She shook her head and said, “I may have to sip something strong indeed before we cross over to watch the final moments of poor Mr. Costello, but I have a bottle of something strong indeed in my room, upstairs. I don’t think I should go near it before … six in the morning?”
“It’ll be over by then, if things go the way they’re meant to. I have to head across even earlier. I’d say your best bet would be to hold out until about five, get drunk as you can, and join us around five-thirty. He’ll still be in his cell. It’s a short walk to the gallows out back.”
She looked sick and said, “I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it on my own. Mr. Crawford had agreed to escort me to the execution yard and sort of prop me up if my knees gave way. I don’t suppose you”
“I can’t,” he cut in. “You reporters and required witnesses will be let into the yard to watch, but I fear I’ll be up on the platform during the time your knees are most apt to feel the weakest.”
She looked at him in sudden horror and asked, “You’re not … not the one, are you?”
He shook his head and answered quickly, “Lord, no. It’s bad enough my sidekick and me have to hand him over to the hangman and his crew. Don’t ask me why—or maybe I should ask you why, since you know the poor cuss. Is the Great Costello as good at escaping as they say he is?”
“Well, I’ve never seen him escape from a gallows yard. But having seen his act more than once I can tell you he’s incredible when it comes to escaping from locked steamer trunks and so forth.”
Then she laughed in sudden understanding and said, “Mr. Crawford was wondering what you were doing here tonight, since you had no connection with the case. Are you really worried the Great Costello will escape his own hanging, as if he was up on a real stage?”
“I ain’t worried about it,” Longarm said, “someone else must be. The Great Costello would have to be the bee’s knees as an escape artist even without me and Guilfoyle riding herd on him.”
“Heavens, I’m forgetting my duties as a reporter,” she said. “Let me take some notes as you tell me just what extra precautions you’ll be taking in the morning and—Oh, dear I left my pad and pencil up in my room, silly me.”
As she rose, Longarm got to his own feet, of course, since along with learning to wash up before coming to table, he’d been taught that was the thing to do whenever a lady got up, no matter where she might be heading. So he was mildly surprised when she suggested, “Bring your pitcher along, if you like.”
He left it where it was. For if they were just going up to her room for a pad and pencil, there was no need to tote such a cumbersome load, and, if they weren’t fixing to come right back down, he didn’t want the infernal beer at all.
If he was reading the smoke signals in her warm green eyes at all right, he was going to have a hell of a time making it to the hanging in time, even sober.
Chapter 3
He hadn’t been wrong. Being of the female persuasion—and no doubt feeling this called upon her to display a good deal more mystification about the simple facts of human nature than any man—Cynthia stared in wonder as Longarm struck a match for their second-wind smoke, and asked him, “How did you do that, speaking of magicians?”
Since the burning match was the first light they’d had on the subject for some time, Longarm didn’t shake it out as he got his cheroot going. Gripping the smoke between his smiling teeth and noting for sure, at last, that she was redheaded all over, he told her, “It’s hard to say, now that we’re feeling a mite sane again.”
She blew the match out and snuggled her naked charms against his love-warmed flank, saying, “You’re right. It was insane. I’m sure I’d have said no if only I’d known what you were doing before you were, well, doing it. My God, I’d hate to get into a gunfight with you. I know it seems a little late now to tell you I’m no blushing schoolgirl, but up until now I’ve always managed to hold out for the usual flowers, books, and candy for at least a few nights.”
He patted her bare shoulder with his free hand and said, “We only had this one night, if you’re really heading back to K.C. right after the hanging. I’m sorry about the flowers, books, and candy, but I wasn’t expecting to meet nobody but the Great Costello this close to the rail yards.”
She laughed softly and began to toy with the hair on his belly as she replied, “I wasn’t expecting to meet anyone like you out here, either. But as you must have guessed by now, celibacy is not my style by choice. You must think I’m a mighty easy lay, right?”
He let out some smoke, kissed the part in her hair, and told her, “Don’t be too hard on yourself, honey, I’m an easy lay as well. So what do you reckon we ought to do about that, call one another names or just relax and enjoy this happy turn of events?”
She began to spin belly yarn further down as she kissed his naked chest. “I can see my maidenly reservations are falling on deaf ears, thank God. In a way, I’m sort of glad we’ll only have this one short night together.”
“How come? Are you bored with my efforts to please a lady already?”
She slid her free hand all the way to where they both must have wanted it and gave his flaccid virility a playful squeeze. “You haven’t begun to please me if you’re half the man I suspect you are. I just meant I was sort of glad we don’t really know one another and probably won’t meet again, because that way it won’t really matter what you think of me, later, if I really let myself go with you, see?”
Longarm felt himself beginning to rise to the occasion as she fondled him with skill and enthusiasm. He took a last drag on the cheroot, reached to snub it out in the ashtray on the bed table, and told her, “I’m game for anything that don’t hurt. But, no offense, I got the distinct impression you was letting yourself go when first we started a short spell back, you hot-natured little thing.”
She rolled into a kneeling position beside him as she sort of growled, “You’re right about my having a passionate nature, Custis. I’ve often wondered whether it was a blessing or a curse. I’ve lost one husband and more than one steady boyfriend because you men seem so easy to shock, but I can’t help it. I can behave myself in a ladylike fashion if I have to, or I can just let go and do whatever feels natural, no matter what Queen Victoria and her ilk may feel about so-called crimes against nature.”
Longarm hissed in pleasure as she began to demonstrate her ability to shock. Aside from it being a statute felony in more than one state, including Colorado, she did it shockingly well.
“It’s a good thing I’m a federal lawman,” he groaned. She didn’t answer. She couldn’t, with her mouth so full. He protested, “Hold on, let’s not waste it.” But it was too late as he began to climax from his insteps up. Then she spun on her center of gravity to impale herself on his raging orgasm and, while this left him unable to move for a time, she proceeded to slide up and down as if she were riding a merry-go-round, or rather as if she were a merry-go-round pony setting it’s own pace on a brass pole that had no say in the matter.
He couldn’t be sure—the room was dark, save for the faint street light through the window curtains—but from the feel of her fingernails between them, he suspected she was playing with herself as well as driving him loco. He tried to roll her over to finish, again, right. She gasped, “No. Let me finish this way and then you can do anything you want to me.”