Two in a row would attract a lot of attention from the Americans.’
‘Great idea,’ Earp said flatly. ‘I’ll just invite him on a picnic.’
‘You must be resourceful. You sound like you’re panicking. You still have the advantage, Wyatt. We know more about him than he knows about us. Now you must find out why he’s here.’
‘I don’t think you could torture that out of him.’
‘You know what they say about getting more with candy than sour cream.’
‘This man moves very fast. This is his kind of game.’
‘If he is connected to Sloan and you kill him, they’ll send somebody else.’
‘Not if it’s done right.’
The Honorable leaned back and smiled. ‘That’s all I’m suggesting, dear friend,’ he said with a wave of his hand. ‘Whatever you do, do it properly. As you pointed out, it is a dangerous game and he’s very good at it.’
‘Very good doesn’t cut it. He’s an expert.’
As Earp spoke a boxy man in tennis shorts and a white T-shirt got up from the poker table and approached a portly gentleman in white. He drew up a chair and sat down facing the white-haired gentleman, who put aside his book and took a sip from the wineglass as the dark-haired man leaned forward and spoke to him in whispered tones. The older man nodded sagely as the other spoke and pointed to the card game behind the glass-beaded curtain.
Earp turned on his barstool, facing the main room, took out his .357 with the special barrel and laid it casually on the corner of the bar. Hatcher watched the ritual with more than mild interest.
‘That’s Eddie Riker, the ice cream parlor, remember? talking to the Honorable,’ Prophett rambled on to Hatcher, nodding toward the older man. ‘The Honorable is the official banker of Tombstone.’ His nose began to run and he sniffed, then began scratching his side. ‘Kind of sets his interest on what the loan’s for, a little less for eating money until payday than, say, to cover a turn of the cards at the poker game up there in the Hole in the Wall.’
‘And the guy with the cannon is the Brink’s man?’
Prophett laughed. “Brink’s man,” that’s slick. The Brink’s man is Wyatt T. Earp, known to us as W.T. He kind of covers the money box, case somebody should take a notion to heist it. Him and that piece he calls his Buntline Special.’
‘Looks like he can handle the job.’
‘The Thai police leave us alone, they let old W.T. keep things quiet.’
‘That’s a helluva weapon,’ said Hatcher, nodding toward the Magnum. ‘You could walk to Milwaukee on the barrel.’
Prophett started to laugh again. Up above, the Honorable opened the strongbox: and took out what appeared to be a loan note. He scribbled on it and slid it to Riker, who scribbled on it, and then the Honorable counted out five purples and slid them across the table. Riker nodded his thanks and went back to the game.
‘Riker is have a bad day,’ said Prophett.
Wilkie ambled back up the bar.
‘How we doing here?’ he asked.
‘I’ll have a beer,’ Hatcher said. ‘Wouldn’t mind turning a few cards, either.’
Wilkie stared at him for a moment and then said, ‘They’re kind of funny about who plays in the game. But if you hang around long enough and they get to know you, they’ll invite you.’
‘Kind of a closed corporation,’ Hatcher suggested.
‘Kind of.’ Wilkie went back down the bar and started talking to a customer.
‘Was Sweets who started Tombstone,’ Prophett said, and his words began to run together. ‘Sweets and Wyatt. Sweets was an English professor at Tuskegee Institute, got his master’s with honors from Atlanta University, what’d they do? They drafted him. A teacher, a
Wilkie’s eyes cut toward Prophett. He was smiling at his bar trade, but Hatcher could tell he was listening to Prophett ramble on about Tombstone and the Longhorn. Suddenly he turned and went to the end of the bar and said something to Corkscrew. The black man got up without looking down the bar and went behind the beads.
‘— and Corkscrew and Potter opened Yosemite Sam’s. Wonderboy opened the Stagecoach,’ Prophett mumbled on, staring down at the bar. ‘Max, he couldn’t stand anyplace dark, closed up, he went down south to do some farming. And Kilhanney, poor fuckin’ Kil — that goddamn Taisung.
Hatcher, lulled by the low, rambling conversation, was suddenly jerked awake. He tried not to show his surprise when Prophett said the name.
Before he could continue, Prophett was cut off. ‘Hey!’ Wilkie called from down the bar and Prophett looked up, startled. Wilkie moved quickly back up to them. ‘Easy, kid,’ he said, rather sternly. ‘Save it for the book.’
Hatcher looked around at the Hole in the Wall. Vaguely, behind the veil of beads, he could make out a woman among the seven players at the table.
The woman playing poker got up and left the game, standing just behind the curtains for a moment while she counted a handful of bahts, then proceeding into the main room. She was a handsome woman, big-boned and broad-shouldered, with hardly any waist at all. Her blond hair was turning white, belying her features, which placed her under forty. She was wearing a loose-fitting white cotton blouse and a skirt of turquoise Thai silk and thong sandals.
Hatcher remembered her from pictures as being smaller, more delicate, a woman dwarfed by the camera equipment and canvas bag slung over her shoulder. Saigon, toward the end. Melinda Prewett had won a Pulitzer
