by Evans, Tabor
“Where next, Custis?” Noogie asked.
Longarm shrugged. “Reckon I’ll go interview everybody again.” He looked at Bligh and said, “That includes you, Tom. I’ll come by later this mornin’ and talk t’ you about it.” He shook his head. “Damnit, there’s a leak someplace. Has t’ be. That’s the only way those sons o’ bitches could know what coaches to hit.” To Theresa he said, “Thank you for this breakfast. Best one I can remember in ever so long.”
“I am pleased that you enjoy it, Custis.”
“Would somebody please pass that there platter o’ham?”
Chapter 49
On a whim Longarm walked over to the investment bank to speak with them there. When he entered the quiet building his reception was like he was trying to intrude on a very exclusive gentleman’s club. And unlike at Theresa Bullea’s whorehouse, he most definitely was not regarded as a gentleman here.
The fellow who hurried to meet him just inside the door had the air of a man who was rushing to put out the trash. The cheeky son of a bitch even took Longarm by the elbow and tried to steer him back toward the door.
“Whoa up, old son,” Longarm said with a patently phony smile as he set his weight to resist the tug on his arm. “I’m goin’ in that way, not back where I just been.”
“I don’t believe you are a customer, and…”
“And I’m gonna swat you like a fly if you don’t leave me be, damnit,” Longarm snapped.
“But…”
“I’m a deputy United States marshal, mister, an’ you do not want t’ piss me off. Now take me to the boss o’ this outfit an’ do it pronto.”
“Yes, sir, I…yes.” The fellow—he could not have weighed much more than a hundred pounds soaking wet and could not have budged Longarm on his best day—let go of Longarm’s elbow and led the way into the depths of the dark and eerily silent bank.
George Conway was bald and beefy and no help at all. “Yes, we accept deposits of cash, Marshal,” he explained, “but those are rare.”
“Payroll money?” Longarm asked.
“Not usually although sometimes one of our more, um, prosperous customers will have some coinage left over from their payroll accounts. And of course we do business with several establishments that deal in large amounts of small coin. There are not many of those, as you might imagine.”
“Yes,” Longarm said. “That’s exactly what I would imagine.”
Conway seemed to have no idea that Longarm’s remark was sarcasm. Longarm wondered if the man took his tie off when he fucked his wife. If he fucked his wife. If he had a wife.
“You’re aware of the stagecoach robberies?” Longarm asked.
“I am, sir.”
“Do any of your, um, deposits correlate to those robberies, Mr. Conway?”
“They do not.”
“Then I thank you for your time.”
“Mr. Perkin will see you out,” Conway said, bowing and backing away to go do whatever it was that people like that went and did.
Longarm went back out onto the street and turned toward the next closest bank. He was greeted by a shout and the sight of Noogie DiNunzio running down the street, revolver in hand.
“What’s up, Noogie?” Longarm shouted, breaking into a run to catch up with his friend.
“It’s Tom Bligh,” Noogie shouted over his shoulder. “He’s been shot.”
Longarm stretched his legs and got to the bank’s doors only half a step behind DiNunzio.
Chapter 50
Bligh lay on the stone flooring of his bank. He had been dead for some time as the coldness of his flesh testified. A pool of scarlet blood would likely lend a permanent stain to the floor.
The man had been shot twice, once in the heart and another in the face.
“Powder burns,” Longarm said. “He was shot from close up.”
“He was shot by somebody he knew and trusted,” DiNunzio said.
“How d’you know that, Noogie?” Longarm asked, unmindful, at least for the moment, of the crowd that was gathering around the body.
“When he was on the job, Tom was a careful man. Suspicious, you might even say. Leroy there says Tom stayed behind when the bank closed its regular hours, and the body is cold. He’s been dead almost that long, I’d say. That means he opened up after hours. And Tom wouldn’t do a thing like that unless he was confident about the person he was letting in.”
Longarm grunted. “Interesting,” he said. “But why?”
