Resolution E-Book

Robert B Parker

• Herausgeber: Corvus
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Serie: COLE & HITCH SERIES
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 234

Beschreibung

The dust has yet to settle in the new frontier town of Resolution. It's barely even a town: a general store, a handful of saloons and a run-down brothel for the workers at a nearby copper mine. No sheriff has been appointed, and gunslingers have taken control.Amid the chaos, itinerant lawman Everett Hitch has created a small haven of order at the Blackfoot Saloon. Charged with protecting the girls who work the back room, Hitch has seen off passing cowboys and violent punters - though it's his scheming boss, Amos Woolfson, who stirs up the most trouble.When a greedy mine owner threatens the local ranchers, Woolfson ends up at the centre of a makeshift war. Hitch knows only too well how to protect himself, but with the bloodshed mounting, he's relieved when his friend Virgil Cole rides into town. In a place where justice and order don't yet exist, Cole and Hitch must lay down the law - without violating their codes of honour, duty and friendship.

Leseprobe

RESOLUTION

First published in the United States of America in 2008 by G. P. Putnam’s and Sons

This edition first published in the UK in 2013 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

Copyright © Robert B. Parker 2008.

The moral right of Robert B. Parker to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system. or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally.

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Hardback ISBN: 978-1-84887-346-9 E-book ISBN: 978-0-85789-268-3

Printed in Great Britain

Corvus An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd Ormond House 26–27 Boswell Street London WC1N 3JZ

www.corvusbooks.co.uk

THE SPENSER NOVELS

Now & Then

Hundred-Dollar Baby

School Days

Cold Service

Bad Business

Widow’s Walk

Potshot

Hugger Mugger

Hush Money

Sudden Mischief

Small Vices

Chance

Thin Air

Walking Shadow

Paper Doll

Double Deuce

Pastime

Stardust

Playmates

Crimson Joy

Pale Kings and Princes

Taming a Sea-Horse

A Catskill Eagle

Valediction

The Widening Gyre

Ceremony

A Savage Place

Early Autumn

Looking for Rachel Wallace

The Judas Goat

Promised Land

Mortal Stakes

God Save the Child

The Godwulf Manuscript

Back Story

THE JESSE STONE NOVELS

Stranger in Paradise

High Profile

Sea Change

Stone Cold

Death in Paradise

Trouble in Paradise

Night Passage

THE SUNNY RANDALL NOVELS

Spare Change

Blue Screen

Melancholy Baby

Shrink Rap

Perish Twice

Family Honor

ALSO BY ROBERT B. PARKER

Appaloosa

Double Play

Gunman’s Rhapsody

All Our Yesterdays

A Year at the Races

(with Joan H. Parker)

Perchance to Dream

Poodle Springs

(with Raymond Chandler)

Love and Glory

Wilderness

Three Weeks in Spring

(with Joan H. Parker)

Training with Weights

(with John R. Marsh)

As always, for Joan, the girl of the golden west . . . and east . . . and north . . . and south

RESOLUTION

CONTENTS

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

55.

56.

57.

58.

59.

60.

61.

62.

63.

64.

65.

66.

67.

68.

69.

70.

71.

72.

73.

74.

75.

1.

I was in the Blackfoot Saloon in a town called Resolution, talking with the man who owned the saloon about a job. The owner was wearing a brocade vest. His name was Wolfson. He was tall and thin and sort of spooky-looking, with a walleye.

“What’s your name?” Wolfson said.

“Hitch,” I said. “Everett Hitch.”

“How long you been in Resolution?” Wolfson said.

We were at the far end of the big mahogany bar, sipping whiskey that I had bought us.

“’Bout two hours,” I said.

“And you come straight here?” Wolfson said.

“Ain’t that many choices in Resolution,” I said.

“There’s some others,” Wolfson said. “But they ain’t as nice. Tell me about yourself. What can you do?”

“Went to West Point,” I said. “Soldiered awhile, scouted awhile, shotgun for Wells Fargo, did some marshaling with Virgil Cole.”

“Cole?”

“Yep.”

“You worked with Virgil Cole?” Wolfson said. “Where?”

“Lotta towns, last one was Appaloosa.”

“And you were doing gun work,” Wolfson said.

“Some.”

