Longarm 241: Longarm and the Colorado Counterfeiter (21 page)

Longarm sat back slowly on the edge of the bed. He looked at Finley and shook his head slowly. “Finley, you're a rare sonofabitch. You mean to tell me that you're going to take credit for this whole thing? What about me?”

“You? Can't you figure that out? Anyone that fools around with dynamite as much as you've been fooling around with it—and there are plenty of records about how much dynamite you've bought at that store—well, sooner or later, they're likely to blow themselves to pieces. I'd reckon that's what happened to you.”

“So, you're going to make it seem like I didn't even exist?”

“Well, what would you do in my place?”

Longarm said, “I don't know. I've never been in the place of a low-down no-good sonofabitch before.” He leaned forward, putting his weight on his right hand, letting it slip under the covers and grasp the butt of his revolver. He did it under the guise of inching one foot off the bed and toward the floor. “You don't mind if I get up from here, do you?”

Finley shook his head. “No. As a matter of fact, I'm going to need you to come on and go with me. We're going to ride off a ways, just me and you.”

“Are both of us coming back?”

Finley chuckled. “Well, I wouldn't know about that.”

For the first time, Longarm noticed the girl. Her eyes were wide with fright. She probably didn't know what was happening, but she knew that something very dangerous was taking place. She couldn't know whether or not she would be caught in the cross fire. Longarm knew that he damned sure couldn't tell her.

He went on easing himself off the bed, dragging his right hand under the protection of the covers that had been thrown back to receive the body of the girl as she lay on her back. Out of his left eye, because he didn't want Finley to think he was watching him too close, Longarm could see that Finley was glancing from time to time at the case on the table.

Longarm said, “You might want to check those plates. They might be the wrong ones. There's another set downstairs.”

“You don't say? Is that a fact?”

“Yes, that's a fact.”

Finley said, “Well, I reckon I ought to....” He took a step toward the table, turning himself slightly sideways to Longarm. It took the aim of his gun a few degrees off dead center. In that instant, Longarm reacted. He came out from under the covers with the revolver, letting his foot hit the floor. He fell sideways. He fired as he was about halfway to the floor. He saw the bullet hit Finley in the side of the chest and saw the man stagger sideways. Finley fired his gun, but it was aimed toward the ceiling. White dust came down.

As Longarm hit the floor, he cocked his revolver and fired again, this time hitting Finley in the throat.

The last bullet did it. Finley slammed into the wall, and then slid slowly down until he was sitting on the floor. He was dead, but he just hadn't fallen over. His lifeless fingers still held the gun. Blood was beginning to seep from the two holes.

Longarm sat up slowly. The room was filled with the booming of the shots and the acrid smell of gunpowder. He said, “Well, Longarm, now you've really done it. Now you've killed yourself a Treasury agent. If they weren't mad enough at you before, they are going to be mad as hell now.”

He looked over at the girl. She was staring at him with wide eyes. But then slowly her lips parted and she let her tongue run out around her lips. She said, “Softly, please. Now. Please.”

Longarm got quickly to his feet and picked up his gun belt. He said, “Are you crazy? Every time I fuck you, something bad happens. Somebody gets shot. This place is full of bad stuff. They've got counterfeit money, counterfeit women and now, counterfeit Treasury agents. Hell, I can't keep up with it. I've got to get to Denver to where it's real. How in the hell I'm going to explain all this, I don't know. I don't have the slightest idea. Maybe Billy Vail is the only man alive that I know who will believe me. Doesn't mean he'll take my side, but he will believe me.”

He looked at the girl again. “Yeah, I guess that's what I'll call you. The counterfeit woman in the counterfeit house with the counterfeit money and the counterfeit Treasury agent. All in all, this has been a counterfeit case. Can you say that word? It's a new one I've learned.... counterfeit case.”

The girl just looked at him in bewilderment. Longarm said, “Don't feel bad. I don't understand it either.”

All there was left to do was go downstairs, fetch Ashton out of the cellar, and head for town, taking the engraved plates and some of the paper and some of the specimens, as Finley had called them, and then head for Denver.

