He turned right at the next corner, which seemed to be the main street. Gray was just ahead of him. Lee had stopped in the shadow at the corner and stood, leaning against the support post of a porch roof.
As Longarm passed, Gray said in a low voice, “White’s is in the middle of the next block. You’ll pass the jail on the way.”
Longarm acted like he hadn’t heard, and kept on walking. He knew that Lee would let him get a good lead before he came wandering into the hotel. It would seem like there was no connection between the two men.
Longarm stuck to the street rather than walking on the boardwalk as it was broken up. Some stores were fronted by it and some weren’t, so a man would be constantly going up and down as he made his way along the fronts of the stores. He saw the glow in the first block, about midway up, in the window of an office. As he passed, he saw the lettering that said “Sheriff & Tax Collector.” It gave the name of the county, but Longarm couldn’t read it. He saw the vague image of a man humped over at a desk. He passed on by. He wouldn’t be ready for the sheriff until he had some rest and had talked matters out with Gray.
He was fifty yards into the second block when he stopped dead in his tracks. The false-fronted, weather-beaten, wooden stores suddenly gave way to a huge, block-like, three-story stucco building that had a porch in front and big double wooden and glass doors. It rivaled anything that Longarm had seen in St. Louis or San Francisco or Denver. It looked as out of place as the Queen of England would at a washerwomens’ convention. Across the top in neat letters, it said “White’s Hotel.” He didn’t know if it was named that way because the building was blindingly white, or if White was the name of the party who owned it. He didn’t much care. It looked like comfort to him, and that was all he was interested in. He only hoped they had a room. Surely they did. In such a small town, a hotel like that would have plenty of rooms.
He went through the big double doors and into the well-lighted lobby. The floor was marble, and his boots rang hollowly on it in the big well-appointed room. Off to one side, he could see a dining room with white starched tablecloths. There was a young man on duty at the desk, looking sharp and pressed, even at that ungodly hour. Longarm went up and asked for a room.
The young man said, “Yes, sir. Will that be with a bath or without?”
Longarm wasn’t sure he was in the right country. He said, “You got rooms with baths?”
“Yes, sir, we do. We have a reservoir on top of the hotel and we have a method of heating it. Some of our rooms have a built-in bathtub so you can have a bath right there in your room. I must tell you, sir, that the in-room bath is a dollar per day extra.”
“Just how much are these rooms?”
“Sir, your room will cost you three dollars a night on the second floor or four dollars a night on the first floor.”
Longarm said, “Well, I’ll have one on the second floor. But just for the sake of curiosity, I noticed that you’ve got three floors. What about that third floor? Would those rooms be two dollars?”
The young man gave him a thin smile. “All of the rooms on the top floor are reserved, sir, for special guests of the management.”
Longarm was signing the register. He said, “I see. Well, how do you know I’m not a special guest of the management?”
The young man behind the desk gave Longarm a pointed look. He said, “Are you?”
Longarm laughed. “Son, I’m so tired, I don’t even feel like trying to trick around with you. No, I don’t even know the management here.” He signed the register “C. Long” and deliberately bluffed the last name.
The young desk clerk spun the book around, looked, took a key out of the pigeonholes, and then asked, “How long will you be with us, Mr. Lang?”
Longarm smiled. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Oh, two or three days. Do you want me to pay in advance?”
“No, that is not necessary. Do you have any luggage, sir?”
“Just my valise here, son. By the way, are there any saloons open in town?”
The young man shook his head. “No, sir. The saloons around here all shut down at one o’clock. The Indians, you understand?”
“Yeah,” Longarm said. “The Indians. What do they do? Start scalping people?”
“They get drunk, sir.”
“Oh,” Longarm said. He looked at the young man. “So that’s what’s been going on. Every time I wake up, I feel like I’ve been scalped. So it’s the Indians doing the drinking that’s doing the scalping, is it? Well, we’ll have to put a stop to that.”
Longarm picked up his valise and picked up the key, stalling, hoping that Lee Gray would come through the doors before he left. He saw no sign of the man and he couldn’t think of any reason to tarry. But just then, as he started across the lobby, Longarm saw the big doors open and saw Lee Gray come plodding through like he was out for a Sunday stroll and the fact that it was almost three o’clock in the morning was of no matter.
Longarm was almost to the top of the stairs, and called out to the desk clerk. He held up the key that had a little wooden room number attached to it. He said, “I can’t make this out. Is this 205 or 206?”
The desk clerk said, “205, sir.”
Longarm let his glance graze off Lee Gray, then nodded at the clerk, said “Thanks,” and went on up the stairs. He walked down the hall until he found his room and opened the door. He was amazed to find such a place in Santa Rosa. The room was big, it was clean, it had a good-sized bed in it that looked almost new, and sure enough there was a copper bathtub next to the wall with spigots sticking out just like in a regular hotel in Kansas City or New Orleans or any other big town you could name. He was determined, if nothing else, to get some of the train dirt off him before the night was over.
But first, he wanted a few quick words with Lee Gray. He opened his satchel, took out a bottle of whiskey, and then set it on the table, which already contained a pitcher of water, a bowl, and four glasses. He sat down, lit a cheroot, and waited. He had left the door slightly ajar so that Gray wouldn’t have to knock.
As Longarm sat there, his attention was drawn to the back of the door and to what he had first thought was either a picture or the rules of the house. Then it began to look very familiar. He suddenly got up, walked across the room, and within a few steps was staring at his own wanted poster. It startled him so badly that his mind went blank for a second. A little thrill of fear or excitement or wonder ran through him. It was not the poster itself. It was that it was in the room he was occupying. It was as if the Nelsons had known of his coming and had made sure that he knew the offer was still good. He took a step or two back, blinking, and then took a quick drink of whiskey.
At that instant, Lee Gray came sliding through the half-opened door. He glanced at Longarm and then to where Longarm was staring at the poster.
Lee Gray said, “Don’t get all het up. They ain’t singled you out. They don’t know it’s you here. There’s one in every room. There’s one in the dining room and one in the bar. Of course, there ain’t much chance of anybody recognizing you. It ain’t a real good likeness.”
Longarm shook his head, walked back to the table, and sat down. He said, “It kind of caught me off guard for a second. It made my skin crawl.”
Lee Gray walked over to the table, took a chair himself, and watched as Longarm poured out a glass of whiskey and shoved it across to him. Gray said, “Yeah, I can understand that. It ain’t a real nice sight for a peaceful young fellow like you to be taking a gander at. This damned room is so white that it does tend to stand out.”
“It caught me off guard, Lee. I’d already sat down and poured out a drink and was waiting on you, and that damned thing jumped out and hit me in the face,” Longarm said.