“Virgil Cole,” Wolfson said.

I nodded and sipped some of the whiskey.

“We got no marshal in this town,” Wolfson said. “Sheriff’s deputy rides over once in a while from Liberty. But mostly we’re on our own.”

I nodded.

“Got a mayor?” I said. “Town council? Anything like that?”

“Nope.”

“Who’s in charge?”

“In town? Nobody. In here? Me,” Wolfson said.

I glanced around the saloon. It was half full in the middle of the afternoon. Nobody looked dangerous. The lookout chair at the other end of the bar was empty. I nodded at it.

“Could use a lookout,” Wolfson said. “Last one got hoo-rahed out of town.”

“What are you paying?” I said.

He told me.

“Plus a room upstairs,” Wolfson said.

“Meals?”

“If you eat them here,” Wolfson said.

“Anyplace else in town to eat?” I said.

Wolfson shrugged.

“I’ll take it,” I said.

“It’s kind of a tradition,” Wolfson said. “Some of the boys like to test the new lookout.”

I nodded.

“Fact is I’ve had trouble keeping a lookout.”

I nodded again, and drank a little more. The whiskey was pretty good.

“I got a big capital investment here,” Wolfson said. “I don’t want it wrecked.”

“Don’t blame you,” I said.

“Think you can stick?” Wolfson said.

“Sure,” I said.

“Some tough people here,” Wolfson said.

“Tough people everywhere,” I said.

“Any chance you could get Virgil Cole to come up here, too?” Wolfson said.

“No,” I said.

“You fellas on the outs?” Wolfson said.

“No,” I said.

“There’s a shotgun behind the bar,” Wolfson said.

“Got my own,” I said.

“When you want to start?”

“Tonight,” I said. “Gimme time to stow my gear, clean up, take a nap.”

“It can get rough,” Wolfson said.

“Any backup?” I said. “Bartenders?”

Wolfson shook his head.

“They serve drinks,” Wolfson said. “Ain’t got no interest in getting killed.”

“You?” I said.

“I’m a businessman,” Wolfson said.

“You’re heeled,” I said.

Wolfson opened his coat and showed me a Colt in a shoulder holster.

“Self-defense,” he said. “Only.”

“So I’m on my own,” I said.

Wolfson nodded.

“Still interested?” he said.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Sure. Just getting the way it lays out.”

“And you ain’t scared,” Wolfson said.

“Not yet,” I said.

2.

I had an eight-gauge shotgun that I’d taken with me when I left Wells Fargo. It didn’t take too long for things to develop. I sat in the tall lookout chair in the back of the saloon with the shotgun in my lap for two peaceful nights. On my third night it was different.

I could almost smell trouble beginning to cook as people came into the saloon after work. There were more than usual of them and they seemed sort of excited and expectant. In addition to trouble, the saloon smelled of coal oil, and sweat, and booze, and tobacco, and food cooking, and the loud perfume of the whores. There were six men who had arrived early, sitting at a table near me, drinking whiskey. The trouble would come from them. And it would start with a sort of weaselly-looking fella in a bowler hat, wearing a gun. Everyone at the table was looking at me, and around the room, trying to look nonchalant, the rest of the customers had situated themselves where they could watch.

“Hey Lookout,” the Weasel said. “What’s your name?”

“Hitch,” I said. “Everett Hitch.”

He was wearing a dark shirt with vertical stripes, buttoned up tight at the collar. The buttons were big.

“Any good with that shotgun?” the Weasel said.

The room was quiet now, and everyone was watching. The Weasel liked that. He lounged back a little in his chair, his bowler hat tipped forward over his forehead. The gun he carried was a Colt, probably a .44, probably single-action. He had cut the holster down for a fast draw. And wore it tied to his thigh. Probably the local gunny.

“Don’t need to be all that good with a double-barreled eight-gauge,” I said.

“And I bet you ain’t,” the Weasel said.

“Wouldn’t make much difference to you,” I said.

“Why’s that?” the Weasel said.

“I was to give you both barrels, from here,” I said, “blow your head off and part of your upper body.”

“You think,” the Weasel said.

He was enjoying this less.

“Yep, probably kill some folks near you, too,” I said. “With the scatter.”

