Longarm #431 Read online

  “Have you ever had to fuck him?” Longarm asked.

  Hortense peered down toward her shoes. “Yes, sir,” she said in a very small voice. “I had to give it to him or go to jail. Whoring is against the law here, though you wouldn’t know it from the way folks act. Anyway, that is what the marshal does when he really wants some pussy. He grabs a girl and hauls her over to the jail. If she wants to get loose, she has to drop her knickers for him.

  “I had to, you see, because my kids needed me. Otherwise I would have sat in their damn jail and let the town pay to feed me. But I didn’t have that option, so I gave him the quickest fuck I could.” She smiled up at him, her eyelashes long and curly against the pallor of her cheek. “Us girls know how to bring a man off fast if we want to or go the other direction and let him string it out. That would be like if we like a fellow. Or if we’re enjoying it ourselves, which to tell you the truth doesn’t happen very much.”

  “You’re a nice girl, Hortense. Thank you for telling me all this,” Longarm said. He slipped an arm around her waist and gave her a hug.

  “Mr. Long.”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Would you, I mean . . . well, I like you just fine. And it would please me if we could get naked and, um, do stuff.” She smiled. “Not for pay, you understand, but just because you’re a boy and I’m a girl and . . . I like you.”

  Longarm smiled down at her. “As ’t happens, I like you just fine, too, Hortense.”

  He stood and began unbuttoning his shirt.

  Chapter 54

  Hortense was soft in his arms and gentle. Longarm lay on his back and tried not to move while the girl nuzzled him and sighed.

  She knelt over him and licked his nipples, first one and then the other. Her tongue roved lightly over his belly. Up and down the length of his cock. Down onto his balls and behind them to the sensitive flesh there.

  “Roll over,” she said.

  “On my stomach?”

  “Yes, of course on your stomach.”

  “What d’ you . . . ?”

  “Just do it,” Hortense said.

  With a shrug and a sigh, Longarm did as the girl asked.

  He felt her leave the bed and turned his head to look. She had gone to the washstand beside the dressing table and was sloshing a washcloth in it. She seemed to be soaping the cloth.

  When she returned to the bed she began washing Longarm’s ass.

  “That water is cold, y’know,” he said.

  “Are you complaining?”

  “No. Just thought I’d mention it,” he said with a grin.

  “This won’t take long.”

  “Good.”

  She washed him rather thoroughly, returned the washcloth to the washstand and fetched a towel, which she used to carefully dry Longarm’s butt.

  “I don’t understand this,” he said.

  “Just mentioning again?”

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  “Surely you’ve had anilingus before this?” Hortense said.

  “I wouldn’t know if I’ve had it or not since I don’t know what it is,” he admitted.

  The girl laughed. And proceeded to lick his asshole.

  “Damn if that don’t feel awful good,” Longarm said.

  She lifted her head long enough to say, “It’s supposed to, silly. Now let me get back to what I was doing.”

  She did. And it did indeed feel good. Different. But good. By the time Hortense sat up, Longarm’s cock was about to explode.

  He rolled over and smiled. “Now,” he said, “it’s my turn.”

  Chapter 55

  Longarm treated himself to a thick steak sizzling in its own juices and a slab of apple pie for dessert. Then he went up to his room and retrieved the shotgun. Made sure it was loaded and checked the cylinders of both Colts, including the new one stuffed into the small of his back.

  He always carried a few extra .45 cartridges, but now he took four shiny brass 12-gauge shotshells out of the box and dropped them into his coat pocket, too.

  Then he went downstairs and walked over to the town marshal’s office.

  “You’re early,” Hughes said.

  “Yeah,” Longarm said, smiling. “I’m eager.” He also wanted to avoid a setup like Melody and Gray seemed to be planning for the coming morning.

  “Do you have my hundred?” Hughes asked.

  “Right here.” Longarm reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of currency. He peeled off two fifties and placed them on the marshal’s desk. “Paper be all right?”

  “Fine,” Hughes said. “Just fine.” The bills disappeared into the man’s pocket in the blink of an eye.

  Hughes stood and reached for his hat. “Ready?”

  “Been ready,” Longarm said.

  The marshal led Longarm down Crowell City’s main street and left three blocks to the edge of town, where he opened the gate of a tall, neatly tended house.

  “In here?” Longarm asked.

  “Just knock. They’re expecting you.” He laughed. “They’re expecting almost anyone. This is a whorehouse. The best we have. Beautiful girls. You’ll see.”

  “You don’t intend t’ come in, do you?”

  “Why, I had thought so. To introduce you around,” Hughes said. “You boys don’t know each other, and . . .”

  “And you don’t need t’ be getting inta my business,” Longarm said. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d as leave you stayed out o’ this.”

  “But I thought . . .”

  “You been paid, Wilse. You done your good deed. Now go on back into town. If things go well, me and the Tatums will meet you later. Maybe all of us have a drink together.” Or all meet in the marshal’s office so Deputy U.S. Marshal Long could borrow the town’s jail overnight. With Hughes in it, too, if he could think of a reason. “But right now,” Longarm said to the crooked marshal, “I’m wantin’ to keep our talk private.”

