by Tabor Evans
Ridiculous!
Longarm was shaking his head when he turned a corner in the office and saw Delia sitting in front of Billy’s desk. She was so good-looking he stopped in his tracks and let out a low whistle before he smoothed down his long, curly hair. Well, well, he thought, swallowing hard, maybe this first day back after the holidays was going to be more enjoyable than he’d expected!
Chapter 2
“Miss Wilson,” Billy said, “this is my finest deputy marshal, Custis Long, better known as Longarm.”
Delia looked Custis up and down, then smiled and extended her hand. “I’ve heard so very much about you and at last we meet.”
“So we do,” Longarm said. “How is the governor these days?”
“My father is doing just fine except that he slipped on some ice and took a hard fall outside the capitol building. We were afraid he’d broken his arm, but that wasn’t the case and he’s mending. He just hates this snow and cold weather.”
“Well,” Longarm said, “we do get plenty of that in Denver and this winter seems to have been worse than usual.”
“I agree. We have at least two feet of snow on the ground, and I’m sure we’ll get another storm before the week passes.” Delia glanced at a chair. “Marshal Long, I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes about my next dime novel.”
Longarm shrugged. “You mean that you’ve written several?”
“Thirty-six to be exact. Of course, I don’t write under my own name. I use the pen name of Dakota Walker.”
“Nice,” Longarm said, trying to seem impressed.
“I’d use my own name, of course, but the readers of dime novels are mostly men and they don’t think that a woman could possibly write scenes of real violence and bloodshed.”
“Do you sell many?”
“Oh, yes, my latest novel, Blood on the Bar Room Floor, has already sold over eight thousand copies and it’s only been on the shelves for a month. Before it sells out it should top ten thousand and I get three cents a copy, so you can see that it will make me three hundred dollars.”
“Well, how about that,” Longarm said.
“I write them in about a week.”
“That is amazing.”
She shrugged. “Not really. They aren’t long and I have a very vivid and bawdy imagination. Most men like a little titillation mixed with their violence . . . or at least that’s my experience.”
Longarm saw a smile form at the corners of her mouth and her blue eyes dropped below his belt. He swallowed hard and managed to keep his mind on what direction this conversation was taking.
Billy’s face had actually turned red with embarrassment and he quickly said, “Why don’t I leave you two here to talk in private for a few minutes? I’ve got some things that need attending to out in the office.”
“That would be fine,” Delia said sweetly. “And I want to thank you for being so generous with your time this morning. I promise that I won’t keep your famous deputy marshal for long.”
“Take as much time as you need,” Billy said, heading for the door.
When they were alone, Longarm gestured for Delia to take a seat and he did the same. “We’ve got coffee brewing, but it’s lousy.”
“Thanks, but no, thanks.” She was wearing a beautiful coral-colored dress and now she lifted her right leg and rested it on her knee revealing a lovely curve of ankle. “I suppose you’re wondering why I wanted to meet you this morning.”
“Well, yes, I am.”
Delia sighed and for a moment, looked sad. “The truth is that I’ve milked the cow dry.”
“The what?”
“It’s a literary term meaning I’ve run out of story ideas.”
“I see.”
“Thirty-six dime novels have made me quite a lot of money. My New York publishers want me to write one a month.”
“If they earn you three hundred dollars each, that’s a lot of money every year,” Longarm mused, genuinely impressed as he totaled the figures in his mind.
“Yes, it’s more than my father makes as governor. But, like I said, I’ve about milked the cow of imagination dry.” She waited for Longarm to say something and when he didn’t, she added, “And that’s why I need your help.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I need fresh fodder for the cow so she’ll produce new, exciting stories for my growing legion of fans.”
“And you think I can provide the . . . the fodder?”
“I sure do. I’ve heard about you for years. I know that you’ve shot and killed dozens of men in the line of duty and that you’ve been shot, stabbed, and beaten. I’m sure that you have the scars to prove how much danger you have faced in this job.”
“I’ve killed plenty of men, but that’s not something I’m especially proud of.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“I’m glad to hear that. So, no guilt at all?”
“There were a few that were drunk and I wished I could have pistol-whipped instead of shot,” Longarm hedged.
“Have you ever had to shoot a woman?”
“Yes.”
“Does that bother you more than the men you’ve killed?”
“Miss Wilson, is there a point to these questions?” Long-arm asked.
“I’m just trying to understand.”
“Then I’ll say this much. I don’t like to kill . . . and I’ve taken an oath to protect. But there have been a few men that I was actually proud to eliminate. Men who were purely evil and would have continued to prey on others by killing and robbing them.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that. I recall you were the one that finally caught Bad John Bixby, the infamous murderer and rapist. I understand that you cornered him and shoved your revolver up his ass when he was humping a fifteen-year-old girl and blew his balls off.”
