by Tabor Evans
Allred held up a peacemaking hand. “Just wanna talk with ’im for a few minutes, Lou. Have some important questions for the man. Soon’s he answers ’em, we’ll be gone.”
For several tense seconds, Mrs. Brown tapped her foot and studied her tormentors as though she might snatch their heads off and then pitch the rendered, blood-squirting noggins into her front yard like so much garbage.
Finally, the angry madam toed at the tattered rug beneath her feet, then pointed at the doorway where the first four girls had disappeared. “Down the hall, all the way to the end. Last door on the left. Can’t miss it. Silas has been in there ever since yesterday afternoon. Says he plans to stay at least one more night. Hope he does. Man always pays in gold.”
Longarm nodded, placed his hat against his chest, and offered the woman an abbreviated cavalier’s chivalrous bow. “Office of the U.S. marshal’s service appreciates your cooperation, Mrs. Brown. Promise we’ll do our very best not to disrupt your business operations any more than absolutely necessary.”
“Well, I certainly hope the fuck you’re a man of your word, Marshal Long. Whatever you have to do, do it quick, and then get the hell out,” Lou Brown snorted, then stomped across the room and disappeared through a door in the farthest corner of the room.
Behind a cupped palm, Willard whispered, “Them’s her private quarters. Ain’t met anyone yet as has ever even been inside that part of the house.”
Longarm stuffed his hat on, mumbled, “Of course,” then headed for the open door to the whorehouse’s hall. As he crossed the threshold, he slipped his pistol from its cross-draw holster and cocked it. Willard followed, shotgun in hand.
They tiptoed down the cramped hallway and stopped on either side of the room Lou Brown had indicated. A rough wooden sign painted with red hearts, white lace, and pink-cheeked cherubs was emblazoned with the single word TWINS.
Longarm pushed the brim of his hat up, then pressed an ear against the door. After several seconds, he stood and whispered, “Not a sound. Maybe they’re all asleep.”
Allred hissed, “Could be. If he’s got his pants off and snoozin’, whole dance should go a lot easier for us.”
Longarm stepped back and lifted a leg to kick the door open. He thought better of the action, stepped back up to the portal and turned the knob. The door popped open and swung noiselessly toward the wall.
The overpowering musk of raw, squirting sex, combined with the body odor of several people, whiskey-saturated bedding, stale tobacco smoke, and the contents of a chamber pot hidden somewhere under the rumpled bed, slapped Longarm and Willard in their faces like someone had swatted them across the cheeks with the wet leather glove of a working buffalo hunter. The entire room looked brown, even the sheets on the bed.
On the far side of the sparsely furnished space, an iron-framed bed stood against the wall. Atop twisted sheets and a variety of other bedraggled bedding lay three sweat-drenched, spooned-up naked bodies. Lying between the Preston sisters, Silas Brakett appeared to still have his dick inside the fair-skinned girl closest to the wall. He gently hunched the girl from behind, even as he snorted and snored away like the big blade in a sawmill ripping its way through an oak log.
Longarm eased into the room, then took two quick steps that placed him right beside the bed. In short order, Willard took a spot at the end of the bed and leveled the shotgun on Brakett’s sleeping figure.
The girl on the side of the bed nearest Longarm opened her pale blue eyes. She made no effort to cover her nude body. Ruby lips parted as though she might speak, just as he placed a finger over them, shook his head, and hissed, “Sssssh. Quiet, darlin’. Now, come on outta there.”
Longram took the naked girl by the hand. With great care and deliberateness, she swung one shapely leg, then the other, over the mattress’s edge, then stood. Her heavy breasts pressed against his chest. She smiled, then twisted back and forth, rubbing dark, thumb-sized nipples across his vest front until they stiffened to the point where he could actually feel them through his clothing.
An inquisitive hand came up to his crotch and squeezed. She leaned forward till her lips touched his ear. “Uhmmmm. You’re a big ole boy,” she whispered. “Good-lookin’ one, too. Even smell good. Don’t get many like you in here, mister. You finish up with whatever you’re here for, me and Lily’ll fuck you till you cain’t climb on a horse. Be so weak when you leave, your friend at the foot of the bed’ll have to help you walk.”
Longarm whispered back, “Might be gunplay in here soon, miss. Best get your sister up and get the hell out. ’Less you don’t mind flyin’ lead and the possibility of dyin’ in this nasty fuckin’ room.”
