’ explain t’ you both is that while one o’ you will have the satisfaction of blowing a hole in the guts o’ the other an’ winning his point by force of manly arms, that same one is gonna have to be taken down by me right after. One o’ you will be dead in the sawdust on this floor here, an’ the other one I will not take no chances with. What I will have t’ do soon as you boys are done shooting at one another, I will protect myself and all these innocent bystanders by shooting whoever is left standing. An’ if I do say so my own self, I am a pretty good shot with this here Colt gun so I will aim careful an’ you won’t feel hardly a thing. A hard thump on the head an’ it’ll be over. All right? You boys ready? One.

“Wait, wait, now wait a damn minute.”

“Jesus, Marshal, you can’t mean …”

“It’s clear as clear can be,” Longarm said agreeably. “You boys take care of business, then I take down whichever one o’ you is left. Real simple.”

“But that means we would both die!” Jennings yelped.

“Oh, I dunno,” Longarm said. “The one I shoot will be cold meat pretty certain, but there’s always a chance that the other fella will get over his wounds.” He shook his head as if in great admiration. “It’s purely amazing what a human person can stand an’ keep on living. Hell, I’ve seen fellas with their jaws shot clean off, others with holes you could push a fist through in the lungs, or if you’re hit in the balls you near always live. You can have your pecker shot clean off an’ hardly even need much time to heal. You wouldn’t think that, but it’s true.”

Neither Jennings nor Brightwax looked so eager to deliver the other a come-uppance any longer. In fact, Longarm thought they were commencing to look just the least bit pale, each of them.

“Are you ready now? One …” What the hell was he going to do if they let him keep counting? he suddenly, and rather terrifyingly, thought. “Two

…”

“Jesus, Marshal, can’t you give us a minute to think about this?”

“Oh, hell yes. I’m sorry. I just thought …”

“Dammit, Henry, I’ll lay mine down if you’ll lay yours down too.”

“I’d lay mine down, Randal.”

“Both of us at the same time then?”

“Yeah, but … not on the count of three. Let’s just kind of reach out … like that, yeah, and lay them on the bar. Easy now. Easy does it. And … oh, jeez.”

Both men looked limp and purely wrung out as if they’d just passed through a great and unsettling ordeal. As perhaps in fact they had.

Longarm managed to look disappointed as he uncocked the Colt and returned it to its holster. “Bartender, I think it’d be a good idea if you’d pour some drinks now,” he said. “Startin’ with those fellas over there, eh?”

Chapter 39

If he had let them, the politicians and powers that be likely would have kept him occupied half the night long. Or longer. And he simply was not interested in putting himself through that. The silly sons of bitches talked exhaustively, endlessly, about nothing at all. And all of it so intense and serious that if you didn’t listen closely you might actually think they were saying something.

Even before they got around to formally naming him acting police chief, Longarm gave up and slipped away to the hotel.

He left word at the desk that he was not in. Not to the mayor, not to Judge Sproul’s widow, not to any-damn-body. Then he went upstairs and got the best, and earliest, night’s sleep he’d had in he couldn’t remember how long.

Come morning he ate in the kitchen. He tried sitting down to a normal table in the restaurant but was so overwhelmed with people coming by to ask, to bitch, to worry or simply to talk that he soon enough gave up on that and carried his plate into the kitchen where it was hot and noisy and crowded. But where at least he could eat his meal without interruption.

He could not say the same about the routine at City Hall. Once he sat down behind the police chief’s desk he was fair game for any citizen who wanted to pester him.

And he would have sworn that a clear majority of the Addington populace was intent on having “a few minutes of your time, sir, that’s all I ask.” And all of them on this one short morning.

Being chief of police amid a bunch of damn busybodies proved not as easy as Longarm might have thought. For certain sure not as easy as he would have hoped.

Hell, there was one poor woman who in all seriousness accused her neighbor of eavesdropping on her. By way of the neighbor’s house cat.

“It spies on me, you know. It’s true. It really does.”

“Then what I suggest you do, ma’am, is bribe the cat to spy on the neighbor for you,” he told her back, just as serious and solemn as he knew how.

“Oh, I couldn’t do a thing like that.”

“No? Then have you considered talking to the pharmacist about a good poison?”

“My neighbor is the only pharmacist in town, sir.”

