Burtell nodded. He was piling through more dodgers. Now that he’d discovered something real interesting in that stack, he was hell-bent to find some more. I knew he was looking for a dodger on that other feller King Bragg dispatched, the one called Rocco whose last name no one knew. He was just Rocco and he was cold in the ground.
I let myself out, and Burtell locked up after me. It sure was a fine spring day. Them two hardcases guarding the place for Crayfish nodded, but didn’t follow me. He’d put them there to keep Anchor Ranch men from busting in, and there they stood.
I was pretty sure I knew where to find Crayfish. He’d be upstairs in Rosie’s Parlor House, along with most of his crew. I guess that was as good a place as any if you’re going to take over a town for two weeks. Rosie’s was actually behind Saloon Row, across the alley, and discreetly out of sight for anyone ridin’ into town. You have to give Rosie credit for that. The less visible she was, the better for her business. Her place was another of them board-and-batten buildings that was so common in Doubtful, the kind of structure that can be gotten up fast, and could be ditched without no pain if Doubtful disappeared, the way most Western towns did. So it was just another weathered brown two-story building hidden away. But Rosie was always a little different. She had a big veranda on the front, and a mess of flowers growing in pots there, makin’ the place look nice. Her front door was enameled bright blue, and had a little eye-hole in it. There was only a couple of windows downstairs, mostly frosted glass to discourage peepers, but there wasn’t much to be peepin’ at downstairs. A bar-room with a piano and red velvet drapes, a nice little parlor with a few stuffed chairs, and a small kitchen. A feller could go in there and have a drink and sort of meet the help, which drifted through there in little gauzy outfits.
There was a big old stairway going upstairs, and maybe eight or ten little cribs there, and Rosie’s suite, which was two rooms nicely furnished. Like most places in Doubtful, you had to slip outside to the crappers behind there on the alley if you had the need. The ladies had one of their own sort of off to the side, in a private fenced yard. Rosie usually had half a dozen ladies engaged in the trade, plus herself and a barkeep and a clean-up boy or girl.
It was sure a fine day, bright warm sun, and I enjoyed my hike over there. There was a mess of geraniums in pots on that porch. I knocked on the blue door, and pretty soon it got opened up by a maid in black, wearin’ a little white apron. She saw my badge, and hesitated.
“I’m just gonna palaver with Crayfish,” I said.
“He doesn’t want to be bothered, Sheriff.”
“Well, I guess I’ll bother him anyway. Where’s he at?”
“Ah, I’m not supposed—well, you could find him in Miss Rosie’s rooms.”
She looked mighty worried.
I smiled. “I’ll just go knock, and I won’t say who steered me there.”
She nodded, looking real worried.
I could see there was a few of the T-Bar Ranch hands lollygaggin’ around in the parlor and the bar, sipping red-eye and looking bored. The girls was leavin’ them alone. They’d likely had their fill, and was just passing time now. There was a few more of them hardcases upstairs. The doors to half them rooms was open, and about every other room had a T-Bar man lying buck naked in there.
I just waved as I passed, and headed toward Rosie’s rooms, which fronted on the street above the veranda. Sure enough, Rosie’s door was shut tight, so I just rapped.
“Whoever you are, beat it,” Rosie yelled.
“It’s your old pal Cotton,” I replied.
“Come back some other time. I got a customer.”
“I got to talk with Crayfish, and right now, Rosie.”
Crayfish answered. “All right, all right, let me get out of the saddle.”
I waited real polite, and finally Crayfish, he just says to come in.
The pair of them was lying side by side on that fourposter bed. They both had their south half covered with a sheet. She sure was pretty, even if she was twice my age. I’d heard she was on the shady side of forty, but except for some little crow’s-feet around her brown eyes, you couldn’t tell. Crayfish, he was just a mess of curly chest hair and arm hair and neck hair not worth a second glance. They was just lounging there, sort of smirky, waiting for me to present my business to them, and enjoying the whole shebang. Me, I was getting annoyed, not knowing how to do my sheriff business with a half-naked gent and lady staring up at me.
“Well?” said Crayfish.
I could hardly keep my eyes off Rosie, but she was just smiling there, enjoying it, waiting for whatever would happen. I had the itch to escape and do my sheriffing some other day, but now that I was there in Rosie’s Parlor House, I thought maybe I’d just get myself together and get her done.
“I come to show you some dodgers,” I said, trying to be dignified, which wasn’t easy.
“Well, you’re interrupting a business conference I’m having with Rosie,” he said.
“I got some sheriff business,” I replied.
“I’m thinking of buying out Rosie. I always wanted my own cathouse,” Crayfish said. “And you’ve got to know the merchandise. It’s called due diligence. I’ve got to know the merchandise backward and forward, from top to bottom.”
I didn’t have no answer to that, so I just swallered hard and sort of got things pulled together in my head.
“I need for you to look at these dodgers,” I said. “We found them in my office. It looks like these two fellers, the Ramshorn brothers, are the same as got kilt by King Bragg. Only here they was using a different name, Jonas. There’s Colorado warrants on them for rustling and a few items like that. I thought maybe you could tell me for sure whether these fellers in the pictures are the same as got kilt in the Last Chance.”
I handed him the dodgers, and Crayfish, he gets out of the bed and fetches his spectacles and has a look.
