Longarm and Big Lips Lilly by Tabor Evans

Author:Tabor Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

Three days and one bad New Mexico snowstorm later, Longarm arrived in Flagstaff, Arizona. The temperature was just a shade above freezing, but there wasn’t any snow on the ground. As was his custom, he immediately went to see the local marshal to inform the man of his presence and intention to investigate the murders surrounding Big Lips Lilly Cameron.

Marshal Pete Pitman was a slow-moving and slow-talking man in his early fifties, who looked as if he hadn’t bathed or shaved in a week. He stood about six feet tall and probably weighed nearly three hundred pounds, most of it fat. His appearance was sloppy and unkempt and his office was littered with newspapers, dirty dishes, unwashed coffee cups and other articles of discarded trash. Longarm formed an immediate dislike and distrust of the man and wondered how he’d ever gotten elected to office.

“I don’t much appreciate the federal government pokin’ its nose into local business.”

“A federal judge was murdered,” Longarm reminded the law officer. “That gives us the right to conduct a full investigation.”

“Waste of government money,” Pitman declared, jabbing his finger in Longarm’s direction so often that he wanted to reach out an break it. “Federal government sure likes to waste the taxpayers’ money. How much they pay you a month?”

Pitman chuckled so that his multiple chins wiggled. “You’re a tall, testy one, ain’t ya? Well, it don’t matter to me what you do or say. Big Lips is gonna hang in about ten days and that’s the end of that story. Be a big time in town when she does swing. Lots of boys gonna watch her pretty legs kickin’ at the sky and wish they was wrapped around their necks. Big Lips is a looker, in case you haven’t heard.”

“I heard. And I’d like to see her immediately.”

“Ain’t possible.”

“Why not?”

The marshal stabbed a fat finger in Longarm’s direction. “Big Lips is being held to await a public hanging in Williams.”

“Why?”

Pitman slapped his fat knee and chortled. “Them boys over there nailed planks across the sliding door of a box car and made it into a jail.”

“She’s being held in a box car in this freezing mountain weather?”

“Big Lips is tough. And do you know what else?”

“No.”

“My guess is that she’ll probably swing sooner than expected.”

Longarm fought down the impulse to grab the man and shake him like a water gourd. Instead, he asked, “Why do you say that?”

“Because they have some boys over in Williams that like to take matters into their own hands. Impatient boys that know how to toss a rope over a telegraph pole or pine tree and then what to do with that rope, if you catch my meaning.”

“I do,” Longarm said, knowing he’d heard just about as much from this fat lout as he could stand. “Tell me one more thing?”

“Sure, Marshal.”

“Is your counterpart in Williams as pathetic as you are?”

Pitman’s eyes narrowed and his lips curled down at the corners. “You federal people are all alike. You think you know better than anyone else what needs to be done.

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