He started out the door, and then looked down at the dead man. The badge that Finley had shown him was peeking out of his shirt pocket. Longarm reached down and plucked it out to have a closer look. Sure enough, it was a real Treasury agent's badge. “Damn!” Longarm said as he dropped it back in the man's lap. “The one damned thing in this whole counterfeit operation that had to turn out to be real, he had to be a real Treasury agent. Boy, Billy Vail is going to give me some hell about this.”

He looked around at the girl. He said, “Well,
adios. Buenas suerte.”

She said, leaning toward him, “Please, once more.”

“You really are crazy. I've got to get on my way. I've got a lot of chickens to kill.” He took the box under his arm and started down the hall. The job was finished, and he wasn't sure that he wasn't also. Killing Treasury agents, even with a damned good cause, was probably going to be looked on sort of dimly. He had no earthly idea of what he was in for.

Longarm had been back in Denver for about a week. He was sitting on the bed in the boardinghouse, smoking cigarillos and drinking Maryland whiskey. He stared out the window. He didn't believe he'd ever had any more trouble getting out of a mess in all of his life. Just getting the whole thing explained to the sheriff in Silverton had been a job of work in itself.

After that, getting enough people to go out and help him clean up the bodies on the Ashton place had been another headache. The townspeople, when they discovered that he had shut Ashton down, had come damned close to lynching him. He had shoved Ashton into the sheriff's jail, but the first night, it was a near guess as to who was going to end up there, him or Vernon Ashton. Only the good efforts of the sheriff had prevented a riot. The people hadn't given a damn if he was a United States deputy marshal or not. All they knew was that he had cut off their cash. It was only when things settled down a little bit that some of them began to realize that the money they had taken in and had been passing along wasn't real money after all. By that time, other Treasury agents had come in—regular Treasury agents, ones not anxious to take all the credit. They had spread out through the town and collected what they still called specimens.

That was when the town had turned against Ashton. Take a specimen twenty-dollar bill away from a storekeeper, and his attitude will take a swift turn in a hurry. They didn't care the twenty-dollar bills were specimens and were going to be used in a case against Ashton. All they knew was that where there had been a twenty-dollar bill, there was nothing now.

Of course, not many of the counterfeit bills had found their way to Silverton, and when they had, it had been quite by accident. Ashton was no fool. He wasn't going to foul his own nest. Most of his bogus money had been sent off to the East and up into Yankee land, where there would be no connection with his base of operations. But nevertheless, there were some twenties some of the men had apparently stolen and used in town. So, when the townspeople had discovered what line of work Ashton was in, their opinions had done a somersault, and Ashton's reputation had come up snake eyes.

In the end, Longarm had gotten it all cleaned up. He'd turned over Ashton, the plates, the paper that was used in the manufacture of the bogus money, the counterfeit printing press, and the body of Finley. The agents had had very little comment about what had transpired between him and Finley. That, he knew, would be played out back in Denver between himself and Billy Vail.

To his great surprise, Billy Vail had understood. In fact, he'd even known about Finley. He'd said, “Finley is just someone gone wrong in office, Custis. It happens in our service, it happens in the Treasury service, hell, it happens in all government services. The man just went wrong and let his ambition get ahead of him. He wanted to settle that case. It had come to his ears that you were on it and that you had a better chance than most to crack that case open. So, he was going to let you do the work and he was going to take the credit. Finley already had a reputation for being a little too handy with a gun, and the Treasury Department doesn't much care for that kind. I told them the facts of what happened. They are disposed as to believe it. In fact, I have demanded an apology for one of their officers interfering with one of mine in his line of duty. I believe we are going to get it. So, you got out of another one, you scoundrel. Anyway, it sounds like you did a pretty good job. I don't know how you keep getting so lucky, but I guess you do.”

Longarm yawned and stretched. He was wearing nothing but a pair of Levi's. He had just had a bath down the hall, and he was fresh and clean and feeling good. It was coming on toward dark and in a little while, his lady friend who ran the dress shop was going to stop by his room, and they were going to have a reunion before they went to eat dinner. He was looking forward to that reunion with Pauline. He had missed her dearly on that long trip across the mountains, but now, he figured he could make up for lost time in just a little while. There sure as hell wasn't anything counterfeit about Pauline.

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242nd novel in the exciting LONGARM series
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