Longarm 243: Longarm and the Debt of Honor (5 page)

“Help yourself,” Schooner invited. “That desk over there isn't being used by anybody. Consider it yours for as long as you're in town if you want. Anything you can find, Longarm, you're welcome to look at. And if there's anything that you want but can't find, just ask me. I'll be glad to lend a hand.”

Longarm was pleased. Obviously the town fathers had meant every word at lunch when they'd told him he could count on their cooperation. He couldn't ask for better than this. Longarm removed his coat and Stetson, and hung them on a deer-horn rack, lest he end up smearing them with the soot that coated most of the remaining record books in the big locker. Then he pulled one off a shelf at random, settled in behind the desk Schooner assigned him, and prepared to spend some time in a state of total boredom.

At five o'clock Longarm laid a slip of paper into the record book he was browsing through and closed it, marking his place so he could pick it up again come tomorrow. He would have continued reading, except that Schooner Stein had been coughing, shuffling his feet, and otherwise making small sounds for the past fifteen or twenty minutes. Longarm guessed this was not an office where the help liked to work late.

But then, hell, it was not really the sort of place where anyone would generally need to work late either. Very little would happen here that could not be put off for a spell and no harm done.

“If you want to stay longer, I'll keep the place open for you,” Schooner said. Longarm would not exactly say the fat man sounded eager to do that. But it was damn sure nice of him to make the offer.

“Thanks, but there's no need for that. Can I buy you a beer?”

Schooner smiled. “That's the sort of thing I do like to hear, but we have a rule at home. Me and the kids all show up on time for dinner. That keeps the old woman from getting her apron in a wad. If we want to socialize afterward, that's fine, but we all line up fresh-washed and hungry when supper goes on the table. Tell you what, though. If I run into you later on of the evening, I'll darn sure take you up on that beer.”

“Count on it,” Longarm told him. He wondered briefly what it would be like to have the secure and orderly—and undoubtedly dull—life that Schooner Stein had.

Not that Longarm expected he would ever know. But sometimes he couldn't help but think about how things might have been but weren't.

He retrieved his Stetson and tweed coat, and got out of the way so Schooner could lock up. Down at street level, Schooner turned one way while Longarm went the other.

He thought about his own supper. The thought of cooking for himself—and more, of eating by himself in a strange house in a strange town—was not especially attractive. But then neither was the thought of taking his meal in the same cafe he'd already been to twice today. Not that there was anything unpleasant about the place. It was fine really. It was just . . .

It occurred to Longarm, not that he really needed an excuse, that Norm seemed to prefer this Dottie's place to the restaurant favored by the town folk. So in a way it could be considered in the line of duty for Longarm to go there as an alternative eatery.

He asked a gentleman passing on the sidewalk how to find Dottie's, and was promptly turned around, taking the same direction Schooner had moments earlier, although by now there was no sign of the fat court clerk on the main street of Crow's Point.

Dottie's proved to be small, friendly, and favored by a far noisier and more rambunctious crowd than frequented the other cafe.

In the other place Longarm had dined among men wearing suits and sleeve garters, with a few in overalls and clod-stomper shoes who pretty much had to be farmers. In Dottie's, he found mostly boots and spurs and wide-brimmed hats.

He helped himself to a seat at one of the unoccupied tables—there were a good many of those to choose from even though the place wasn't all that big—and was greeted by a woman who he assumed was Dottie herself.

Dottie would have been a fine match for Schooner Stein. Longarm guessed she would tip the scales at well above three hundred pounds. Maybe four hundred. It wasn't an area of speculation that he considered himself expert at. Great sausages of fat dangled, rolled, and rippled when she walked, which she did with a slow and ponderous gait.

When the woman smiled, however, she made the room brighter with the unstinting welcome of it. As she came near, Longarm could see that she was immaculately clean, and her coming was preceded by the delicate aroma of rosewater and scented talcum. Longarm liked her. He doubted he could have helped that had he wanted to. She just plain had an indefinable but likable special something about her.

