Longarm and the Deadwood Shoot-out (9781101619209) (16 page)

DiNunzio pulled a pair of calfskin gloves from another drawer and drew them on. Finally he uncorked the whiskey, which at first confused Longarm since Noogie did not drink hard spirits. Instead of taking a pull at the bottle himself he offered it to Lotus.

When she shook her head he said, “You might want to take a drink or two. This will hurt less maybe.”

The girl’s eyes went wide when Noogie picked up the
cosh and stepped around the desk to stand beside and slightly behind her.

“Wait,” Longarm said. “Before you start in on her, let me have a little talk with her. Nice an’ friendly like.”

Noogie grunted, but he said, “You can try if you like, but my method is more likely to get something out of her.”

“Give me the chance. If she doesn’t open up for me, you can do it your way.”

By that time the Chinese girl looked like she was about to break down in tears. She was trembling and her breath was rapid and shallow.

Longarm dragged another straight chair over from the side of the room and set it close to the chair where the girl was secured. He had a sudden thought, considering how good her English had gotten when she was half asleep. “What’s your real name, honey?” he asked.

She hesitated for only a moment before she said, “My name is Frances Suh.”

“Thank you, Frances. Now the thing is, me and Marshal DiNunzio here think you might know some things we’re interested in. It’s only fair for me to tell you that you might be in trouble with the law here. Dependin’ on what we learn here t’day there’s three things might could happen to you.

“One is that we could find you t’ be implicated in the murder of Mr. Thomas Bligh, a gentleman I believe you know pretty well.”

“Murder?” The word came out as a squeak.

“If you’re convicted of murder…an’ you should know that anybody who’s no more’n an accessory to murder is subject to the same penalty under the law as somebody that pulls the trigger…if that happens, Frances, you’re either hang or spend the rest o’ your life behind bars.”

“Behind…God, no.”

“The second thing that could happen, Frances, is that you could be charged with bein’ an accessory to theft of U.S. gov’ment mail. For that you’d get maybe five t’ fifteen years in prison.”

Frances Suh was crying now. “Could I have a drink of that whiskey. Please?”

Longarm nodded, and Noogie handed the bottle to her. She raised it to her lips and took a man-sized pull at it.

“Or, lookin’ on the bright side,” Longarm said, “you could be named a cooperating witness an’ get off complete.”

“Really?” she sobbed.

Longarm nodded. “Really.”

“What…what do you want to know?”

Longarm smiled and sat down beside her.

“Don’t you need a court order or somethin’?” Longarm asked as they walked.

“This is kind of a small town, hoss. They trust me here. If we decide we need a search warrant, the magistrate will give me one. If we don’t find anything, well, no harm done.”

“If you’re satisfied with it, Noogie, so am I.”

Once again Longarm pounded on the whorehouse door until the same little blonde came to open it, looking just as sleepy and annoyed as she had the first time they called.

“Has Miss Theresa or Dennis come back yet?” Noogie asked.

“No, they…hey! Where do you think you’re going?”

Longarm and DiNunzio barged past the girl and headed down the hallway that led to Theresa Bullea’s private quarters. The door was locked, but a pocketknife served to jimmy it open.

“You can’t do that,” the girl yelped behind them.

“So call the police,” Longarm told her. To Noogie he said, “The chifforobe. That’s where t’ look first.”

It, too, was locked, but the same pocketknife served to open it.

“Aw, shit,” DiNunzio moaned when they got the wardrobe open. “I didn’t want to see those there, never mind what the girl said.”

“Had t’ be,” Longarm said. “Frances said the onliest one she talked to about what Bligh told her was the boss an’ Dennis. Had t’ be them.” He reached into the wardrobe and pulled out both an oversized linen duster and a flour sack with eyeholes cut in the fabric.

Standing in a back corner of the chifforobe were two sawed-off twelve-gauge scatterguns, wicked enough to make any man think about his maker if he was staring into those large tubes.

“Shit!” Noogie repeated. “I tell you what, though. If Terry and Dennis was into it, then so was Annie. What one of them does, they all of them do.”