Lucy Preston’s head popped back, then she twisted and gazed down at her sister. As if by magic, the other naked girl stirred, then rose on one elbow and gazed around the room as though not the least surprised, or concerned, by the fact that two more men had entered. She carefully extracted herself from Silas Brakett’s rigid manhood, then crawled to the foot of the bed. Brakett grunted and rolled onto his back, his thick, rock-hard cock pointing toward the ceiling like a fleshy flagpole.
Allred urged the girl toward her duplicate, who stood beside Longarm with her arms out. The girls hugged each other, then, without another sound, disappeared into the hallway.
Longarm watched until convinced the women were safe, then turned his attention back to the brigand in the bed. He tapped Brakett on the shoulder with the barrel of his pistol and waited—nothing. He tried again—nothing. On the third attempt to awaken the snoring slug, Brakett grunted, then swatted at the irritant. He scratched his crotch, stroked his stiff prong several times, and then, to Longarm’s surprise, the man went at himself with considerable devotion.
“Well, by God, that’s enough,” Longarm said aloud. He glanced at Willard Allred. A toothy grin creaked across the old soldier’s face.
“Appears the man cain’t git enough.”
Longarm shook his head in disgust. “Tell you, Willard, I’ll do a lot of things in service of the law, but I ain’t gonna stand here and watch this bastard jerk off like a thirteen-year-old who’s only recently discovered how good his damned pecker feels.” He swung the Frontier model pistol barrel around and knocked Brakett’s dick out of the sleeping man’s fist. The outlaw let out a screech and sat bolt upright in the bed. Both hands dove to cover his wounded prong.
Chapter 14
Silas Brakett’s ratlike eyes fluttered open. For several seconds they continued to flap like a covey of south Texas quail rising from scrub mesquite. He shook his head as though trying to clear out a skull full of cobwebs. “Sweet Jesus. Who’re you two assholes, and what-taya want, for Christ’s sake?”
He glanced down at the hands covering his damaged prick. A stream of bright red blood oozed up between trembling fingers. His startled gaze shot back up to Longarm. “God Almighty. My dick’s a-bleedin’. What the fuck did you do to me? Oh Christ, I’m afraid to look. You ain’t gone and cut ole Big Boy off, did you?”
Longarm smiled. “Hell, you’ll be fine, Silas. Guess the blade sight on my pistol barrel musta put a nail-sized nick in that little bitty thang of yours.”
A confused, dumbfounded look darted across Brakett’s stubble-covered face. “Blade sight? Pistol barrel? You mean you whacked me on my dingus with a pistol barrel? Jesus, why? What kinda evil son of a bitch’d do such a thing?”
Willard tapped the foot of the iron bed frame with the barrel of his shotgun. “You wanna talk to him here, Marshal? Or would you rather he got up, got dressed, and we took him out in the alley and beat the hell out of ’im, like we did Zeke Cobb?”
“Marshal? You boys the law?”
“Deputy U.S. Marshal Custis Long. That’s my special deputy, Willard Allred.”
“What the fuck’d you star-totin’ bastards do to poor ole Zeke?”
“Nothin’ much,” Longarm said. “Just asked him a few questions, then told him to get the hell outta town.”
Brakett’s gaze wobbled
back down to his crotch. He opened bloody hands and cast an inquisitive gander at his wounded equipment. Then he shot an angry, teeth-gritting, hot-eyed glare at Longarm. “Jesus. Poor son of a bitch ain’t gonna be no use to me for a good long spell, you stupid, law-bringin’ cocksucker. Tell you what, you hand me my clothes and pistols off’n that chair yonder. Get myself dressed, we’ll all go out in the street, an’ I’ll just kill the hell outta both your sorry asses.”
Longarm cocked the Colt and leveled the muzzle at Brakett’s damaged goods. “Any killin’ you’re gonna do’ll have to wait. Right now you’re gonna tell me where Quincy Ballentine is, or I’m gonna blow your balls off right where you’re sittin’.”
A twitching mask of alarm spread over Brakett’s face. He covered himself again. “The hell you say. You wouldn’t do such an awful thing to any man.”
“He would,” Willard snarled. “And if’n he won’t, I sure as hell will.”
