Nolan said, “No. She’s been cooperative as hell for a hysterical young widow woman. Come on, I’ll show you the way.”
They passed down a dark hallway. Through an open doorway Longarm caught a glimpse of an ashen young brunette being rocked in the arms of an older, meaner-looking gal who glared at him as if she thought he was Attila the Hun. He supposed, from their point of view, he was. Lawmen were never too welcome in the house of a wanted murderer.
They went out the back door and crossed a well-tended garden to the carriage house opening on the back alley. The lower level was a cavernous expanse of brick-paved emptiness. Nolan said, “I already asked. Flora Banes, Slade, and her man didn’t keep live or rolling stock, even when he was alive. This close to the center of town, he walked to work. It didn’t pay, next to hiring a rig, on the occasions they went somewhere more important.”
“What about that army mount?”
“None of the neighbors recall seeing it. The kid showed up on foot in army blues a month or so back. They thought it sort of funny, later, when he commenced to wander about all dressed up like a cowboy, with no horse to chase cows with.”
Nolan lit a match and led the way up to the former hayloft. As he lit a wall lamp, Longarm saw that it had been fitted up as a sort of bedroom. In contrast to the rest of the house, it was a mess. The unmade cot was wedged against the sloping rafters, facing a wall that stood straighter, about ten feet away.
“It looks like they built in more than one room up here,” Longarm said.
Nolan said, “I asked the widow woman. Her husband used the room next to this as a workshop. He likely used all this space before his wife’s kid brother moved in to sponge off them. As it is, this is more space than I’d give my brother-in-law if he was a lazy idjet who wouldn’t even try to get a job.”
Longarm found a shabby army uniform and a tweed topcoat hanging in a wardrobe. There were some socks and underwear in the top drawer of the washstand. There was no other furniture. But at least a ton of old magazines, not too neatly stacked, took up six or eight feet of floor space, waist high. Longarm said, “He must have liked to read in bed.” He casually picked up a well-thumbed pulp magazine and added, “Oh, look at this.”
It was a copy of Deadwood Dick, published in London, England. Nolan peered over his shoulder. “I didn’t know Deadwood Dick had his own magazine. I knew Buffalo Bill did, but I didn’t think Deadwood Dick was that important.”
Longarm said, “Deadwood Dick don’t exist, even though I keep running into him in saloons. One time, up in Deadwood, I met two Deadwood Dicks at once.”
“I ain’t sure I follows your drift, Longarm. How in thunder could anyone meet a man who ain’t real?”
Longarm explained, “Deadwood Dick is the creation of an English writer named Charles Perry. In one of the first books he was an outlaw who got killed off, but then Perry brought him back to life as a lawman.”
“In London, England?”
“That’s where Perry lives. He lets Deadwood Dick go all over the place. He got to fight cannibals in the Weird Islands one time, but he mostly pesters folk here in the American West, or the American West as it looks to folk in London Town.”
“But you said you really met him, two of him, in Deadwood, U.S. of A.”
Longarm shook his head. “I met a couple of old drunks named Richard who lived in Deadwood and somehow decided Perry was writing about them. I see there’s one about Calamity Jane, here, and she’d sure like this cover, for I’ve never seen her this skinny and I’ve known her since she was working for Madame Moustache.”
Nolan took the garishly illustrated penny dreadful, held it to the light, and said, “Naw, that ain’t her. Can they make up stories about real folk as well, Longarm?”
“I once told Ned Buntline I’d sue his ass if he put me in one of his magazines, but some old boys get a kick out of it, I reckon. When and if anyone ever gets around to putting down the true history of the things out here, they’re going to have one hell of a time figuring out who did what, with what, to whom. I see they got Buffalo Bill avenging Custer in this one. Oh, hell, look at this!”
It was two cent’s worth of sheet music with a garish orange and purple cover. The title read, “The Ballad Of Black Jack Slade.” When Longarm opened it the first line, sure enough, read: “Gather close around and I’ll tell you a tale.”
Nolan sighed. “You can’t be serious.”
Longarm shrugged. “I never said he was Black Jack Slade. He did. And damned if I don’t think he might have meant it. I hope I’m wrong. The real Jack Slade was mean as hell.”
CHAPTER 2
When Longarm finally reported for work the next morning, Henry, the clerk who played the typewriter in the front office, shot him a now-you’re-gonna-get-it smirk and told him the boss wanted to see him the moment he ever saw fit to show up.
Longarm sighed fatalistically and ambled back to the inner sanctum of U.S. Marshal William Vail to take his chewing like a man.
Old Billy Vail was shorter, fatter, balder, and usually looked meaner than Longarm. But this morning he looked up calmly from behind his cluttered desk, shot a weary glance at the banjo clock on his oak-paneled wall, and said, “Save your excuses. You staked out the nine-thirty northbound Burlington in the vain hope Slade might be headed for his old haunts along the Overland Trail.”
Longarm sat down with a sheepish grin. “It was worth a try. You heard about the shootout?”
“I did. This may come as a surprise to you, but the Denver chief of police and the local federal marshal are supposed to remain on speaking terms. A copy of the police report they were kind enough to give you a copy of was waiting for me when I arrived to open this very office at the time the taxpayers of these United States expect us to start working for them. You’ve had your fun. Now I want you to go get a shave and a haircut, you untidy rascal. For, Saturday or not, the federal district court down the hall is holding a special hearing, and they asked me to supply a deputy to ride herd on an Indian agent who ought to be ashamed of himself.”
Longarm shook his head and said, “Damn it, Billy, this other case is personal. I had the little maniac and I let him walk away and gun two fellow federal agents. You got to let me make up for my awful mistake last night.”
Vail sighed and replied, not unkindly, “I know how dumb you have to be feeling this morning. But, having gone over the whole affair in my head as well as on paper, I can’t say I’d have acted a bit different. You had no way of knowing a taproom troublemaker was anybody serious. Walking away from a pointless argument was the mark of a mature individual. So you not only done right, but now that I’ve read the coroner’s report on them army men, it could’ve been even wiser than you might have thought at the time.”
Longarm grimaced. “Aw, crap. I had the wild-eyed pissant, Billy. Both ways. The blonde behind the bar could have took him in a wrestling match, and he was toting single-action ‘74s. I hate to brag, but you’ve seen me and my double-action.44-40 in action against worse odds.”
“I have. You’re good. So were them two army agents. That’s doubtless how they wound up dead. I calls it the Billy the Kid phenomenon. A phenomenon is like a mirage, only more dangerous.”
Longarm said, “I know what a phenomenon is. What could Billy the Kid have to do with the case? The last I heard, that other little pest was on the dodge down New Mexico way.”
Vail leaned back in his own chair to haul out a nickel cigar as he explained, “That other Kid’s managed to kill more than one growed man with a rep because, like you and them two dead army men, they hesitated the fraction of a second it takes to wind up dead. I’ve just gone over little Joseph Slade’s known history, up to where he suddenly turned horse thief and killer. It’s pathetic as hell. He was too awkward as well as too sickly to engage in schoolyard sports over at Evans. The teachers had to protect him from the usual classroom bullies. One that had him crying to the teacher regular was a ten-year-old girl. Nobody cared when he just stopped coming to school one day because, On top of being a Cry-baby, he was dumb as hell. He was behind all the other kids in reading, spelled awful, and never learned long division at all. Lord knows why the army ever let him join up. I know it’s hard to get men at thirteen dollars a month, but you’d think they’d draw the line some damn place.”