White ignored the gesture. “I take it you want to get these cattle across the border without getting’ ‘em wet.”
“That would be the general idea. But I want to do it as legal as I can.”
“You mean you want papers to say you done it legal. You don’t actually want to do it legal, else you wouldn’t be huntin’ me up.”
Longarm just looked at him silently. The girl brought his beer and he took a sip, waiting for the man to go on.
White said, “Tell me, Mister Long, you are in the business of selling cattle for a profit. That about the size of it? I mean, cattle is yore stock in trade.”
“That would be about right.”
“So you don’t give cattle away. That right?”
Longarm, seeing where the man was headed, said, “Mister White, I had intended to pay you for any information you might supply me. I ain’t here looking for a handout, just the name of the right man to go to.”
“And you figger to pay a fair price fer that?”
“I do.”
White nodded toward the extra chair. “Sit yourself down and let’s see what we can work out.”
Longarm took the back of the light wooden chair, spun it, and sat down astraddle. He said, “I take it you would know.”
White nodded again. “I reckon we better understand one another, Mister Long. You do be talking about keepin’ them cattle dry and moving them right along without no bothersome delays here at the border. That be right?”
“It would.”
White seemed to think a moment. Finally he heaved a sigh and said, sounding almost sorrowful, “Well, that information is worth exactly forty dollars. You got forty dollars, Mister Long?”
Longarm reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out his roll, flashing enough of it to inform White that he was pretty well heeled, but not enough to seem extravagant. He peeled off two twenty-dollar bills and laid them on the table between himself and White. “You said that would get me a name.” He stuck the roll back in his jeans.
White looked at the money and then looked up at Longarm. He said, chuckling a little, “Well, Mister Long, you seem like such a nice feller, I’m gonna go you one better. For the price of one I’m going to give you two names. One man is Jay Caster. Works for the customs people. The other is Rudy Thomas. He does the same.” As he reached for the money, White started to giggle.
His fingers never quite picked up the bills. With a swift motion Longarm whipped his revolver out of its holster and brought the barrel down forcibly onto the back of White’s hands. The blow wasn’t hard enough to break the skin, but hard enough that the man jumped and cried out. Longarm kept White’s hands pressed to the tabletop with the barrel of the revolver. White looked at him, his eyes wide and suddenly scared. Stuttering a little, he said, “Da-Da-Damn, mister! That hurts. Cain’t you take a little joke?”
Longarm kept the pressure on the man’s hands. “Yeah, if it was a joke. I got an idea one of them names is the right man. The other would be the wrong man. I don’t like paying forty dollars for the chance to guess right. But I suppose you were just teaching the greenhorn stranger a little lesson in border odds. That right?”
White suddenly jerked his hands out from under the barrel of Longarm’s gun. It scraped off a little skin, and a thin line of blood formed on the back of his hand. He looked at it sullenly. “Something like that,” he said. “Damn, you done gone and cut me.”
“You cut yourself. Now, you just figure I taught you a little lesson in how to make a stranger feel welcome. I’m still willing to do business with you, but we’re going to go outside, where I can be seen talking to you. Anything happens to me, folks are going to notice that me and you had a conversation. You savvy? In fact, me and you are going to walk down to the bridge and take a look at where they hold the cattle in quarantine. Maybe you can point out Mister Jay Caster and Mister Rudy Thomas to me and tell me if there is any difference to the pair.”
White was still looking belligerent. “You ain’t got no call for that kind of acting up. You’re on the border. I was givin’ you a little lesson about who you could trust down here.” As he said it, he cut his eyes over Longarm’s shoulder.
Longarm smiled. “And I was just giving you a little lesson in who to try and steal from. What you looking at so hard there? That little Mexican runs this place coming up behind me? He better not be. This here revolver is pointing right at your belly. You better go to nodding and smiling and quit worrying about your damn hand or I’m going to ease the hammer back on this big pistol of mine. You savvy?”
White looked at Longarm and then at the muzzle of the revolver that had crept up to aim at his midsection. He said, calling toward the bar, “It’s all right, Raymond. Everything is fine.”
“That was sensible. Now pick that forty dollars up and put it in your pocket. You are going to earn it before we get done talking.”
White swallowed, his Adam’s apple jerking up and down. His eyes were all for the gun in Longarm’s big hand. “I-I don’t want it.”
“Put it in your pocket.” Longarm said the words quietly, but there was menace in his tone. “And then get up and start for the front door. I’ll be right behind you.”
“I ain’t going nowhere with you.”
Longarm started the hammer back with his thumb. It made the first clitch sound, and White was instantly on his feet, exclaiming, “I’m going!”
He came around the table as Longarm rose. When he was on his feet Longarm turned toward the bar, the revolver still in his hand. He half expected to find the little Mexican standing there with a shotgun leveled at him. The owner was behind the bar, but he was simply standing next to the girl, staring at Longarm through narrowed eyes. Longarm took two steps in his direction, holstering his pistol at the same time. “What would your name be, senor? You seem to take a big interest in my affairs.”
The man’s eyes got even narrower. “This is my place of business, senor. I take an interest in all that happens here.” He spoke excellent English with only a trace of Spanish accent.
Longarm said, “You still didn’t tell me your name. You ashamed of it?”
There was a hard expression on the owner’s face. “My name is San Diego,” he said, “Raymond San Diego. Be careful how you use it should you have occasion to speak it.”
Longarm smiled and nodded. “My name is Long. You can use it any way you want to. I ain’t all that proud. Just stay out of my business. I may not be proud, but I’m touchy about money. You savvy?”
“I think we meet again.”
“Don’t see why not. You serve good grub at good prices. I reckon I’ll make this my eating headquarters while I’m in town.”
Longarm could feel the man’s eyes on his back as he followed Jasper White through the door and down the steps of the cafe. The proprietor wasn’t very big, but then you didn’t have to be very big to handle a big revolver. Longarm was confused as to what the connection between his “telegrapher” and the owner of the cafe was, but he had no doubt that Raymond San Diego would make a dangerous enemy.
Once outside, Jasper White stopped and turned around. He was holding the two twenty-dollar bills in his hand. On his feet he was an even less impressive physical specimen than he was sitting down. Holding the money out toward Longarm, he said, “Look here, mister, I don’t want yore money. I played a little joke and it blew up in my damn face. Now I’d jest like to forget the whole matter.”
Longarm was slightly confused. His original intention in seeking out Jasper White had been to establish a contact with Jay Caster independent of Austin Davis. He’d thought that it would make any connection between himself and Davis even more remote, nothing more than a buyer and seller of cattle. Rather than having Davis introduce him to Caster, he’d hoped to be able to go to the customs man and say he’d been recommended to him by another party, Jasper White. But now he was running into this strange alliance of a Mexican cafe owner and the town information bank. It was an unlikely combination.