Caster studied Longarm for a moment. “Yes,” he finally said. “And it appears like you been playing dumb all along.”
Longarm gave him an innocent look. “Oh, sometimes I don’t have to play. Sometimes it just comes natural. But not this time. This time I have a pretty good idea what I’m going to need to get them cattle to the Galveston port. And it’s a little more than your signature on some papers. They know about you along the coast, Mister Caster. Those rich ranch owners. And they got the law in their pocket. And you and I both know that no cattle slip through quarantine in Brownsville. Mister Mull keeps his reputation slick as a whistle. Here in Laredo is where y’all do your business. We both know that. Don’t take a schoolteacher to figure it out. Of course you can tell me to take my cattle to Brownsville and cross them. You can tell me that, knowing I damn well will be obliged to hold them for ninety days.” Longarm nodded his head. “It’s slick the way y’all run it. I got to give you that. But I want Mull’s name on that paper and I want my port of entry to say Brownsville.”
“Long, YOU are either crazy or you think I am. I got half a mind to have my Mister San Diego pay you a visit.”
“You ain’t going to do that.” Longarm shook his head. “No, that is not something you would do.”
“Why not?”
“Because it is bad business. You can’t do business with a man who is halfway back to Oklahoma Territory.”
“You’d run?”
“I ain’t no gunfighter, Caster. I’m a businessman, just like you. And when you give this some thought you’ll see it’s a good deal. Like I said, this end of your operation is playing out. To drive cattle out of here a man has got to go to the northwest, and that’s too far. The ranchers along the coast have cut off any herds coming from here. You’ll have to do it my way or get out of the game. I figure you can get herds through with Mister Mull’s signature for at least another year. That’s a good chunk of money you can make between now and then.”
Jay Caster opened a drawer of his desk and rummaged around until he found a toothpick. He stuck it in his mouth and rolled it around, regarding Longarm all the while. Watching this made Longarm conscious of the dull ache in his own tooth. He needed to get some laudanum. Caster said, “Where you staying?”
Longarm told him. “If I ain’t there, I’ll be in a poker game at a saloon close by.”
Caster nodded. “Well, why don’t you get up and get the hell on out of here for the time being. I’ll give what you said a good thinking over.”
Longarm put on his hat and stood up. “Just remember,” he said,“my cattle are due in here any day now. We got to have a deal before I put them in quarantine.”
Caster smiled. “You don’t trust me, Mister Long?”
“Trust ain’t got nothing to do with it, Mister Caster. This is business. Trust is something you have when you loan somebody money. I ain’t proposing to loan no money I’m proposing to pay money for a service. You’re mighty sure about what you’re doing without no risk. I want to have the same feeling.”
“I don’t know if you’ll get to feeling that secure,” Caster said, “but we’ll see what we will see.”
Longarm turned toward the door, but before he’d gone but a few steps, he said, over his shoulder, “I’m obliged to you for telling me about my cattle gatherer trying to cheat me. Obliged, but not surprised.”
“Oh? How come?”
Longarm shrugged. “The last two tried the same thing. I done a little lying today but I reckon you can understand about that.”
“Oh, yes,” Caster said. “I can understand lying.”
Longarm didn’t hear from Jay Caster for nearly twenty-four hours. He spent the intervening time moving around the town, acquainting himself with the layout and the country, getting to know the horse Austin Davis had furnished him, playing a little poker, and drinking a little whiskey. He avoided the Tejano Cafe, since he felt that Jasper White would be carrying tales back to Caster, besides which he didn’t want to risk a run-in with Raymond San Diego, mainly because he was the brother of Caster’s gunman and go-between. Once on the downtown street, he saw a Mexican woman who was nearly as beautiful and voluptuous as any woman he’d ever seen in his life. She was walking near the plaza, wearing a gaily colored gown and carrying a parasol over her shoulder. She had long, shining black hair and very light skin that set off her dark eyes and her full red lips. Longarm’s eyes fastened on her square-cut bodice, where he could clearly see how her breasts mounded up and strained against the thin material. Even at a distance the sight of her made his mouth go dry. A man standing nearby had looked around at him and smiled crookedly. “I reckon it’s all right to look,” he said, “but I wouldn’t get too close. That’s Dulcima.”
“Who the hell is Dulcima?”
“That’s Raoul San Diego’s woman, and if you don’t know who he is, then more the pity you.”
“Bad, huh?”
The man had spit on the ground and ground it in the dust with his boot heel. “Bad enough for me to stay clear of him.”
Now Longarm was in his room having just finished breakfast in the hotel dining room. He’d been soaking his tooth in whiskey and vowing to go straight to an apothecary and get some laudanum. He’d bit down wrong on a piece of bacon and the pain had nearly killed him. Now however, after five minutes of soaking it was starting to dull down just a little. There was a knock at the door. Longarm swallowed the whiskey, then took another quick drink from the bottle. He was sitting on the side of the bed and he swiveled to his left so as to be facing the door and to clear his draw in case he had to go for his weapon. He called, “Come in,” hoping it would be Austin Davis, though it was a couple of days early.
The door opened, pushed from the outside, but no one entered. A man stood in the doorway. He was tall and slim and was wearing a flat-crowned border hat just like Austin Davis’s. To Longarm’s thinking, he was not Mexican, though he looked Mexican. He might, Longarm reflected, be a half-breed. His face had regular features, and was not unpleasant to look at. But his eyes were flat and hard and looked like agatee. He was clearly a man used to settling disputes with the big revolver he wore at his side, and since he was still alive, it appeared he must have won all of them. Longarm had no doubt that this was Raoul San Diego.
The man made no move to come in. “You Long?” he asked. He had very little accent.
Longarm nodded. “That would be me. As a guess I’d say you’d be Senor San Diego. Raoul San Diego.”
San Diego ignored the remark. He said, “Senor Caster say you are to come see him this morning. You ready?”
Longarm shook his head. “No, not just at this moment. I got a little business I need to tend to. Tell him I’ll be there in an hour.”
San Diego stared at him, not blinking for half a moment. He was wearing a white shirt that appeared to be silk. Longarm figured that being the gunman for a crooked customs official must pay pretty good. San Diego shrugged. “Mister Caster send me to bring you. Maybe he don’t want to see you in no hour.”
Longarm stood up. He often used his size to make a point. “You tell Mister Caster I got a tooth is causing me a lot of pain. I got to go find something for it. Tell him I’ll get there quick as I can. Maybe in less than half an hour.”
San Diego looked at him for a second or two with his flat eyes, and then he shrugged again. Without a word he turned and disappeared down the hall. But he was wearing big roweled Mexican spurs and Longarm could follow his progress by their ching-changing.
He went over and closed the door, thinking the sonofabitch didn’t have manners enough to do that. Manners or not, Raoul San Diego was someone he didn’t intend to give much of an advantage to. If it came near to shooting time, Longarm determined he would kill the man first and worry about if he’d done right later. Any other course of action might result in a man not having any time to think about anything later.