Longarm’s jaw dropped. “That’s not true!”
“Then what really happened?”
Longarm shook his head. “Are you sure you want to hear the details? It wasn’t pretty.”
“Rape and murder never are. And yes, I really want to hear the details . . . all of them exactly as it happened.”
“If I tell you the details, you’d use my name and that wouldn’t be good for either me . . . or this department.”
“You had to file a formal report and I’m sure that when you were called to court to testify to the killing before a judge you had to give him the details under oath.”
“Yes, I did.”
“So the details are public record.”
“No,” Longarm said, correcting her. “When we file a report of a shooting . . . especially one that results in death . . . that report remains strictly confidential. And when I go before a judge, which isn’t often, what I say about a killing is taken under oath but kept out of the public record. The judge has to hear the true facts and he decides if the killing was justified.”
“I understand,” Delia said, “otherwise you or your department could be sued or charged with murder. The confidentiality is to protect you while you are performing your sworn duty to uphold the law and track down outlaws and murderers.”
“That’s right.”
Delia pulled pencil and pad out of her coat pocket and pursed her lips in thought for a moment before speaking. “What if we do a . . . suppose?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, you could use suppose you did this and suppose you did that never actually admitting that you did anything.”
“Sounds complicated, Miss Wilson.”
“It isn’t really. Let me give you a brief example. You could say you suppose that you might have talked to a man in a saloon who knew someone that had bragged about all the women he had raped and then stabbed to death. And then you spent some time hanging out in that saloon and when
the braggart finally appeared a week later, the man who had tipped you off gave you a signal so that you knew this was the rapist and killer. And then you suppose you could have tracked him to his house and watched him for a day or two and he slipped away but you saw and followed him down a dark street in a poor part of this town and when you saw him strip down naked and enter a girl’s bedroom window. You knew what was going to happen and burst through the front door, gun in hand and caught the man already on top of the screaming girl. You were so outraged that you could have rammed the barrel of your pistol up his ass and pulled the trigger five times.”
“If I’d have done that, my bullets might have gone through his body and into the girl’s body.”
“That’s right,” Delia said, “but you might have first yanked him off the victim and then slung him to the floor before the bullets made a big mess of what had been his—”
“Hold it up there!” Longarm snapped, interrupting Delia. “This is getting way too ugly for me to talk about.”
Delia closed her pretty mouth and then she put her pencil and pad away. “What if I told you that I know that is pretty close to what happened in that girl’s bedroom the night that you killed Bad John Bixby?”
Longarm came to his feet. “And how would you know those kinds of details?”
Delia smiled sweetly. “I have access to inside information.”
Longarm had heard enough. When he’d emptied his gun into the ass of the rapist and murderer, he’d been so enraged that he’d momentarily lost control and taken his bloody vengeance. And in his office report and sworn and secret testimony before a judge, he’d admitted to the shooting, saying that the room was dark and he’d had to act swiftly in order to save not only the girl’s life but his own. The fact that his bullets had all entered the rapist’s ass had simply been coincidental and hastily done in the line of duty. And besides, he hadn’t actually shoved the barrel of his gun up the killer’s ass, he’d just pointed it in that direction before he started shooting.
“Marshal?” Delia asked, raising her eyebrows in question. “Have I offended or upset you?”
“No.”
“Then why are you looking at me that way?”
“What way?”
“As if I’m a monster or ghoul.”
Longarm sat back down. “Are you trying to blackmail me into telling you details about the things that sometimes have to be done in order for a lawman to do his job under gunfire?”
“Not at all! I’m just asking you to tell me stories.”
“About?”
“What you supposedly could have done in certain situations when you have been fighting for your life or fighting to save someone else’s life . . . like the life of that fifteen-year-old girl.”
“And what if I say that I’d rather not have anything to do with what you are proposing . . . even if it is supposing?”
Delia came to her feet. “Marshal Long, I have read everything I could find about you and you are undoubtedly the most honorable, brave, and capable lawman I’ve ever heard of or are likely to meet. I know for a fact that you have killed no less than twenty-four men and that every one of them deserved to die hard. I wouldn’t dream of using your name or sullying your reputation. I just need fodder for my imagination so that the milk of creativity begins to flow once more.”
“I’m not going to do it,” Longarm said, turning toward the door. “I think this conversation is over.”
“Not by a mile.”
He turned back to her. “What does that mean, Miss Wilson?”
“It means that I insist on your cooperation and if it is not freely given, I can make things very bad for you.”
“You’d do that?”
“Only if I have to.” She stepped close. “Don’t make me have to do anything that would harm you or your boss.”
“I don’t like being threatened. And I don’t care if you are the daughter of our governor.”
