“You don’t have t’ take everything you own, y’know. After all, Aggie, you’ll still be in town. Be safe enough for you t’ come back in daylight and fetch whatever doesn’t get carried with you tonight.”
She held up a silk scarf, draped it experimentally at her throat, and inspected the look of it in the bureau mirror, then frowned and threw it back into the drawer in favor of another. “You don’t know much about women, do you, dear?”
“No,” he admitted, “I s’pose I do not.”
Chapter 32
It seemed fairly incredible after all that’d happened already during the evening, but it wasn’t yet midnight when Longarm got Lawyer Able settled in at a lady friend’s house—she’d pointed out that there was no reason for her to pay a hotel’s rates when she did have friends she could stay with a for a few days—and was free to once again look for lodging in Snowshoe.
“Nothing’s changed,” the same supercilious son of a bitch of a hotel clerk said when Longarm reached for the guest register. “We still don’t have any room at the inn. Marshal.” The man gave Longarm a repeat look at a smug smirk too, just like the first time.
“Something’s changed,” Longarm said softly. He turned the book around and flipped it open, paging through in search of the next line open for an entry.
“We have no room for you here,” the clerk said curtly.
Longarm stopped what he was doing. His face had become as still as a death mask, and his eyes bored cold and bleak into the desk man’s.
“I don’t... you can’t force ... I, I mean ...,” the clerk sputtered.
Longarm reached slowly forward, his hand moving with calm deliberation. The clerk watched it as if mesmerized, the way a chick will with utter fascination watch the deadly approach of a snake. The clerk gulped for breath but did not think to pull away.
Longarm touched the knot of the clerk's tie. Gently. Very gently. He tugged it a fraction of an inch to one side, straightening it so that the knot was symmetrically centered between the wings of the man’s collar. Just as slowly as he had reached out, Longarm withdrew his hand. And looked the clerk square in the eyes. “The thing that’s changed,” he said in a voice pitched so low that the clerk had to strain to hear it, “is that tonight you will give me a room.”
The man swallowed. Hard. His breathing had become rapid and shallow, and he looked and acted like a man who had just completed a long-distance run. Or a man who had just walked the edge of an abyss and lived to think back on how good life and living can be. He licked his lips nervously and shuddered. “Yes,” he whispered. “Sir.” “Thank you,” Longarm said without lowering his stare. “Would you ... if you ... that is, uh, sign ... just sign ... please?” He hastily fumbled along the counter to round up a pen and ink bottle, and pushed them in front of Longarm. “Please. Sir.”
Longarm nodded solemnly, and finally dropped his glance so he could see the register to sign it.
By the time he was done with that the desk clerk had a key in front of him. “It’s the best I have available. Sir. Honestly.”
“Thank you.”
“My second best room in the whole house.”
“Thank you.”
“On the top floor, it is. Number... um .. . oh, God, I can’t remember. Sweet Jesus, don’t shoot me, mister. It’s ... it’s ...”
“Calm down, man. It’s written right here on the tag. And nobody’s going to shoot you. Now calm yourself down.” “Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much, sir, thank you." The man looked actually relieved to hear that Longarm wasn’t planning to cut him down right then and there.
Sometime, Longarm mused, he was gonna have to remember to get a look at himself in a mirror when
that sort of mood came on him. Except the only way he could think to do that would be if he was playacting, and so it probably wouldn’t be the same. Sure made him wonder sometimes, though, what he looked like when he got really pissed off and folks started acting like this fella afterward.
Longarm accepted the key and bent to pick up his things.
“I... almost forgot, sir. There was a message. Although I did tell the lady I wouldn’t be seeing you. Which I didn’t know at the time ... you understand?”
“What’s the message?”
‘The, um, guest, the lady, in my best suite? Number thirty-one, sir, two doors away from you. She, uh, asked that you be informed of her arrival, sir. And invited to, um, call upon her. At your convenience. Sir.”
Longarm frowned. He’d just left Aggie at her friend’s place, so it wasn’t her. The only other woman he could think of meeting in this town was Parson’s boss, Sally. And she sure as hell wouldn’t be setting up shop in a legitimate hotel like this one. “Does this lady have a name, mister?”
The clerk looked like he was ready to faint. “Why, it is Miss Skelde, sir. She said you would be expecting her?”
Longarm frowned again. Skelde? Who the hell was this woman named Skelde? It took him several moments before he made the connection. Leah. That white-hot filly whose company he’d enjoyed down in Glory. Skelde was her last name. Sure it was. He’d forgotten all about her. And about the fact that she’d mentioned something about maybe coming to Snowshoe eventually. Apparently “eventually” happened sooner rather than later around there.
“Number thirty-one, you say?”
“Yes, sir. And you are to call on her at your convenience, sir. She emphasized that point. At your convenience.”
“Thanks.” Longarm carried his gear up the staircase to his room. Everything he remembered about Leah said that it wasn’t at all too late for him to pay his call now. He’d just stop in his own room long enough to drop his things
there and give himself a quick washup—he hadn’t had a bath since the last time he slipped and slid his way through Aggie’s cavernous flesh—then pay his respects to the lovely Leah.
Chapter 33
This was better. This was the way it was supposed to be. Longarm stretched, feeling loose and content now, and pulled Leah tight against his chest, her breasts warm and soft against his sweat-filmed skin.
It was amazing, he realized. Point by point and item by item, anybody taking a close inventory would have to say that Agnes Able was far and away the more desirable of the two women.
Aggie was younger, prettier, better built. Likely smarter too if it came down to it. Certainly the more decent and respectable of the two. After all, Aggie was a lawyer. Leah was a former whore trying to make her fortune by indulging the vices of men.
Yet there wasn’t any question which of the two genuinely lovely women Longarm enjoyed being with. In bed Aggie was selfish and petulant and basically inept. Leah was as giving as she was knowledgeable. And that right there was the biggest difference between them. Aggie took without a thought to giving. Leah wanted to give back at least as much as she got. Longarm was damned glad to be where he was right now.
“I like it when you look at me like that,” Leah whispered.
He raised an eyebrow. “An’ how would that be?” he asked.
“I don’t know how to explain it. Like you just were doing.” She smiled. ‘There! You’re doing it again.”
Longarm grinned and kissed her. “I dunno, woman. You might be ’bout half crazy.” Her hand crept between their bodies to find his cock and gently fondle it. “A nice kind o’ crazy, that is,” Longarm amended.