Longarm and the Unwritten Law Read Online Free PDF Page B

Nation to avoid a fight with a mighty silly pest just didn't sit right, even though his common sense told him nobody important to him was fixing to call him a coward or even laugh at him. The pure fact that Attila Homagy was probably green as hell with a gun and surely misinformed about his wife's love life made him impossible to reason with and stupid for any real gunfighter to tangle with.
    The streetcar carried him the mile and a quarter to Union Depot a tad sooner and not as sweaty as if he'd legged it all the way at that pace. As he entered the cavernous depths of the sooty red brick edifice, it took a short spell for his eyes to adjust from the bright sunlight out front. So he froze in mid stride and came close to going for his gun when an all-too-familiar voice near the tobacco stand let fly with, "You didn't think I'd be slick enough to head anyone off here, did you, Deputy Smiley?"
    Those last two words saved Attila Homagy from a pistol-whipping at the very least as Longarm stared thoughtfully down at the older man and paused to hear him out.
    Homagy nodded at the envelope in Longarm's left hand. "Some last-minute instructions from Marshal Vail, eh? I guess all of you had me down as just another dumb greenhorn. But I'll have everyone know that whether I was born in the Carpathians or not, I graduated from the eighth grade in Penn State!"
    Longarm cautiously said, "Anyone can see you're as smart as your average cuss, Mister Homagy."
    The mining man with the wayward wife said, "Damned right. I found out where Longarm lived, and got there just in time to learn that you and another deputy had just left with his traveling gear, Deputy Smiley. I knew he'd be leaving town from here or that Overland Stage from in front of the Tremont House. So I came here first, telling them over at yonder baggage window that I was a pal of Deputy Long's, and what do you think I just found out?"
    Longarm managed not to grin as he soberly replied, "It's a sin to tell a lie, and they shouldn't have given out such privileged information. But I've worked that dodge and they usually do."
    Homagy looked so smug it would have been cruel to tell him he was full of it. So Longarm didn't as the older man crowed, "They told me he means to catch that train to Kansas City in an hour or so. So guess who'll be here to see him off. the home-wrecking son of a bitch!"
    Longarm sighed and said, "Bragging right out that you mean to gun another man could be taken as criminal intent, Mister Homagy."
    The avowed assassin replied with a sly grin, "Who said exactly what I'm going to do when I catch up with the man who made my poor little Magda bus him against her will? Go ahead and arrest me, if you think you can hold a man with simple justice on his side. Your Denver Police arrested me earlier, and had to let me go."
    Longarm was about to ask if bus was the Bohunk for what he surmised it had to be. But then they were joined by a Spanish-speaking streetwalker called Consuela, who sidled up to Longarm and said right out, "Buentardes, El Brazo Largo. jA 'onde va?"
    So it was safe to assume Attila Homagy spoke no Spanish. For the soiled dove's words would have translated as, "Afternoon, Longarm. Where you headed?"
    Before she could say anything worse in English, Longarm had her by one elbow and they were rushing for the platform doors as if they had a train to catch.
    The young whore laughed and gasped, "Madre de Dios, you must really need some! But that's what we're here for and I'll try anything that doesn't hurt too much!"
    He got her out of Homagy's sight as he tersely told her in his own version of Spanish that he was working under an assumed name and didn't want that suspect in the seersucker suit back yonder to know just who he might really be.
    Consuela laughed incredulously and replied, "Pero El Brazo Largo, everyone inside the depot knows who you are!"
    She'd made a good point, and damn it, that southbound Billy Vail had advised against was already pulling out