Vail took another drag on his cigar and continued with a weary sigh, “He wasn’t just whistling Dixie. He’d been amusing the boys down to the House of Detention by letting ‘em put him in cuffs and leg irons, just so they could watch him bust loose.”
Longarm frowned thoughtfully and growled, “Hold on, are we talking about our own government issue restraints, not tricky cuffs and such from a magic shop?”
Vail nodded his head and said, “I told you we were working on how he does it. It’s sort of discouraging to watch a man slip off cold steel the taxpayers of these United States paid good money for. He can’t get out of his patent cell, though. At least, not while an armed guard is posted just outside the bars twenty-four hours a day. But he’s still made ‘em nervous enough to request our extra help in getting him from the cell to the gallows out back.”
Longarm snorted in disgust. “Oh, for God’s sake, it ain’t that far.”
“That’s why I’m likely to cloud up and rain all over you and Guilfoyle if the Great Costello don’t make such a modest trip, Longarm. The prisoner is a killer, but gutless enough to act docile with a gun trained on him from close range. They’ll have his hands cuffed behind him before he leaves the cell, of course, but knowing him, that may not make much difference. You have our permit to blow his spine in two if he makes even one suspicious move on his way out and up. That’s why you’re it—you know damned well what Dutch or even Smiley would make of such orders if the poor cuss even farted on his way to the gallows.”
“I wish I wasn’t so damned reliable. I never signed up with the Justice Department to be a hangman, damn it.
Vail said, soothingly, “They got ‘em a volunteer for that job. Your job is over the moment you deliver the cuss to the tender mercies of the executioner and his crew, on the platform. If the Great Costello makes one of his great escapes once they have the hood and rope on him, it ain’t our necks we have to worry about.”
Longarm blew smoke from both nostrils like an angry bull and said, “I still don’t like it. I don’t mind killing in the line of duty, but no matter what you say about my rough approach to justice from time to time, I’ll thank you to recall that I’ve seldom so much as wounded a gent who wasn’t in a position to do me just as dirty. The notion of prodding a helpless man to his death with my gun leaves a mighty bad taste in my mouth, even before I’ve done it.”
“The federal employee Costello killed can’t taste nothing, right now,” Vail said. “They’re fixing to hang him at Six A.M. sharp. That means we want you and Guilfoyle down there no later than four in the morning. If I was you, I’d turn in early and set my alarm for, oh, say three?”
Longarm got back to his feet as he replied, “You ain’t me, and I’d rather stay up all night than wake up at three in the damned morning to go to a hanging.”
Vail shrugged and said, “What you do on your own time between now and then is up to you and her. But make sure she lets you out of bed in time to give the boys a hand. I mean that, old son. If you mess up you can commend your soul to Jesus, for your ass will belong to me.”
Chapter 2
Despite Billy Vail’s unseemly suggestion, Longarm did not head on down Sherman Avenue to the residence of a certain widow woman—one who would have been more than willing to help him kill the rest of the night. Longarm was too fond of her to subject her to a three A.M. wake-up call after she’d acted so fond of him. Aside from that, he was feeling more morose than horny, even this early. He knew he’d be feeling worse before the long night’s vigil was over.
He’d lied to Billy Vail about having eaten earlier. Now he wished he had, so he stopped at a beanery on Larimer Street to put some lining in his stomach. They’d always made chili con carne hot enough for him before, but this evening it tasted like spitballs in library paste. The black coffee he washed it down with tasted weak and watery as well, but he drank a couple of extra cups anyway; he knew what a long night he was facing.
As he strolled on toward the federal lockup further downtown, Longarm tried to tell himself this wasn’t really the way it had been facing a predawn assault as a teen-aged soldier. It wasn’t him, this time, wondering if the next sunrise he would see might be his last. It was the cuss in the death cell, yonder, who should be thinking thoughts like that. Where in the constitution did it say a man who was only stuck with watching a man die was supposed to feel like he was dying too?
It was darker but still too early to suit Longarm when he got to the Federal House of Detention near the Burlington yards. A long freight was pulling out, moaning wistfully about faraway places. Longarm knew the condemned man inside could hear it as well. It was a sound that made a man feel like traveling even when he had no desperate need to be elsewhere.
A seedy little yellow-brick hotel stood across the street from the lockup. Longarm recalled the taproom opening off the lobby. Right now he needed a drink more than he needed a gander at a man with less than twelve hours to live, so that’s where he headed.
Once in the dimly lit lobby, Longarm discovered other minds seemed to be running in the same channels. Reporter Crawford of the Post was seated in one corner with a schooner of beer and a handsome redhead. He was wearing a checked suit and silly straw hat. The gal’s summer-weight suit was a more sensible beige, but her straw boater was even sillier, and she had a press pass stuck in the brim, with a dead hummingbird sort of peeking over the cardboard.
A couple of other local reporters Longarm knew well enough to howdy had taken up other positions under the potted paper palms. But none of them were handsome redheads, so Longarm ambled over to his pal from the Post to ask how one got a beer served in the lobby. Crawford raised his and said, “You have to carry ‘em out from the taproom. Oh, I’d like you to meet Miss Cynthia Morton from the Kansas City Star.” Then, of course, he had to tell the redhead who Longarm was, and of course she had to say, “Oh, I’ve heard so much about you, Marshal Long! Is it true you once traded shots with Jesse James in the flesh?”
Longarm sighed and replied, “I’m only a deputy marshal, and I warned Ned Buntline what I’d do to him if he ever used my name in one of his wild west magazines again.”
Then he ticked his hat brim at her and added, “I’d best see if they serve needled beer here to junior grade lawmen. Could I fetch you something more seemly from the bar, ma’am?”
She dimpled up at him and said, “No, thanks. As I was just saying to Mr. Crawford, I hate to start early on a night like this.”
“She’s a sob sister,” Crawford explained, with an owlish wink that indicated he didn’t share her reservations about getting drunk early while on deathwatch.
She shot her fellow reporter an annoyed little smile and told Longarm, “I’m no such thing. It’s only natural that my readers expect a reporter of my gender to, well, play up the human interest a bit more.”
Longarm allowed that sounded fair and excused himself to go get that beer. As he approached the taproom doorway Deputy Guilfoyle came out with two schooners, grinned at Longarm, and said, “I figured on meeting you here. You wanna get laid?”
Longarm smiled thinly and replied, “That’s mighty considerate of you, but, no offense, you just ain’t my type.”
Guilfoyle laughed. “I’ve never been that desperate, neither. I’m talking about women. I got me one upstairs too damned pretty to have escaped from the pages of the Police Gazette, and she says she has a friend.”
“Male or female?” asked Longarm, warningly. So the young and somewhat goofy-looking Guilfoyle explained, “They’re staying here at the hotel. Ain’t met both yet. Met the one I’m taking these suds to just a few minutes ago. She said her pal was too shy to drink in public without no escort. When I asked her how shy she might be, she allowed we’d both be more respectable if we got drunk together in her room, so-“