Brakett’s troubled, darting gaze swung around to Allred. He squinted in recognition. “Hell, I know you,” he said. “You’re that broke-down old reb what drives a freight wagon around town and calls it a hack. Seen you almost ever’ day since we come to town. What the fuck’re you doin’ a-helpin’ a federal lawdog?”
“This conversation is on the way to gettin’ borin’ as hell, and I’m somewhat less than inclined to take the time and explain absolutely everything to you, chapter and verse, unless I have to do it.” Longarm pulled the trigger on his pistol. The gigantic .45 slug blasted a smoking hole in the mattress not two inches from Brakett’s grasping fingers. The explosion, hemmed in by the closeness of the cramped room, was near deafening. The concussive shockwave from the blast snuffed out a lit kerosene lamp sitting atop a broken-down chest of drawers—the only other piece of furniture in the depressing, brown-hued room.
Eyes as big as dinner plates, Silas Brakett rubbed his ears with bloody fingers, then yelped, “He made a run up to Springtown. ’Bout twenty miles from here. Said he had to replace his favorite girl and knew a gal from up that way as he could put to work whorin’ for ’im.”
Longarm gritted his teeth. “Did he bother to mention what happened to his favorite girl?”
“Matilda?”
“Yes, you stupid bastard, Matilda.”
“Well, yeah. Quincy tole me she quit ’im. Said she went on back to Dodge, where he found her in the first place. ’At gal wuz a-humpin’ cowboys for a dollar a throw in a dirty-legged Kansas whorehouse when he come on her. Damn shame she went back, if’n you ask me. Matilda wuz, by far, the best-lookin’, most high-toned woman he done ever had to keep him in walkin’-around money—and he’s had some good’uns. I liked Matilda. Everyone what knowed her liked her. Damn good fuck, too, when you could catch her in the mood to let you rip off a little piece.”
Longarm’s eyes narrowed and one brow arched. “You mean Quincy’s had other women who did the same kind of thing for him as Matilda?”
“’Course he has. Gets hisself a new one ’bout every other year or so.”
A heavy silence hung over the room as the realization of what Brakett had just implied hit both lawmen. At the exact same moment, Longarm and Willard Allred both breathed, “Shit!”
Brakett shot a nervous glance from one man’s face to the other. “What the hell’s the difference? Cain’t see how Quincy’s keepin’ company with one whore, or another, should matter to a federal lawdog and his half-assed special fuckin’ deputy.”
Willard Allred’s face went red. He pushed past a surprised Longarm, swung the stock of the Greener around, and caught Brakett across the mouth. The blow knocked the brigand’s head to one side, split both lips, and knocked out several teeth. A spray of blood shot onto Madam Lou Brown’s bedroom wall and splattered like a fistful of thrown chicken guts.
A shocked screech bolted from Brakett’s throat. He grabbed at his lower jaw with both hands, rolled onto his side, and passed out.
Willard drew back for another blow, but Longarm placed a quieting hand on the man’s shoulder. “That’s enough. He’s out cold. Don’t think you can hurt him much more’n you did, Willard, ’less maybe you want to shoot him a time or two.”
Allred shook as though in the throes of a death-dealing case of malaria. His arms eased down to his sides and he quickly resumed his place at the end of the bed. “Sorry, Marshal,” he said. “Didn’t mean to lose my temper like that. But I gotta tell you, I’m sick to death of havin’ scum like Silas Brakett treat me with a lot less than respect. Served my cause and fought with honor and distinction. I’ll not have bastards like this one besmirch my service any longer. As of today I won’t be takin’ any more such bullshit off’n any of ’em.”
“Understand completely, Willard. Trust me I do. But knocked colder’n a log-splitin’ wedge in Montana, ole Silas there can’t tell us a thing, and I need to know where Quincy’s gonna be stayin’ when he comes back from his recruitin’ in Springtown. Understand?”
Still red-faced and shaking, Willard nodded. “Yessir. Understand completely. Guess I’d best go find some water, then try to bring him back around.”
“Might be a good idea.”
Willard hit the door running. A few minutes later he hustled back with a large ewer of fresh-pumped well water. He sat the pitcher on the floor, dipped a rag in the liquid, then laid it across Brakett’s busted-up face.
Took some time and effort, but after about five minutes the still-naked thief and killer finally came around to bug-eyed consciousness. He picked at the empty spots in his mouth where teeth once resided, then said, “Wha fo’ ya wen’ an’ hit me, you sommabitch? Shi’, I wuz a-tryin’ to tell ya’ wha’ ya’ wanned ta know.”
