Free Longarm 243: Longarm and the Debt of Honor by Tabor Evans

pile and scooped the coins into a pocket without bothering to count them. He knew he was up a little, probably less than a dollar. It wasn’t exactly enough to get excited over. He excused himself, getting no argument from the other gents at the table. They looked like they were commencing to wear down too, and Longarm suspected the game would break up soon. “G’night, all,” he said as he stood.
    â€œSame time tomorrow?” a man named Kyle suggested.
    â€œMore’n likely,” Longarm agreed without exactly committing himself to be there. In his line of work a fellow couldn’t always count on what tomorrow would bring.
    A blond whore with tits like big pink pillows intercepted him before he could reach the front door. She would have looked a lot nicer, he thought, if she washed her face and neck from time to time. Lines of charcoal-colored grime collected in her wrinkles, showing dark against the rice powder that whitened her skin like soot caught in the wind-ripples of a newfallen snow. Longarm found the effect to be more than a little off-putting. Not that he would have been much interested in the aging bawd even without that relatively minor imperfection, but with a woman like this one he couldn’t help but think in terms of little bitty, itchy-crawly things. He couldn’t even see one without his pubic hair and balls beginning to itch.
    â€œJust a dollar, honey,” she whispered by way of sweet talk. Longarm thought it over, and decided it was an offer he could manage to resist.
    â€œThanks, but not tonight.”
    â€œI’m awful good, honey. You try me and you’ll see. Anybody here can tell you that. I’m worth it.”
    Longarm grinned and gave her a wink while he readjusted the set of his Stetson. “I’d bet you’re worth a whole lot more’n that even,” he said.
    The whore seemed pleased. She smiled and simpered and rubbed her tits over his arm. Longarm hoped she didn’t have anything that was too contagious.
    â€œYou’re a fine-looking woman,” he lied, “but I’m awful tired tonight.”
    She gave him a look of instant concern. “Of course you are, honey. I shoulda thought about that.”
    Longarm smiled at her again and tried to step away into the night, to a place where there would be clean fresh air instead of the stink of cheap toilet water that surrounded the hooker. She stopped him by grabbing his coat at the elbow. “Wait a minute, hear?”
    â€œLook, ma’am, I already told you—”
    â€œNo, I . . . it isn’t that. It’s . . . I don’t know just how to say this.”
    Longarm shrugged. And waited.
    â€œWe ain’t such a much here, I don’t suppose, especially not to a fine, handsome, big-city lawman like yourself. But we got our pride. You know what I mean?”
    He didn’t, but he did not think this was the time to discuss it. He continued to wait, giving the old whore time enough to say whatever it was that was on her mind.
    â€œEverybody knows what happened to you this afternoon, and we’re all embarrassed by it. Real upset too because we all of us like that boy Dinky. He was a swell kid. You know?”
    Now that was something that Longarm for damn sure did not know. The one sure fact he had about Dinky Dinklemann was that the boy had tried to kill him. In Longarm’s estimation, that was not much of a recommendation for upstanding character.
    â€œEverybody’s been talking tonight and . . . well, what we kinda think is that somebody in town here made Dinky try and do that today. We don’t like that. You see what I mean?”
    Maybe. He was beginning to think perhaps he was beginning to understand now.
    â€œAnyway, I guess what I’m trying to say, Marshal, is we don’t want anything more bad to happen in our town. We don’t want you hurt nor anybody else. So . . . well . . . you just be careful when you go home