Longarm #396 : Longarm and the Castle of the Damned (9781101545249) (12 page)

She sucked on him until he was hard as a tent pole again, then mounted him, her fingers toying with his nipples while her hips rose and fell, rotating at the same time.

Honey was right. She did know how to please a man.

Longarm stamped his feet to help settle his boots comfortably in place, then took his Stetson down from the wall hook where it had been for the past hour or so. He put the hat on and nudged it in place where he liked it, then touched the grip of his .45 with two fingers to make sure the revolver was exactly where it should be.

“You're a doll,” he told Honey as he reached into his pocket.

“Oh, you don't pay me, honey,” the girl said. “You should pay Buster out front. He's the one behind the bar. Settle up with him.”

“Would it be all right if I give you a tip?” he asked.

Honey grinned. “I guess that would be all right, honey.”

Longarm pulled out a silver dollar and placed it on the pillow. Honey squealed with joy and immediately snatched up the dollar and knelt to tug the big, underbed drawer open so she could stash the coin away in a coffee can she kept there. It looked like she had a fair amount saved up. Longarm could not help but wonder what the girl was saving up for, what sort of hope was in her heart.

“Thank you, honey,” she said once the dollar was safely put away and the drawer back under the bed.

“My pleasure, Honey,” he told her. He meant it too. She was a cheerful little thing and really did please. He touched the brim of his hat to her and let himself out of the crib, making his way back into the saloon.

“Everything all right, friend?” the barman named Buster asked when Longarm ordered another beer.

“Just fine, thanks.”

“You want to settle up now or run a tab?” Buster asked.

“How much do I owe you?”

“Let me see now. There's your lunch. Couple extra beers. Bottle of champagne . . . you and Honey didn't finish that, so I put the rest of it away for you whenever you want it, but you'd best drink it soon or it'll go flat . . . and then there's a quickie with Honey. That would come to, oh . . . ,” he paused for a moment in thought while he added up the services in his head, “four dollars and forty-five cents.”

Longarm placed a pair of bright gold two-dollar-andfifty-cent quarter eagles on the bar. Buster took them and returned Longarm's change.

Edgar Spurlock was still dealing cards at his table. The same four players were still there. Longarm picked up his beer mug and wandered over in that direction.

“Is there room at the table for one more?” Longarm asked.

Spurlock nodded, pointed with his chin, and said, “Drag that chair over, mister. Bob, Jimmy, you two shift aside a little to accommodate the gentleman.” Spurlock looked up, his hands busy shuffling the cards. “If you'd care to give your name, mister . . . ?”

“John,” Longarm said. “Call me John.”

“I'm Edgar. Eddie if you prefer. Sit down, John, and welcome. The game is stud poker. Open on anything you have.” He smiled. “Or want us to think you have. Bet on each card as she comes out. Fifty cent ante and a two-dollar limit on each bet.”

Longarm pulled out a cheroot and lighted it, then leaned forward and paid attention to the cards that Eddie was expertly dealing.

Three hours later Longarm was down about two dollars and a half, but as far as he could tell—and he was very good at spotting card cheats—Edgar Spurlock dealt a clean card game. The gambler was good at his profession, but that was because he played the odds remarkably well, not because of bottom dealing or card substitution.

Spurlock gathered the cards from the table, pulled them together, and passed the deck to a man named Adam, who sat at Spurlock's left.

“I'm going to take a break now,” Spurlock announced. “I have to visit the privy and have something to eat, but I'll be back in, oh, an hour or so.” He pushed his chair back and stood.

“Deal me out too,” Longarm said as he gathered his money and dropped the coins into his coat pocket. He lighted a cheroot and fiddled with his collar for a moment before he stood and stretched, giving him time to see which way Edgar Spurlock went when he left the table.

Longarm suppressed a smile when he saw that Spurlock headed outside, toward the privy. That, he thought, was perfect.

Striding purposefully out the door as if he too wanted to take a piss, he followed the gambler and watched as the man entered one of the two privies placed there for the use of the saloon patrons.

