Longarm 422 (12 page)

There! A dark shape detached itself from the shadows at the loading chutes and scuttled hurriedly to a boxcar just as the train began to move, pulling away from the depot.

Longarm had been sitting on the platform keeping watch for more than an hour. Now the wait was paying off.

He stood and hitched up his britches, then stepped forward to stand beside the tracks.

He waited as the cars began to clatter past, keeping his eye on the car where the shadow had disappeared. There were four boxcars in this train. The one he wanted was the second.

As it reached him, Longarm grabbed the open doorway and swung up into the dark car. The man he wanted to talk to was somewhere in—

The back end of the car was lighted up as the muzzle flash of a pistol shot flared bright, and a large-caliber bullet slammed into the wood of the siding not two feet from Longarm's head.

Longarm's response was immediate. His .45 came into hand and he returned fire.

A man screamed in pain. And shot at Longarm a second time.

Longarm's Colt was already in hand this time, and his return fire was almost instantaneous. He threw his shot close beside the muzzle flash from the back of the car.

The rumble of iron wheels was loud and the car shook and clattered as it passed over the rails.

Longarm threw himself forward, seeking the shadows away from the open doorway. He waited but the noises around him were too loud for him to expect to hear anything short of another pistol shot, and he could not see the figure at the back of the car.

There was no exit other than the open door, and Longarm could clearly see anything or anyone approaching that. By the same token if he moved to the back of the car, he would likely be silhouetted against the doorway.

He knelt, revolver in hand. And waited.

Longarm ambled back to the depot. The next train back to Helen's town was due in ten or twelve minutes. He had had plenty of time while he waited to have breakfast, clean his .45, and stroll around this town.

He would have liked to get some sleep, but that would have to wait, lest he miss his train connection. And he damn sure did not want to walk back. He had come a good eighty or a hundred miles during the night, sharing the otherwise empty boxcar with a dead man.

Not that he had been sure about Ira Collins's man, whatever the hell his name had been. He had not relaxed his vigilance until daybreak. That was when he discovered that his shooting during the night had been more lucky than accurate.

His bullet had taken the fellow high on his left leg. It tore through an artery, and the man bled to death, probably within ten minutes or less. There was a hell of a lot of coagulated blood pooled on the floor of the boxcar.

Longarm had gotten off the train the next time it stopped. He left the dead man where he was. Someone would find him eventually.

As for Ira Collins and George Stepanek . . . he had a bone to pick with those two.

And he intended to take the matter up with them as soon as he got back.

Well, almost as soon. Longarm felt out on his feet. Once he finally got back, he sleepwalked his way to the Pickering and dropped like a rock onto his bed. He did not even wash the soot off himself—the hotel could worry about their own sheets—until seven hours later, when he woke up feeling infinitely better.

 • • • 

It was dark when he woke, so he sat up and felt around on the bedside table for the block of matches, prized one off, and struck it alight. He lifted the globe of the lamp and touched the flame to its wick, spreading a soft yellow light through the whole room.

He poured water into the basin and washed himself before he dressed. He needed a shave, but that would have to wait. He was not sure of the time, but it was pitch-dark outside his window and the barbershop was sure to be closed for the night.

Helen Morrow's whorehouses, on the other hand, would be open for business at this hour.

Longarm checked his .45, grabbed his Stetson, and headed for Helen's best house.

It probably no longer mattered if he was seen as her ally, but it did no harm if he were mistaken for a customer.

He briefly detoured past the Star, but the lights there were bright, and he could see Bucky behind the bar. Fortunately Bob Ware and Bucky were entirely capable of running the place without the boss interfering; both of them knew a hell of a lot more about the saloon business than Longarm ever would.

“I'd like to see Miss Morrow,” he told the stunning little redhead—small girl, big tits—who greeted him at the door. “I know the way.”

“Yes, sir.” The girl curtsied and gave him a dimpled smile, then disappeared back into the parlor in search of someone interested in paying for her services.

Longarm watched her ass twitch from side to side until the girl was out of sight.

Then he headed back toward Helen's now familiar office.

“Any more letters?” Longarm asked once he had a glass of rye under his belt and a cheroot smoldering in the ashtray beside him.

