Longarm on the Thunderbird Run

“Do what he says, Walter. Do what he says at once!”

By now they had begun to attract the attention of the guest in the parlor, staring wild-eyed and frightened at the scene being played out in the foyer, and the Mexican working girls looking on with dull-eyed disinterest. The captive whores, playthings of anyone with money enough to pay for the privilege of abusing them, acted like they had seen so much already that they had seen it all. As if nothing that could possibly happen in this house would concern them anymore.

“I really think you should do what the lady says,” Longarm suggested. “Just lay the shotgun down. Nice and easy so it doesn’t go off by accident and hurt somebody. Then we’ll work things out, and nobody gets hurt.”

Walter laughed again.

Longarm did not particularly like the sound of that.

“Do it, Walter. He’ll shoot me. I know he will.” Jessie was in a state of agitation that had her sweating and stuttering. It completely ruined Longarm’s image of her as the high-toned lady of breeding and quality that she presented herself to be.

“Lay the gun down now,” Longarm urged.

“Shit, mister, you think that bitch can’t be replaced? Easy as pie, mister,” Walter said. “The boss can hire all o‘ them he wants. A snap o’ the finger and they’ll be lined up at the door wanting to hire on as madam o‘ this gold mine.” Walter grinned. “No, the way I see it, mister, I’ll just take the both of you. No more problems then. See?”

He lifted the lethal shotgun to his shoulder.

Well shit. Longarm thought. This was not going at all the way it was supposed to.

On the surface of things his choices seemed simple enough. He could stand there and let Walter shoot him and Jessie with one load of buck. Or he could set the derringer aside and allow Walter to shoot him more conveniently out of the sight and hearing of the witnesses in the parlor. Some choices.

“You win,” he said quickly, and Walter’s finger relaxed on the double triggers of the scattergun. To Jessie he added, “Sorry, madam. I didn’t actually mean for any harm to come to you.”

“You son of a bitch!” the ungrateful whore snapped. “Sorry! Sorry, is it?” She tried to kick him, raking his right shin painfully with the heel of her shoe.

Walter was laughing again, obviously enjoying Longarm’s discomfort and Jessie’s anger.

Longarm shrugged and winked at the man—then twisted the little derringer and shot Walter in the face.

Since threatening Jessie hadn’t done it, he had to take the only other route open to him.

The brutal little pistol bellowed, twisting sideways in Longarm’s hand from the poorly contained recoil. A bloody dimple appeared on Walter’s upper lip as the heavy slug from the tiny gun plowed into his half-open mouth and on through tissue and bone, sweeping teeth and scraps of vertebrae with it.

Walter went pale and sat down abruptly, his legs folding so suddenly that they dropped him straight down into a cross-legged position against the foyer wall.

Much too late to do him any good, his finger contracted involuntarily on the rear trigger of the shotgun, and a flaming eruption of lead pellets tore a swath of destruction through the carpet and floorboards of the fancy house.

The recoil of the shot shell kicked the gun loose from Walter’s nerveless fingers, and the stock bounded up to hit him a glancing blow across the temple.

Longarm pushed Jessie away from him and jumped forward to retrieve the shotgun before Walter could get his sense back and reach for it. One barrel of the weapon remained loaded, and Walter was still alive.

The man looked at Longarm with blank, uncomprehending eyes. He worked his mouth trying to speak, but no words came out. The best he could do was a croaking hiss of moving air. The entire roof of his mouth was torn away, and there was a hole in the back of his neck big enough to accomodate a bird’s nest. Blood was pumping out of his mouth and out of the wound in his neck. Lots of blood. He had only a minute or two left before the loss of blood would kill him.

“My God, he’s still alive?” Jessie was lying on the torn carpet of the foyer floor, hands still cuffed behind her.

“Yeah. Crazy what the human body can take, ain’t it.”

“He’s bleeding. You’ve got to stop him from bleeding.”

“What the hell d’you want me to do, tie a tourniquet around his neck an‘ hang him instead?”

“Fine, but make him quit bleeding all over my rug. Do you know how much that thing cost?”

Nice folks at Jessie’s Place, Longarm thought sourly. He snapped open the breach of the shotgun and dropped both shells, the live one and the empty one, onto the now bloody carpet, then tossed the gun aside. He went over to the parlor entry and retreived his Colt and gunbelt. He felt much better with that around his waist again.

Walter solved Jessie’s immediate fears by dying before the carpet was beyond cleaning. He remained sitting upright, propped against the wall with his eyes open but unseeing. The flow of blood dropped off to a slow ooze and then stopped altogether.

“Decent of you, Walter,” Longarm muttered.

The elderly customer with the big belly and the newly chalky complexion fumbled for his hat, paused long enough to throw up violently into the lap of the girl he had been stroking a few minutes earlier, and disappeared in a surprisingly agile run toward the back of the place. Longarm suspected he would not be seeing the gentleman again.

The Mexican girls sat where they were, but he thought he could see a flicker of interest in them now that Walter was dead and Jessie still in handcuffs.

“The party’s almost over, girls,” Longarm told them. “I want you all to go to your rooms and wait there. You don’t have to worry about anyone hurting you again, though. The government will feed and house you till the trial is over, and then we’ll see that you get home again.”

Most of the girls acted like they did not really understand, but one of them actually smiled. She began talking in rapid-fire Spanish to the rest of them.

On the floor near Longarm’s boots, Jessie tried to struggle onto her feet, failed, and had to settle for a sitting position, which was the best she could manage with her hands cuffed.

“Mr. Long

Marshal

we can talk this over. Be reasonable. There really doesn’t have to be a trial, you know.”

She was trying to give him an enticing, come-hither smile, but she could not quite pull it off.

“Normally I’d agree,” Longarm said. “It’d be a lot less expensive for the taxpayers if I just turned you over to the girls.”

Jessie blanched a fish-belly white at that thought.

“But as it happens, ma’am,” Longarm went on as if he hadn’t noticed, “I expect we’ll need your testimony to nail the owner of this place. Seeing as how it isn’t really you.” He smiled down at her.

The lovely Miss Jessie was ready to cling to the straws Longarm was holding within her grasp now. She gave him another of those sickly smiles and said, “You’ll tell the judge that I cooperated, won’t you?”

“Kinda depends on whether or not you cooperate, doesn’t it?”

“Help me up, dearie. There are some papers in my office I’d like to show you.”

“Very nice of you to volunteer,” he said. He bent and helped her to her feet.

Behind them the captive whores were huddled together, talking excitedly. Some of them were beginning to believe it now. They were laughing and crying at the same time.

“Don’t forget,” Longarm told them, “I’ll need your help here. But I’ll see that you are comfortable, and we’ll get you home again just as soon as possible.”

Then he took Jessie by the elbow and led the woman into the small but richly-furnished office where all the lovely records were kept.

Funny thing, but he didn’t feel nearly as exhausted now as he had just a little while ago.

Chapter Twenty-One

Longarm climbed the stairs to the top floor of the courthouse slowly. He was tired again—Lord, but he was tired. His head was throbbing, and his eyes felt like they were on fire. But he was satisfied. For all of that he was satisfied.