Vail said, "You'd best shut that door all the way. This is private."
Longarm said, "Trixie will be coming to take our orders. You'll be glad I was so thoughtful when it sinks in how salty that ham you chose really tastes. What's so infernally delicate about the report I just filed for you, Boss?"
He was bluffing, of course. Billy Vail tracked as good across a report as a Digger Indian across fresh snowfall. But Longarm hadn't been dumb enough to write down any lies.
Vail said, "Most of it's just swell. Considering I was only out to keep you from getting shot as a skirt-chaser, you done us proud in the Indian Territory. The War Department is pleased with you, the Bureau of Indian Affairs is pleased with you, and even the Indians are glad you showed up when you did."
Trixie came in with a flounce of her Dolly Varden skirts to ask what they were drinking back there. Longarm suggested a pitcher of draft and an extra glass. When Vail didn't argue, he asked Trixie if she could throw in some of those devilish eggs and mayhaps some good old pickled pig's feet.
Trixie said she knew how to serve a growing boy, and flounced out. Vail cocked a thoughtful eyebrow and said, "I'd ask, if I thought I'd get a straight answer."
Longarm shook his head and said, "Don't talk dumb. I like this place too much to trifle with the hired help. I told you in the very report you're holding how Fred Ryan was augmenting his four-figure salary as a junior Indian agent. Catching him was no big deal."
Vail said, "Chief Quanah seems to think it was. Thanks to the prestige the Comanche Police gained at the expense of those crooked Cherokee, your Sergeant Tikano is turning away Kiowa and even Kiowa-Apache volunteers!"
Longarm said that was why he'd let the Indians tidy up the loose ends themselves.
Vail said, "Let's talk about loose ends. Are you sure you really put down everything about them crazy doings around Trinidad at the last, old son?"
Longarm met Vail's thoughtful gaze--it wasn't easy--and managed to reply, "Like I wrote, me and Las Animas County agreed Attila Homagy broke no federal laws when he lost his temper with his wife. Coroner in Trinidad says he strangled her. Despite the condition of her body, there's this small ring of bone wrapped halfway round your windpipe, and when it's busted-"
"You're shitting me," Vail cut in. "I know Homagy killed his wife when she confessed her affair with Zoltan Kun. I see why the desperate cuss put us through that charade to avoid a showdown with a meaner Bohunk who had the Indian sign on him. But after Homagy chased you to the Indian Territory and back, I'm supposed to believe he all of a sudden found the nerve to kill his big boo after all, clumsy as hell for any professional dynamite man?"
Longarm smiled sheepishly and said, "I wish you weren't so smart. Are we talking off the record, Billy? I've good reason for asking, and I told you that case wasn't federal."
Vail frowned thoughtfully and decided, "Tell me the whole story and I'll decide whether it was federal or not, damn it!"
Longarm sighed and said, "You got to understand Zoltan Kun was a human wolverine who got what he had coming, Billy."
Vail nodded and said, "You put down how the shitty labor recruiter plucked immigrant gals like flowers from his private garden, whether they were spoken for by lesser men or not. You explained how Homagy was terrified of him but had to do or say something to somebody when his neighbors saw him as a pathetic excuse for a Hungarian husband. Now explain that unprofessional dynamiting at the Dexter!"
Longarm took a deep breath and said, "Homagy never done it. He never went near Zolton Kun. He'd come back from Trinidad, figuring he'd chased his missing wife and her lover far enough for his honor. He'd learned I was in town and, knowing I'd be leaving on my own in any case, made more war talk so he could say he ran me out of Trinidad."
Longarm took a sip of suds and continued. "Meanwhile, Zoltan Kun had started up with a younger greenhorn gal with an even shorter father. His name was Bela Nagy. There was no need for him to appear on paper. So he don't."
Vail softly asked, "You mean he was the one who lobbed that sloppy dynamite through Zoltan Kun's door?"
Longarm nodded and said, "He thought he had to. He was smaller than Attila Homagy. But he put his foot down, locked his wild child in her room, and told Kun she wasn't going on any more buggyrides with him. Kun laughed it off and jeered he'd try again some other time. So Nagy followed Kun home with more than enough dynamite from his mine, and the rest is unofficial history. After Nagy ran off, old Homagy saw the chance to be the hero he'd never had nerve to be. He came forward to take the blame, and the credit. He'd have almost no doubt been asked to take a bow and run for public office if we hadn't found his wife's body. I never would have searched for it if the lying bastard had left me alone!"
Vail chuckled and said, "I like your official version better. But there's one question more. All you just said happened over two weeks ago. So where in blue blazes were you after that, old son?"
Longarm explained he'd had to help the county coroner tidy up, and then he'd spent some time consoling a poor local widow.
When Vail protested he saw no widow connected with the case, Longarm shrugged and asked, "Where in the U.S. Constitution does it say a widow has to be connected with a case to require some consolation?"
The End