“I am truly sorry, Custis, but I’ve already assigned Maeternick to the Leadville job.”
Longarm jumped like the boss just stuck him with a pin. Huh. More than a pin it was, actually. Maeternick? Puhleese! “Billy,” he protested with another heartfelt—if somewhat theatrical—groan, “doesn’t seniority have any effect at all around here? Ain’t I got any rights over the tenderfeet an’ the wet-ears?” That kid Maeternick, for instance, wasn’t hardly old enough to shave. Looked like he oughta still be in high school. Wanted the pretty girls to think he was a grown-up. At least that was how Longarm figured the infant’s appointment as a deputy. That and the fact that his daddy was a senator from one of those back-East states that nobody with hair on his ass would ever want to visit. Longarm rolled his eyes and slouched in his chair and otherwise tried to make known some of the things it wouldn’t have been polite to say right out loud.
“Of course seniority entitles you to some privilege, Custis. And next time if you’ll just let me know in time so that I can do something about it, perhaps things will turn out differently. In the meantime I have another assignment for you. Something suitable to your talents and experience.”
“But I wanta go to Leadville, Billy. You know that.”
“Oh, I think you’ll find this trip even more interesting,” the marshal said. “After all, it isn’t like you’ll be overworked. In fact, you can look at it as a sort of vacation. Why, it will be fun. Honestly.”
The red-cheeked marshal smiled, his expression a mask of innocence, and spread his palms wide. Nothing up those sleeves, nosirree-bob.
“A vacation, huh. I’ve had your kind o’ vacation before, Billy, an’ if it’s all the same to you I’d as leave spend a week stoking a furnace in Hell as take another one of what you call a vacation.”
“Custis. Really! You hurt my feelings. When was the last time I-“
“That’s when it was, all right,” Longarm injected. “Last time you put a hurting on me was the last time.”
Vail clucked his tongue and shook his head in a display of great sadness. “I am sorry you feel that way, Custis. Honestly I am.” He looked so completely innocent … hurt … feelings wounded …
Longarm looked at his boss. And thought that maybe, just maybe, this time he was misjudging the man. After all, they were friends. Even good friends. And they’d gotten along mighty well, everything considered, for all this time now. So maybe, just maybe … “What is it you’re wantin’ me t’ do, boss?” he asked.
And knew the question was a damn-fool mistake even before the last sound of it was outa his mouth.
Chapter 3
“Baseball?” Longarm asked with a groan that he didn’t bother to muffle.
“That’s right. It’s a game, Custis. You play it with a ball and a stick that they call a bat and-“
“Dammit, Billy, I know what it is. It’s just …”
“Sit back down there and listen for a minute, will you? Just let me explain.”
Longarm shook his head. But he also sat down. He reached into his pocket for a cheroot, pulled it out and went through the routine of trimming and lighting without bothering to ask Billy’s permission. Without bothering to offer a smoke to the boss, either.
He couldn’t help but sniff and grumble a mite. After all, why should the marshal be pestering a grown man with something about a kid’s game when there were papers to be served up in cool, quiet Leadville. It simply was not fair. Not no way at all.
“Are you listening, Custis?”
“I’m listening, Billy.” Longarm grunted once more, sort of to ensure that his point came across, and puffed sullenly on his smoke while the marshal spoke.
“I don’t suppose you follow the sporting accounts in the News,” Billy said by way of a preamble.
Longarm said nothing, just continued to imitate a puffer-belly smokestack.
“No, I didn’t really expect that you would. Well, I do, Custis. And I’ve noticed something. Do you remember that post office robbery in Las Vegas, New Mexico, two months ago?”
Longarm took the cheroot out of his mouth and gave the slightly soggy end of it an accusing glare, then stuffed it back into his jaw and grunted. It was an affirmation. Of sorts.
“There was a bank robbery in Springer, New Mexico, two weeks later and a payroll robbery three weeks after that. Do you recall reading anything about those?”
Longarm frowned in thought for a moment, then asked, “Federal payroll?”
“No, neither of those crimes was in our jurisdiction. The postal theft was, of course, but not the other two.”
“So why …?” Longarm almost forgot that he didn’t want to become interested in any of this, dammit. After all, it was so nice and cool and pleasant up in Leadville.
“Because I happened to notice a coincidence involving those crimes, Longarm. Except that I sincerely doubt there is anything remotely coincidental about them.”
In spite of himself, Longarm cleared his throat. And lifted an eyebrow.
“None of the newspapermen who covered the events made any connection, Custis, and the reports were published at different times … something to do with real news traveling faster than news about mere entertainments, I suppose … but I noted the locations first and checked the dates afterward.”
“Yes?”
“We seem to have a gang of robbers on the loose who are baseball fans,” Billy said.
“Pardon me?”
“Yes, well, that may not be the full story, of course.” Billy smiled and steepled his fingers under his chin while he peered closely at the tall deputy who no longer looked quite so sulky. “My point, Longarm, is that those robberies have been committed in the same communities and at approximately the same times as a series of baseball games.”
“Baseball games,” Longarm repeated.
“That is what I said, yes. A team of professional ball players from Austin, Texas, has been making an extended exhibition tour through New Mexico and the panhandle towns. They played in Clayton, New Mexico, two weeks ago and intend, if I understand their schedule correctly, to swing north into Kansas and then come west into Colorado.”
“Is this goin’ somewhere, boss?”
“Oh, it is indeed, my impatient friend. It is indeed.”
“Would you mind …?”
“May I be candid with you, Longarm?”
“Jeez, Billy, I wish you would.”
“I have a hunch.”
“You?”
“Me,” the marshal confirmed. “And, um, did I or did I not recently overhear you tell a young lady that you once were employed as a pitcher for the Chicago White Stockings?”
“Billy, c’mon. You might’ve heard me say such a thing. In fact I seem t’ recall something o’ the sort my own self. But, lord Billy, that don’t make it true. I mean … a man is permitted some small liberties when it comes t’ things said in the heat o’ battle. Jeez, Billy, the only thing I’ve ever pitched is woo. I wouldn’t know where t’ find the handle on a baseball.”
“Oh dear,” Billy said. He looked disappointed. No, Longarm decided, the boss looked … embarrassed. That was it. The man looked positively, absolutely and downright embarrassed about something here.
“Billy?”
“I am afraid,” the marshal said, “that I have already promised Douglas a second string pitcher for his team.”
“Boss,” Longarm said, “I think there is something that I’m missing in this picture.”
“Yes,” Vail agreed. “I’m afraid we’ve both made a few errors this time. Uh, no pun intended.”
Longarm blinked a curl of pale smoke out of his eyes.
Chapter 4