“You're that marshal, ain't you?” she asked.

Longarm stood and snatched his hat off. He admitted to his identity, and added, “But my friends all call me Longarm.”

“Then I'd best learn how to say it, hadn't I?”

Longarm grinned. “I hope you will. And you'd be ... ?”

“Dorothy Tutwiler. Not that any of these half-witted stump-standers can prob'ly remember that.” The volume of her voice increased considerably with that friendly accusation. Then, in a more normal tone, she said, “Everybody hereabouts calls me Dottie, and I reckon you'd best too, else I have to remember to call you Marshal Long from now on.”

“It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Dottie,” Longarm said. And meant it.

Dottie dragged a rumpled and ratty-looking notepad from a pocket of her apron and held it out as if ready to jot down Longarm's food order. Although he couldn't help but notice that she did not seem to possess a pencil to write with. He guessed the pad was part of the routine, never mind that it was neither needed nor used. “What can I do for you... no, what do you bet I already know what you want?”

“And what would that be?” he asked.

She squinted at him, looking him up and down, although he suspected that inspection was about as necessary as the notepad. Dottie was simply having some fun. “Steak,” she said. “Burned hard and black. And fried spuds and a gallon of coffee followed by my famous dried apple pie.”

“Famous?”

“If it ain't, it oughta be.” She grinned back at him.

“I admit it. You have me pegged.”

“Good. Now let me tell you what I'm gonna bring you instead.”

Longarm was confused. And no doubt looked it.

“Steak and pie, Longarm, my new friend, costs twenty-five cents and ain't half as good as my special tonight, which is a pot roast so tender I won't even bother to bring you a knife to cut it with. The pot roast comes with the spuds and pie, just like the steak, and will only cost you fifteen cents. Now thens ... what is it I should bring you?”

Longarm chuckled. “If it wouldn't be any trouble, I think I'll have some pot roast.”

Dottie beamed. “See? I told everybody you'd turn out to be a sensible sort.”

Longarm wasn't sure just who might constitute “everybody,” but he was pleased to learn that he was hereby certified as sensible. At least he thought that was what she meant.

“Will you have the pie first while you're waiting on the pot roast?” Dottie asked.

“Sure, why not?”

“Then set still, son. It will be right out.” The big woman turned and made her way through the tables toward the kitchen at the back of the place.

Longarm thought it no wonder that Norm favored Dottie's cafe.

And there was no doubt whatsoever once the dried apple pie arrived.

Dottie was right. If her pie wasn't already famous, it damn sure should be.

After supper Longarm stepped out onto the sidewalk and stopped to pull a cheroot from his pocket. He nipped the end off the cigar, struck a match, and hands cupped around the flame, bent his head to bring fire and tobacco together. Wreaths of white smoke and whispers of bright sound swirled around his ears. The first he could understand readily enough, but it took him a moment or two to figure out where the gay music came from.

It was a piano. Light and lively. And soon after it came the sounds of laughter. It occurred to Longarm that he hadn't yet seen any sign of a saloon or other night life in the town. That did not necessarily mean there was none. Only that he hadn't found it.

Following the faint but enticing sounds of the piano took Longarm off the main street to a small, isolated block of businesses that apparently served Crow's Point as a tenderloin district.

In Denver this little clutch of sin and depravity—at least that was what Longarm hoped he'd come upon—would have gone unnoticed amid bigger and more flamboyant competitors. But here, well, a body had to make do with whatever was at hand, or so Longarm believed.

He stepped through the bat-wing doors of the first of the tiny businesses he came to. There seemed to be half a dozen of them or so, all jammed together with not even room for alleyways between the side walls of one building and its neighbor in this one small area. Convenient, a man might say. The saloon Longarm found himself in—if it had a name, Longarm did not see it posted anywhere in sight—had a crude bar set against a side wall, a ratty-looking faro table at the rear, and a pair of ugly, over-powdered whores begging for drinks. No piano. Longarm shrugged and tried the next place.

