Longarm and the Deadwood Shoot-out (9781101619209) (12 page)

“Do you like?” she asked.

“Oh, yes,” he said, looking not at the room but into Theresa’s eyes.

“Good,” she responded. “Would you like a drink?”

He had no recollection of what he might have done with the first drink he was given, but it was no longer in
his hand. “No,” he said. “Everything I’m interested in is right here.” He maintained eye contact with her throughout the comment.

Theresa’s smile became wider. “Then why delay?” she asked.

Theresa stepped gracefully over to the side of the bed and began removing her gown.

“I wish I was an artist,” Longarm said.

Terry’s eyebrows rose and she said, “What a very odd comment.”

“No, I mean it. I’d like t’ be able to paint you, just exactly the way you look right now.”

Her smile became kittenish. She struck a pose, one leg placed slightly ahead of the other. Head high and back arched to better show off her tits, which were firm, high, and pink-tipped.

“I’ll be damned,” he blurted when she turned to face him squarely. His eyes were drawn to her crotch where there was…nothing. No hair. Not a strand.

He laughed. “I’d like t’ know who your barber is so’s I can go watch you getting that shave.”

“Then perhaps I shall allow you to watch the next time Dennis shaves me.” She lifted her arms to show that she had no underarm hair, either. In fact he could not find a bit of hair anywhere other than on her head. “Do you like it?” she asked.

He hesitated while he pondered that question. Then he nodded. “Yeah. I think I do.”

“It is especially nice when one is performing cunnilingus,” Terry said.

“Cunning-what?”

“Eating pussy, silly.”

“Ah. That I do understand.”

“Have you ever eaten a bald pussy?”

“No, I reckon not.”

“Then you must try it, my dear.”

“Yeah,” he said, “I really oughta do that.”

“I can’t think of any better time than the present.”

“D’you think so?”

“Oh, indeed I do.” She stepped close to him and quickly unbuttoned him, yanking his clothing off in a mad hurry now.

When they both were naked Longarm bent, scooped her behind the knees, and carried her to the big bed. He deposited the woman there and lay down beside her.

Terry’s mouth was fresh. She tasted lightly of mint. Her tongue was hot and eager, probing his mouth at the same time as he was investigating hers. Her breath began to quicken. He took that as his cue to take things a step further.

He reached for her right breast. Cupped it. Squeezed it. Rolled her nipple, now very hard, between his thumb and forefinger.

“Lick me,” she demanded.

This, he was reminded, was a woman who was accustomed to giving orders and to being obeyed. Custis Long was no woman’s pet dog on a leash. But in this case he did not mind obeying Theresa Bullea. He bent his head to her left tit and licked and suckled that nipple, then shifted to the other.

“Now my pussy, dear. Lick me.”

Longarm grunted. And wriggled down across her belly to her naked cunt, his tongue moving across her flesh as he went.

Terry was right. It was…different…eating a pussy that had no hair. She tasted fresh and clean down there, too. She must just have finished douching before she joined them in the parlor.

He fleetingly wondered if that timing was coincidence. Or if she had had this in mind even before she met him.

No, probably not, he realized. She knew there was a deputy U.S. marshal in town, that much was obvious, but she could not have known what he looked like or that she would be attracted to him.

As for whether he would be attracted to her, hell, he could not think of a man alive who would not be.

Terry began to moan and to writhe beneath his fluttering tongue, and Longarm went back to paying attention to business. He did not want to waste a moment’s awareness while he was with this exceptionally beautiful woman.

“Nice,” he murmured. Longarm was lying on Terry’s bed, propped up with four feather pillows and with an ashtray resting on his chest.

“Better than merely nice,” she said as she trimmed the twist off a cigar and popped it into his mouth. She struck a match and lighted the panatela for him, then stretched out beside him. “If I could find more men like you, dear man, I could open a bordello for ladies. You are that good.”

“If you could find more that’re really like me, darlin’, you couldn’t get them t’ work in your whorehouse. They’d be wanting more t’ life than just the night.”

She sighed. “I suppose you are right about that. Men do tend to like to work.” Terry chuckled. “As it happens, I like my work rather well, too.” She reached over and plucked the cigar out of his mouth, held it to her own rouged lips and took a drag and then returned it to him.

“Thinking of work,” she said, “tell me about yours.”

