Free Longarm 242: Red-light by Tabor Evans

cleaver. He had faced hatchet men before and had no desire to do so again.
    The Chinaman was just jumping up and down and yelling, though, so Longarm didn’t figure he was much of a threat. Longarm bent over, grabbed the coat of the man he had knocked down, and hauled him to his feet.
    â€œSorry that had to happen, friend,” Longarm said to the man, who was shaking his head groggily. “I didn’t want any trouble.”
    The man pulled away from Longarm. With a snarl, he reached down and picked up his hat, which had come off when he fell. “You’re liable to get more than you can handle, you keep runnin’ your mouth off like that,” he said. He clapped the hat on his head and said to the Chinaman, “You can take up the matter of damages with this fella here, Ling.” He pointed at Longarm, then turned on his heel and stalked out of the little restaurant.
    Ling was still furious, though he was clearly glad that the fight was over. He pointed at the overturned table and said to Longarm, “You break table, spill food! Must pay!” He held up his hand with the fingers spread. “Five dolla’”
    Longarm figured that no more than a dollar’s worth of food had wound up on the floor, and as for the table, it would be just fine as soon as somebody set it upright again. But he didn’t feel like arguing, so he dug in the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a five-dollar gold piece. He flipped it to Ling, who plucked it deftly from the air and bit into it, then nodded in satisfaction.
    â€œSorry,” Longarm said. He looked around at the other customers in the narrow room. “Sorry, folks. I didn’t know I was touching a sore spot when I brought up that outlaw Mallory.”
    Several of the men in the room looked down at the floor. Others shifted their feet. One man cleared his throat. “We don’t know who you’re talkin’ about, mister,” he said. “There’s nobody by that name around here.”
    The hell there wasn’t, thought Longarm. He was beginning to understand now. His guess about Galena City being without a lawman had proven to be correct, and that led to his next theory.
    Ben Mallory had this town treed.
    Longarm had seen situations like this before. A group of badmen moved in on a settlement, usually somewhat isolated and without anybody to keep the peace, and took over. In return for a safe haven where they could replenish their supplies and indulge their appetites for liquor and women of easy virtue, they left everybody in the town alone, at least for the most part. As long as they weren’t crossed, that is. If somebody got brave enough to stand up to them, the owlhoots would slap him down ruthlessly, sometimes even killing him as a lesson to everybody else. So, for their own good, the townspeople went along with whatever the outlaws wanted.
    That was Galena City.
    So if he waited, thought Longarm, sooner or later Ben Mallory would come to him, especially if Longarm kept stirring up the townsfolk with his comments. Mallory was bound to hear about that. There was only one problem with that plan.
    Longarm didn’t feel like waiting. He wanted Mallory— now.
    He nodded to the customers in the Chinaman’s place, who pointedly ignored him as he walked out. With his belly full, Longarm felt pretty good. He paused on the boardwalk to light a cheroot, then strolled along Greenwood Avenue toward the intersection where it hit the other main street.
    He had only gone a block and was passing the mouth of an alley when he heard someone go, “Sssttt!”
    Longarm frowned and glanced over at the alley. J. Emerson Dupree stood there motioning to him. The newspaper publisher had taken off his ink-stained apron and put on a dusty black coat and derby hat. He glanced around furtively as he called Longarm over to him, as if he was afraid that someone would see him.
    The overcast sky was still thick with clouds, which