The roundsman said, “I’ve noticed that. It makes life hard on me on Halloween. You’d think a man with the money for a sixty-or seventy-foot lot would want to fence it. But most don’t, and the little shits run every which way after they kick over an ash can. How do you feel about the shootist firing on you from, say, any one of them houses, themselves?”
“I’d feel surprised as hell. Both shots came my way fired level. Ain’t a porch in sight that ain’t well above the grade. Aside from that, I don’t think the cuss who was shooting at me would be socially acceptable up here on Sherman Avenue. I know I ain’t.”
The copper badge got out his notepad and asked Longarm to try for some names. Longarm said, “It works more ways than one. Working as long as I have for the department, a man picks up an occasional enemy. As I hardly have to tell you, only a few of the rascals we arrest really mean it when they promise to look us up when they get out. But now and again one really does. It seems more likely, as I study on it, that I just saved myself a needless ride to Julesburg, though.”
He brought the roundsman up to date on Joseph, alias Black Jack, Slade as they both stepped out into the intersection to rescue Longarm’s hat. He picked it up, dusted it off, and put it on again as the Denver law opined, “He won’t last long with that sort of attitude. He must be crazy.”
Longarm said, “That’s what makes him so dangerous. And, no offense, he ain’t been caught yet, with every lawman in the city out to catch him.”
The roundsman wanted Longarm to come to the precinct house with him to make a statement. Longarm shook his head. “There’s nothing to report. I ain’t hurt. He could be most anywhere in town by now. This ain’t shaping up as a paperwork case. We’ve already got all sorts of stuff about young Slade on paper, and none of it helps. He’s gone loco. He ain’t acting at all like the sissy weakling everyone’s always known. He’s acting like he’s turned into someone else entire. He may think he really has. So keep your eye peeled for a mousy-looking little shrimp as has suddenly took to acting like one of the wildest killers the West has ever seen.”
As he shook with the copper badge and ambled on, Longarm mused aloud to himself, “I’m sure glad the one and original Black Jack Slade is dead and buried. I’d hate like hell to go up against two such dangerous lunatics at once!”
CHAPTER 3
Mavis Weatherwax was not a widow woman. She was a divorcee. Some said her former husband had settled a silver mine on her in exchange for her promise never to speak to him again. Her big bay-windowed house stood close to the capitol grounds, where they cut Sherman Avenue in twain. When she came to the door herself, Longarm sensed she’d given her servants the weekend off and had not been expecting company. The junoesque henna-rinsed divorcee had her red hair pinned up properly, but she wore nothing more than a green silk kimono over her considerable curves.
She told him he was a pleasant surprise and asked what she owed for the pleasure. They both knew he hadn’t come for one of the piano lessons she was in the habit of giving. Longarm didn’t know why a gal with her own income wanted to give piano lessons in the first place. The lady who had introduced them at a party a spell back had said Mavis found it a handy excuse to meet young fellows, but some women were inclined to say spiteful things about any gal who was halfway decent-looking and free to do the things they couldn’t.
Longarm told her, “I got some sheet music I’d like an expert opinion on, Miss Mavis. I can’t read music much beyond a hymn book but there’s something odd going on here, unless I’ve forgotten Sunday School entire.”
She hauled him inside and said she was ever ready to cooperate with the law. The powder and paint she wore looked softer inside, but her French perfume smelled stronger. She led him into her parlor, where a Steinway grand was corralled in the bay window, taking up most of the space. He handed her the “Ballad of Black Jack Slade.” She blinked at the cover and said, “Good heavens,” and slid her heroic silk-sheathed behind in place behind the keyboard. She patted what was left of the piano bench for him to sit beside her. He took her up on her invitation and, even sitting closer to her than some might consider proper, he had to let some of his own rump hang over the edge.
She didn’t seem to notice his hip against her own as she put the sheet music on the piano rack and commenced to play. She sang the words as well, not badly at all, although they sure sounded silly coming from a lady with such a high-toned contralto.
He stopped her when she got to the bottom of the first page and said, “That’s enough for now. The last time I heard this song sung it was sung to a different tune. I don’t play the piano any better than I play the typewriter, but let me see if I can one-finger the way it went last night in less seemly surroundings.”
She listened as he tried to reproduce the more dismal way the wanted man had sounded off in the Parthenon until she decided, “You’re flat. I think I know that tune. It’s an old Irish jig, and it goes like this.”
He listened as she tinkled a few bars. Then he said, “Well, he must have been flat, too, but that’s about the way it sounded last night. How come you say it’s an Irish jig? Slade ain’t an Irish name, is it?”
“I think it’s an old Saxon name. That’s not the point. Half our so-called cowboy songs are based on Irish, German, or old English folk songs. You could hardly expect a semi-literate with a poetic streak to compose original music as well. Is there any point to this discussion, Custis? By either melody, this attempt at a ballad is pretty awful.”
He said: “You’ve helped me a heap, Miss Mavis. For now I know two things I didn’t know for sure before. I am looking for a kid who don’t read music and just admired the words of that song about his hero. Better yet, I know he never learned it riding with other cowhands, for had he done so, he’d have known the tune and not just one he’d heard in his modest travels.”
She leaned closer and told him, sort of sultry, that she had no idea what on earth he was talking about.
He figured he owed her that much for her help. he commenced to bring her up to date on the crazy case he was working on. She had somehow herded them both over to a purple plush sofa across the room before he was halfway through, and though he hadn’t invited her to snuggle against him so close it didn’t hurt, and he was recovering from the first shock of her perfume. He had an interesting view down the open V of her loosely tied kimono as well, and he was beginning to suspect he was supposed to. But she must have felt she’d make him nervous if she moved in on him any faster, which was true, so she said, “My, that poor boy does sound strange. But what good does it do you to know he’s devoid of any musical talent as well as common sense, Custis?”
He caught his arm about to slip off the back of the sofa behind her, warned it to behave itself, and said, “The kid has never met anyone who knew the real Black Jack Slade Well enough to sing about him. He memorized the words of that ballad, likely reading them over and over in his lonely room, until he had them down pat, even if he had the tune wrong.”
She repressed a yawn. “Oh, this warm weather makes me so drowsy! Do you mind if I rest my head on your shoulder like this? Go ahead, I’m all ears. Tell me some more about the Wild West.”