Longarm pointed a finger at him. “Go to hell, Fish. I’ll see you in the morning. Stand pat with two high pair. Keep them guessing. Adios.”
Longarm went out of the saloon into the cool air of the New Mexico night. At that elevation, the air was crisp with a tinge of rain in it. Could be that they would get some relief from the heat of the days. But what he mainly needed relief from right now was Lily Gail’s silliness. He didn’t know how long it would take him to find out enough pertinent facts about the two remaining Gallagher brothers that would allow them to be identified. But then, any conversation with Lily Gail was a considerable chore.
As he walked back to his hotel, he went over and over in his mind any possibilities that he had overlooked. Fisher had wondered why he simply didn’t bring in another federal marshal or two. He’d understood, however, when Longarm had explained his reasoning. And so far as the local law went, they wouldn’t do him a bit of good in Oklahoma Territory, even if they wanted to go, which he seriously doubted that they would. Fisher had given his opinion that the local law wasn’t to be trusted with anything more dangerous than taking a bribe. He’d said, “That’s one of the reasons I’ve gotten out of the law business, Longarm. Maybe at your level it’s all clean and nice and straight, but where I was, I never could depend on the man to my right, to my left, or behind me. The only person that I was sure of was the one in front of me and he was trying to kill me. Maybe had I gone the way you did, I’d feel different, but I have to tell you that being a local lawman in these territories, and even in some of the states, is the next thing to walking on quicksand. You never know where you are going to stand.”
So in the end that brought it down to Longarm and the only man locally that he felt he could trust, Fisher Lee. What just the two of them could do against perhaps a dozen or two of the Gallaghers was anybody’s guess. He knew Fisher was right, that he was drawing into a bad hand, one that he would ordinarily have folded. But to have them within reach was an itch that he just had to scratch. If you’d said that he was being brave or courageous, he’d have laughed in your face and called you a liar. In his mind, what he was doing was handling his job with the best judgment that he had at the time opportunity presented itself. Only time would tell if that judgment proved to be right or wrong. The pay was the same whether you were sitting behind a desk or running a risk of getting yourself killed. The government didn’t particularly give a damn.
Longarm was somewhat surprised to find Lily Gail in his room when he opened the door and stepped inside. Even though the hour was late, knowing her, he’d halfway expected her to be looking helpless on the street or sitting in the lobby practicing that innocent flirtation that she was the innocent mistress of, but she was where he’d told her to be, surprising as it was. She was lying on the bed, completely naked. As he came in, she made a pretense of fanning herself with her hand. She said, “My, isn’t it hot?”
Longarm crossed to the window that fronted the street and pulled the shade all the way down. The room was only dimly lit, but it was lit well enough for any interested passer-by to have gotten a good glimpse of Lily Gail. He supposed that was her second favorite hobby, being viewed without any clothes on. For a moment he stood by the bed, gazing down at her. She was a wonder, all pink and white and golden. Even though he knew she was well into her twenties, she still seemed to have the remnants of baby fat in all the right places, and it made her seem even softer, on the sides of her breasts, in her chubby little hands and feet, and especially in the little mound where the golden silken hairs grew.
Longarm looked her over and said, “Lily Gail, you are shameless, did you know that?”
“Why, whatever do you mean, Mister Deputy Marshal Custis Long?”
He pulled up a chair and sat down by the bedside table with the whiskey and his cigars handy to reach. He poured himself half of a tumbler of the Maryland whiskey and then took a moment to light a small cigar. As he shook out the match he said, trying to sound casual, “Lily Gail, who is the taller of the two, Clem or Rufus?”
She turned her head and gave him her innocent wide-eyed look. She said, “Why, I don’t know, Custis. I’ve never taken notice. Don’t you know?”
He gave her a skinny smile. “I guess I’ve never taken notice either. Which one of them would you think was the better-looking?”
She gave a little hoot of laughter. “Better-looking? Why, that would be like picking between two mud fences. Better-looking, my stars.”
“Lily Gail, would you mind pulling the bedspread over you?”
“But it’s so hot.” She gave him a look. “I thought you liked to look at me, Mister Long.”
“I do,” he said. “Generally speaking I do, but right now I’m trying to think. Do either Rufus or Clem have any distinguishing marks?”
Lily Gail gave him a blank look. “What?”
Longarm got up and flicked the sheet a little further over her. He said, “Oh, scars, birthmarks. You know what I’m talking about. Doesn’t Rufus have a wart on his nose?”
“Oh, them kind of things. I thought you knew whether or not he had a wart on his nose.”
“Whose nose?”
“Why, whichever one you’re talking about.”
It was like playing checkers with a toddler who couldn’t see the board, much less understand the game. He said, “Does one of them have a wart on his nose, Lily Gail?”
“I don’t know. You’re the one that said it. I’ve never noticed one before, but then maybe they had it before I knew them.”
Longarm was watching her carefully. He knew that Lily Gail had a sly guile about her that made her slippery as a green fish. He knew that if he didn’t approach her in exactly the right way, she would catch on and use it to her advantage and try to throw him off the mark.
He said, “I never said either one of them had a wart, Lily Gail. It’s been a while since I last saw either one of them. I was just trying to remember their faces. Which one, or either, or both, has something that sets him out?”
“You mean like those there distinguishing marks you were talking about? Like a wart?”
Longarm said, “Dammit, Lily Gail, it doesn’t have to be a wart, it can be a scar.”
“Well, Rufus has got that big scar along his jaw.”
Longarm gave her a look like he thought she was lying. He said in a reproving voice, “Now, Lily Gail, what are you talking about, Rufus having a scar on his jaw?”
“Why, he has. He’s got a white scar about six inches long on his jawbone.”
Longarm tried to sound doubting. “And where did he get that?”
She said, “You know good and well that his daddy clobbered him on his head with a revolver and laid the flesh of Rufus’s face wide open right on that bone. It never did close right and there’s that long white scar there.”
“That’s the left side of his face, isn’t it?”
“Of course it is. You know that his daddy was right-handed.”
“I seem to remember that now.”
“I should think you would.”
Longarm narrowed his eyes at her. “How long ago was that, Lily Gail?”
She said, roaming her eyes around the room, “Oh, I don’t know, six, seven years, I don’t know. Somewhere back then.”
He said with an edge in his voice, “Lily Gail, why are you lying to me?”
“Well, of all the nerve. We’re having a nice conversation and you up and accuse me of lying.”
“The reason I’m accusing you of lying is because you are. The last time we discussed this, you told me that you hadn’t known the Gallaghers that long. You told me that you’d met them through your husband, and that there hadn’t been more than three or four years since you were married to him.”