“Then go to the hardware store and ask about a trap, ma’am.”

“Goodness, I hadn’t thought about that. Thank you.” She smiled brightly. And then added a regretful little frown on the end of it. “Such a shame. I do like pussies.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Longarm said. “So do I.”

“Thank you, Chief Long. You have been a big help to me. I will never forget you.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She toddled out of the office with the aid of a cane and went painfully down the staircase. Longarm rolled his eyes and tried to prepare himself for the ordeal of his next visitor.

It was, however, the older day officer—Longarm had already decided to name the man a sergeant and make him responsible for this routine horse-hooey—who came into the office.

“Yes, Baines?”

“Got another death in town, chief.”

“Not …?”

“No, sir, not another murder. This one looks like an accidental drowning.”

Longarm grunted. Things like that were regrettable but essentially unpreventable. Still, it was a shame. “Not a politician, I hope.”

“No, sir. A spinster lady. Edith Matthews. Runs … that is to say she used to run … the ice cream parlor in town.” Clarice’s aunt. That caught Longarm’s attention.

“You say she drowned?”

“Yes, sir. A couple kids snuck away to see could they catch some fish. What they found was Miss Edith floating in an eddy about three quarters of a mile south of town.”

“Which makes it officially outside our jurisdiction, right?”

“Yes, sir. Not that it has to come under anybody’s jurisdiction, it being accidental and all. The justice of the peace will hold an inquest by and by, and the estate will go through probate.”

“There is a county coroner, I presume.”

“Sure, but I doubt anyone will bother calling him in on it. I mean, it’s plain enough how she died.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Funny thing, though.”

“What’s that?”

“Miss Edith was always one to keep to herself Real quiet, her and her relatives. Bunch of women living all alone in a big house.”

“Yes?”

“Quiet, like I said. But just this morning she made something of a spectacle of herself at Bryce Peabody’s place. Poor thing. And now she’s dead.” The soon-to-be sergeant shook his head in sympathy. “I wonder if the old girl took to nipping at the laudanum or vanilla extract or something of the like.”

“It happens,” Longarm agreed. “What was this about her making a … spectacle, did you say?”

“That’s sure the way I’d put it. Bryce … he’s a mule trader, mind. Lived here all his life … he woke up about five o’clock this morning to what he thought sounded like somebody scuffling on his front porch.”

“Oh?”

“He said he was scared it was the killer come for him. But shit, Bryce isn’t anybody. Just a sorry-ass mule trader with a bunch of kids he can’t hardly keep in shoes. Not the sort our killer would want at all.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I guess Bryce was scared anyway. He isn’t real brave and never has been. He got up and looked out the front window. Said he saw the bushes waving around like crazy, and up on the porch there was Miss Edith. He knew she wasn’t no threat to anybody. Hell, she’s never had any use for any man. So he went and opened the door to ask what she was doing out there making all that noise, and she jumped down into the bushes and ran off before he could ask her anything or so much as speak to her. Said she seen him and took off running like she was a filly half her age. Now the poor old thing turns up dead. I wouldn’t wonder if she had a heart attack from running away from Bryce and fell over dead into the river. What do you think?”

“Edith Matthews, you said her name is?”

“That’s right.”

“Then I’ll tell you what I think, Baines. I think I want you to find this Bryce Peabody and tell him I want to talk to him. Right away. And once you’ve got Peabody pointed this way, I’d like you to find Norman Colton’s cousin Lester and tell him that I need to see him too. Can do?”

The officer gave his new chief a look that questioned Longarm’s good sense. But then the boss, right or wrong, is always the boss. “Right away, Chief.”

“Thanks, Baines.”

“Yes, sir. Uh, should I send the next visitor in while you’re waiting for Bryce to get here?”

Longarm sighed. “I s’pose we might as well get through as many as we can. Send ‘em in.”

Baines grinned. “Her. The next one is a her, sir. And if you thought Mrs. Lucas was nuts, wait until you talk to this one.”

Mrs. Lucas was the lady whose neighbor’s cat spied on her. The man who might—or might damn well not—become sergeant was laughing when he walked out the door.

Chapter 40

“Come in, Lester.”

Amos Vent gave a mildly puzzled look at the skinny man in the straw hat and bib overalls who was just leaving the police chief’s office.