Longarm shrugged. “Damn, this cigar is mild,” he said.

“Oh, go ahead. Tell me about your search for those robbers. Noogie said you have some leads. What are they?”

“Nothing, really. Noogie tends t’ exaggerate things, y’know.”

“Well if you don’t
want
to tell me,” she pouted.

“No, I’m serious. There’s nothing t’ tell. Yet.”

“But soon. Do you think you will know something soon?”

He shrugged again. “You never know ’bout these things. The only thing I can tell you for sure is that I’ll keep after ’em.”

“Until they are dead?”

“My purpose ain’t to kill, darlin’. I’d ruther bring ’em in for trial.”

“And hanging?”

“In this country we don’t hang folks for robbing. For murder we do, but not for robbing.”

“Being locked away in jail would be like being killed though, wouldn’t it,” Terry said.

“To some types of men I suppose it would be. That’s their choice, though. They do a crime; they go to prison. It’s simple.”

“It is barbaric,” she said. “But in my country someone can be hanged for robbery.”

“Where’s that?” he asked.

Terry did not answer. Instead she bounded off the bed and grabbed a dressing gown out of her chifforobe. “Come. Join me. I need to check on my girls and you would like a drink, no?”

“I would like a drink, yes,” he said, rising and starting to dress.

He took another long look at Terry before she covered up all that beauty. Damn, but she was a good-looking
woman. She had a body as sleek as a seal, and she knew how to use it to please a man.

“Come now,” she said when he was dressed. She held her hand out to him, smiling. “We will join whoever is in the parlor, and we shall have a drink together, you and me.”

Longarm took her hand and let the tall beauty lead him back into the world.

Longarm was pleased but not particularly surprised to see E. Thomas Bligh in the parlor. The tall, very nearly bald banker had a drink in one hand and a diminutive Chinese girl in the other.

“Marshal Long,” he said enthusiastically when Longarm entered the room. Bligh waved his drink and said, “Join me.”

“Do,” Terry whispered from behind. “I have work to do.”

Longarm turned his head. “Any idea where Noogie might be?”

She laughed. “I know exactly where Marshal DiNunzio is right now. He won’t be out for a little longer.”

That sounded like Noogie, all right. Longarm accepted another of those excellent rye whiskies from a raven-haired girl and sat in an overstuffed armchair to Bligh’s right. The same girl fetched an ottoman for him, even lifted his feet and placed them on the ottoman. Now this, he thought, was service. Finally she settled down on the floor by his legs, one hand on his calf. “If there is anything more…” she said.

“I’ll let you know.” He found it hard to believe when he was just leaving Terry’s bed, but this black-haired girl aroused him. She had tits like pillows and an impossibly small waist. He suspected she was one of those southern girls who had surgery to remove their lower ribs so their waists could be smaller. That, of course, made it difficult for them to breathe at times and led to fainting. Or worse. It was damned good to look at, though.

“About those robberies,” Bligh said. “How will you go about catching them?”

“Damned if I know,” Longarm said, taking a swallow of the rye. The whiskey warmed his belly through and through. “I have no ideas at all right now.”

The truth was that he did have an idea or two, but he was loathe to discuss them in public. Not exactly public, of course, but the whores had big ears. There was no telling what they might overhear. And then tell. Or to whom.

Bligh might be comfortable discussing such things where others could hear, but Longarm was not.

“Can I get you anything?” the dark-haired girl asked, rubbing his leg and smiling. She battered her eyelashes. “And I do mean
any
thing.”

“Oh, I’d like that just fine,” Longarm said, stroking her hair. “But not right now.”

“A snack then? Peanuts or popcorn?”

“A bowl o’ peanuts would be nice,” he said. He didn’t so much want the peanuts as he wanted to give the girl something to do.

She leaped up and hustled off, presumably to the kitchen, to get his peanuts.

Longarm leaned back in the very comfortable armchair and helped himself to another swallow of the rye. A man could get used to living in such comfort, he thought.

Noogie DiNunzio had not yet returned from his romp when Longarm decided to head back to his hotel room for some overdue sleep. He collected his key from the desk clerk and gave the man a friendly “good night,” then went up to his room.