Longarm wandered over there and looked carefully about to make sure no one was watching.

It was getting on toward evening, and the whores from the nearby cribs were gathered inside having dinner since the evening crowd had not yet arrived. A stagecoach was due in within half an hour, he understood, and there would be a good many more customers around then, so this was probably the best opportunity he would have for what he wanted to do.

He leaned against the side wall of the one-hole privy and waited for Edgar Spurlock to finish whatever he was doing in there. After a minute or two the privy door swung open and Spurlock stepped out.

The man's concentration was on the buttons of his trousers. He looked up when Longarm stepped in front of him. The tall deputy stood nose to nose with Spurlock, put a hand on the man's chest, and pushed, sending him reeling backward inside the tiny outhouse.

“What . . . ? Is this a robbery? Damn you, I played fair with you. You know . . .”

“It ain't a robbery,” Longarm snarled, shoving the man again.

The backs of Spurlock's knees hit the bench seat of the privy and he involuntarily sat. Abruptly and probably not very comfortably.

“I didn't . . .”

“Shut the fuck up an' listen to me,” Longarm said, towering over the now very nervous gambler. “I am gonna ask you a simple question. I expect a simple answer. If you don't answer me straight or if you lie to me,” Longarm said, “what I figure to do is to turn you upside down an' drop you headfirst into the cess pit underneath this here privy. Now.” Longarm paused for a breath. “Do you understand me?”

“What is this . . . ?”

“No questions, asshole. Do you understand me? Yes or no?”

“Uh, yes.” Spurlock looked extremely uncomfortable. Sweat beaded his forehead, and he seemed pale even in the dim light that penetrated the privy.

“You've probably got a hideout gun somewhere on you,” Longarm said. “I wouldn't advise you to go for it, 'cause that would force me to break your arms before I drop you into the shit. You say you understand me? Is that right?”

“Yes, uh, sir.”

“Fine. You're doin' fine, Eddie. Now here's your question. Justine Crowne. Where is she?”

Edgar Spurlock looked like he might very well pass out before he could give Longarm an answer to that question. He fingered his tight collar and his mouth gaped like a trout's out of water.

“I can't . . . I mustn't . . .”

“Eddie, I tried to do this the easy way.”

Longarm took hold of the hand at Spurlock's collar. The gambler did not even resist.

Taking Spurlock's hand in both of his, Longarm got a firm grip on the man's little finger and with a twist of his wrists broke it at the knuckle.

Spurlock screamed.

Longarm continued to hold the man's hand while he asked again. “Justine Crowne, Eddie. Where is she?”

“I can't, mister. I can't tell. They . . . they'll kill me if I do.”

“Suit yourself then.” Longarm wrestled Spurlock to his feet and turned him to face the none too clean seat of the privy. The stink of the pit of turds swimming in cold piss underneath the seat rose around them. Spurlock was so terrified he was limp and unable to resist.

He was a handsome son of a bitch, it seemed, but he had no guts. But then, Longarm thought, the sort of man who preys on women would not likely be courageous.

Longarm took hold of the back of Spurlock's trousers and lifted him bodily off his feet, pushing his head down toward the gaping hole beneath which lay the pit full of excrement.

“Please,” Spurlock whined.

“Last chance,” Longarm told him with another push on the back of Spurlock's head.

Longarm reined the dun off the road. It was coming evening, and he wanted enough daylight left so he could gather wood for a fire. He found a small bench on a sloping hillside where his camp would be protected from the winds that came sweeping across the empty badlands west of Craig.

A stand of aspen provided the wood, but the only available water was what he carried in the canteen on his saddle.

“Reckon we'll have to rough it this evening, old son,” he told the horse. He picketed the dun and removed its bridle, then wet his handkerchief and swabbed out the horse's mouth before pulling a feed bag over its ears.

He had purchased that equipment and a gallon of clean oats back in Craig. The grain was nearly gone now and so was the water. Come morning, it would be nice to find a place where he could buy more grain, but it would be critical that he find a source of water. Both he and the dun needed it.