I cocked both barrels. The sound of them cocking was very loud in the room. Virgil Cole always used to say, You gotta kill someone, do it quick. Don’t look like you got pushed into it. Look like you couldn’t wait to do it. It was as if I could hear his voice as I looked at the men in front of me: Sometimes you got to kill one person early, to save killing four or five later.

I leveled the shotgun straight at the Weasel.

“Hey,” he said, his voice much softer than it had been. “What the hell are you doing. I ain’t looking for trouble. None of us looking for trouble, are we, boys?”

Nobody at the table was looking for trouble.

“I’ll be damned,” I said. “I thought you were.”

“No, no,” the Weasel said. “Just getting to know you.”

He finished his drink and stood.

“Gonna drift,” he said. “See how loose things are down the street.”

I nodded.

“See you again, Hitch,” the Weasel said.

“I imagine you will,” I said.

The Weasel sauntered out, followed, maybe less jauntily, by the rest of his party. The silence hung for a minute in the room, the sounds of the saloon reemerged. Wolfson came down the bar and stopped by my chair.

“That went well,” he said.

I nodded.

“Who’s he?” I said.

“Name’s Wickman, works for O’Malley out at the mine.”

“He’s not a miner,” I said.

“No, gun hand. Got kind of a reputation around here,” Wolfson said. “He won’t like that you backed him down.”

“Don’t blame him,” I said.

“He’ll likely come at you again,” Wolfson said.

“Likely,” I said.

“What’ll you do then?” Wolfson said.

“Kill him,” I said.

3.

In the saloon kitchen, the Chinaman made me biscuits and fried sowbelly for breakfast. I had two cups of coffee with it, and drank the second one on the front porch of the saloon. The sun was coming up behind me, and the weather was clear. I could see most of Resolution from where I stood. It was a raw town. Newer than Appaloosa, raw lumber, mostly unpainted, boards warping as they dried. Flat-front, mostly one-story buildings, with long, low front porches, covered by a roof. The saloons generally had second floors. And sometimes a second-floor porch.

I finished the coffee and put the cup down and strolled Main Street. There were three saloons besides the Blackfoot. There was an unpainted one-story shack with a sign in the front window that read Genuine Chicago Cooking. There were no customers yet. A Chinaman with a long pigtail was outside, sweeping down the porch. He kept his head down as I passed. I stopped in to the livery stable to visit my horse. There was a bucket of water in his stall, and some oats in another bucket. He seemed sort of glad to see me. He nudged at my shoulder and I gave him a piece of sugar that I’d taken from the saloon.

Past the livery stable were a couple of independent whorehouses where the girls lived and worked. No gambling, no food, just short sessions for a dollar. No one appeared to be awake in the whorehouses yet. Beyond, a little away from the wooden buildings, were a few tents where the Chinamen lived, maybe ten to a tent. They cooked in the saloons, and washed floors, and washed dishes, and emptied spittoons and chamber pots and slop buckets. They laundered clothes, and ironed and sewed. They mucked out the livery stables. And I knew they stepped aside when any white man encountered them in the street. I had heard someplace that they sent all their money back to China and lived on a few pennies a month.

Where I was standing, the main street petered out into a trail that led slowly downhill toward the south. Out a ways on the trail was a small ranch. Homesteader, probably. Beyond that further out, another one, and on the horizon, a couple more. I looked at the plains for a while, stretching out wide and, to my eye, empty, to the horizon. Behind me, Main Street stretched the length of the ugly little town. At the north end it became a two-wagon rut road that went up into the hills and wound out of sight among the bull pines.

I walked back along the main street. The sun was above the low buildings now and shone hard on me from the right. I passed the Blackfoot Saloon. It was the largest building in town. Besides the saloon, there was the hotel, the hotel dining room, a small bank, and the big general store. Past the Blackfoot was a blacksmith shop. The smith was there in his undershirt, loading charcoal into his forge. We nodded as I passed him.

I reached the north end of the main street. I looked at the pines. There were bird sounds, and the rustle of a light and occasional wind in the trees. Nothing else moved. The walk the length of the town had taken maybe ten minutes. Town was pretty small. Lotta space around it.

A whore I knew back in Appaloosa had asked me once if I got lonely, moving around in all this empty space, stopping in little towns with nothing much there. I told her I didn’t. I’m not hard to get along with, but I’m not convivial. I like my own company, and I like space.