  “I . . . um . . . well.” Hughes stammered and paused for a bit, obviously trying to think of a good reason why he should be included in the gang’s discussions.

  He could not, and in the end he turned and tugged his hat brim low and sulked his way back into town, shoulders slumped and boots shuffling in the dirt.

  Longarm looked up at the big house and took a fresh grip on the sawed-off 12 gauge, then checked to make sure the spare pistol in his back was positioned so he could get to it in a hurry.

  Then he took a deep breath and marched up the dirt pathway to the porch.

  Chapter 56

  His knock was answered by a dignified woman. He would not say she was elderly, but she certainly was bordering on it. She was dressed as if for a formal ball, with something sparkling woven into her graying hair and a gown, cut very low, that shimmered in the lamplight.

  “Ma’am,” he said, bowing slightly and making a leg.

  The woman smiled. “Very nice, Mr. Long. Please come inside. Marshal Hughes said you wish to speak with some of my guests. You are entirely welcome to do so. If you require privacy”—she chuckled—“that is one of the things we do best.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” he said, handing his pale-gray Stetson to a young girl, either mulatto or Indian, who reached for it.

  “One of your gentleman friends is in the parlor. Please join them. Josie will fetch you refreshment if you like. Just tell her what you want,” the madam said.

  “You’re very kind.” He smiled.

  “May we, um, set that aside for safekeeping?” the woman asked, nodding toward his sawed-off.

  “Actually, ma’am, I’d rather hang on to it, if you don’t mind.”

  “And if I do mind?” she asked.

  “Then I’d rather hang on to it.”

  The madam nodded to the mulatto girl, who bobbed her head and curtsied and hurried away wit
h Longarm’s hat.

  “The parlor is through that doorway,” the madam said, motioning to indicate a double-wide doorway.

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  Longarm stepped through the doorway and was confronted with a solid wall of perfume and powders. The place positively reeked of competing scents. It was filled also with beauty.

  Four utterly gorgeous whores were seated on the gilded furnishings.

  A gentleman Longarm had seen in the Crowell City bank was at the far end of the room with a stunning blond girl curled up in his lap.

  And Warren Tatum was sitting in an overstuffed armchair to the left of the doorway.

  Tatum saw Longarm about the same time that Longarm spotted him. “You, you son of a bitch!” he barked, reaching for his pistol.

  Longarm tipped his shotgun up and tripped the front trigger. Warren Tatum’s chest crumpled in on itself in a red mush. The room was filled with noise and smoke.

  There was no need to fire the second barrel.

  The girls squealed and screamed and fled from the room in a mad crush of velvet and satin. The banker took a look at Longarm and turned pale. He did not move.

  Longarm stepped to the side and pressed against the wall while he broke the action of the scattergun, extracted the spent shell and shoved in a fresh one.

  He peered around the edge of the doorway. True to form, the guests had the good sense to get the hell out of there. Probably, he thought, they were less worried about what he might do than they were about being caught up in a public spectacle and their wives finding out where they were spending their evenings.

  The girls scattered first. But then they were not encumbered much by clothing. Darn good-looking girls though. Whoever owned this house had quite a stable of fillies.

  Two men wearing shirts and underpants and carrying assorted other articles of clothing came next, followed by a large man with flaming red hair and a cigar stuck jauntily between his teeth.

  Longarm stepped into view. “Stop right there, Albert,” he snapped.

  “Fuck you, Long.” The big man reached for his pistol, but Longarm’s 12-gauge was quicker.

  Smoke and flame filled the foyer. Albert Tatum’s left leg buckled but he was able to remain upright. He dragged his revolver out of the leather and struggled to cock it.

  Longarm fired his second barrel. This time the load of heavy shot hit him in the belly and nearly tore the man in two. Albert Tatum tumbled head over heels down the staircase.

  “Shit,” Longarm mumbled. “Looks like I gotta dig the last one out.”

  He tossed the empty shotgun aside and pulled his spare Colt out of the small of his back, then started warily up the steps.

  Kurt Tatum was in one of those rooms on the second floor, and by now he knew something was up.

  Longarm held his Colt cocked and ready. He felt a flutter of apprehension in his belly, but this was something that had to be done.

  Chapter 57

  “Come on out, Kurt. We got you surrounded,” Longarm shouted.

  Most of the doors to the cribs along the hall were standing open after the occupants fled. Two remained closed. Longarm figured Kurt Tatum pretty much had to be inside one of those.

  Temporarily. Longarm intended to have his ass out of there in another minute or two.

  He stood in front of the first of the closed doors, hesitated for only a moment, then kicked the door open. Wood splintered and the latch was broken, and inside there were screams. Apparently this was the place where a number of the whores had taken refuge.

  But there was no sign of Kurt.

  Longarm touched the brim of his Stetson and nodded. “Sorry, ladies.”

  He moved down to the last closed door.

  “Kurt. I’m takin’ you in. The question is, d’ you walk out or are you carried by your pallbearers,” Longarm shouted.