Longarm looked toward the doorway where the blonde was hanging just in the corridor leading to the front door. She bolted when he started toward her, but he broke into a run and grabbed the back of her kimono before she could get away.

“I’m thinkin’, Noogie, that we’d best walk this young thing over to your jail an’ put her in with the other’un for the time being.”

“Right. Uh, do you think maybe Tom worked it out in his own mind and that’s why he was killed? He would have opened the door for Terry or Annie either one.”

“That’s something we may never know, but I’d say it’s
a mighty good guess. C’mon now. Let’s put this one in where she can’t go warn anybody. Then you and me will see can we find our robbers.”

“And murderers,” Noogie added.

“Ain’t that the damn truth.”

They had barely stepped onto the front porch when the blond girl shouted, “Run, Miss Theresa, run!”

Longarm looked in the direction the girl was looking. Theresa Bullea and Dennis were just emerging from an alley half a block down. If the girl had not shouted, Longarm doubted they ever would have spotted the pair.

“Hold her,” he snapped at Noogie and set off at a run toward Terry and Dennis.

Theresa bolted back into the alley, but Dennis decided to fight it out then and there. He palmed a revolver and snapped a shot that whined over Longarm’s head.

Was Dennis the shooter who tried to plug him when he drove the two jehus out to the scene of the robberies? There was a damn good chance of it.

While that thought was flashing through his mind, Longarm’s Colt was in his hand, almost without conscious thought. He saw the threat and he reacted.

“Stop, Dennis. I don’t wanta kill you.” And that was the truth. He wanted information from the man, not blood.

Dennis did not give him a choice. The whorehouse bouncer fired a second time.

The man should have stuck to beating up on drunks, Longarm thought as he took quick aim and returned the gunfire.

Dennis went pale as a .45 slug ripped into his belly. His revolver’s muzzle sagged toward the ground and discharged harmlessly beside his boot.

Longarm made sure with a more carefully aimed shot that took Dennis in the forehead, snapping his head backward and putting the man down in the dirt.

Longarm broke into a run then. Theresa had several long seconds to try to escape.

He did not want her to succeed. The bitch had played him for a fool, knowing why he was in Deadwood but taking him into her bed.

He pounded into the alley mouth, jumping over the dying bouncer, faithful to the end.

Theresa surprised him again. Instead of trying to get away she was waiting for him not ten feet distant in the shadows of the alley.

A blossom of fire erupted and a bullet sizzled past close to his head.

Longarm did not take the time to think about what he should do. He reacted automatically, the Colt that was still in his fist returning her fire.

Theresa crumpled to the ground amid the litter of trash in the alley.

He rushed forward. Before he did anything else he kicked the derringer out of her hand. Then he knelt.

“I thought…I thought…”

Longarm never learned what it was that Theresa thought. She died before she could complete the sentence, the light of life fading quickly from her wide, staring eyes.

Longarm heard footsteps behind him. He wheeled to face them, but it was only Noogie.

“Both of them are gone?” DiNunzio asked.

Longarm nodded. “Not the way I would’ve wanted it but…yeah.”

“Then before word of this travels to the next block I think we’d best go arrest Annie Carter,” Noogie said. “At the very least she’s in for conspiracy. I’m not sure we can make anything else stick. You want this for federal filing?”

“You can have it if you like, Noogie. I don’t think I’d enjoy escorting her back to Denver for trial anyway.”

Noogie grinned. “Hell, hoss, I’ll take her. It’ll look good for me to have cleared up Tom’s murder so quick.”

“Then before we set in to countin’ those chickens we’d best go put the cuffs on Annie. An’ set Frances loose, I think. After all, she did what we wanted. Wouldn’t hardly be fair to put her in the jug now.”

“I tell you what then, hoss, you can do me the favor of escorting Frances Suh out of my jurisdiction for me. And, uh, you might want to know that according to Tom that little Chinee girl is a mighty good fuck.”

“You have a dirty mind, Noogie.”

“Positively filthy,” DiNunzio agreed.

But Longarm could not help but savor a memory that flashed into his mind, that being a picture of Frances Suh lying naked and lovely on those satin sheets.

He smiled. It was a long way down to Cheyenne where the girl could catch a train. There was no telling what might happen between here and there.