Noogie shrugged. “He didn’t have time to write on the floor in his blood or nothing like that. I wisht he’d’ve left a note or something.”
“Yeah, that’d be convenient. Reckon we’ll just have t’ make do with…” He looked up at one of the bank employees hovering over the body. “Your name is Leroy?”
The bank clerk nodded vigorously, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Leroy White, Marshal.”
“You found the body?”
“Yes, sir. When I came to work this morning. The door was unlocked, like always. Mr. Bligh always got to the bank before anyone else. He opened up and left the door open for the rest of us. So I didn’t think anything suspicious until I got inside and saw Mr. Bligh lying there. I could see all that blood, and I’ve seen dead men before. I was in the war, so I saw lots of them.”
“Was he expecting anyone when you closed up last night?”
The clerk shook his head. “Not that I know of, Marshal. But I tell you what I can maybe do. I can look through the ledgers and see if anything was deposited after hours or if there were any withdrawals. I have to figure out what, if anything, was stolen anyhow.”
“You can do that?” Longarm asked.
“Marshal, we don’t get so very many deposits to begin with, and I handle all the routine transactions at the window. If Mr. Bligh took in anything significant, I would see it. And of course I’ll want to look and see what might have been stolen by Mr. Bligh’s killer.”
“Good idea, Mr.…you said your name is White?”
“Yes, sir. It might take me a little while, but I’ll look into all those things and get back to you quick as I can.”
“Thanks.” Longarm stood, his knee joints cracking. He reached for a cheroot and took his time about lighting it while DiNunzio and an undertaker talked about what was to be done with the body. Then Longarm and DiNunzio left the bank together.
“Any idea who will take charge of the body?” Longarm asked. “Did the man have family someplace?”
“Oh, Tom has family right here in Deadwood. He’s…that is he was…married, you know.”
“He was? But he was spending time at Theresa’s place.”
Noogie turned his head and spat into the street. “Tom only went over to Theresa’s when there was something special going on. To relax his nerves. Things like an audit of his books…this is only a branch of a Cheyenne bank, you know.”
“No, I didn’t realize that.”
“Oh, yes. Tom always was nervous when he was audited. Not that he was allowing any shenanigans. Not at all. He was just fussy about that sort of thing. Or any large transactions. He was nervous about those, too.”
“Like large payroll amounts coming in?” Longarm asked.
“I suppose so,” Noogie said. “I wouldn’t know for sure. Tom never mentioned those. Not to me nor anyone else that I know of.”
Longarm grunted and thought for a moment. Then he said, “I’d best get back to what I was doing. I’m reinterviewing everyone at the banks and the stage line offices. I want to talk with everyone Bligh had contact with. All that I can find anyway.” He grunted, the sound as much growl as grunt. “I’m no closer to finding those robbers now than I was when Billy Vail sent me up here.”
“I’d go with you, Custis, except I have to notify Mary about Tom being killed and open an investigation report on the murder.”
“All right,” Longarm said. “Lunch later?”
“Sure. Come by the office when you’re ready.” Noogie made a sour face. “I’ll be stuck t
here for quite a while.”
Longarm flicked his cigar butt into the street, wheeled to his left, and stepped down off the boardwalk. He had to wait for an ore dray to pass, then he crossed over and headed for the third bank in Deadwood.
This was not turning out to be a very productive day, he thought.
Chapter 51
Noogie DiNunzio dropped his fork beside his plate and patted his belly. “Where do you go now, Custis?”
“Over to Theresa’s house,” Longarm said. “You should come, too.”
Noogie raised an eyebrow.
Longarm leaned back and reached for a cheroot. Once it was streaming smoke he said, “I ran into Leroy White on my way over here. He said Bligh did take in a deposit last night. From Theresa Bullea. Apparently she has her accounts there. Very large accounts that justify them keeping the bank open for her now and then. Her and her partner Anne Carter. They share their bank accounts.”
