The bartender grunted. “Yeah, maybe,” he allowed. “Anybody in particular tell you to come here?”
Longarm didn’t want to risk coming up with a phony name. The bartender would likely see right through that. He said, “Nope. I just heard talk around town that the Crystal Star usually has a good game going on.”
“Could be.” The man’s eyes licked over the gold piece in Longarm’s hand like the tongue of a thirsty man in the desert when he spots a water hole.
Longarm slid the coin across the bar. “I’d admire to know for sure.”
The drink juggler’s fingers covered the gold piece as he inclined his head toward the door at the end of the bar. “Down there. Knock and tell ‘em Casey said it was all right.”
“Much obliged,” Longarm said with a smile. Carrying his mug of beer, as Cy had before him, he sidled along the bar toward the door.
A man’s voice answered his knock. “Yeah?”
Longarm put his head close to the door and said, “Casey sent me back here.”
The panel opened, and the guard inside said, “Big ‘un, ain’t you?”
“Back home they called me a runt,” Longarm replied, grinning, as he stepped through the door. The guard shut it behind him.
This man was definitely not a runt. He stood a couple of inches taller than Longarm, and his shoulders were even broader than the lawman’s. His bullet-shaped head was covered with very close-cropped gray hair. The thick ridge above his bushy eyebrows and the misshapen ears told Longarm the guard had spent a considerable amount of time in a prizefight ring. The dullness that glazed the eyes of many such men was missing in this fella, however. His gaze was sharp and surprisingly intelligent as he ran it over Longarm.
After a second, he pointed to another door at the end of a short hall. “Go through there. It’ll cost you a hundred to buy in.”
“No problem,” Longarm assured him. He had a hundred dollars in his pockets—barely. It was expense money intended to last him the whole assignment. Billy Vail would pitch a fit if Longarm lost the whole wad and had to wire him for more. But Longarm didn’t plan on that happening.
He went to the other door, opened it, and stepped into a smoky, windowless room lit by a single lamp hanging over the center of a baize-covered table. It could have been high noon or black midnight outside, and in here no one would ever know the difference. Five men sat around the table. None of them looked up from the cards in their hands, even when Longarm eased the door shut behind him with a click. Cy sat to Longarm’s left. There was an empty chair directly in front of Longarm; then Cy was ensconced in the first chair going around the table clockwise. To Cy’s left was a youngster dressed in cowhand garb who was sweating heavily. Across the table from the empty chair was a man in the frock coat and silk hat of a professional gambler. To his left sat two men in dusty black suits who might have looked like preachers had they not been staring at the cards in their hands and clenching cigars between their teeth.
“I call,” said the young cowpoke. He tossed coins into the pot and laid down his cards. “Three tens.”
The gambler laughed and tossed in his hand. “Beats me, kid.
The men in black shook their heads and threw in their cards. That left Cy, who laughed and said, “Sorry. Three ladies.” He laid down the queens. The cowboy grimaced and shook his head. The pot wasn’t too sizable, but his eyes still followed it with longing and regret as Cy raked it in.
Longarm said, “Looks like Lady Luck’s riding with you, friend. Mind if I buy into the game?”
Cy glanced up at him, and it took all of his poker-playing skill to keep his face impassive, Longarm figured. Recognition and fear flickered for an instant in Cy’s eyes; then he shrugged and said, “I’ll be glad to take your money too, mister.”
Clearly, he didn’t want Longarm revealing that they knew each other. From the looks of the piles of coins and bills in front of each man, Cy had been winning steadily ever since he had joined the game. Since he was already winning, why would he care if the other players knew that he and Longarm were acquainted? The two of them couldn’t be accused of working together to cheat when Longarm hadn’t even been there.
Maybe there was some connection between Cy and one of the other men that he didn’t want Longarm to know about. Maybe Cy was working for one of those black-suited gents and this was his way of getting his payoff. Come to think of it, there was something familiar about both of those soberly dressed gentlemen. Longarm gave them a friendly nod as he sat down in the empty chair. “Howdy, boys,” he said. He didn’t offer his name.
He didn’t have to, because one of the men suddenly gasped, “Shit! It’s Longarm!” and went for his gun.
Longarm knew what it meant when the man’s hand darted underneath his coat. The other man in black was following suit. Longarm came up out of the chair, moving so fast that the seat overturned behind him. His fingers wrapped around the butt of the .44 and slid it smoothly from the cross-draw rig. The room abruptly reverberated with the deafening thunder of gunshots.
Longarm’s first round went into the chest of the man who had recognized him, knocking him backward over the chair from which he had risen in a half-crouch. He died without getting a shot off. The second man fired, but he rushed his aim and the slug whipped harmlessly past Longarm’s ear to thud into the wall behind the lawman. Longarm aimed for the fella’s right shoulder, hoping to wing him and take him prisoner so that he could find out what this was all about. But the man darted to the side just as Longarm squeezed the trigger, and the bullet caught him at the base of the throat. He staggered back but stayed on his feet somehow as blood fountained from the wound. The gun in his hand started to come up again for another shot. His hand shook wildly—but in these close quarters, even a wild shot could be deadly.
With a curse, Longarm fired again. The bullet bored into the man’s forehead and drove him backward against the wall. He dropped the gun and pitched forward onto his face, dead.
Cy, the young cowboy, and the gambler had all gone diving for cover when the guns came out. The jockey was the first one to lift himself from behind the table, and from the corner of his eye Longarm saw that Cy had a little pistol clutched in his hand. Longarm didn’t wait to find out what Cy intended to do with the gun. He took a half-step that brought him within arm’s reach of the jockey and swatted him with a sweeping backhand. The blow knocked Cy completely off his feet and flung him against the other wall. As he bounced off, Longarm plucked the little pistol from his fingers. Cy would have fallen had he not caught hold of the back of a chair to prop himself up.
“That’s it!” snapped Longarm. “Everybody just hold it! The shooting’s over!”
“Whatever you say, mister,” came the voice of the cowboy. He peeked over the edge of the card-littered table.
“That goes double for me, sir,” added the gambler. He didn’t even show his head.
Longarm stepped back against the door into the room. As long as he couldn’t see the cowboy and the gambler, he didn’t fully trust them not to have guns in their hands. “Show yourselves, both of you!” he barked.
They stood up slowly, empty hands held where he could see them. Cy was still holding on to the back of the chair, head down as he shook it groggily.
With no warning, the door slammed against Longarm’s back, knocking him toward the table. He sprawled half onto it, scattering cards and coins and greenbacks. As he tried to roll over and get back to his feet, he cursed himself for forgetting about the guard right outside in the hall. The big man had heard the shooting, of course, and had come busting in to see what was going on. Longarm rolled onto his back and saw the bruiser leaning toward him, a snarl on his face, ham-like hands outstretched toward Longarm’s neck. Obviously the guard intended to bounce him around a little, then sort everything out later.