As it was, once the grain had been eaten, he poured a pint or so of the precious fluid into the leather bottom of the feed bag and let the horse have that to drink. He himself could go without his coffee tonight. He would have to make do with just the strips of jerky and a bite or two of the viletasting but energy-rich pemmican he had bought in Craig.

Visions of the fine meals to be had in Quartermane's Chop House in Denver taunted him as he chewed on what passed for a meal in his rudimentary camp.

When he was finished eating, he spread his bedroll—also aquired in the helpful shops in Craig—and kicked the fire apart. He'd barely had time to begin to drowse when he heard the sound of a horse on the road below.

The soft hoofbeats ceased and he heard the low whinny of one horse, answered by that of another. The traveler's horse calling to his dun, or perhaps the other way around. Moments later he heard the rattle of harness and bit chains and the creak of leather.

In the gloom below he could dimly see the outline of a buggy pulled off the side of the road.

“Hello the camp,” a voice called up the hillside.

Longarm sat up, his hand not far from the Colt at his side, and answered, “Up here.”

“Mind if I join you?”

“Come ahead if you're friendly.”

“Aye, that I am.”

“Then come an' welcome, though I don't have much left to share tonight. I'm near about outa water.”

“That's all right,” the voice called again, the source of it coming nearer as the man climbed huffing and puffing toward the bench. “I have water to share. Biscuits and bacon too if you're hungry.”

The visitor emerged in the darkness, a fat man wearing a bowler hat and no visible firearms, although Longarm did not intend to put much faith in that observation. Longarm stood to greet the man.

“Felix Batterslea,” the man said, extending his hand.

Longarm shook and said, “John Church. How d'you do.”

Batterslea smiled and said, “Tired, that's how I am, Mr. Church. I was going to go on a little way more tonight, but I heard your horse and smelled the smoke from your fire. I brought some water. If you're interested, we can use that wood of yours to build up the fire and boil some coffee.”

“You have coffee?” Longarm grinned. “Felix, you just became my new best friend.”

Batterslea put some coffee on the fire. “What brings you out here, John?”

Longarm shrugged. “Drifting. You?”

“I'm a salesman, John. I deal in fine spirits and gourmet foodstuffs.”

“Gourmet, what the hell does that mean, Felix?”

“Fancy, John. It just means fancy.”

“So what are you doing way out here in the badlands?”

“Oh, I have an account west of here. A very good account, in fact. I visit there twice a year, all the way from Boston. You wouldn't think it, but the trips are worth my while. I sell brandies, tinned oysters and lobster tails, French wines, things like that. I just came from there. Now I'm on my way back home with a very handsome order in my book.” He patted his breast pocket and laughed. “You wouldn't be interested in a purchase, would you?”

“I think maybe not, Felix, but who the devil out here would be in the market for such?”

“Just one customer, actually. A very wealthy eccentric. A state legislator, as it happens. Very powerful as well as wealthy. I won't mention the name, of course, but I am sure you would recognize it if I told you.”

“Oh, I reckon you don't have to say it. I know who you'll be meaning.”

“I'm sure you do,” Batterslea agreed.

“I'm a poor man myself,” Longarm said, “but I've always been interested in the ways of the rich. Not mentioning any names, o' course, but tell me all about this fella, would you? Him an' where he lives an' so on?”

Batterslea laughed again. “Now, if there is one thing I am capable of, John, it is talk. Why, I could sit here and talk all night with not much encouragement. Say, I think that coffee is just about ready. Let's have a cup and I will tell you anything you want to know. Probably more than you really want to know, so just tell me when you've heard enough. Or ask whatever you like if you want to hear more.”

“Felix, I've got to say, I am mighty glad you stopped here tonight. I'm, uh, pleased for the company.” Longarm pushed another handful of aspen pieces onto the fire, wrapped his kerchief around his hand to protect it from the heat, and picked up Felix Batterslea's coffeepot ready to pour into the enamelware cups the fat salesman also provided.