“That seems a strange arrangement.”
“Maybe, but it’s what they do. White said it wasn’t unusual for Theresa or sometimes Anne to want to do their business after hours, when there wouldn’t be any customers in the bank.”
Noogie picked up his fork and used it to swirl around in the grease that was congealing on his plate. “I think we need to talk to Theresa. Ask her if she saw anyone lurking outside when she left or if anybody else came in while she was there.”
“I also want t’ talk to any girl Tom was partial to on his visits. Could be he let something slip. Pillow talk, I think that’s called,” Longarm said. “If he did, an’ she said something to anybody else, that could be the way the robbers knew t’ hit the inbound stage.” He took a swallow of the coffee that was now growing cold in the bottom of his cup. “It wouldn’t be hard for somebody t’ figure out which stage line carried payrolls for what mines. If they could get a handle on it by way of watchin’ to see when Tom Bligh visited Miss Theresa or…I dunno…could be some other tell to tip them off to shipments coming to the other bank.”
“We can ask,” Noogie said. “There might be something.”
“Aye, it never hurts to ask.” Longarm dug into his britches and came up with a gold two-dollar-fifty-cent coin. He waved to get the waiter’s attention so he could get change for their two dinners.
“She won’t be open this early,” Noogie said.
“I ain’t going there as a customer, y’know. I figure t’ bang on the door until somebody comes t’ open up.”
“You don’t mind if I go with you?”
“O’ course not,” Longarm said. “The murder is your case, after all. It’s the robberies that I’m here about.”
Noogie stood, pushing his chair back from the table. “Let’s go, hoss.”
Chapter 52
It took a considerable amount of pounding on the door to rouse someone inside the whorehouse. Finally a short blonde showed up, wrapped in a kimono and sleepy-eyed.
“What do you want at this hour?” she said.
“It’s one o’clock in the afternoon, Gail,” Noogie told her.
“Yeah. That’s what I meant. It’s too early.”
“We need to see Theresa,” Longarm put in, stepping uninvited through the front door and into the vestibule.
“I’m sorry, sir. Miss Theresa isn’t here.”
“Dennis then,” Longarm said.
“Mr. Dennis isn’t here, either, just now.”
“Well, who the hell is here?” Longarm snarled.
“There’s just us girls,” the little blonde said.
Longarm turned to DiNunzio and said, “Did Tom have a favorite?”
“I never gave much thought to it, but I suppose he did. There were times when he used other girls though.”
“Any one in particular when there was a shipment of cash coming in?” Longarm asked.
“I think…I think that Chinese girl, maybe. I remember Tom saying once that she didn’t have much English. Just a phrase or two and them having to do with whoring and the men’s wants.” DiNunzio turned to the blonde and said, “Lotus. Where would she be?”
“In bed, where any sensible person should be at this hour,” the girl said.
“Get her,” Noogie said.
“Better yet,” Longarm put in, “take us to her.” He looked at Noogie and in a low voice said, “We wouldn’t want her t’ slip off and be all of a sudden hard t’ find.”
“Right,” Noogie said. He looked at the girl. “Well?”
“Miss Theresa might not like this.”
“That don’t matter. We’re gonna see Lotus right now one way or another. It would be better if we was to do it without busting anybody’s heads.”
The blond girl frowned. But she motioned them toward the staircase. “Lotus has the last room on the right.”
Longarm took the steps two at a time while Noogie followed behind. He waited for DiNunzio to catch up, then twisted the doorknob without knocking. The door was unlocked. It opened to a room that was decorated in red and black.
The bed was rumpled and at first Longarm thought Lotus had somehow gotten wind of the visit and got away ahead of them. Then he saw a tangle of black hair resting on the pillow, almost drowned in a sea of satin.
The girl was tiny. She was almost swallowed up by the very ordinary-sized bed.
Longarm strode to the side of the bed and pulled the satin covers back.