“Six,” Helen said as she poured a refill for him. “All the same bullshit. All in the same hand. I burned them.”

“But no one has tried to break up one of your houses or beat up your girls? Nothing like that?”

She shook her head, her jowls fluttering when she did so. She went back to her chair, reinforced to take her weight without breaking. “I heard about your place being broken up, of course. Heard you got back at the ones who did it, too. What happened that you disappeared like you did. Bobby was convinced they had murdered you and hid the body somewhere.”

“Bobby?” Longarm said, grinning.

“You know that I know everyone, Custis. I call him Bobby because my girls do.”

“I thought Bob was married,” Longarm said.

“He is. What's your point?” Helen shot back at him.

“Nothing. Sorry.”

“So what are you going to do, Custis? Short of staying on as a saloon owner, that is. And what did they do to make you disappear like that?”

He took a swallow of his rye and a puff on the cheroot before he answered. Then he told her about his night. And his unplanned trip in a boxcar.

“He's dead, you say?” Helen said.

Longarm nodded. “Cold as a trout.”

“That leaves only George and Ira. What do you plan to do about them?”

“First thing I'm gonna do . . . first thing tomorrow morning, that is . . . will be to go have me a little talk with Collins. I figure to give him a bill for damages. The son of a bitch cost me . . . forgive me, cost
you
 . . . a pretty penny to get all that breakage cleaned up an' replaced.” Longarm shrugged. “He's the one who broke it; he's the one who can replace it. Seems only fair.”

Helen laughed. “You have a pair on you, Custis. Ira has a choke hold on this town, and he is greedy for more. I don't think anyone has ever really stood up to him.”

“Then it's about time someone did,” Longarm said, finishing his whiskey. His grin flashed again, and he stood up, setting his empty glass down. “I can't go see the man till morning, so I was wondering, could I borrow that little redhead for a few hours? Or, um, the rest o' the night?”

A flash of something—pain?—flickered across Helen's face, and it occurred to Longarm, too late, that while they were no longer lovers she might still think of him that way. It might have hurt her to realize that he wanted one of her whores to drain his balls now instead of her.

It was too late to take the request back, although he would not have caused Helen pain for love nor money, certainly not deliberately.

“Her working name is Betty, but her real name is Elsie. Come with me, Custis. We'll get her. No charge, of course.” Helen smiled. “I'm sure you will like her.”

Helen took Longarm by the hand and led him toward the parlor.

Longarm went to breakfast the next morning smelling of perfume and face powder and feeling about as thoroughly relaxed as he had in quite some time.

He found a fly-specked little café a block from Helen's whorehouse and surrounded a well-done steak and a mountain of fried potatoes, poured half a gallon of black coffee down his gullet, and pronounced himself fit for any damn thing that came along.

Including Ira Collins.

Longarm marched into Collins's office ready to whip wildcats with his bare hands. He was ready for . . . He was
not
ready for what he found.

The person at Collins's reception desk was a kid, a boy probably fourteen or fifteen years old, with a shock of blond hair and a very serious manner.

“Your business, sir?”

“I want to see Mr. Collins,” Longarm told the boy.

“And this would be about . . . ?”

“I suppose you'd say that I have a complaint to make,” Longarm said.

“We have a form for that,” the boy said, frowning. “At least . . . I think we do. Let me look.” He got up from behind the desk and began rummaging through a file cabinet.

“No form,” Longarm said. “I need to see that man face-to-face. Him an' that son of a bitch Stepanek too.”

The boy looked to be startled, perhaps by Longarm's choice of language.

Good Lord, Longarm wondered, was I ever that young? Probably not, but then Longarm had grown up at a time of warfare and wholesale bloodshed.

“Wait here a second, sir.” The boy stepped a few paces to the closed door into Collins's office, opened it far enough to stick his head inside, and loudly bellowed, “Dad! There's a man out here to see you. He insists.”

Dad. It explained quite a lot.

It also presented something of a problem. Longarm did not want to be put in the position of having to gun a man down in front of his son. And he would not, not unless he absolutely was forced to.

He could not hear what Collins had to say to the boy, but the kid returned, leaving the door open.

“He'll see you now, sir.”

