Longarm 241: Longarm and the Colorado Counterfeiter (17 page)

Longarm shoved the revolver back in his waistband, and then got ahold of the girl's wrists and unwrapped them around his neck. He said in a very fierce whisper to her, “Please, not now. I'm as busy as hell.”

She was panting and trying to kiss him in the ear. She said, “Yes, yes, I must have. Yes.”

He said, “No, will you please wait. Go back upstairs and wait. I haven't got time for you right now.” He got to his feet and holding her by her wrists, pulled and dragged her to the door of the library and shoved her out into the hall. Then he shut the library door. There was a lock on it. He turned it.

He shook himself as if to shake the feel and the smell of the girl off his body. Then he strolled purposefully across the library floor, walking soundlessly on the heavy carpet. He pulled out his waistband revolver as he neared the door. It was clearly lit inside the room. The outline of light traced the big heavy door. Longarm stood there, wondering exactly how he was going to get inside. As far as he could remember, it was a completely closed office, even without a window. He stood there, thinking. Finally, with the muzzle of his revolver, he knocked on the door.

There was no answer except silence.

He knocked again, harder this time.

A moment passed, and then a low voice, perhaps hushed by the thickness of the wall and the door, said, “Who is it?”

Longarm recognized Ashton's voice. He said, “You know damned good and well who it is. It's Custis Long. Now, let me in there.”

“I don't have time right now, Mr. Long. Could you come back tomorrow?”

Longarm gazed in amazement at the door as if he could see the face of the man who would have made such a statement.

He said, “Are you crazy? Open this damned door.”

There was no sound from within. Longarm turned the knob. It turned about an inch, and then stopped. It was locked.

Longarm beat on the door again. He said, “Ashton, open this damned door. You can't get out of there. Do you want me to start shooting through this door?”

Ashton answered back. “The door's too thick.”

Longarm stood there, puzzling over what to do. He wasn't sure he could shoot the lock loose, but it was the only choice he had. He stepped back, narrowed his eyes in case there was any flying metal, and fired at the base of the doorknob. He fired once, then twice. On the third shot, he saw the door move inward. With a hard kick, he sent it crashing around. He was suddenly framed in an open door with his drawn pistol aimed at a man behind his desk. It was Ashton.

Longarm could see that both of his hands were empty. He looked frightened. He didn't look very big.

Ashton said, “You can't come in here. It's against the law.”

Longarm reached in his pocket and took out his badge. He said, “Ashton, I am the law. The name is Custis Long, but that's United States Deputy Marshal Custis Long. And you're a counterfeiter and that's against the law and we're going to talk about it. Now, you are under arrest. Stand up.”

He walked into the room as Ashton came to his feet. Longarm quickly looked to the left to make sure there was no one else in the office. It was empty. Finally, somehow, he had managed to get alone with the man that he set out to get alone. He had run his counterfeiter to the ground, he hoped.

Longarm said, “Get your hands up in the air.”

Ashton was wearing a brocaded silver-colored vest and a white shirt, his graying hair was nattily combed, and he was clean-shaven. He hardly looked like a man who was getting ready for a fight. But then Ashton had never planned to do any of the fighting. His finely drawn features and delicate hands were not meant for the rough-and-tumble work. They were meant for the engraving of counterfeit plates or the cutting of paper that closely resembled that used by the United States Government.

Longarm sat down in a chair in front of the desk while Ashton slowly raised his hands.

Ashton said, “I've got a sore shoulder. This is going to cause me extreme discomfort. I don't want to hold my hands up like this.”

Longarm said, “I'm not going to let you sit down at the desk with all those drawers in there where you probably have a dozen hideout guns.” To his left was a small wooden table with two chairs. He gestured with his gun.

“Come around here and sit in that yonder chair, the one against the wall. I'll take the one facing you.” He walked over to where he had indicated, and waited as Ashton came around and sat down carefully in the chair opposite his.

Longarm put his revolver butt on the top of the round table with the barrel pointing directly at Ashton. With his thumb, he cocked the revolver.

