He chuckled and withdrew, saying, "I admire a natural gal who's good at acting innocent. But as to other transgressions I had in mind, if only you'd hold still and let me tempt you, I'd like you to rustle me up the bank ledger that would have the last transactions of Miss Janice Carpenter now."
Viggy rolled into a nude seated pose on the tufted leather as she gasped, "Good heavens, I'd feel less wicked taking it Greek-style! Mister Plover would have a fit if he knew I'd been screwing you in his private office, but he'd fire me for sure if he ever caught me letting an outsider go through our books!"
Longarm slid down beside her. "I only want to have me a peek at that one doubtless filed-away and inactive ledger, honey lamb. What if I was to just slip it under my arm, escort you home, and mayhaps take some notes from it on your kitchen table--when we weren't in bed, I mean. That way, nobody could possibly catch me at it here in the bank after business hours."
She sighed and said, "I swear I'm going to wind up Frenching you before this night is over, you persistent thing. Even one such ledger is heavy and awkward, and what on earth do you expect to find that I haven't already told you?"
He said, "Exact numbers, for one thing. If there should be any record of just whom she was getting regular checks from, I know some railroad dicks I could wire to make certain the old colored lady got out of here alive and rich instead of dead and robbed."
Viggy gasped, "Good heavens, you do deal with a rough crowd, don't you? But I'm sure the poor thing was never robbed. Now that I recall, she made that Friday withdrawal late in the day. So who but I could have known she was carrying that much money and... Surely you don't suspect me of any crime, Custis?"
He patted her bare thigh and assured her, "Not federal leastways. I ain't sure what Brown County has on its statute books on cohabitation, and you just made me promise never to tell."
He bent over to gather up the shirt they'd thrown to the floor and rustle up a cheroot and a light as he explained. "Eating the apple a bite at a time, I don't mean to worry about the old gal getting in any trouble around here before I figure out where she would have gone from here and whether she ever got there."
So while he lit the smoke, the big buxom blonde went bare-ass into another room, and soon returned with her big firm tits draped over the spine of an oblong ledger bound in slate-gray buckram. When she asked why he couldn't just jot down the little they had on one depositor, Longarm explained, "Might spot something interesting about others who put money in or took some out around the same time. I once caught a crook so dumb that after he'd held up a bank with a mask on he deposited the exact same amount with them, doubtless figuring it was the safest place in town to leave his money, knowing he was the only serious bank robber about."
Viggy laughed and said she couldn't believe any crook could be so stupid. Longarm had to chuckle fondly before he agreed. "Leavenworth ain't exactly a rival of Yale or Harvard. If the average crook was half as smart as he thought he was, he'd go into some safer line of work. You take that morose Indian I met up with earlier today, for example. He's been wanted for years. But he'd found himself a job as a cowhand well clear of town, and I'd have likely never considered looking for him out at the Runeberg spread if he'd only had enough sense to stay put. I don't have anything on Miss Helga Runeberg, or didn't until this very day. But old Chief Youngwolf couldn't leave it at that. He had to come looking for me with a sissy English shotgun, and now look where he's spending the night."
He took a drag on the cheroot before he added, "They don't aim to plant him in Potter's Field before we can verify who he was air tight. I'm pretty sure he had to be the same Ojibwa who ran off with some white army deserters years ago to stop trains and rob banks for a living. Why don't we get dressed and talk about the wages of sin some more at your place?"
She dimpled sweetly, and allowed she'd like some supper as well as more sinning. Then, as they were getting dressed, she casually asked how come the mean Indian had been gunning for him like that.
Longarm shrugged and said, "They asked him to, I reckon. I had less luck at the Western Union than here. Reckless as old Chief may have been, he was too slick to visit the telegraph office in the dusky flesh, and his white confederate must have been sending and receiving some innocent-looking code."
The beautiful blonde innocently asked how Longarm knew the hatchet-faced Indian had a white confederate.
Longarm hauled on his jeans, saying, "I just told you. Nobody at your Western Union office here in New Ulm remembers anyone at all like Youngwolf, and his Colorado pals must have warned him I was on my way or he wouldn't have come to town to... Hmm, they might have only told him to keep an eye on me whilst they tried to figure just what I knew by whomsoever I met up with."
He began to button his shirt as he decided, "Too late to ask him now. My point is that they must have been communicating by wire. It'd take too long by longhand. Not only that, but to keep in touch by wire he'd have either had to ride into town more than your average cowhand could afford or have somebody here in town in cahoots with him, see?"
She didn't, bless her. She asked innocently, "Why would he have to ride into town to pick up a telegram from Denver? I heard Western Union will deliver one for a modest extra fee."
He laughed and said he could just picture a crook getting secret telegrams by messenger in a bunkhouse. Then he suddenly stared at her thunderstruck and declared, "Jesus H. Christ, speaking of dumb bastards, I sure take the cake! For you're right! He wouldn't need much help, or even a slick code, if he'd never been using the Western Union here in New Ulm at all!"
CHAPTER 21
It wasn't too late to ride, but Longarm had other questions to ask there in New Ulm before he did. So he went on home with Viggy for the night.
They met nobody as she smuggled him in the back way from the alley. She'd already told him on that chesterfield that she didn't smoke. So the lingering smell of another brand of tobacco in her otherwise tidy quarters in the carriage-house loft helped Longarm understand how any gal so young could know so many interesting positions.
He hadn't told her he was a virgin either, and he'd already seen she kept her buxom blond body clean and tidy too, so what the hell. And there was a lot to be said for such a comfortable port in a storm with an easy lay who wasn't likely to piss and moan about it when a man just had to get it on down the road.
Screwing, scrubbing, and sweeping seemed to sum up the big blonde's household skills, though. They'd have wound up supping on weak tea, burnt toast, and jam if Longarm hadn't found some buckwheat flour and sorghum molasses in the back of her cupboard. She said a man who could make flapjacks after screwing a gal so fine would make a swell catch for some lucky lady who was ready to settle down.
Fortunately, she didn't seem ready to settle down just yet. She'd read those books by Miss Virginia Woodhull, advising ladies young and old to get on top and never marry up with any skunk who didn't think a woman ought to have the right to vote.
After she'd been on top enough to settle her nerves a spell, she said she didn't mind if he left the lamp lit and sat up to read in bed, as long as he didn't expect her to. But after he'd gone through that bank ledger more than once, taking notes, Viggy rolled over in bed to prop herself up on one bare elbow, a pretty sight, and demand he explain what he was muttering about.
Longarm pointed at an entry with his stub pencil, but she didn't seem that interested in the tight handwriting as he explained, "That Wabasha Chambrun said he had no notion where that hundred-dollar note he gave Israel Bedford came from, and this far back leastways, he had no account with your bank. But here's an entry saying one of your tellers cashed a thousand-dollar check for one Antelope Chambrun just before Christmas. Miss Tatowiyeh Wachipi, Chambrun's pure Santee wife, must shorten her name when she signs it in Wasichu."