in a mining accident about ten years ago. He needed help getting up out of his chair and aimed in the general direction of the outhouse in back of the saloon.
O’Malley watched Aaron guide the old man. That was a warning sign to him. He didn’t want to wake up one day and find himself in the same situation this older man did. O’Malley’s dream was of the life he’d led in the big cities before the bottle had taken over his life so completely. There had been fresh young women and expensive meals in fashionable restaurants and spring days when he felt confident that someday he’d not only be working for a newspaper, he’d be running one.
When Aaron returned, O’Malley ordered another round for himself. He ordered a shot for Aaron, too. The bartender smiled. “You down to your shoe money?”
“My shoe money? How’d you know about that?”
“You told me one night.”
God. So hard to remember what he said and did. Had to be careful with his secret. Had to be very careful. “Well, do me a favor and keep it to yourself.”
“Won’t do any good, O’Malley.”
“And why’s that?”
“Same night you told me you told about half the people in here the same thing. I was surprised somebody didn’t wait for you outside and take your shoe off. I hate to admit it but some of my customers ain’t exactly saints. They hear of a drunk with a shoe full of money—”
O’Malley laughed but it was forced. “Me and my big mouth, huh?”
“You got to be careful. I don’t know what kind of thing you’re talking about—something big obviously—but you better watch yourself when you’re drinking. Don’t want to give it away.”
Aaron moved down the bar to grab a couple of empty schooners and clean up.
O’Malley’s heady dreams had been dashed for the moment. Aaron was right. O’Malley always ran his mouth when he was drunk. Had he already told somebody what he had figured out?
But then his hand dipped into the pocket of his soiled suit coat. Merely touching it filled him with hope once again. He took it out and laid it on the bar momentarily, far from the eyes of Aaron. He just looked at it. To the uneducated eye this wouldn’t look like much at all. In fact, the uneducated eye would pass right by it. But to O’Malley this was Chicago and St. Lou all over again. Those fancy meals and those fan cier girls.
He sat there staring at it, the silver button that was a match to the one Fargo had found near the body of Clete Byrnes.
7
Sam Raines was the first one down from the second floor of Rose Fitzhugh’s Parlor of Pleasure. Early in the day for sex but then it was also early for drinking four shots of whiskey back to back.
He had just enjoyed the pleasures of a buxom redhead who had tasted of the perfume she had put on the hottest part of her body and who had enjoyed—or who had faked enjoying—the mating as much as he had. She had worn a sheer black slip under which her full breasts had shifted with mesmerizing grace. Her nipples were enormous and red-tipped like spring flowers.
He had been rough with her at first, pushing her back on the bed and trying to jam himself inside her before she was properly damp. But she had quickly educated, easing him out and gently putting him on his back where she’d begun to stroke his manhood with educated and nimble fingers. He had been ready to explode then but those educated fingers had dissuaded him from ending their session so abruptly. And somehow he found himself pleasuring her, his mouth on her womanliness, and enjoying the joy he was giving her. But once again she stopped when she sensed that he was ready to end things. She got up on her haunches so he could take her from the rear —as he’d whispered his wishes earlier—and in that position gave him the kind of sexing he’d rarely enjoyed. He’d certainly gotten his money’s worth.
He was buttoning up his trousers when the plump Rose, a gaudy wreck of a woman who affected red wigs and enough makeup to cover a line of six high-kicking saloon dancers, came through the beaded curtain leading to the parlor where the customers sat. As usual she carried a meerschaum pipe in one hand and a fancy fan in the other. She smoked the clay pipe frequently. “What’s wrong with that brother of yours this morning?”
“What the hell business is it of yours?”
“It’s my business when he hits one of my girls.”
“They’re whores, what’s the difference?”
“He never hit none of them before, not even when he was drunk. I’m wonderin’ what’s botherin’ him.”
Sam knew damned well what was bothering Kenny. Kenny Raines, the blond and more handsome of the brothers, was worried about the same thing Sam was.
“You have one of your gals get me a whiskey and you never mind what’s troubling him.”
She looked at him with aged agate-colored eyes. But there was a youthful impishness in her gaze now. She was enjoying this. “Never thought I’d see the Raines brothers worried about anything.”
“You get out of my sight, Rose.”
She fluttered her fan in front of her wrinkled doll-like face, parted the beaded curtain and went into the other area of the house.
He got up and walked to the window that looked out on the butt end of the town. To his mind, one long latrine. People still living in tents and shanties. On the other side of the mud street were the saloons and the casinos, the owners of which lived in Cawthorne proper. No way would they live here among the people they hired for pennies a day. This was where respectable people and visitors came to be bad and as soon as they’d taken their pleasure they hightailed out of here.
The whorehouse was quiet, something Sam wasn’t used to. A Negro man with enormous pink arm garters usually played the piano. A girl or two in filmy dresses carried trays of drinks around. On nights when the wait was long you might find three or four customers playing a friendly hand of poker.
The beaded curtain parted. A middle-aged Mexican woman with large hands gave him his drink. “Your brother, he was bad with Deborah this morning.” She touched her eye. “The black eye as it is called.”
What the hell was this? First Rose and now this Mex. They acted like no girl ever got slugged before in a whorehouse. He’d been going to whorehouses since he was fourteen. Girls got slugged in them all the time.
The curtains rattled again and there was his brother. The Mex scowled at him. Kenny laughed. “She giving you shit about that little gal upstairs?”
“Says you gave her a black eye.”
“Yeah, well she probably gave me crabs. So we’re even up.” He raised his bandaged hand. “All I did was backhand the bitch with this.”
The Mex flashed a look that said he was despicable and left.
Kenny walked over and took Sam’s drink from him. Took a deep swallow and handed it back. “You been thinking about it?”
“I don’t know what we should do. This Fargo—”
“Right now he’s all I care about.”
Kenny purloined his brother’s drink again. Took another deep swallow and handed it back. Sam hadn’t taken a drink yet. “If you won’t help me, I’ll do it alone.”
“He’s thrown in with Cain.”
“To hell with Cain. People want rid of him anyway. It ain’t like the old days when he was such a big man.”
The beads clattered again. Rose. She said, “It’s one thing hittin’ a girl at night. At least I can understand that a little bit. But hittin’ a girl this early in the day, I should charge you boys double.”
“You’re lucky we didn’t hit
Then he whipped the drink from his brother’s hand and finished it. He handed the empty glass to Rose.
“C’mon, Sam, let’s get the hell out of here.”
It was only as they were walking out that Sam Raines realized he hadn’t gotten as much as a sip of his own drink.