Once there he poured a little cold water into the basin, dipped a washcloth in, and wiped himself off before crawling into the lumpy—but very welcome—bed. He felt good—hell, better than good—after his evening with Theresa Bullea. He was thinking of her when he dropped off to sleep.

In the morning he dressed quickly and went downstairs. “Where can I find a good breakfast?” he asked of the person, different from the night clerk, who was on duty behind the desk.

Armed with a little local knowledge, Longarm found a tiny café that catered to the common man. He sat at the counter and surrounded enough eggs, ham, and hotcakes to feed two lumberjacks and their bulldog.

“That,” he told the grease-stained fellow behind the
counter, “was about the best meal I’ve had in a while.” It was the truth.

He returned to the street and walked over to the town marshal’s office. Noogie was already behind his desk, looking as bright and chipper as always.

“Where’d you go last night?” Noogie asked. “I was just getting started, but they told me you’d already left. Didn’t you have a good time?”

“Had ’bout as good a time as a man could have without he keeled over from a heart attack an’ died dead away.” Longarm winked and said, “I didn’t see a cull in that whole herd.”

“Terry keeps only the best for herself. Any that don’t work out for her she sends over to the casino. Some of the girls work their trade on the floor there. A few, the ones with really good hands, become dealers or croupiers.”

“Her casino?” Longarm asked.

Noogie nodded. “Hers and a friend of hers. Say, why don’t I take you there tonight? The girls are almost as hot and the tables are dead square. They’re the most honest outfit I ever did see. I’m thinking you’ll like the place.”

“Tonight then,” Longarm said.

“Have you had breakfast yet?”

“Just came from there. Now I’m thinking to hunt up a barber and get a shave.” He fingered his chin and grinned. “I wouldn’t want t’ scratch up those sweet young things too bad tonight.”

“I tell you what then,” Noogie said. “I’ll go get my breakfast and meet you at the Bastrop office. I haven’t looked into the robberies too close because they’ve always occurred outside my jurisdiction, but I know the lay of the land so if you don’t mind, I’ll go with you. We’ll interview everyone involved. If I remember correct, the Bastrop driver who was on this end of the run
the last time they were hit, he should be pulling in some time this afternoon.”

“Do you always keep such close tabs on your town, Noogie?”

“I try to. After all, that’s what they pay me for.”

“Thinking of which, how the hell can you afford t’ do business with Terry’s girls? And who paid for my fun last night?”

Noogie waved the question away. “The town don’t pay much in the way of salary, but free pussy is one of the benefits. Terry never charges me. Didn’t charge for you last night, neither.”

Longarm nodded. He had heard of such arrangements in other towns. That sort of perquisite was strictly under the table—or behind the closed door—but it was not unheard of. He was not sure of the ethics involved there, but what was done was done. It could not be taken back.

And considering how good a lay Terry Bullea was he would not want to take it back anyway.

“I’ll meet you back here at”—he took his Ingersoll out and looked at the time—“at ten o’clock, say.” Since he happened to have the watch out anyway he went ahead and wound the spring, something that had to be done every day.

“Sounds fine,” Noogie agreed, getting up and reaching for his hat.

“To tell you the truth, Marshal, there’s not all that much truth to tell,” Bastrop jehu Clovis Sensabaugh told them when his coach pulled into Deadwood and a helper was leading the team away. “Do you mind coming with me for a few minutes?”

Longarm raised an eyebrow, but Noogie seemed to know what was going on. “That’s fine, Clo,” DiNunzio said. “You go ahead. We’ll be right behind you.”

Longarm took his cue from Noogie and tagged along with the driver to No. 10, the same saloon where James Butler Hickok had been murdered. “A double, Jimmy, and a chaser,” Sensabaugh ordered, slapping a half dollar onto the bar.

The jehu downed his whiskey in one gulp and followed it with half of the beer. The bartender immediately filled the whiskey glass again and Sensabaugh tossed that one back, too.

“It’s dry work out there,” the driver said by way of explanation, “and damned frightening what with those robberies. I don’t mind telling you, they scare me plenty.
You never know when the bastards might cut loose with one of those double barrels. You ever see what a shotgun up close can do to a man? I have, and I don’t want to see it again. More than that, I don’t want to be on the receiving end of one of those blasts. They can damn near cut a man in two.” He shuddered and picked up the whiskey glass. Finding it empty he called, “Again, Jimmy. One more time.”