Lotus, it seemed, preferred to sleep in the nude. In repose she looked like a porcelain doll, small and exquisite with gleaming black hair and pale flesh. She had tits like the saucers that come with little girls’ tea party sets. The lips of her pussy showed red inside a nest of black hair.
Longarm got a hard-on looking at her, and he could not help but notice that Noogie did, too. DiNunzio’s pants stood out in front of him.
Longarm bent down and shook the girl by the shoulder. “Wake up, Lotus. We got t’ talk with you.”
“Go away, you bastard. Can’t you see I’m trying to sleep here?”
Longarm blinked. This was a girl who had practically no English?
“Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch,” Noogie said. “She speaks English as good as you or me. I remember Tom telling me once what a pleasure it was being with this girl because he could tell her anything and not have to worry about her understanding anything he said.”
“Anything like, um, the schedule for payroll shipments to his bank?” Longarm said.
“That damn sure could be,” Noogie said. He leaned down and told the girl, “Get up and get dressed, you. Me and my friend the U.S. marshal and you are all three going over to the town marshal’s office where we expect to get some information from you, Lotus.”
“I don’t want to go,” the girl said. In perfect English.
“Honey, I didn’t ask do you want to go,” Noogie said. “I said that we’re going. Now do you want to walk over like a normal person or do you want to go in handcuffs like somebody who is fixing to do some jail time?”
“Give me a minute then, damnit. I got to get dressed and brush my teeth first. Then maybe I can go with you.”
Longarm stepped back away from the side of the bed. There was a straight chair by the bedside table. He swept Lotus’s kimono off of it and sat down. Noogie perched on the foot of the girl’s bed.
“We’ll wait,” both said, almost at the same time.
Chapter 53
The girl came with them voluntarily if more than a little unhappily. They walked together over to the town marshal’s office, where Noogie sat the girl onto a straight chair in front of his desk.
Longarm leaned against a file cabinet and let Noogie take the lead in his own office.
The town marshal took out a pair of handcuffs and fastened the girl’s left wrist to the rear leg of the chair she was sitting on. Then he went around to the front of his desk and bent down to open a bottom drawer. He brought out a pint bottle of whiskey and a flat leather cosh that was weighted with lead shot at the business end.
DiNunzio pulled a pair
of calfskin gloves from another drawer and drew them on. Finally he uncorked the whiskey, which at first confused Longarm since Noogie did not drink hard spirits. Instead of taking a pull at the bottle himself he offered it to Lotus.
When she shook her head he said, “You might want to take a drink or two. This will hurt less maybe.”
The girl’s eyes went wide when Noogie picked up the cosh and stepped around the desk to stand beside and slightly behind her.
“Wait,” Longarm said. “Before you start in on her, let me have a little talk with her. Nice an’ friendly like.”
Noogie grunted, but he said, “You can try if you like, but my method is more likely to get something out of her.”
“Give me the chance. If she doesn’t open up for me, you can do it your way.”
By that time the Chinese girl looked like she was about to break down in tears. She was trembling and her breath was rapid and shallow.
Longarm dragged another straight chair over from the side of the room and set it close to the chair where the girl was secured. He had a sudden thought, considering how good her English had gotten when she was half asleep. “What’s your real name, honey?” he asked.
She hesitated for only a moment before she said, “My name is Frances Suh.”
“Thank you, Frances. Now the thing is, me and Marshal DiNunzio here think you might know some things we’re interested in. It’s only fair for me to tell you that you might be in trouble with the law here. Dependin’ on what we learn here t’day there’s three things might could happen to you.
“One is that we could find you t’ be implicated in the murder of Mr. Thomas Bligh, a gentleman I believe you know pretty well.”
“Murder?” The word came out as a squeak.
“If you’re convicted of murder…an’ you should know that anybody who’s no more’n an accessory to murder is subject to the same penalty under the law as somebody that pulls the trigger…if that happens, Frances, you’re either hang or spend the rest o’ your life behind bars.”
