“I’d sure like that,” he lied, “but I’m on the trail of a mad-dog killer and he just showed me there’s no place in town that’s safe. I dare not risk your pretty hide, Miss Mavis. My own could be in enough trouble if he spots me before I spot him again.”
He got to his feet, buckling his gun rig, and put on his hat to leave. As he did so she rose beside him, grabbed him around the waist, and hugged him close as she said, “Oh, dear, if you’re really in that much danger you’d better stay here after all. I’d rather risk my reputation than let you risk your life, you sweet man.”
“That would be wrong for both of us, little darling,” he told her. “No man who has to look at his fool self in the mirror when he’s shaving could ask a lady to get ruined for him. And, besides, I don’t see how I’d ever catch that killer under your piano. So I’d best get it on down the road.”
As he was leaving she coyly suggested her bed might not be too improper a place to explore, after dark. But he left anyway, before she could set a date for his next music lesson.
As he moved on down the avenue under the shade trees, a little old lady wearing a sunbonnet was sweeping her front walk. When he ticked his hatbrim at her, she smiled and said, “Isn’t it nice out this evening, now that it’s started to cool off?”
He smiled back and said, “Yes, ma’am. It sure is a lot cooler than it was just a short spell ago.”
CHAPTER 4
The Denver Public Library wasn’t the only place in town a man could find a book. A little used bookstore on Larimer was open despite the hour. It smelled dusty inside. A little bearded gent wearing specs and a skullcap came out from the back to ask what he could do for the only customer in sight.
Longarm said, “I see you mostly sell regular books, and I don’t blame you. But I’m looking for a Wild West magazine about a real albeit unlikely gent named Black Jack Slade.”
The old book dealer looked pained. “Books about how to build a steam engine or rescue a maiden from a dragon are not good enough for you? We got books of fact and fiction. We got books old and new. We got books by Sir Walter Scott and books by authors nobody ever heard of and probably shouldn’t. But a book about a blackjack? I don’t think so.”
Longarm said he was sorry for being such a pest and turned to go. But the old man stopped him. “Wait. You say you want a penny dreadful? Them we got. Come, I’ll show you. We got a couple of boxes of such trash as part of a house-cleaning sale a few days ago. I was saving them for the rag picker, but who knows?”
Longarm followed the old man back through the musty racks, then through a curtained doorway into pitch blackness. The old man struck a match to light a wall lamp. They were in a small, cluttered storage space piled floor-to-ceiling with pasteboard boxes and wooden crates. The old man hauled a battered child’s toy box out into the light and opened the lid, saying, “Look and enjoy. I’ll be out front if you find anything.”
Longarm hunkered down, setting the top layers of mouldering cheap paper neatly aside until, halfway to the bottom, he found a once-garish, now-faded cover that still looked mighty wild. He read the date—November, 1866—and set the old magazine aside until he’d replaced the others, closed the lid, and shoved the box back where it belonged. Then he picked up his treasure, put the lamp out, and rejoined the old man near the front of the shop.
“I’ll take this one, sir. How much do I owe you?” he asked.
The old man shrugged. “Take it. I sell books, not wastepaper. I told you I was going to get rid of all that trash. I’ve been meaning to put it out back in the alley, but my son is away on business and my back is not what it used to be.”
Longarm said, “You have to let me pay you. This has to be one of the earliest pulp books about a real person, so some of it could be based on fact. You see, I ain’t a gent with bad taste in literature. I’m a deputy U.S. marshal, and this dumb old penny dreadful could be serious evidence in a murder case.”
The old man laughed incredulously and said, “Where but in America could such things happen? You need the book, take the book. It’s one less I have to carry out with my aching back.”
“Now, look, the cover says it sold for a nickel back in Sixty-six. What say we settle for that, at least?”
The old man shook his head stubbornly. “I’m an ethical businessman. I don’t cheat customers. I got that whole box of old magazines thrown in, free, as part of the deal I made for a couple of hundred real books I really wanted. How could I charge you for something I never paid for and was just going to throw out? It’s against the law to do a small favor for a lawman?”
Longarm said, “You sure are a stubborn old cuss, no offense. But would you agree one good turn deserves another?”
The old man shrugged. “Do me a favor and we’ll call it square.”
Longarm took off his hat and coat, put them on the counter with the favor the old man had just done him, and said, “All right. You show me where you want things piled, and that’s where I’ll pile ‘em for you.”
“You don’t mean that,” the old man replied. “I got at least a ton of scrap paper to leave out back for the rag picker.”
“We’d better get cracking, then,” Longarm said.
Longarm didn’t think it made much sense, either, by the time they’d finished. The spry old man had done some of the work, of course, so they were both paper-dusty by the time they’d toted all the trash books the old man was too proud to sell out to the alley. As he dropped the last heavy box beside the back gate, Longarm said, “I hope nobody steals all this paper before your pal can pick it up.”
“Let them,” the old man said. “Anyone willing to lift such a load deserves it. We both must be crazy, but for a lawman you’re a nice change. Where I come from, lawmen don’t help an honest merchant. They help themselves to his merchandise. Do you like sweet wine? I got sweet wine inside and we’ve agreed one good turn deserves another.”
Longarm grinned, wiped his sweaty face with his pocket kerchief, and said, “We’re going to have to stop doing favors for each other before we both wind up crippled. Are we square about that old magazine now?”
“Idiot, I told you it was yours to begin with. But I thank you just the same. I can’t wait to write my brother in the old country that here the cossacks are harmless lunatics.”
They went back inside. Longarm gathered up his things and they parted friendly. The balmy dry air of the mile-high city dried him off as it cooled him down. But the combined effects of a hundred and thirty pound gal and a ton or so of less interesting stuff to manhandle had left him feeling exhausted and thirsty. So when he came to a neighborhood saloon, as sedate as such things got, along Larimer, he ducked in to settle his nerves and catch up on his reading.
The place was laid out a lot like Luke Short’s Long Branch in Dodge. Built into a storefront, it was no more than twenty feet wide and ran back about forty. The bar ran the long way, along one wall. Small tables were set along the other wall. The place was almost empty, save for a few regulars and a desperate as well as homely Mex gal lounging against the bar in a flouncy skirt with an organdy rose pinned to one overweight hip. As he ordered a schooner of needled beer at the bar she flashed a gold tooth at him and murmured, “Buenoches, querido. A onde va?”
He was going to a table to sit down. He didn’t answer her with more than a dry smile. As he moved to do so, she started to follow, but the barkeep warned her in Spanish that she was messing with the law. Sometimes it came in handy to be so well known in the rougher parts of town, Longarm thought.
He sat at a table facing the front, drank some suds, and spread his find on the table. It was entitled, “Black Jack Slade, Terror of the Overland Trail.”