A bullet clipped one of the pine trees’ branches five feet to my right. The sound of the shot was behind me. I drew, spun, and went flat on the ground. Nothing moved in the town. I waited. No second shot. After a time I stood and holstered my Colt. I walked back to the blacksmith shop.

“Hear a gunshot?” I said.

“Yep,” he said. “I did.”

“Know where it came from?” I said.

“Nope. You?”

“Nope,” I said.

We both stood and looked musingly back along the street toward where I had been standing.

“There’s a fella, name of Wickman,” I said. “Kind of sharp face, little eyes. Wears one of them round bowler hats. Carries a gun in a fast-draw rig.”

“Koy Wickman,” the smith said. “You think he shot at you?”

“Just speculatin’,” I said. “Seen him around this morning?”

“Nope. It was Koy shot at you, though, he wouldn’ta missed.”

“’Less he was bein’ playful,” I said.

“You need to walk sorta careful around Koy Wickman,” the blacksmith said. “He’s pretty quick.”

“I’ll be sorta careful,” I said.

And I was. I walked sort of careful the rest of the way back to the Blackfoot.

4.

I was sitting lookout, with the shotgun in my lap. Wolfson was sipping whiskey and leaning on the wall next to my chair.

“Northwest of town,” he said, “there’s a big lumbering operation. Fella named Fritz Stark. Other side of the hill, on the east slope, is the O’Malley mine. Eamon O’Malley. Open-pit copper mining. There’s a rail spur shuttles through the valley, back of the hill. Picks up lumber from Fritzie Stark, copper from Eamon, and heads on east to the main line at Mandan junction.”

“Wickman works for the copper mine,” I said.

“Yep.”

“Why does a copper mine need a gunny?” I said. “Or is it just a hobby?”

Wolfson sampled his whiskey, rolled it over his tongue a little, nodded approval to himself.

“Pretty good,” he said. “Got it from a new drummer.”

He sampled it again.

“Koy Wickman’s a real gun hand,” he said. “Good at it, likes it. Most folks in Resolution walk around him pretty light.”

“What’s he do for the mine?” I said.

“I think mostly he walks around with Eamon, intimidates folks.”

“Eamon need that?”

“I don’t know, exactly,” Wolfson said.

All the time we talked, Wolfson surveyed the saloon. It was kind of hard to see what he was looking at, because of the walleye.

“This is a new town,” Wolfson said. “We’re sort of just starting to figure out what we want to do here, you know?”

“And who’ll be in charge of doing it?” I said.

“Well, it ain’t come to that yet,” Wolfson said. “But you got the mine, you got the lumber company, you got us here in town, and you got a few sodbusters out in the flats below town.”

I nodded.

“They much trouble?” I said.

“Nope, ain’t that many of them,” Wolfson said. “Yet.”

“Other lookouts,” I said. “Wickman involved in running them off?”

“Yes,” Wolfson said. “Killed one of them.”

“Which you didn’t mention when you hired me,” I said.

Wolfson shrugged.

“Figured you might not take the job,” he said.

“Guys like Wickman weren’t around, there wouldn’t be work for guys like me,” I said.

“So you gonna stick?” Wolfson said.

“Sure,” I said. “But I may have to kill him in your saloon.”

“You think he’ll keep pushing?” Wolfson said.

“I think he needs to be the only rooster in the barnyard,” I said. “Or his boss does.”

Wolfson continued to look around the room for a time.

Then he said, “It’s a nice business I’m growing here. The store, the hotel, the restaurant, the saloon. Nice business.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Can’t keep hiring lookouts,” he said.

I nodded. He looked around some more.

“You do what you gotta do,” he said.

5.

Wickman came in late in the evening, wearing his fast-draw rig and his bowler hat. The hat was tipped down over his forehead.

“Hey,” he said, “Hitch. I heard you was up the north end of town this morning, looking at the pine trees.”

I looked straight at him and didn’t say anything.

“Heard somebody took a shot at your ass,” he said.

I kept looking.

“I was you I might not go walking around,” he said. “You know? I might stay right here in the saloon and hide behind my shotgun.”