“How much money do you make a month?”
“Enough.”
“You can never have enough money. I will pay you well and give you my word that no one will ever have any idea of what you supposed regarding some of your most exciting and bloody episodes.”
Longarm took her arm and squeezed it just hard enough to make her wince. “Miss Wilson,” he said, physically shoving her toward the door. “We’re done talking.”
“I need your help.”
“Help I’m not willing to give.”
“I want to meet you for dinner, buy you a steak and some expensive wine, and then take you to my home and give you dessert.”
There was no mistaking her intentions, but even so Longarm was shocked by her frankness. “And I would enjoy this ‘dessert’ at the governor’s mansion?”
“No, I own my own home. I’m a big girl now in case you haven’t noticed.”
Longarm pushed her out the door. “I’m sorry but I’ve already got plans for this evening.”
“Break them! I promise that you won’t be sorry.”
“Miss Wilson, after this conversation I already am sorry,” he told her as he shut the door in her lovely face.
“What happened?” Billy Vail asked when he reentered his office and saw Longarm sitting in a chair with a thoughtful look on his face.
“She is unlike anyone I’ve ever met before,” Longarm replied.
“In a good way . . . or a bad one?”
“Depends on your point of view.”
“Well, what did she want?”
Longarm stood up. “She wants stories from me about what I’ve done . . . especially the most violent stories. She wants the details about who I’ve killed in the line of duty so that she can change the names and write more of her dime novels.”
“Hmmm,” Billy mused. “I think you’d be treading on thin legal ice if you cooperated with Miss Wilson.”
“I know that.” Longarm shook his head. “The thing of it is, Billy, she’s trying to force my hand into this arrangement whether I like it or not.”
“I see.” Billy walked around his desk and had a seat. “Being as she is our governor’s daughter, this could get complicated.”
“More than you can imagine,” Longarm agreed. “What do you think that I should do?”
“Frankly, I’m not sure. I’ve never had one of my marshals come face-to-face with this kind of thing. Did the woman actually threaten you?”
“It was the old carrot or stick kind of approach,” Longarm explained. “She promised to pay me well and that she’d never divulge my name and keep my identity secret.”
“That might be acceptable.”
“But when I refused,” Longarm said, “she told me that she could damage my reputation and that of this department by getting access to information and reports that are supposed to be kept secret.”
“Then she really is dangerous.”
“Oh,” Longarm said, “she’s that all right. She might just be the most cunning and dangerous woman I’ve ever met.”
“You should just avoid her.”
“I’m going to try to do that, Billy. But I have this feeling that Miss Delia Wilson, aka dime novelist Dakota Walker, will not allow herself to be shunned or avoided.”
“We have an attorney at our disposal, Custis. Maybe you should have a discussion with him and find out what he’d advise.”
“That might be good advice, Billy. But I think I need to know a little more about Miss Wilson before I go to see a lawyer. She invited me to dinner, but I declined saying I already had plans.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, but they can be changed and I’ve no doubt that Delia is not the kind to take no for an answer concerning tonight.”
“You can’t go to our governor if she tries to twist your arm. If you did that, he’d be offended and nothing good would come of it.”
“I know that.”
“Then how . . .”
“She invited me to dinner tonight and then to have some dessert.”
“Well, a good steak and a slice of cherry or apple pie would be nice, I suppose.”
It was all that Longarm could do not to laugh out loud. Billy, bless his good and honest heart, really was a child when it came to understanding wild and wicked women.
Chapter 3
Longarm left his quarters at about eight o’clock that evening wearing a fresh shirt and shave. He paused under the lights outside and selected a cigar from his coat pocket, then lit it and began to carefully move down the icy sidewalk. He was headed for the nearby Timberline Steak House, and he wondered if Delia was watching and waiting somewhere to intercept him.
Longarm was not sure he wanted to be intercepted by the lovely dime novelist. Yes, he was definitely attracted to her physically and it would be interesting and highly pleasurable to make love to her . . . but he knew that pleasure would come at a very steep price. It was almost a certainty that Delia would expect him to succumb to her considerable charms and become compliant and agreeable to her requests for detailed recounts of his adventures and deadly shoot-outs. In some ways, that might be fun, and as long as his true identity remained secret Longarm could not foresee a problem. But if Delia broke her promise not to use his name, then he would be helpless to stop the considerable damage that would befall his reputation and that of his department.
Longarm supposed that the basic question was . . . if he climbed into her bed and her world, could he control her? And the answer, he reluctantly concluded was that he probably could not.
A buggy pulled by two fine horses rolled past and the driver waved at Longarm, who stood waiting on the corner. It was so cold out that the ice crackled under the wheels and steam shot out of the nostrils of the matched team as if they were a pair of small, black dragons in harness.