In the third place in the line he found the piano he'd been hearing from afar. And a slightly better-looking back-bar. And a card game that looked in need of another player. Longarm smiled. Hell, he was as good as home.

 

Longarm yawned. He didn't know what time it was, and did not bother dragging the Ingersoll out of his pocket to find out. Whatever the hour, he was purely tired from a day of travel and disappointment. It was time to make his way back to Norm's house and go to bed.

He swept his pile of loose change into the palm of his hand, and dropped the coins into a pocket without bothering to count them. He knew he was down a little—say, a dollar or a bit more. He didn't mind. It was the price of an evening's entertainment, and he did not begrudge losing a little in an honest game. That was the way the cards ran sometimes, and a man learned to take whatever came his way.

He thanked the gents at the table for the play—farmers, he gathered, although he hadn't come right out and asked—and excused himself.

A thin woman with artificially bright red hair and the smell of sour sweat hanging in the air around her intercepted him at the door with an offer that he had no difficulty refusing. What he did have a little trouble with was remembering how to find his way back to Norm Wold's house in the dark. He had to find the main business district first. Then, with his bearings restored, he had no trouble aiming for Norm's place on the edge of town.

Longarm pulled a match out to have it ready once he stepped inside. He didn't want to stumble over anything in the pitch-black interior and maybe break something valuable. Then, yawning again, he pushed the door open, stepped in, and flicked the sulfur-tipped lucifer afire.

The yellow gleam of light prompted a gasp of surprise and a dimly seen spurt of movement from somewhere to Longarm's left.

Someone was hiding there in the dark in Norm's house, dammit.

Longarm let the burning match fall unheeded from his fingers. He dropped into a crouch and swept the big Colt out of its holster.

“Don't move, you son of a bitch,” he warned.

He hoped to hell the sound of his growl was menacing enough to freeze whoever was waiting in ambush.

Because the plain truth was that, taken unaware and thinking about the bed rather than any possible danger, he'd let his night vision be lost to the flare of the match.

At least for the next few treacherously long heartbeats, Longarm was bat-blind and defenseless.

He just hoped to hell that he was the only one who realized that.

Off in the direction of Norm's parlor he heard the scrape of a shoe sole on wood. Longarm's heart jumped into his throat, and he blinked furiously in a useless attempt to force his eyes to readjust to the darkness.

“Try anything an' I'll shoot,” he snarled.

“My God, don't shoot. Please don't shoot me.” It was a woman's voice. Longarm felt at least some of the tension leave his body. Enough that he was no longer riding the razor edge of shooting blind.

Not that a woman couldn't be treacherous. He knew better than that. But most women didn't display their forms of treachery by way of ambushing a man in the dark. The ladies seemed to have a habit of smiling real sweet when they set up to stab a man in the back, figuratively speaking. Or for that matter, literally as well. The point was that since he was being confronted by a woman, it wasn't real likely that he had to worry about a gunshot or the working end of a cudgel coming his way.

“Show yourself, dammit. Who are you?” he demanded, blinking at a furious rate, even though he knew that was not going to make his vision come back any quicker than the natural course of things would allow.

“Just a minute. Here,” the soft voice said again. He heard the scrape of a match, and then saw the flare of a match as the lady leaned forward to light Norm's reading lamp.

Longarm scowled and shoved the big Colt back into the holster at his waist.

“I'm sorry,” she said in a shaky voice. Well, he couldn't blame her if she was a mite scared. She'd come damn-all close to getting herself shot. “I must have fallen asleep.”

With the lamp lighted and the wick turned high for light enough to read by, Longarm had an opportunity to get a proper look at her.

She wasn't half bad.

She was a big woman. Not fat. Not a bit of that, at least so far as he could see. She was just built to a slightly larger scale than most. Big bones, he supposed would be the best way to put it. Big tits too, although a gentleman wasn't supposed to mention that. He couldn't help but notice them, but it wasn't polite to talk about melons like those.