“You might oughta shut the door,” Longarm suggested.

Amos helped himself to the chair Longarm had put in front of the desk for the convenience of visitors—he was thinking of replacing it with a rack and thumbscrew instead but didn’t know if the city budget would allow for the purchase; it was something he would certainly have wanted to check out if he had to stay here for any length of time—and shook his head at Longarm’s offer of a cheroot.

“Mind if I light up?” The question was hardly a serious one. Longarm’s match was aflame almost before he’d finished asking it.

“Your subordinate said you wanted to see me, oh great white chief?”

Longarm grinned and flicked his match, still burning, in Amos’s general direction. “Damn good thing you jumped t’ obey too or I’d’ve had you in irons.”

“That’s why I came in such a hurry.”

“Tell me, Amos, d’you have everything you need on our good friend Sergeant Braxton?”

“Everything the major could want,” Amos confirmed. “It’s pretty clear he was working on behalf of a political party and not for the state of Texas or the Ranger force.”

Longarm grunted.

“He knew where those books were and he wanted to keep them for whatever use Bender had them.”

“Stole them,” Longarm corrected.

“Yeah, that’s the way I see it. Though I suppose we won’t ever know if it was Bender himself that knocked into you in the dark that night or if it was one of his Texas First henchmen. For sure, they were behind it. Behind the killings then too, I’d say.”

Longarm shook his head though. “Not at all, Amos. Bender and his people were plenty happy to take advantage of the killings when they happened. But it wasn’t them or the Whigs who are behind the murders.”

“Can’t be the Democratics then, can it? I don’t see how they’d fit into

…”

“Not them either,” Longarm told him.

“But shit, old pard, it pretty much has to be one of them, doesn’t it?”

“Matter o’ fact, Amos, it doesn’t.”

“You wanta explain that?”

“Amos, it was told to me straight out, right after I got here. But you and me, we was so intent on finding conspiracy that we never considered the plain and simple. The killer son of a bitch named Buddy Matthews. Herbert Matthews for the proper version of it. He got out of jail recently an’ has been wandering around getting revenge on the people that he thinks are responsible for ruining his life.”

“That’s the fellow that judge’s widow told you about.”

“That’s the one,” Longarm agreed.

“But what about …?”

“Politics had nothing t’ do with it, Amos. It just happened that some of the fellows of that age and social background grew into positions high on the social ladder around here. But hell, that’s only natural considering who them and their families were, most of them, and the time that’s passed since. If this Matthews hadn’t gone to prison, with his record as a war hero and being from an old family, he prob’ly would’ve been he-coon of one party or another around here his own self. But think about it. The first fellow to be killed, Wil Meyers, he wasn’t anybody of consequence in the community. We been overlooking the implications o’ Meyers’ death an’ concentrating on the positions o’ the later victims like Norman Colton an’ Deel and now Chief Bender. But they were all of an age and all from pretty much the same background. An’ the lucky fella that just left here, a mule trader name of Peabody, confirmed to me just now that every one o’ those ol’ boys took part in a silly damn shivaree years an’ years ago. One that went wrong when some tempers got outa hand that night. Tempers that aren’t all under control even yet.”

“What does Peabody have to do with it?”

“He would have been the next victim, I’m sure, except Herbert Matthews’ sister stopped him. I don’t have witnesses to that. Not yet. But I’d just about swear to it. She stopped him on Peabody’s porch before dawn an’ then she took off after him. Wanted to keep him from disgracing the family any further, I suppose. My guess is that the woman caught up with him down along the river and either he killed her outright or she got so worked up she had a heart attack or maybe just fell in the water and drowned. Whatever, our boy Buddy Matthews is out there somewhere not far away. It won’t be any great trick t’ find him and put him back behind the high walls.”

“You want me to back you up, my friend?”

“No need, Amos. That’s what I wanted t’ tell you here. This whole thing is simpler than we thought. I want you t’ concentrate on cleaning up your Ranger Company F—Braxton for sure but who knows who else might’ve been in on this deal—and making sure the Texas First party does everything nice an’ legal.”

“Even though they are trying to secede from the Union?” Amos asked.

“Shit, my friend, if they can do it legal, it wouldn’t gravel me none t’ be without Texas as one o’ the states. Be just that much less for me t’ worry about policing. Y’know?” He grinned.

