She pointed toward the wall. About a foot and a half up from the head of the bed, Longarm could see where San Diego’s first bullet had plowed into the whitewashed masonry, burying itself in the soft concrete and leaving what looked to be a big black eye in the white plaster.
“I doan know who he chooting at,” Dulcima said, “you or me. I theenk maybe he doan care, but I theenk you save my life when you push me so hard that I fly off the bed.”
Longarm looked at her, standing there naked. Nothing stirred in him, which he could well understand. “He got home a little faster than you said, didn’t he?”
She shrugged and put out her hands philosophically. “He comes, he goes. I doan always know. But, yes, he come back faster. I tol’ heem I didn’t want heem to come back, but he come back anyway. Beeg surprise for me.”
He still looked at her. “Yeah, I guess you were surprised.” He swung his eyes to where the slug had hit the wall and to where she had been sitting on the bed just before San Diego had fired. The trajectory of the bullet had been too high to have hit Longarm, because he’d been lying flat on his back. But it would have caught her neatly right between her lovely breasts. “Still,” he said, “we could have locked the door. Might have saved us a surprise. And his life.”
Dulcima crawled slowly back up onto the bed. “I was een too much of the hurry. I din’t theenk of the door. Maybe you din’t theenk of it also.”
He shrugged and sat down on the bed and started pulling on his jeans. Behind him he heard her say, “Why for you get dressed? We jus’ start, no?”
He looked around at her. “There’s a dead man out there just beyond the door. I killed him. You really think I feel like making love right now?” He stood up, walked past the foot of the bed, and crossed to the door. There he could see the remains of Raoul San Diego. He lay halfway down the stairs with just his boots and part of his left leg on the small landing. Longarm knew he didn’t have to go down and touch him to make sure he was dead. There was not a great deal of blood. The first slug had taken him so flush in the chest that Longarm reckoned the second shot had been wasted. But it was reflex and he had gotten it off so closely on the heels of the first that San Diego hadn’t fallen very far before the second bullet twisted him to his left, taking what life remained in him. Longarm looked down and shook his head and sighed. He had escaped San Diego’s bullet, but he still had a hell of a mess on his hands. The very thing he’d tried to avoid had happened; he’d killed Caster’s go-between and gunhand. And Caster wasn’t going to like that. As he walked back into the bedroom, Longarm debated his options. There didn’t seem to be many, unless he could somehow persuade Dulcima to help him drop San Diego’s body in the Rio Grande and then to forget what she’d seen and be ready to swear the man had left her and gone to Mexico and that was that.
But he had the uneasy feeling that the volatile and voluptuous Dulcima would not be willing to go along with the idea. It was clear that she wasn’t very upset about San Diego getting killed. And maybe she really had been through with him. But she didn’t seem to Longarm like a woman who could keep a secret, or even wanted to. He had an idea she would want him to cut the man’s ears off and go parading around town with them like he’d seen a matador do in a corrida he’d once been to in Mexico City. That would be more her style. He went over to the bed and looked at her, trying to think of how to broach the subject. Just as he was about to open his mouth, he heard a sound from downstairs. He instantly put his finger to his lips, warning Dulcima to be quiet. But she said, “That ees just one of my servants coming een. Maybe they hear the chooting.”
And that was another problem; the servants. If they got a look at Raoul San Diego, there would be no way at all to keep the news of his death from reaching Caster’s ears. Or, worse his brother’s.
Longarm turned toward the door, still signaling Dulcima to be quiet. He’d stuck his revolver in the waistband of his jeans, and he drew it out and softly pulled back the hammer as he moved to the door. He stood just inside the bedroom, mostly covered by the left side of the door frame. He could see the landing and most of the way down the stairs. He could hear a voice, either speaking to someone or calling something out in low tones. Longarm stepped through the doorway, crossed the landing, and plastered himself up against the wall next to the stairs. He peeked around the corner, his revolver at the ready. He could see down into the main room at the foot of the stairs. He heard the voice again and, just as he recognized the words, Austin Davis suddenly stepped into view, his revolver in his hand. He moved slowly, looking around, calling out, “Mister Long? Mister Long?”
Longarm relaxed and shoved his gun back in his waistband. “Austin, up here,” he said, “Here, at the top of the stairs.” He stepped out, standing over San Diego’s body.
Davis looked up, relief on his face. “Longarm, wh-“
“Watch that.”
“Mister Long, what the hell are you doing? I heard gunshots.” Then Davis came near enough to the stairs to see the body. “Who the hell you got there? Looks like he come in second in a two-man race.”
“Never mind. Get up here. We got some figuring out to do.”
Longarm watched as his partner came slowly up the stairs, staring at the body. Halfway up, he cocked his head around so he could see into the face of the dead man. “Hell, that’s Raoul himself,” he said. “Had a gun in his hand. There it is. And he’s got two holes in him that he didn’t have before.” Davis glanced up at Longarm. “This your work?”
Longarm nodded. He stepped to the door of the bedroom to give Davis room to come up. “He didn’t give me no choice,” he explained to Davis. “He come through the door shooting. I’m lucky he either missed me or wasn’t shooting for me.”
Davis got to the landing and looked down at San Diego. “I thought you didn’t want to kill him.”
“Damnit, Austin, of course I didn’t want to kill him. I told you he didn’t give me no choice. Hell, I wasn’t going to take a bullet myself or let him shoot somebody else. No, I didn’t want to shoot him. Right now I’m trying to figure out what to do. Caster ain’t going to like this one little bit.”
The young deputy was standing just back from the door. “You said shoot somebody else?” he asked. “What else? Who else? And, by the way, what the hell are you doing up here? This his office, or something?” And with that, he stepped in front of Longarm and into the doorway. The move caught Longarm off guard and all he could do was turn with Davis so as to see what Davis did.
Dulcima was standing on the far side of the bed, near the foot. She had put on some sort of thin silk robe that barely came below her knees—but she had not bothered to close it, much less tie the wide sash. She was standing there, her feet a little apart, all of her left breast showing and some of her right, and her lustrous pubic hairs shining against her pale tan skin.
Austin Davis stopped short at the sight of her. “GREAT HORNED FROGS!” he exclaimed, and his mouth fell open. Almost involuntarily he took a step backwards, as if he had intruded upon a private scene.