Ashton shuddered. He said, “Oh, please don't do that. It makes me very nervous.”

“Well, you're going to be a whole lot more nervous unless you tell me right quick where all the paraphernalia is that you use to counterfeit twenty-dollar bills.”

Ashton's face didn't change in the slightest. He said, “I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know anything about counterfeiting.”

Longarm sighed. “Of course, I knew you were going to say that. And of course, I don't believe you. So, I guess we're going to have to do this the hard way. I reckon you'll have it that way, won't you, Mr. Ashton?”

“I tell you, I don't know anything about counterfeiting.”

Longarm laughed. “Then would you mind telling me how you've been paying forty gunhands and you're not running a single cow on this beautiful piece of grassland? Would you mind telling me what you are doing sitting up here in this castle and who bought it and what with? Would you mind telling me what you do at this out-of-the-way place?”

Ashton swallowed hard. “I ... I inherited money. It was my money.”

Longarm gave the man a mild look. “Did you need all these gunhands to protect it? Couldn't you have put it in the bank or buried it out in the backyard or something? What were all the gunhands for, Mr. Ashton?”

“I ... I ... it wasn't my idea to hire them. Mr. Early thought they would be decorative.”

“Decorative?”

“Yes, uh, to ... make the place look like a real working ranch. Yes, that's it.”

Longarm said, “Ashton, you are lying. I know you're lying. We both know you're lying. Why don't you save us both some trouble and give up that paraphernalia you've got that you make the bills with?”

“That would be illegal. I'm not an illegal man. I inherited my money.”

Longarm sighed. He said, “I hate to tell you this, but I'm afraid we're going to have to get to the point where we do a little hurting. You see, I didn't want this assignment in the first place. I didn't want to have to come down here. I knew it was going to be a lot of trouble. I knew it was going to be hard to get to you, and I knew I was going to have to kill a lot of people to get to you. Sure enough, all of that came true. Finally, I got to the point where it is just me and you, and believe me, Mr. Ashton, I'm going to have the truth out of you before I'm done. Do you understand that? Do you understand that I've got no choice except to make you tell me where that stuff is?”

Ashton looked frightened. He said, “What did you do with Mr. Early?”

“I killed him along with the four men you had in the house that were supposed to stop me. There is nobody but you and me, and I've got the gun and I'm bigger and I'm stronger and I'm meaner. So, you are going to tell me. It may take a while. You might lose some teeth. You might lose an ear. You might lose a finger. Lord, I don't know what you might lose. You might lose your balls. Before it's over with, you're going to hurt bad enough that you're going to want to tell me. Like I said, this ain't supposed to be my job. I don't like it, so I'm going to get it over with just as fast as I can.”

Ashton looked frightened, but he still said, “I'm not a counterfeiter and I don't know what you're talking about. I have lived here quietly for a number of years. I am a stockman. I was going to stock this place with cattle. I had nothing to do with counterfeiting money.”

Longarm was still pointing his revolver directly at the man's chest. Ashton had both of his hands lying on top of the small, round, varnished table. Longarm did not know if Ashton had a weapon concealed about his person, but he doubted it, although it didn't make much difference anyway, as long as Ashton kept his hands where they were. He took a second to remind the man of that. He said, “I want your hands where I can see them, Mr. Ashton. In fact, I like them just the way they are, palms downward, flat on that table. Unless you know how to shoot a gun with your boot, I think we'll get along all right.”

Ashton said with fear in his eyes, “Do you have to point that revolver at me? Can't you point it in some other direction?”

“I want you to get used to it, Mr. Ashton. You see the hammer's back. My finger is inside the trigger guard on the trigger. It wouldn't take much more than a sneeze and this thing would go off and blow your chest completely through the back of your chair.”

Ashton let out a small scream. He said, “That's exactly what I mean. What if you coughed or something? For God's sake, son, point that gun in some other direction.”