“Do you need those ledgers you confiscated from Braxton?”

“I c’n do without ‘em if you want to take them along t’ show the major.”

Amos nodded and stood. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stick around a while longer and back you against this Matthews fellow?”

Longarm chuckled, “What is it you Rangers like t’ claim? One Ranger, one mob. Isn’t that it?”

Amos nodded. “Something like that, yes.”

“Then maybe one deputy marshal can limp along after one ex-con.”

Amos extended his hand. “Come by Austin when you’re done, Longarm. The major will at least want a deposition from you, I’m sure. We’ll have to let him decide if he needs courtroom testimony from you. If it comes to that.”

“If it does I expect I’ll be wherever a subpoena tells me t’ be.”

“Good luck to you.”

“And t’ you, my friend.”

Amos left, and Longarm called Baines into the office. He needed directions to a place called Avondale. And before that he supposed he should visit Janie Sproul. With luck she might still have a picture of her first husband. If not, then a description would just have to do.

Chapter 41

The place smelled like shit. Chicken shit, actually. Avondale was swarming with chickens. Chickens in pens. Chickens in coops. Chickens under-damn-foot. There were chickens, and chicken shit, in every direction. And the smell of all those chickens was enough to make a man swear off ham and eggs for the remainder of his natural life.

The locals, what few of them there were, quite naturally seemed immune to the stink. But then, they would be so accustomed to it that they probably no longer smelled it on any conscious level.

Longarm wished he was so fortunate. He wrinkled his nose and ducked low to clear the doorway of a shack—but then every structure he could see in Avondale was a shack or no better than one—that had a crude sign tacked over the door announcing something in a weird-looking writing that Longarm couldn’t recall ever seeing before and, in smaller and even more crudely written letters, the lone English word—or so he assumed—“booz.”

There were three men inside: a bartender and two customers. All three looked like they might have come out of the same mold. Short, stockily built, round red cheeks, huge mustaches and shocks of wildly unruly hair. All wore overalls and faded red union suits. There didn’t seem to be a shoe or a boot among them. Which he considered one hell of a handicap considering all the chicken shit decorating the ground outside. Come to think of it, there was a good amount of the stuff on the floor of the place too, no doubt dragged in by years of visits from shitty customers.

The bartender looked at him and asked a question in a language Longarm didn’t even recognize, much less understand. What had Janie said—Hungarian?

“Any o’ you boys speak English?”

No one responded.

Shit! he thought.

He pulled out his wallet—always a good way to attract some interest in a cheap dump like this—and flipped it open to display his badge. The reaction was immediate.

The bartender developed both a frightened look and an ability to comprehend English. And the two customers muttered their apologies and made a hasty departure.

“Sorry about scarin’ off all your trade,” Longarm apologized. Hell, he meant it. He hadn’t come here to cause any hurt to anybody. Well, not anybody local anyhow.

“Nothing, sir, I have done nothing, I tell you true.” The poor saloonkeeper looked like he was going to add a dump of his own to the shit already on the floor. “I obey all law, sir, every one, yes.”

The poor sap pulled a cigar box out from under the counter, opened it, and extended it to Longarm.

Damn thing held a couple lousy bucks in very small change. Likely it was all he’d taken in for days past.

“Mister, I didn’t come here to rob you.”

“No rob. I give. Good citizen, yes. You take. Please.” He looked ready to cry. “Take. Please. Don’ hurt … you know.” He motioned vaguely toward the back of the shanty. Maybe he had some family back there, Longarm figured. The man acted like he thought any lawman, cop, or public official who came in was apt to steal his money, burn his place down, who the hell knew what else.

It was a reaction Longarm had seen before in immigrants from certain unbeloved Old Country pasts. And one that quite frankly sickened him whenever he saw it anew. Folks should always have the right to expect protection from the people given positions of civil authority.

But apparently it wasn’t always exactly that way in all parts of the world. Blessings, Longarm thought then as he had before. Some of us forget to count them.

It took him a couple of minutes to convince the man that Longarm hadn’t come there to rob or intimidate or otherwise to harm him. “I’m looking for a fella name of Buddy Matthews. Herbert Matthews, actually.” He pulled out the fading daguerreotype Janie’d dug up for him and showed it to the saloonkeeper. “This picture is awful old, but you might recognize him anyway.”