Go right at ’em, Virgil used to say. There’s trouble, go right at ’em. Right now.

“You shoot at me?” I said.

“Me,” Wickman said.

He was playing to the audience that had begun to gather.

“Me?” he said. “Why would you think it was me?”

“’Cause you’re a back shooter,” I said.

The banter went out of Wickman’s voice.

“I ain’t no back shooter,” he said. “You don’t know nothing about me. Every man I killed was facing me straight up.”

“I know a back shooter when I see one,” I said. “I bet you never shot a man wasn’t drunk. This morning you missed me by five feet.”

“I missed shit,” Wickman said. “I wanted to I coulda put that bullet right between your ears.”

“So you was just thinking to scare me,” I said.

Wickman opened his mouth and closed it and backed away a step.

“Didn’t work,” I said.

“I’m just saying it was me shot at you I wouldn’ta missed.”

“Naw,” I said. “’Course you wouldn’t. You’da drilled me from behind, back shooter.”

“Don’t call me that,” Wickman said.

The audience began to spread out a little. I thumbed back both hammers on the shotgun and rested the butt on my thigh with the barrels pointing at the ceiling.

“You ain’t behind me now,” I said.

“You think I’m going up against that eight-gauge,” Wickman said.

“I ain’t pointing it at you,” I said.

The audience spread out farther.

“I’m pointing the shotgun at the ceiling,” I said. “Good gun hand should be able to clear leather and drill me ’fore I can drop the barrels.”

I was right, there were people who could win that matchup, and I wouldn’t have made them the offer. But I was betting that Koy Wickman wasn’t one of them. I was probably the first person he went up against that he couldn’t bully, maybe the first one that was sober, and almost certainly the first one that was sober and had an eight-gauge shotgun. He backed up another step. The audience gave him plenty of room.

“Want go drink a little courage,” I said. “Come back later?”

He went for it. He was pressured, probably scared, and I was right. He wasn’t that good. He fumbled the draw slightly and I hit him in the face with both barrels. It turned him completely around and propelled him about three steps before he went down. It didn’t blow his head off like I’d said it would. But it was an awful mess. I reloaded.

The room echoed with silence, the way it usually did after a shooting. The smell of my gunshots was strong. Wickman’s Colt was ten feet from his outstretched hand. He’d never even aimed it. People looked briefly at what was left of Wickman and looked quickly away. The people who had been standing closest to him were spattered with blood and tissue. One man took his stained shirt off and threw it away from him. I thought about Virgil Cole again.

You gotta kill someone, do it quick. Don’t look like you got pushed into it. Look like you couldn’t wait to do it. . . . Sometimes you got to kill one person early, to save killing four or five later.

Wolfson came into the saloon from wherever he’d been, with two Chinamen. One Chinaman had a big piece of canvas, the other one had a bucket and mop. He nodded at the mess I’d made on his floor.

“You fix,” he said to the two Chinamen. “You clean one time. Chop, chop.”

The men went about it without expression. The one with the tarp wrapped it around Wickman and dragged him out through the door they’d come in. The other one mopped the floor.

“Anyone comes down from Liberty to ask about this,” Wolfson said, “I’ll talk to them. Everybody saw him draw on you . . . and the sheriff’s a friend of mine.”

I nodded, thinking still about Virgil’s advice. Virgil was always clear, and he was always certain. But he wasn’t always right.

I was hoping he would be, this time.

6.

Koy Wickman had been the toughest man in town, and I had killed him. It appeared that now I was the toughest man in town. And it made for a highly increased level of civility in the Blackfoot Saloon. I waited to hear from the O’Malley Mining Company. But nothing was forthcoming. Meanwhile, I sat in my high chair each evening amid the pleasant hubbub of a successful saloon. Days I read some, and rode my horse around, looking at the country. It was pretty unstressful, and I didn’t mind it for a while. Sooner or later, I knew it would get boring, and I would have to move on. But for now it was good to sort of rest up from my days with Virgil in Appaloosa.

It was a Tuesday night when things began to change a bit. I was in my chair when a little whore named Billie came into the saloon, walking fast, and headed for me. Billie always claimed to be twenty, but she looked to me about fifteen. And this night she also looked scared.

“There’s a man gonna get me, Everett,” she said.

“Customer?” I said.

