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.
“You’re good at your work, Everett,” Wolfson said. “Don’t know if I ever seen better. You’re good with a gun. You’re good with your fists. You ain’t afraid of much. And people like you. But whores are fucking whores, you understand. They get abused, they get abused. They’re used to it.”
I nodded.
“You buy what I’m saying?” Wolfson said.
“You’re the boss,” I said.
“I know that, I want to make sure you know it, too,” Wolfson said. “Anytime you think the whores are having problems, you bring them to me.”
I nodded and ate some biscuit. I didn’t know about his language skills, but the Chinaman made a nice biscuit.
“You buy that?” Wolfson said.
“When I can,” I said.
“What do you mean, ‘When I can’?”
“Sometimes this kinda work,” I said, “you don’t have time to consult your employer.”
“So you use your own judgment.”
“I do,” I said.
Wolfson fixed me with his one-and-a-half-eyed stare.
“You do, and it’s the wrong judgment, and you’ll be out of a job,” he said.
“I’d surely miss these biscuits,” I said.
10.
Maybe Wolfson was right.
It was a Thursday night, raining hard outside, when two wet whores from Polly Patterson’s house came into the Blackfoot and sat down at a table near my end of the bar. Wolfson didn’t allow any whores but his own in the saloon, so after a minute I took my shotgun, barrels toward the floor, and went and sat down with them.
“Sorry, ladies,” I said. “Unaffiliated whores ain’t allowed in this establishment.”
“You’re Everett,” one of them said.
I nodded. It was hard to guess age in a whore, but this one looked to be in her forties, and kind of fat. The other girl was younger but no slimmer.
“We heard about you,” the older whore said.
I nodded again.
“All good things, I’m sure,” I said. “But unaffiliated whores are still not allowed in the Blackfoot.”
“We got trouble, Everett,” she said. “We need to stay here.”
“What kind of trouble?” I said.
Four men in hats and slickers came into the saloon. They stood inside the door, looking around. A couple of them took off their hats and shook the rain off them. Then all four looked at us. I nodded my head at them.
“That kind?” I said.
“Oh, Jesus,” the younger whore said.
“The one in front,” the older whore said. “With the beard, he paid for one hour with me and Roxanne. We gave him everything he paid for, and when he was through, his friends came in and used us and nobody paid nothing.”
“Unaffiliated whores are also not allowed to bring their troubles into this establishment. You steal something to get even?”
Roxanne nodded.
“I got his watch,” the older one answered. “And I ain’t givin’ it back. He owes us more then that.”
I nodded. The four men walked over to us.
The guy with the beard said, “These whores with you?”
He didn’t look like he washed the beard much.
“They are,” I said.
“They don’t work here,” he said.
“No.”
“I thought whores had to work here to be in the saloon.”
“I was just discussing that with them,” I said. “They been put on notice.”
“You throwing them out?” the man said.
He was a thick fella, miner probably, had the sort of overmuscled bow in his back that pick and shovel work can give you.
“I told them I would,” I said. “If they ain’t out of here by Monday.”
“Monday?”
I smiled and nodded.