“Yes, sure. Mr. Buddy. He come in. Drink some. Spend a little money. Never happy though. I never see him smile, not one time.”

“You do know him though.”

“Yes, sure. Nice fella, Mr. Buddy.” The bartender bared his teeth behind a curtain of mustache hairs.

“Yeah. Nice,” Longarm said dryly. “You know where he is now? Where I can find him today?”

“Sure thing, yes. Last night he spend all his money here. Big drunk. You know? Say it don’ matter if he broke. Say he gonna go home an’ get some more. Home.” The bartender frowned. “I don’ know where his home is though.”

“That’s all right. I do.”

“Mr. Officer, you really not going to … you know?”

“Friend, you been a big help t’ me. You got nothing t’ fear from me. Not never.” Longarm laid a silver dollar on the bar as compensation for the trade he’d run off. At least that was what he told himself it was for. Then he turned and headed back for Addington. With luck, he figured, he could be there before dark.

Chapter 42

Nobody home. Dammit anyhow, there seemed to be nobody home at the tall old house where Edith Matthews and family lived.

He tapped once again on the front-door windowpane, then reared back and gave the sturdier wooden part of the door a couple solid whacks just to make sure no one inside could have missed his knock.

Still there was no response. If Matthews was in there … he supposed he could go and get a warrant if he had to. Surely the local JP would accommodate the new police chief. But he would hate to leave and give Matthews an opportunity to slip away if the man was inside.

Longarm thought it over and decided if necessary he would get one of the neighbors or pay a kid to go downtown and find a police officer. That way Longarm could get the cop to fetch the warrant while he himself kept watch at the house.

But then, dammit, he didn’t know for certain sure that Herbert Buddy Matthews was in fact inside. On impulse he tried the door knob.

It was locked. Which removed temptation, however. He supposed that was something.

But it didn’t get the job done. And what he really needed to do was find out if there was reason enough to get the warrant and violate these folks’ privacy on the same day the leader of their clan, such as it was, got herself killed.

Which, come to think of it, he found kinda strange now: There should have been people scurrying in and out like a nest of ants. Edith Matthews was dead. So where were all the mourners, all the neighbors, all the good churchgoing folk who should be here with their pies and platters, their hams and fried chickens and deviled eggs and angel food cakes?

There was something damned strange about the Matthews house being locked and silent on this of all days. Hell, even if everybody in Addington knew about the aberrant lifestyle of Edith and her nieces, people still should have come. If for no other reason, they’d come so they could congratulate themselves afterward on how Christian and understanding they all were. No, this really wasn’t making sense now that he thought on it.

He tried the door again, harder this time, but that didn’t do a thing to change the fact that it was locked. And there were curtains pulled at all the windows. He checked, stalking back and forth along the porch where he’d once sat and shared a lemonade with Clarice, but every window was carefully covered.

Had they been covered the other day when he was here? He couldn’t remember. It hadn’t seemed important at the time.

He tried peering into the side windows, but they were covered too. Every one of them.

He went around back to the little laundry porch and mounted the stairs there. The back door was locked and the small glass pane in that window covered. Damn it, anyway.

The right and logical and proper thing to do now, of course, would be for him to leave. Or if he really felt he had to look inside the house, send for an officer and eventually a proper search warrant.

Right. That was the correct thing to do. No doubt about it.

Longarm left the back porch and looked around inside a tool and storage shed in the back yard. After a few moments he found what he wanted.

He took the scrap of rusted wire and straightened it, then bent a short hook at a right angle on one end. With that for a key he returned to the back door of the Matthews house and began burgling the place.

Chapter 43

Oh, shit. Longarm swallowed. Hard. Sweet Jesus!

The short hall between the kitchen and dining room ran thick with blood. Tacky, copper-smelling, none too old blood. He couldn’t see the source, but he could sure as hell see the blood.

There wasn’t any way to avoid it, none that he knew of, so he walked through it, conscious of the sticky-slippery texture underfoot, into the entry hall. He could see then where all the blood was coming from. Barbara. The short, plump, cheerful little waitress he remembered from that visit to Edith Matthews’s ice cream parlor. Clarice’s cousin Barbara.

