“Nice sort o’ friend to have.”
“I defended several of her, um, employees once. Gratis. That was before I understood that Sally could afford to hire anything done she wanted. And I do mean anything. She’s insisted on being my friend ever since. I wouldn’t say that I’ve ever objected.”
“No, I can see how you wouldn’t.”
“Do you recall that I told you I was independently well off?”
“Mm, hmm.”
“Actually, Longarm, you just met my independence.” “Makes sense.”
“Are you disappointed in me, dear?”
“Hell, no. Nothing wrong with a lawyer making an honest living. An’ it kinda stands t’ reason that a lawyer’s honest living has t’ be earned in the company o’ folks that ain’t always honest.”
She smiled and took his arm. “You do understand. Good.”
“You think this Sally really will find out where the Utes are being held?”
“Count on it.”
“I’ll feel a whole lot better once they’re safely away from this country.”
Aggie didn’t seem to be paying attention to what he was saying. Instead she was woolgathering, smiling and humming a gay tune and allowing him to guide her while she held onto him and stared toward the sky.
“It’s a shame there aren’t any oysters available,” she said out of nowhere.
“Run that’un by me one more time?”
She laughed. “It’s really quite logical if you think about it, dear. Oysters? You do know, don’t you, what they say oysters are good for?”
“Oh.”
“Exactly. And we haven’t anything more pressing to do tonight while we wait for Sally to tell us where Bray Swind and his people are.”
“Oh,” Longarm said lamely. Unless Agnes Able had all of a sudden had a revelation on the subject of how to please a man, Longarm suspected he was in for a long and none-too-pleasant evening.
The things a man had to do in the line of duty sometimes...
Custis Long wasn’t a man to complain. But. .. damn.
He lay beside a sweaty and contented woman whose passions had all been sated. He only wished he could say as much about his own.
Aggie was still lush. Still beautiful. Still a truly lousy fuck.
On the other hand, the rent there was cheap. And there weren’t any other rooms available in town.
Quid pro quo, as the lawyers said. Which, he supposed, was just another way of saying Life. Oh, well.
He smiled, and tapped the ash of his cheroot into the dish they were using for an ashtray. As before, the dish was resting on the damp flat between Aggie’s tits. Tonight, though, he was smoking alone. She was so limp and wiped out after coming eight, nine times in a row that she wasn’t even interested in showing off her toughness by smoking.
Not that Longarm had had to go completely unsatisfied. Toward the end there he’d finally figured out that he could tighten things up some by having Aggie bring her legs together while he lay on top of her with his thighs positioned outside of hers. It had seemed awkward only to begin with. Best of all, it had turned a loose and sloppy experience into something considerably more enjoyable. And she’d liked it too. If there were going to be any more belly-to-belly encounters with the lady lawyer, Longarm figured to handle them just that way again.
Beside him, Aggie yawned and snuggled deeper into her pillow, even though it was much too early for going to sleep, at least in Longarm’s opinion. Far as he could see, the night had plenty of time to run yet. And he was getting hungry again. Supper was hours past.
What the hell. He swiveled around on his side of the bed and swung his feet to the floor.
“Are you leaving?”
“Hey, I thought you were sleeping.”
“Sleepy,” she admitted with a smile. “But not sleeping.” “Thought I’d go out. Get a drink. Play some cards. I dunno.”
“You’ll come back here tonight?”
“Sure.”
“Good. Wake me when you do. We can do it some more.”
“Sure.” It was a small lie and a polite one. He stepped into his balbriggans, pulled on his socks, reached for his shirt. “Say, Aggie, since you happen t’ be awake, there was something I forgot t’ ask you earlier. Then when I thought of it again you were snoring.”
“Longarm! I couldn’t have. Ladies do not snore.” “Breathing deep?”
“Much better,” she said.
“Anyhow, when I thought of it again I thought you were asleep.”
“Thank you.”
“The question ... if you’ll give me time t’ ask it now ... is this. When you and that woman were talking about the police chief, you both said something about ‘the’ robbery. Like you should both know what robbery was being discussed. An’ you can call me a pessimist if you like, but I’d find it real hard t’ accept the idea that there’s only ever been one robbery in a town the size of this one.”
Aggie laughed, and reached over to find his hand and squeeze it. “Of course we have our fair share of crime, dear. We aren’t a bunch of backward hayseeds, you know. As for ‘the’ robbery, well, that one was special.”
“Mmm?” He did a quick-shuffle stomp with both feet to set his boots comfortably, and checked the position of the big Colt in its cross-draw holster. It needed an adjustment to the right of a quarter inch or so before he could consider it perfect.
“Our train was robbed,” she said.
“Hell, woman, you don’t hardly have a train for anybody to rob.”
“There are a few miles of track, you know. From Brightwater through Snowshoe and a little ways further.” Longarm was aware of that. He’d walked in along the roadbed when he’d come to Snowshoe. Apparently the narrow- gauge railroad here was operating much like the Silver Creek, Tipson, and Glory line did, trying to run cars along what little track they had to raise some working capital while they finished building track.
“Anyway,” Aggie went on, “we had our first train robbery the other day. It was quite exciting.”
“What’d they do, hit the passengers for pocket money?” “Oh, no, much more exciting than that. This was a serious robbery. They took a gold shipment.”
Aggie seemed to think nothing about that, but Longarm damn sure did. There wasn’t any refinery in Snowshoe. He was positive about that. If there had been, he would have seen and smelled it long before now. Hell, the only stamp mills that could be operating there were small-time affairs that disassembled into parts small enough and light enough to be packed in by mule. And without heavy equipment, why, you just plain couldn’t reduce gold ores to anything compact and valuable. The kind of concentrate that could be produced in a camp at Snowshoe’s stage of development was bulky and heavy in relation to value. That very problem was the reason investors were so eager to build narrow-gauge rail lines into the small mountain camps. But until that happened, the concentrates produced in places like Snowshoe were hardly worth stealing, unless someone was prepared to undertake a major freighting project as part of his getaway.
He explained as much to Aggie, but all she did was shrug. “I wouldn’t know about that, dear. I can only tell you that the train was robbed and the gold, whatever form it was in, was stolen.”
“That’s crazy,” he said.
“Bite your tongue.”
“Pardon?”
“Please don’t you ever suggest that criminals should wise up and change their ways, dear. Not in my presence. Why, where would us lawyers be if it weren’t for craziness and cupidity and all those wonderful human failings. So please, dear, speak with respect about the people I hope to have as clients someday.”