He walked over to Clara’s. Light the color of but-
ter filled the windows of the little rented house. He
felt drawn to it. It seemed like a warm and natural
place to be on a cold night. He knocked on the door
and Clara answered.
“I’m waiting still on Mrs. Merriweather,” she said
apologetically.
“You want me to wait out here?”
“No, of course not, come in.” The children were
still sitting at the supper table eating cookies. Three
faces watched as he entered the room. The boy espe-
cially drew his attention: that sad narrow face with
those big eyes resting under the cut-straight-across
nearly white hair. Jake figured the boy sensed his time
in this place was short, that soon he’d be taken some-
where else, somewhere there were strangers and he’d
have to figure everything out all over again.
Clara offered him coffee and he accepted. They
kept their talk to a minimum until Mrs. Merri-
weather arrived with her two boys in tow, apologiz-
ing for running late.
William Sunday was sitting in Doc Willis’s rocker
when they arrived. He had a quilt resting across his
lap, pistols ready under it. The room was dark, cold.
Jake lighted lamps, started a fire in the fireplace.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” he said and went back
outside and stood there in the dark, the sky littered
with stars. He could feel the old bullet wounds
protesting the cold in the night air; like razor blades.
He was still thinking about the stranger.
Fallon Monroe sat up in the whore’s narrow bed. The
room was warm and odorous with the scent of per-
fume, sweat, and sex. She stood with her back to him
washing between her legs.
“That could wait until I was gone,” he said, not
liking that she turned immediately to practical mat-
ters as soon as he expelled his lust.
“Can’t wait,” Baby Doe said. “Don’t want to end
up with no bastard kid.”
“You talk rough for such a young gal.”
“I ain’t as young as I look.”
“Still . . .”
Then she dropped the shift and it fell down past
her knees and she went to a side table and shook some
pills from a bottle and poured herself a glass of
whiskey and downed them.
“You sick?” he asked.
“No. Healthy as a horse and aim to stay that way,”
she said straddling an old piano stool that was in the
room instead of a chair.
He looked her over good.
“You want to go again?” she said. “Cost you ten
more dollars.”
He could see the cocaine pills already working in
her eyes.
“No,” he said. “I got me a regular woman.”
“Wife?”
“Yeah, a wife.”
“Maybe I’ll meet me a man someday with lots of
money,” she said.
Then there was a knock at the door, a soft hesitant
knock and she came off the stool and answered it. A
Chinese girl entered the room and the two women
embraced and Fallon watched them from the bed and
then he watched as they kissed each other on the
mouth and he thought, goddamn.
They whispered to each other. He didn’t care.
“You could have us both,” Baby Doe said. “But it
will cost you three times as much.”
“Why three times when there are only
you?”
The Chinese girl didn’t seem to have a tongue, or
she couldn’t understand the lingo.
“Don’t know,” Baby Doe said. “That’s just what
Ellis says we got to charge when there’s two of us.”
“No,” he said. “I’ve had my fill. Time I get on.”
She gave the Chinese girl some of the pills and
some of the whiskey to wash them down. It made him
uncomfortable—the way they were so familiar with
each other, the way they acted, like nothing mattered
to them.
He got out of bed as they got on it and put on his
clothes and watched them the whole time, but by now
they were only paying attention to each other, as
though he didn’t exist and he didn’t care for it much
at all and quickly put on his coat and hat and left and
went downstairs and ordered himself a whiskey.
“You enjoy yourself up there with Baby Doe?” El-
lis asked.
“I think she likes women a whole lot more than
any man,” he said tossing the whiskey back.
“She took care of you though, didn’t she?”
“Yeah, real well.”
Ellis Kansas smiled.
“You new in town, ain’t you? You just drifting
through?”
“Truth is, I’m looking for someone,” Monroe said.
“Who might that be?”
“A woman named Clara Fallon. You know her?”