She lay on the dining-room floor like a cast-off doll that had lost its stuffing. She seemed awfully small and … empty … lying there with an enormous, gaping hole where her throat should have been.

She was dressed in her work uniform. Perhaps she’d just come back from … except no, her aunt was killed that morning. More likely she’d been dressed ready to go to work when she heard that news and then never got around to changing clothes since. Or there could be a hundred other perfectly reasonable explanations. Longarm likely would never know the truth of it.

The truth he did know about was that the girl’s throat had been horribly slashed, the cut so deep it very nearly severed her head from her body. He looked at her and shuddered.

In the parlor there was another body. A mature woman with a faint resemblance to Edith. The other aunt Clarice had told him about? Possible. Or a neighbor. Friend. One of Edith’s lovers. Somebody in town would know.

Damn it.

Longarm drew his Colt and held it at the ready while he moved ghost-quiet through the rest of the downstairs. There were no other bodies. Only two. Only. Jeez. Murder was bad enough. Murdering women was worse. Two women dead in this house. And no sign of Clarice.

He should have found Clarice. Barbara was here. And the woman he thought was the other aunt. So where the hell was Clarice?

Longarm held his revolver in his left hand for a moment while he slowly and carefully wiped his right palm—damp with dread—on a trouser leg; then he resumed his grip on the gun. And began slowly, carefully mounting the steps toward the bedroom where he and Clarice had romped. So very few days past. He remembered the way.

Chapter 44

He heard the squeaking of bedsprings first. And then after that the low, soft sobbing of a woman in tears. They were in Clarice’s bedroom.

The door, he found, was primly shut. Everyone else in the house was supposed to be dead, but Buddy Matthews had tidily closed the bedroom door before he began raping his niece.

Longarm twisted the knob, pulling the door slightly to him so as to release the latch with as little noise as possible. The brass tongue slipped free from the mortise without a sound, and Longarm breathed easier.

He could hear Clarice’s weeping clearly now. And the steady, rhythmic creak of the springs along with the moist, meaty sound of flesh slapping flesh as two sweaty bellies collided over and over and over again.

Longarm made sure the Colt was comfortable in his hand and then pushed, ever so gently, on the door. A groan of metal rubbing on metal sounded as the hinges objected. It sounded almighty loud in Longarm’s ears. But then from inside the room, to someone distracted as Matthews no doubt was by now …

He pushed the door open another few inches and slipped inside. To find Buddy Matthews, trousers around his ankles and his boots still on but his ass bare and pale, shiny in the yellow lamplight inside Clarice’s half-darkened room. The man was lodged deep between Clarice’s legs, covering her slim body with his own. The two had stopped their movement at the intrusion.

Both looked at him with the wild, wide-eyed stares of deer caught unexpectedly in the beam of a bull’s-eye lantern. Both seemed frozen in place, locked into position with Clarice spread open to the lust of her own uncle. Except they hadn’t become frozen quite quickly enough.

Matthews must have had excellent hearing and perfect reflexes too, for with so little warning he had grabbed a slim, long-barreled revolver—Longarm recognized the gun as a crude Colt replica from the old cap-and-ball days, probably one of the weapons so hastily manufactured for the Confederacy by Dance Brothers or Griswold and Greer or some similar, even less well-known makeshift factory—and was holding it tight to Clarice’s temple. The girl looked at Longarm, and her tears flowed anew.

Her uncle held the cocked revolver tight to Clarice’s head with one hand and with the other quite casually reached over onto the nightstand beside her bed. He picked up a blood-crusted folding razor—no wonder the wounds in the flesh of the dead women downstairs had been so awful—and smiled at Longarm as he flipped the blade out of the handle and laid the edge ever so lightly across Clarice’s throat.

“Move and she dies, Deputy.”

“Do you know me?” Longarm asked.

“By reputation. I know who you are. I seen you at night sometimes lately. Know what else? I seen you screw with Clarey here. I got awful horny watching you do it with her. Those other bitches, they never liked being with boys. Not even when they were little. But Clarey, she likes a prick. Don’t you, honey?”

When the girl did not answer, Matthews’s voice hardened, and he repeated the question in a menacing hiss. “I said you like a prick. Don’t you?”

“Yes, I … yes I do.”

“You like it when I screw you, don’t you?”