  A bullet came smashing through the flimsy door.

  “Well,” Longarm murmured, “that answers that question. Now I know where the bastard is.”

  He heard a crash from inside the room, followed by screams from the room next door.

  With a grunt of effort, Longarm kicked the last door open, stepped into the doorway and triggered six quick shots from his “spare” .45, then dropped it and palmed his own tried and true Colt.

  As he had more than half hoped, Kurt Tatum counted the shots and made the fatal mistake of thinking Longarm’s gun was empty.

  The man stepped into the hallway, emerging from the room next door after smashing through the paper-thin wall. He held a Remington revolver and wore nothing but a smirk as he prepared to gun down the lawman.

  But instead of facing a man with an empty revolver, he looked into the muzzle of Longarm’s Colt.

  The .45 erupted, spewing lead and flame and smoke, all three of which flashed in the direction of Kurt Tatum’s gut.

  Longarm’s first shot struck hard. The second doubled him over. A third, aimed with care, drove through Kurt’s forehead and beyond. Tatum dropped as if he were poleaxed. He never got a shot off.

  It took a few minutes for the smoke to clear and for people’s hearing to return after the concussion of the gunfire indoors, but eventually heads began to appear inquisitively as the working girls came to look at the rivers of blood that had been spilled in their house.

  “Someone best run get Marshal Hughes,” Longarm said.

  “I already sent my maid to fetch him,” the madam responded. “Would you like a drink?”

  “I would, come t’ think of it,” Longarm said. He had a headache from the repeated explosions, but it was nothing that a shot of rye could not cure.

  “Go on into the parlor then,” the madam told him. “There are decanters on the sideboard. Help yourself. Are you . . . that is to say . . . ?”

  “No,” Longarm said, even though he knew good and well that the woman was asking if he was the law. “Just bad blood.” Which was true enough in a way. Those three had taken the life of a federal officer when they gunned down that mail clerk. That was more than enough cause for there to be bad blood between them.

  Longarm got his drink. And his arrest. “We couldn’t come to an agreement,” he said when Marshal Hughes showed up.

  He grinned when they got back to the jail. “How much is it gonna cost me this time t’ bond out, Wilse?”

  Chapter 58

  Longarm was up early the next morning. Instead of going to Buck’s café for breakfast he walked down to the livery and paid for a horse and saddle, then tied them on the street in front of the hotel before leaving the horse behind and walking to the café for a quick meal.

  From there he hurried back to his room and sat at the window watching down the street to the town marshal’s office. Melody Thompson showed up about eight thirty.

  If the information Hortense gave him was correct, Melody would tell Hughes to wait a bit before he informed Longarm of Al Gray’s supposed whereabouts. By then she would be in position to ambush him on his way to wherever that was supposed to be.

  She was, he noticed, wearing riding clothes instead of her usual gown.

  When she left the marshal’s office, Longarm followed her, keeping well back and leading the rented horse.

  The presence of the horse was actually a help to him and not a bother. He could walk beside the animal and use it to shield him from view if she happened to turn and look around.

  The woman’s confidence was such that she never bothered to look behind her, though.

  Melody went to a small house on the edge of town and went inside.

  Longarm loitered behind a tall, spreading lavender bush, his horse cropping grass beside him, while Melody was inside. Five minutes or so after she went indoors she reappeared. And this time Al Gray was with her.

  So was a long, fringed buckskin rifle scabbard. So far everything Hortense had said wa
s right on the money. Longarm mouthed a silent thank-you to the little girl with the big heart. When he got back to town, he thought, he wanted to give that girl and her children whatever reward was posted for Gray. It seemed only fair.

  As for Wilson Hughes, Longarm simply did not know what to do. He knew perfectly well what he wanted to do. He wanted to throw the son of a bitch behind bars.

  But Hughes so far had done nothing that was against federal law. If Hughes had indeed sent Longarm on the trail where Al Gray and Melody Thompson would be waiting to kill him, Longarm could have arrested the man on a charge of conspiring to murder a federal officer. By bypassing that and following the lethal duo on his own, Longarm would not have that meeting with the marshal and so he could not prove the conspiracy.

  It seemed a shame, he thought.

  On the other hand . . .

  Melody and Gray acted like they did not have a care in the world. Certainly they did not worry about anyone trailing them. They rode side by side, holding hands like a pair of lovers, on the road toward Wildwood, Gray astride and Melody on a sidesaddle. As if she were a virgin and needed to protect that cherry.

  Custis Long kept out of sight as much as he could and followed.

  The pair turned off the road two miles or so out of town and rode into an aspen grove on a low hill flanking the road.

  Longarm’s smile was grim as he looked for a place to leave his horse.

  He intended to give them a little time up there—perhaps they could find some way to pass the time together while they waited for the fly to enter their trap—then, well, then they would just have to see who did what to whom.

  Chapter 59

  Fucking amateurs, Longarm thought. He had been over this road, back and forth, just days earlier and he could think of at least two other ambush sites that would have been better. Not that he was complaining.

  They had chosen the place closest to town. Lazy bastards. Did they think he would be that easy to take down?