“Yes,” Billie said. “But he don’t want to just fuck me. He wants to do things to me, you know?”

“Hurtful things?” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “I don’t have to let him do hurtful things, do I, Everett?”

“No,” I said.

A squat, bowlegged fella with long arms came through the same door Billie had entered and looked around the room. He spotted Billie and came toward her hard, pushing people out of the way. He didn’t appear to be heeled, but I could see the handle of a knife sticking out of the top of his right boot. Billie saw him and hunched up behind my chair.

“Everett,” she said.

I nodded.

“Be all right, Billie, just stay quiet.”

Again she said, “Everett.”

Again I nodded. The man with the knife in his boot shoved a drinker aside to get next to Billie, who had wedged herself behind my chair. He grabbed her arm.

“Everett,” Billie said.

“Let her go,” I said to the knife man.

“I want that whore,” he said.

“Make the usual arrangements,” I said. “But no grabbing.”

He took his hand off her arm. I was pretty sure he knew I was the guy who killed Koy Wickman. On the other hand, he was drunk, and drunks can be stupid.

“I already paid for the little bitch,” he said.

“And you already done business?” I said.

“I fucked him,” Billie said.

“So?” I said to the guy with the knife.

“So she run off ’fore I was through.”

“He wanted to do stuff that hurt,” Billie said.

“I paid for her,” he said to me.

“That’s for fucking,” I said. “It don’t cover hurting.”

“I wasn’t gonna hurt her,” he said. “We was just playing a little.”

“She don’t want to play,” I said.

“She don’t want to?” he said. “She don’t want to? She’s a fucking whore. Who cares what she don’t want to? I paid good money for the little bitch.”

“You do what you supposed to?” I said to Billie.

“I done stuff with his pecker and then I fucked him,” she said. “He got a ugly little pecker.”

“Probably don’t see a lot of pretty ones,” I said.

The man bent down and took the knife from his boot. It was a big bowie knife with a wide blade. I rapped him on the wrist with both barrels of the shotgun, and the knife clattered to the floor and slid away. The man doubled over, holding his arm against his stomach.

“You cocksucker,” he said. “You broke my fucking arm.”

I didn’t say anything.

“It feels broke,” he said.

I didn’t say anything.

“You got no right to be banging me with that fucking eight-gauge.”

I looked at him and didn’t say anything.

“I want my damned money back,” he said.

I didn’t say anything.

“Ain’t you gonna talk?” he said.

“Sure,” I said. “First, your arm ain’t broke. I can tell. Second, she fucked you, so you don’t get your money back. Third, you annoy one whore in this establishment, ever, and I’ll kill you.”

He stared at me. I stared back. He wanted to say something. But I had, after all, killed Koy Wickman. Still nursing his arm against his stomach, he turned and went to pick up his knife.

“Leave the knife where it is,” I said.

He stopped without looking back and stood still.

“I paid eight dollars for that knife,” he said finally.

I didn’t say anything. He took another step toward the knife on the floor. I cocked the eight-gauge. The sound was bright and clear in the room. He stopped again. I could see his shoulders heave as he took in some air. Then, without looking at me, he turned away from the knife on the floor and walked out of the saloon.

I let the hammers down easy on the shotgun. The pleasant hubbub picked up again. Billie stayed where she was behind my chair.

“What if he comes back,” she said.

“He won’t,” I said.

“What if he gets another knife and comes back. He’ll cut me, I know he will.”

I looked at her little girl’s face with too much make-up on it.

“Got a couch in my room,” I said. “You can sleep on it, if you want, till you get to feeling more comfortable.”

“I could sleep in the bed,” she said. “Be no charge.”

I shook my head.

“You’re too young for me, Billie,” I said.

“I’m twenty years old,” she said.

“The hell you are,” I said. “You want to stay with me on the couch?”

“Yes.”

I fished my room key out of my pants pocket.

“You want to go up now?”

“No,” she said. “I want to stay with you.”

I nodded.

“Wolfson won’t like that so much,” I said. “I’m pretty sure he wants his whores working.”

“I can’t work any more tonight, Everett,” Billie said. “I just can’t.”

I nodded.

“Mr. Wolfson says something, you tell him it’s okay,” Billie said. “He won’t go against you.”