“Thank you, son.” Longarm winked at the boy and went in to find Ira Collins sitting behind a small stack of ledger books.

“Mr. Long. What can I do for you today?”

Longarm glanced back over his shoulder. The door was still open. The boy, Ira Collins's son, was standing there, obviously wanting to participate in the family business as much as he could.

That fact changed Longarm's plans. He had intended to come on hard with the man. Now . . .

“We need to talk,” he said.

“I was sorry to hear that someone broke into your place and broke up everything they could,” Collins said before Longarm could start in on him. “I don't know who could do such a thing.”

Longarm scowled. He was acutely aware of the boy standing there, but . . . “Your people done that,” he said, careful to keep his voice calm.

“Mine?” Collins seemed genuinely puzzled. “Why in the world would I have my people do such a thing?”

“I reckon for the same reason you're tryin' to drive Helen Morrow out o' business here,” Longarm said.

“Drive Miss Morrow out of business? Mr. Long, now you have me thoroughly confused. Why, I have no more desire to do that than to cause you harm. I don't know Miss Morrow well, but she seems very pleasant and very capable. She runs honest houses. Her, um,” he glanced toward his son, “her employees cause no trouble, and their presence generates business for establishments that I have an interest in. If anything, she is an asset to the community. Not in the normally accepted sense, perhaps, but she is an asset nonetheless. Besides, she has every right to conduct whatever business she pleases, and I support her right to do so.”

“Now I'm the one that's confused,” Longarm said. “I mean, you sound sincere in what you're sayin' there, but it don't fit with the things I've heard about you an' your business practices.”

Collins smiled. “I drive as hard a bargain as I can get away with, Long. You've experienced it yourself. But when you and I sat down to talk about your rental on that building you are in, I didn't dictate to you. You and I negotiated. We arrived at an agreeable solution to the matter at hand, and both of us have stuck by it. Isn't that true?”

Longarm nodded. “Aye, I reckon it is.”

“I'm that way in all my dealings,” Collins said.

“I could almost believe you,” Longarm said, “except for Stepanek an' his bullyboys.”

“Bullyboys? I don't understand.”

“Him an' all the trouble they've caused is what I mean,” Longarm said. “The bullying an' the beatings an' the robberies.”

“I know of no robberies,” Collins said. “Not committed by any of my people anyway.”

“Huh.” Longarm pushed his hat back and rubbed his head. “They jumped me when I first got here. Stole every penny I had on me. An' it was your people that did it. Stepanek put them up to it, I'm thinking.”

“I am truly sorry, Mr. Long, but if George or his people did anything like that, believe me, I will get rid of them this instant.” He turned to his son and said, “Donny, go find Mr. Stepanek. Have him and those friends of his come here right away. No matter what they are doing, they are to stop it and come right here.”

“Yes, sir.” The boy spun around and raced out of the building.

When they were alone, Collins said, “Are you sure about your accusation, Mr. Long?”

“I'm sure. And it ain't
Mister
Long. It's Deputy United States Marshal Long.” Longarm pulled out his wallet and flipped it open to display his credentials. “I'm here trying to work out if you're breaking any laws in your dealings here, Mr. Collins.”

“Mist . . . excuse me, Deputy Long, you or any of your people are welcome to look at my books now or at any other time. I try to run an honest business. I know nothing, I promise you nothing, about any strong-arm tactics. If my people damaged you in any way, I will be glad to reimburse you for your loss.”

Longarm grunted. “What about all the letters?” he asked.

“Letters? Again, Deputy, you have me confused. I don't know anything about any letters.”

Longarm briefly told him about the notes Helen and her working girls had been getting. “I got two myself,” Longarm said.

“Believe me, sir, if George or his people did anything like that . . .”

Now Collins was referring to the sidekicks as Stepanek's people, Longarm noticed.

“You don't have to worry about them,” he said. “The both of them managed to get themselves dead.”

Collins looked pale. “Dead! I . . . I don't condone violence, Deputy. Never. Nothing like that was ever done at my direction. Never.”

His tone of voice, his expression . . . Longarm believed him. He was surprised, but in fact he believed Ira Collins.

But why would George Stepanek and “his” people strong-arm the community on their own.

Perhaps they would get their answers when Donny Collins got back with Stepanek.