“Yes, I like it.”

“You like me screwing you better than you like him. Don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“A lot.”

“Yes, I like it a lot.” Her voice was small, and the tears coursed freely down her cheeks to soak into the pillow behind her head.

Matthews’s razor fluttered rapidly up and down with the wild cadence of the heartbeat in Clarice’s throat.

“Don’t … hurt me … please.”

“You don’t want me to do you like I did those bitches downstairs?”

“No. Please.”

“I’ll do whatever I damn want with you. You know that, don’t you.”

“Yes.”

“And you respect me for that.”

“Yes. Of course.”

“You respect me a whole lot. Don’t you.”

“Yes. A lot.”

“A whole lot,” he corrected.

“A whole lot,” she said obediently.

Longarm wondered if he could put one into the side of Matthews’s head solidly enough—could you keep a dead man’s hand from squeezing a trigger or from reflexively yanking downward with a damned razor? The Colt … Shit, if he fired, he was more apt to kill Clarice than to save her. One movement of a single finger, and the girl would be dead. So would Matthews, but the hell with that.

Longarm had the rest of Herbert Matthews’s life to kill him. The question was how much time Clarice had left to her young life.

“You did all right in prison before,” Longarm said in a calm, conversational tone of voice. It was a lie, of course. The man might or might not have been very tightly strung together before he went behind the wall. For sure he’d come apart while he was in there.

The man was crazy as a june bug on a griddle. Completely round the bend. He looked at Longarm and laughed. And then, incredibly, he went back to screwing Clarice. While Longarm stood there aiming a revolver at him, Herbert Matthews went back to raping his niece.

He couldn’t move that much without the effort of it jostling the hand that held the razor and after a few seconds blood began to spread over Clarice’s neck. Not a lot of it at first. The cuts were small, but nearly every thrust of Matthews’s cock into Clarice resulted in another tiny addition to the growing series of wounds and soon her neck and pillow were a bright, menacing scarlet.

Matthews saw. And laughed. “What do you think, Long? Should I finish the job? One slice. You know? You think I can get her head to drop off with one cut? How many? Do you want to make a bet on it? I say I can take it off with one push. What kind of wager do you want to put up?”

Longarm felt sick.

“Look, we can make a deal here, Matthews. You say you know my reputation. If you do, then you know I keep my word. Even to cons.”

“That’s what they say about you, all right. Everybody says Longarm, he’s one pure son of a bitch. But he’s square. He’ll give a man a break if he can. He won’t shoot unless he has to. And he keeps his word. That’s what they say about you. They do.”

“Then let’s deal, Matthews. You and me. We work this out peaceable. You let Clarice go, and …”

“Dammit, Longarm, I get to finish with her first. I haven’t had a chance to come in her yet. I got to do that first.”

“Fine. But you let her go, Matthews.”

“And then you let me go too, right?”

“I’ll give you a head start, yes.”

“Not good enough. You have to let me go.” The man resumed stroking in and out of Clarice, slowly this time and rather absently while he seemed to concentrate mostly on his conversation with Longarm.

“Trying to catch me in a lie, Matthews? You know as well as I do that I wouldn’t just let you go. I’ll come after you. We both know that. But we can negotiate a head start. I’ll give you that much in exchange for Clarice’s life. You leave her be, and I’ll give you two hours. If you cut her, Matthews, you’re dead before you have time to stand up. You know that’s true. I’ll blow your head off your goddamn shoulders and laugh when I put the rest of the slugs into the corpse. Unless you let Clarice go. Two hours, Matthews. Or I kill you where you lie. Your choice, man. Call it.”

“Twelve hours,” Matthews countered.

“No chance. Two.”

“Six.”

“I might go three. No more.”

“Hell with you, Long. Six.”

“Three.”

“Five, then.”

“Four.”

“Done. Yeah, four hours. But the time don’t start until I’m done with ol’ Clarice here. I get to finish my fun with her.”

“If you hurt her, man, the deal is off. Cross me and I’ll gut-shoot you, Matthews. You’ll take days t’ die an’ wish somebody’d have the Christian charity t’ finish you sooner. But I won’t let them. You hear me, man? Cross me and you’ll die slow, and harder than you’d ever think possible.”

“Four hours. You promised.”

