“What?”
“Nothing. Listen, Billy, why don’t you send somebody else? Hell, I got a few days off coming and I wouldn’t mind cooling my heels a bit.”
“All you been doing is cooling your heels here lately. You’ve got more time in town than I have. You surely have had time to make it through your list of lady friends more than once. Now, are you telling me that this Austin Davis ain’t a dependable man in a tight place?”
Longarm grimaced. “No, I ain’t saying any such thing,” he said grudgingly.
“You telling me he can’t handle himself?”
“No.”
“You remarking on his character?”
Longarm looked unhappy. “No, I ain’t badmouthing his character. Damnit, Billy he is such an arrogant sonofabitch. He irritates the hell out of me. Why that bastard thinks he could walk into a Mexican whorehouse without a penny in his pocket and come out with a satisfied look on his face.”
Billy Vail cocked his head. “Now there’s a curious thing. Davis said you told him he couldn’t get laid in a two-bit cathouse with a thousand dollars in his pocket.”
Longarm looked off toward the corner, a disappointed expression on his face. Shaking his head, he said, “Now that’s it right there. Just the kind of remark he would pass.”
“You didn’t tell him that?”
Longarm looked uneasy. “Well, yeah,” he admitted reluctantly, “but only because of remarks he passed about my poker playing. He said the only way I’d make a small fortune playing poker was to start with a big one.”
Billy Vail smiled and looked away, then remarked, trying to sound serious, “He said you told him the only chance he had of breaking even in a poker game was not to play. Any truth to that?”
Longarm was squirming. “See?” he said. “See? See why I don’t want to work with that lying, miserable sonofabitch! Telling tales behind my back. And not only that, but the sonofabitch drank the last of my good Maryland whiskey when he don’t know the difference and there was enough of the rotgut variety around to swim in.”
“Marshal Davis said he done it for your own good,” Billy Vail replied. “Said he didn’t think a man of your age ought to be putting so much of that juice away. Said it made you creaky in the mornings.”
“Well, that does it!” Longarm exclaimed. He got up, picked up his hat, and put it on his head. He gave Billy Vail a grim look. “Give me the particulars. I can guarantee that Marshal Davis will be damn sorry to see me come and damn glad to see me go. I reckon he won’t ask for me on a job again. All right, I’ll go wet-nurse the smart-aleck little bastard. Where and when?”
“Oh, he didn’t ask for you,” Billy Vail said. “In fact, he put up a bigger squawk than you about working with you. Damn near said the same things you did.” The chief marshall let a small smile work on his face. “Seeing as how the regard is mutual on both sides, y’all ought to get along just fine.”
Longarm felt the heat rising. “That sonofabitch,” he said. “He come at you in exactly that way to trap me. All right. So be it. He’s a sneaky sonofabitch, but I reckon I can put up with him for the good of the service. I just hope the little bastard don’t forget who the senior deputy is. I hope you made it clear to him.”
Billy Vail leaned back in his chair and twined his fingers across his ample little belly. “No,” he said, “I figured you’d get him straightened out on that. Now, sit down and let me lay the matter before you.” He smiled a little. “You wouldn’t want to go down there and have Davis know it all and you be in the dark.”
Longarm sat down and said, “I just hope the sonofabitch has got a wad of money in his pocket and feels fearless enough to play me a little head-up poker. If that happens, then this damn trip will have been worth it.”
“Funny thing, but Austin Davis said-“
Longarm waved his hand. “No, no. Don’t tell me he said the same thing, because I ain’t going to believe YOU.”
The chief marshal looked at his deputy intently. “Custis, do you really not want to work with the man? Is he that bad?”
Longarm worked his head around on his shoulders for a few seconds and picked a piece of lint off his pressed, starched jeans. Then, looking away, he acknowledged grudgingly, “Aw, he ain’t that bad. Fact is, he’s all right. I wouldn’t be one to go around damaging a fellow marshal’s reputation. But he’s got his ways, I’ll tell you that. Just so long as he don’t come on with he’s the expert down along the border. I ain’t going to abide that. Last time I looked, there was seven or eight agents working out of this place could draw assignments on the border, but I always seem to get that card. So I want the smart aleck to understand this ain’t my first stampede when it comes to matters down along the Rio Grande.”
Billy Vail was fighting to suppress a smile. Putting concern in his voice, he said, “Well, Custis, I hate like hell to send you off unhappy. Like you said, there are other deputies I could send.”
Longarm sighed. “No, no. Ain’t no point in that. I’d never ask another man to do work I wouldn’t do myself.” He looked off across the room again. “I swore an oath to do my best at whatever duties come my way and I ain’t backing down on that. No, I’ll go. I’ll make the best of it. Maybe Marshal Davis might learn a thing or two. Though you’ll never get him to admit it.”
“is he really a better poker player than you, Custis?”
Longarm’s eyes flared as he replied, a little louder than necessary, “Hell no! Double hell no!”
“Then how come he claims to have taken your money? Is he lying? I need to know if I got an agent here who lies.”
Longarm still looked outraged. “He might have got away with a little of mine, but he is the most uncommon lucky man you ever saw in your life. But, like I told him, he sits in that chair long enough, that luck will even out and then it will come to skill. Then we’ll see who takes the money home.”
The chief marshal was still fighting a smile. “And is he better with the ladies than you, Custis?”
For a second, Longarm straightened as if he was going to come out of his chair. Finally he subsided and studied the same corner of the room he’d looked at before. He flicked at his trousers. “I ain’t even gonna answer that.”
“I asked,” Billy Vail said, “because, if he is, you better get your ashes hauled tonight. You’ve got to be on a train tomorrow, and I wouldn’t want to see you down there doing without for a long haul.”
Longarm slowly swung his eyes around to his boss. He studied him for a second, realization slowly dawning. “Billy Vail,” he said, “you are a mean old man. You’ve been sitting there, spurring the hell out of me and having yourself a quiet laugh. Well, I reckon you got some chickens going to come home to roost one of these days. I’ll just file this little incident away for future reference.”
Billy Vail smiled big. “Either way, you still got to be on a southbound train in the morning,” he said.
Mrs. Spinner, Longarm thought, was about the most aptly named woman he’d ever met, even if she was still carrying the name of a former husband. She could set your mind spinning, your body spinning, your senses spinning, and even cause the hands of a clock to spin slower or faster depending on her whim. When she put her mind to it, she could get the both of them spinning and that included the bed and the walls and ceiling of the room. She was a lady of short acquaintance, relatively speaking, but one he intended to maintain good relations with as long as she was willing. She had moved into his boarding house a month previous and Longarm had immediately set out on a deliberate plan of seduction. Which was when he discovered that Mrs. Spinner—Lila was her given name—was also one of the most forthright people he’d ever encountered. As he’d begun his early foundation work, she’d suddenly rounded on him and said, “Marshal, are you trying to get me in bed? If that be the case, then let us dispense with these walks in the moonlight and talks in the porch swing and meals in expensive restaurants and get right to the business at hand.”