Longarm and the Sins of Laughing Lyle (9781101612101) Read Free

lawman and crossing state lines was what had made their latest dastardly deed, only one of many, the business of the federal marshals. That’s why Chief Marshal Billy Vail had assigned Longarm to throw in with Case Morgan out of Fort Smith, Arkansas, to try and run the small, deadly gang to ground. Longarm had worked with Case Morgan many times over his long career; he’d come to revere the man like few others, so he was gritting his teeth behind his smile as Charlie Embers stepped up to within one foot of him . . .
    So close that Longarm’s nostrils twitched at the nastiness of the man’s rancid smell, as though it emanated from deep within his rotten, kill-crazy soul. Embers smelled like an ear preserved in rotgut whiskey.
    â€œWhy you find us so damned fascinatin’?” Charlie said.
    â€œAh, hell, mister, I didn’t mean to be snoopy and get your neck in a hump,” Longarm said, manufacturing a faintly wheedling, cowardly tone, holding his hands up to his shoulders in supplication. “I was just wonderin’ what kind of a game you got goin’ and if maybe another man could sit in—that’s all.”
    Embers’s head only came up to Longarm’s chin, so the killer had to look up at the lawman from beneath his shaggy, black brows, while holding his pistols about six inches from Longarm’s belly. He was faintly walleyed from drink. “Oh, you did, didja, Mister Francy-Dresser?”
    Charlie cast his angry gaze across Longarm’s fawn vest, worn over a blue cotton shirt down which a black string tie dangled. Working his nostrils like a gut-sniffing dog, he looked once more into Longarm’s eyes from beneath his black, shaggy brows. “Well, suppose me and my pal don’t want no fancy-dressin’ cardsharp sittin’ in on our game. Supposin’ we don’t play with sharpies?”
    Longarm shrugged. “Well, okay, then. I don’t see no reason to get your neck up about it.”
    â€œWe work hard for our money, see. That’s why I get my neck up about it.”
    The man at the table, Richard Dix, chuckled at that as he stared toward Embers and Longarm. Behind him, Kid McQuade had finally attained full pleasure with the whore and was sitting back, breathing hard with his pants still down around his ankles, knees spread, while the whore remained on her back, groaning miserably and cupping her hands to her snatch. She was plumb worn out, it seemed.
    â€œI’m sure you do work hard for it,” Longarm told Charlie. “And I do apologize if you for some reason got to believin’ I’d think otherwise!”
    â€œI could just shoot you—you know that,” Charlie said, gritting his teeth and ramming his pistol barrels against Longarm’s belly. “I really could. I could just shoot a damn worthless cardsharp that don’t know how to make his livin’ no other way than sittin’ around poker tables and roulette wheels. I’ll be damned if you just don’t make me madder’n an old wet hen, sir!”
    Longarm saw in Charlie’s sparking eyes that the killer’s wolf was indeed off its leash. Charlie hadn’t killed in a couple of days, and the lack of fresh blood on his hands, coupled with the whiskey he’d been drinking for the past several hours, was making him ornery.
    Apprehension made the lawman’s shoulders tighten as he stared down at the cocked pistols the insane killer held taut against his fawn-colored vest, over the gold-washed chain that connected Longarm’s railroad watch in one pocket to his derringer in the other.
    Wouldn’t it just be funny if he’d outsmarted himself here and got himself killed because the gang thought he was a professional poker player? Certainly not to Case Morgan, who was bleeding dry out in the stony hollow yonder.
    Longarm slid his gaze back up to Charlie’s. The lawman felt a slight shudder of rage sweep through