“Four hours. And you leave Clarice alive. You promised that.”

Matthews laughed and used the knife hand to motion Longarm away. The muzzle of the revolver, though, never waved from the girl’s temple. A few ounces of pressure, even accidental pressure, and her brains would be splattered all over the wall. “Go on now, Long. I wanta finish here, and I don’t want you staring at me while I’m having my fun.”

Longarm looked at Clarice and raised an eyebrow. She was scared, but she was brave enough too. She gave him a barely perceptible nod.

Longarm eased back from the door, leaving it ajar.

He hated to do it. But Clarice had only the slimmest of slim chances for life. Her uncle was quite thoroughly mad and anything might set him off beyond reason or rational control.

Within seconds he heard the creaking of the bed springs resume and, a minute or two after, begin to pound with furious rapidity.

He heard Matthews moan and Clarice cry out—in pain, he thought, not a shared pleasure—and then there was the sound of someone standing and moving about in the room.

That and a low, murmured whispering.

“No!” It was Clarice’s voice. “I won’t. You can’t. Please Uncle Herbert. Don’t take me. Don’t make me …”

Longarm shoved the door open and came in, gun first.

Matthews, damn him, once again anticipated what was happening and already had the muzzle of his old-fashioned revolver pressed tight to Clarice’s head just behind and below her ear.

“We have a deal,” Matthews snarled.

“Clarice stays here. That’s part of the deal.”

“I changed my mind.” In a taunting singsong as if they were a couple of small children disagreeing in a sandbox Matthews sang, “Nanny-nanny-woo-woo, I changed my my-ind, my my-ind, my my-ind.” He ended the insane ditty by sticking his tongue out at Longarm and bursting into laughter. Clarice began to tremble violently, to shake and quiver as her uncle held her at the throat with one hand and pressed the gun to her head with the other.

Clarice reached behind her. Longarm thought she was fumbling on the night stand for the razor. And perhaps she was. Matthews had not put it back there, however, and her blindly searching fingers found only bare wood. And then the base of the oil lamp. Longarm thought she would leave be then. Dammit, he could still get Matthews to let her go. He was sure of it. But Clarice … she was not. Or so it seemed.

Her patience had worn out or her faith in Longarm’s ability to free her … whatever other reason there might have been. He would never know. She grabbed. Turned. Lashed out.

The lamp shattered and whale oil spilled onto the bed, the curtains, onto Herbert Matthews and onto Clarice as well.

The oil caught fire, the flame spreading with a whoosh, and within seconds that entire side of the room was engulfed in an inferno.

Buddy Matthews screamed. He jumped up and down, beating at his burning clothes with hands that quickly scorched and blistered. His hair caught fire, and the man began to shriek in agony. Longarm dashed forward. “Help me. For God’s sake help me,” Matthews cried.

Longarm bent. Grabbed. Ignored the pain that shot through his hands and arms.

He grabbed Clarice. Threw her hard onto the floor and pulled up one edge of the heavy oriental rug there to wrap her in and smother the flames that already covered most of her slim, fragile body.

“Save me. You can’t leave me. Help me! God! Help me!”

Longarm stood, Clarice cradled in his arms. He took one last moment to look back at Buddy Matthews sinking in a lake of fire. Then turned and raced for the stairs and the safety of the night air outside.

He got her out, out into the cool evening breeze, her charred clothing fused into her flesh. But he got her out as behind them the age-dried timbers of the old Matthews house fed an ever growing flame.

He got her out as neighbors began to see and to run, offering help and encouragement, someone among them already clanging a steel triangle to alert the volunteer fire department.

He got her out of the burning, roaring, spark-flaring blaze and he stood there in the young night with Clarice cradled in his arms, ignoring all offers of help from the neighbors.

And after a while—it might have been minutes or might as well have been hours—he relinquished his hold on her and let them lift her out of his arms.

He thought she probably died even before he got her out of the house. But he hadn’t wanted to take a chance about it. He hadn’t wanted to let anyone else take her from him while there was the slightest possibility that she might feel, that she might think he was abandoning her. He, after all, was the one who’d promised to save her, dammit. He was the one.

He let someone take her finally and shook his head and wondered how he’d gone and gotten his face all wet. Probably from the water buckets. Or sweat. Or some such thing.

Goddammit.