Longarm said, smiling, “It ain't bothering me. But what is bothering me is when are you going to tell me where it was that you did your counterfeiting? Where are the plates and the paper and the presses that you run those twenty-dollar bills off on? You're going to have to show me sooner or later. And right now would be the best time. It's daylight now. You can't tell it in this room, but I would imagine that the sun's up by now. There might be some people curious as to what's going on out here. If they should happen to come out here, I'd hate to think what might happen to you. You see, I'm a law officer, so I'm within my rights.”

“You can't torture me then. If you're an officer of the law, you have no right to torture me.”

Longarm yawned. “It's been a long night, Ashton. I'm getting damned tired. Now, I ain't going to torture you, but I am going to persuade the hell out of you. If you think about it for a minute, that's all I'm going to do is persuade you. Now, where is all that paraphernalia and your print shop for that counterfeiting?”

Ashton said, “I don't know of anything.”

Longarm had been looking at Ashton's right hand. The little finger looked to be just about the right diameter. He thought it would frighten the man considerably if he was afraid of the open mouth of the revolver staring at him. He wondered what he would look like with a finger sticking up the revolver.

He moved his revolver forward, and then suddenly reached out and clamped a hard hand over Ashton's smaller and more delicate one. The man tried to jerk backward, but Longarm held him fast. With a rigid grip on his hand, he managed to pull the little finger free from the rest of the hand. He pulled Ashton's hand forward with his left hand while at the same time, he pushed his revolver closer and closer until the little finger went into the muzzle of the revolver almost up to the middle joint.

Ashton screamed in short, staccato bursts and tried to jump around. Longarm said, “Damn you, you'd better be still. I've got my finger inside this trigger guard, and if you get to jumping around much more, this thing is going to get loose and blow your finger off.”

“You can't do this,” Ashton said in an agonizing voice. “You'll ruin my finger! My God, what can I do if you shoot my finger off?”

“You agree to tell me where that stuff is and I'll agree to let you get your finger out of there.”

It was at the instant that Ashton looked up sharply. Longarm couldn't turn his head, but he heard a light rapping at the door. At that instant, Ashton screamed, “Help! Help!” and jerked his hand back. The problem was that the muzzle was caught on the second knuckle and as Ashton jerked his hand back, it pulled at the pistol. It wasn't much, but it was enough for the hair-trigger touch of Longarm's revolver. The gun roared with a little of Ashton's finger still in the muzzle. The blast came right under Longarm's hand and wrist. He could feel the heat.

But Ashton felt the bullet take off part of his finger. He screamed and yelled and jumped straight up in the air, and went dashing around the table toward the back of the office, holding his wounded hand aloft. He was screaming, “Help! Help! I'm killed! I'm dying!”

Longarm got up and chased him for a moment before he could comer him. The hand didn't look too bad, though the tip of the finger had been shot away. There wasn't much blood. There were no big arteries or veins in the little finger. But he couldn't do anything for Ashton, or to him, as long as he was hysterical. With resignation, Longarm sighed and hit the man a hard jolt on the jaw. Ashton dropped out cold. Longarm caught him just before he hit the floor. He dragged him over to a settee and laid him out full length. He noticed a silk scarf in the man's sleeve, and he pulled it out and bound up the little finger as best as he could. He could tell that it wasn't ever going to be quite the same, even though no more than a half inch had been blown away, but he did imagine it was painful. He reckoned that anytime you stuck your finger in the muzzle of a gun and it went off, it would be somewhat painful.

He knew that Ashton would be waking soon and that he was going to be screaming his head off in agony. He went quickly to Ashton's desk, and looked through the drawers until he found two bottles of brandy and a couple of glasses. He set them on the small table. Then he fetched Ashton the way you would a child, and placed him in the chair, letting his head fall forward on the table. He carefully put Ashton's hand out where it would be in as comfortable a position as possible. On a thought, he went to the settee and brought a cushion over to put Ashton's hand on. Then Longarm sat back down on the chair across from the counterfeiter. Ashton wouldn't be out very long, and when he came to, he would be hurting. In fact, he would probably be hurting so bad that the threat of more pain wouldn't scare him that much.