Longarm stared down at Brakett as though gazing into a pit of squirming snakes. He lifted the blood-spitting gunny’s pistol belt off the battered chest and threw it over his shoulder. Not a scintilla of sympathy showed in the man’s face when he said, “Get up and put your clothes on, Silas.”
Brakett looked confused. “Wha’ fo’?”
“Willard ran into Mrs. Brown out in the hall. She wants us all out of her house, and right ‘by God’ now. So, get up and get dressed.”
Brakett struggled to the edge of the bed, leaving a trail of blood on the sheets behind him. “Guess my tim’ wer’ ’bout up, anaway. Only pay fo’ las’ nigh’.” He threw spindly legs over the side of the lumpy, stained mattress and sat up. Longarm pitched him his pants, then his shirt, and finally a run-out pair of boots that barely had soles on them.
As Brakett tussled with his boots, Longarm said, “Tell me where Quincy’s stayin’.”
Still spitting blood and pieces of his teeth now and again, Brakett made a snorting sound, then glared at Longarm. “Yew mus’ think I’m some kinda idget, or somefin’.”
Willard pushed between the two men again, drew the shotgun’s butt back, then snarled, “Tell the man what he wants to know, you stupid son of a bitch, or so help me God, you won’t leave this room with a single tooth left in that empty head of yours when I get through beatin’ on you…”
Longarm patted Allred on the shoulder and gently moved him aside. He casually leaned on the chest of drawers and rested his head in one hand, like a man bored beyond tears. “Look, Silas, I’m gonna tell you all about your present predicament. Quincy Ballentine damn near beat Matilda Wayland to death. Left her in an alley to die. Girl’s laid up in bed as we speak, and could well pass in spite of a damned good doctor’s best efforts. Now you’re gonna tell me where you think Quincy’ll be stayin’ when he gets back to town, or I’m gonna turn Willard loose to do whatever he feels necessary to get you to talk. You understand?”
Brakett stomped a reluctant foot into his boot, then cast a beady-eyed glance at each man. As he sat on the edge of the bed, his roving gaze lingered on Willard Allred for a second, then went back to Longarm. “Yeah, I unnerstan’. I don’ tell, yew’ll bea’ me to death.”
Longarm grinned. “Something like that. What it’ll all amount to is, if you don’t
talk, I’ll let Willard do as much damage to you as Quincy did to Matilda.”
Brakett’s eyes narrowed. A look of mild panic flitted across his scarred face. “Arright, arright. Don’ get s’cited. They’s a hotel down from the Comique call the Drover’s Inn. Rea’ small place. Only ten room. On tha corner a Eighth an’ Throckmor’on Stree’. He’s ga’ two rooms rented there. Should be back sometim’ tamar-rawer wid da new piece a twitsh.”
“You sure about that?” Allred growled.
Brackett raised a hand as though testifying in court. “All I know. Swear ’fore Jesus.”
Longarm grabbed Willard by the elbow and urged him into the hallway. “Meet me outside. Have a few more words for our friend here, then I’ll be right out.” Willard nodded and headed for the street.
Back inside the room, Longarm dumped the pistol belt on the floor at the foot of the bed, then turned on Brakett. “Tell you the same thing I told Cobb. Get out of town. Get as far away from here as you can. Don’t even look back. If I see you here after today, I’ll kill you deader’n a rotten stump. You get my drift?”
Brakett pointed at his pistol belt. “Jus’ might have one other little bitty piece of ’nformation fer ya, if’n I can have my gun back.”
A thin-lipped frown was his only reward for the unexpected offer.
“Thank you’ll fin’ it right enlightnin’, Marshal.”
Longarm slipped Brakett’s Smith & Wesson pistol from the holster he’d draped over his shoulder and ejected all the bullets. The tossed rig landed in Brakett’s lap.
“Get on with it. What else have you got to say?”
Brakett leaned forward as though about to tell an important secret. In a hushed voice, he said, “Didn’t jes’ go to Springtown fer uh new twitsh, Marshal. Said he’d heard Doc Caine and his brother Ezra might be there sommers, too. Said if’n they wuz, he ’uz a-gonna hire ’em an’ come on into Fort Worth with ’em.”