“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.”
“Sure,” I said. “Get a chair. If there’s any trouble, stay out of my way.”
“Yes, Everett,” she said. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I said.
7.
Wolfson joined me for breakfast.
“One of my whores is sleeping in your room,” he said.
“Yep.”
“Meals here are part of the deal,” Wolfson said, “but not the girls.”
“She’s just sleeping there,” I said. “I ain’t employed her for anything.”
“If you ain’t fucking her,” Wolfson said, “why’s she sleeping there?”
“One of her gentleman friends threatened to cut her,” I said.
“Didn’t you throw him out the other night?”
“Yep.”
“You think he’ll come back?” Wolfson said.
“Nope, but she does.”
“She’s scared,” Wolfson said.
“Uh-huh.”
“And she ain’t working,” he said.
I shrugged.
“I hired you to help me make money,” Wolfson said, “not lose it.”
“He cut her up, what would she be worth?”
“Nothing to me,” Wolfson said.
“If she run off, what would she be worth?”
Wolfson nodded.
“So you’re letting her hide in your room.”
“Few days,” I said. “Until she ain’t scared.”
Wolfson nodded.
“Because you’re concerned for my best interests,” he said.
“Sure.”
“And that’s why you’re looking out for her like this,” Wolfson said.
“Nope. I’m looking out for her ’cause I’m softhearted,” I said.
Wolfson looked at me maybe. His off eye made it a little hard to say for sure what he was looking at.
“Still ain’t carrying her weight,” he said.
I nodded.
“Take it outta my pay,” I said.
“Christ,” Wolfson said. “You are softhearted.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Didn’t seem too softhearted when you blew a hole in Koy Wickman,” he said.
“That was business,” I said.
“And this ain’t,” Wolfson said.
“No,” I said. “This is softhearted.”
“Well, it’s business for me,” Wolfson said. “I’ll take it outta your pay until she’s back at work.”
I nodded.
“Fuck her if you want,” Wolfson said. “You’re paying for it anyway.”
“Too young for me,” I said.
“Says she’s twenty,” Wolfson said.
“You believe her,” I said.
“No.”
8.
Three days later I had another whore complaint. A customer had tied Short Sally to the bed and left her. One of the other girls had come in to borrow something and found her and cut her loose, and she come running to me.
“Said he wasn’t through with me yet,” she said. “Told me he was going out with his friends and when they came back, all of them would finish me up.”
“He in the room?” I said.
“Finish me up, Everett,” Short Sally went on. “That’s what he said, finish me up.”
“See him in the room?” I said.
Short Sally looked around. She wasn’t scared like Billie had been. She was ripping.
“That’s him, the fucking pig, there playing faro,” she said. “The fat one dressed kinda fancy.”
I said, “Come with me, Sal,” gave the eight-gauge to one of the bartenders, got down from the chair, and walked over to the faro game.
“This one?” I said.
“Him,” she said.
He was wearing a wide-brimmed, low-crowned hat. I took it off his head with my left hand as he started to turn, tossed it on the floor, grabbed a handful of hair with my right hand, and pulled him and the chair over backward.
“Hey,” he said.
I let go of his hair and straightened and kicked him in the stomach. He gasped. I stomped on his crotch. He yowled. I reached down and got hold of his collar and started to drag him toward the door. Short Sally ran along beside us, bending over, calling him a “fat cocksucker.”
When we got to the door, I dragged him to his feet and pushed him against the doorjamb.
“I see you in here again, I’ll kill you,” I said.
He shook his head.
Standing beside me, Short Sally spit in his face. I’m not sure he even knew it. I turned him and pushed him through the doorway, put my foot against his butt, and shoved him face-first out into the street. Then I turned and went back to the lookout chair. Short Sally hurried along behind me.
“You shoulda killed him, Everett, the fat bastard, why didn’t you kill him like you done Koy Wickman?”
“Can’t kill ’em all, Sally.”
“Why not? Why can’t you?”
The bartender handed me the shotgun and I put it across my lap.
“Never actually quite thought about it, Sally. Killing ’em all just don’t seem like a good idea.”
“I think it is,” she said.
“I can see that, Sal,” I said. “But you ain’t the one got to do the killing.”
9.
What the fuck are you?” Wolfson said. “Fucking
Saint Everett of the Whores?”
"Just keepin’ order,” I said.
“You know who that was you kicked in the balls last night?”
“Can’t say that I got his name,” I said.
“Name’s Greavy,” Wolfson said. “Matthew Greavy. He’s a county commissioner.”
I had a bite of biscuit so I chewed and swallowed before I answered. Wolfson drank some coffee.
“So it’s okay if he abuses your whores?” I said when the biscuit was down.
“It’s important for me to stay on the right side of the county,” Wolfson said. “I ain’t out here looking to sit here in a saloon kitchen for breakfast all my life.”
“Pretty good breakfast,” I said.
“You know what I mean,” Wolfson said. “A business is like a lot of things: It grows or it dies. I plan to grow.”
“So maybe you should issue an abuse-my-whores pass to guys like Greavy. Then when I start to kick him in the balls, he can flash the pass, and I stop.”
“You being funny?” Wolfson said.
I put some sorghum on another biscuit and ate it.
“I guess not,” I said.
Wolfson stood up and walked around the kitchen. The Chinaman was busy chopping onions and paid us no attention. We never talked when he made my breakfast. I didn’t understand Chinese. I didn’t know if he understood English.