“Five fifty to you, Tony.”
“Call.”
“Call.”
“Me too.”
The others showed their hands, the results ranging from a pair of kings to a high of three nines.
Longarm leaned forward, as if trying to concentrate … and falling short of what was needed.
“Let us look at your hand, Marshal,” Amos Vent, otherwise known as Lester Colton, prompted.
“What? Oh. Yeah. Han’. Right.” He dropped his cards onto the table, spread into a fan shape. He held a full house, aces over treys.
“Shit,” the distinguished banker grumbled.
“Do I win?” Longarm asked of no one in particular.
“Yes, you win. Let me help you with that money. And I tell you what else, if you don’t mind a suggestion.”
“Go ‘head. Suggest.”
“I think you’ve had about enough fun for one night, Deputy. Let me help you back to your room. You’re at the hotel, are you?”
“I th … thi … thing so. Yeah. Hotel. Damn ri’, at the ol’ hotel.”
“All right then.” Colton nodded to his companions at the table. “If you will please excuse us, gentlemen? I believe the good marshal here is done for the night.”
There was no disagreement with the plan, and Colton helped Longarm shove winnings into his coat pockets, then pretty much picked the much larger man up and slung one sagging arm over his own thin shoulders to help Longarm on his way.
With Longarm weaving and staggering and loudly trying to sing a poorly remembered sea chanty, Colton managed to get out of the saloon and down the street to the hotel where a disgusted desk clerk handed over Longarm’s key and gave directions to the appropriate room.
It seemed all Colton could do to get Longarm up the staircase without losing him in an end-over-end tumble back down into the lobby, but by dint of much pulling and tugging he got the job done.
He found the correct room, unlocked it and unceremoniously dumped Longarm onto the bed, then turned and shut and bolted the door. At which point Amos Vent and Custis Long both went into great roaring gasps of laughter.
“My god, Longarm, didn’t you think you were overdoing it toward the end there? I swear I thought I was gonna bust a gut from trying to not laugh out loud and spoil it for you.”
“They bought it, didn’t they?”
“Yes, but it seems an awful lot of trouble just to win a couple dollars.”
Longarm grinned. “Twenty-some bucks to the good. Hell, Amos, I’ve worked a lot of full months for less’n that. An’ I expect you have too.”
“That I have,” the smallish Ranger agreed.
“An’ anyway, it wasn’t winning a pot that I had in mind. I figured we needed some excuse t’ get you up here t’ where we could talk in private an’ afterward be seen acting friendly even though we ain’t supposed t’ know each other. Well, I’d say it’s worked out all right.”
“I kinda thought that was what you wanted.”
Longarm chuckled and, quite sober now that no one else was watching, pulled out cheroots for himself and for his old friend. “Now sit down an’ start talking, Amos, an’ don’t even think about quitting until you’ve filled me in on why you’re playacting like a dead man’s long-lost kin. Or whatever the hell it is you’re supposed t’ be here.”
Vent accepted the smoke and helped himself to a seat in the room’s one comfortable chair, crossing his legs and leaning back to enjoy the flavor of the smoke for a moment. Then, a much more serious expression replacing the playfulness in his eyes, he leaned forward and set in to giving Longarm the requested explanations.
Chapter 8
Politics. Damn, Longarm hated politics. It only served to get in the way of any honest effort to enforce laws.
But politics was something a lawman damn sure had to deal with. And too often. This right here was a case in point.
Texas state politics and U.S. government-level politics and, local politics were all mixed up together here.
Amos Vent explained that. More or less. The truth seemed to be that Amos himself wasn’t sure about all of it, at least not to the extent of knowing where the bodies were buried or even who it was in town here that could point to the burial spots.
Amos was here pretending to be the dead man’s cousin—with an interest in the handling of the late postmaster’s estate—because there were state politicians in Austin who were ordering the Texas attorney general, and through him the Texas Rangers, to lay off Addington so the local power brokers wouldn’t be offended. It had something to do with the state people needing the support of some of the powerful locals to get something voted through the state legislature. And at the same time there was another faction that wanted to be able to accomplish this without riling certain folks at the federal level in Washington. And then there was supposed to be some ebb and flow of power here at the local level, but neither Longarm nor Amos knew what the hell that was supposed to be about.
It was a mess, that’s what it was, Longarm figured. As political interference always was.
But then all Longarm wanted was to find out who the hell killed Norman Colton. And then go home.
“What I can’t understand,” Longarm muttered at length, “is what the hell I’m doin’ here.”
Amos gave him a sheepish look.
“You know something ‘bout that, Amos?”
“I, uh, guess I do at that.”
“Well?”
“My boss sent me here undercover, you know, so we could be sure the job was getting done and yet not let those people in Austin know that we were ignoring their message to lay off. You can understand that, I’m sure.”
“To a point, yeah. Me, I’d go ahead an’ rub their noses in it But then it ain’t my decision t’ make.”
“I might prefer to do that myself, but it wasn’t my decision either. Anyway, back to the point of all this, when my boss was telling me how he wanted it handled he was worried about what might happen when a U.S. deputy marshal came along to put that oar in the water. Which we naturally knew was going to happen sooner or later no matter how much pressure the boys from Austin tried to apply in Washington. I mean, you fellas keep yourselves mostly free of politics. More than we can manage, though we sure do try.”
Longarm nodded and puffed on his cheroot, content to wait for Amos to continue at his own pace.
“I got to tell you, asking for you to come in on this thing, you in particular that is, was my idea. Like I said, we knew there would have to be someone involved from the federal level. There didn’t seem any way around that. And I figured as good as you and I get along, well, if it was you they assigned down here we could talk it out. Like we’re doing now. And I knew we could count on you to not blow any whistles on us. I mean, everyone in town here knows you’re carrying a badge and have legal jurisdiction. They might not like it, but they understand it. And it’s no secret. Me they shouldn’t know about. And don’t have to. I figure we can work together on this thing, Longarm, and when the time comes you can be the one to make any arrests or ask for warrants or whatever else might be involved. That way no one will ever have to know there was a Ranger here, and my boss won’t be in jeopardy of losing his job to the whims of a bunch of assholes with deep pockets and more interest in votes than in justice.”
“Just figured you could use me any ol’ way you wanted, did you?” Longarm asked.
Amos grinned. “Something like that, yeah.”
“Well, I expect you were right. Reckon I’ll go along with your plan.” Longarm grinned back at his old friend. “But I got t’ tell you, my boss got kinda peeved at having one o’ his people requested an’ nobody knowing why or by who. Bothered him some, it did.”