“Aggie?” she asked, seeing her friend’s familiar face through the veil she wore. Pat O’Reilly had told her the surgeon had performed miracles, but that Aggie would never be the same.
“Hello, Sarah. Dear God, it’s good to see you.”
Aggie stepped in and wrapped her arms around Sarah, hugging her tightly. “God, I’ve missed you.”
“I’m so sorry, Aggie. So very, very sorry. It’s my fault. Bret’s and mine. You shouldn’t have come that day.”
“He’da kilt you both, you fool!”
“I wish he had. You’d still have your house … your face. That mother-humping bastard killed Bret as it was, and part of me died with him.”
Aggie pushed back, staring up through the veil. “You sound hard, Sarah. Pat won’t tell me nothing. What happened while I was down here?”
“Come on in. Drink? I’ve got good stuff.”
“Well, hell yes.”
“Welcome to the Angel’s Lair.”
“So, this was Parmelee’s?”
“It was indeed. Seems while he was up in Central ruining our lives, his girls tucked and run. Then his professor took the cash box and fled. Left Parmelee without funds to cover a note owed to Francis Heatley. Pat pulled strings, I paid the note, and now it’s ours.”
“Ours?”
“Such as it is.” Sarah gestured to the empty parlor as she led the way to the bar. “On the few occasions it’s been working, I’ve been to the telegraph, wiring back East. With the Sioux and Cheyenne out raising hell on the trails, Denver might as well be an island. Might take a while to get furnishings like I want, but they’re on order.”
“What about Parmelee, Sarah? He could come back any time.”
“Both George Nichols and Pat have their people in Denver on the lookout. If he does make it back, he’ll want to gloat before he does anything. Make sure I see his face. Take up raping me where he left off.”
She reached around, slipping the small .36-caliber, five-shot Colt pocket pistol from the holster in her bustle. “This place has a cellar. I’ve been practicing down there every night. I can put five shots into the size of a playing card from eight paces.” She paused. “And I do it every night. I get faster and faster.”
Aggie took a deep breath. “What if he gets you by surprise? He done it before.”
“Maybe he’ll kill me, maybe I’ll kill him. Everything’s different, Aggie. I’m different. I’ve stopped fighting it.” She gestured to a chair in the bar, pouring two drinks from the Kentucky whiskey.
Aggie sat, her gaze taking in the room.
Sarah said, “Let me see your face, Aggie.”
Aggie took a deep breath, lifted the veil, and raised her head to the light. The thin lines were pink, little scabs here and there where stitches had been. Which didn’t make any sense. But all in all … “My God, Aggie, he saved your face.”
“And he’s still working on the scars,” she said proudly as she lifted her glass. “To life!”
“To the Angel’s Lair. And us.” Sarah took a drink.
“Us?” Aggie asked, looking around again.
“I can’t run this by myself. Half of it is yours. That’s the least I owe you.”
Aggie’s voice dropped. “Sarah … I know you paid off what I owed Pat. And I’ll make it right with you. Somehow. Some way.”
“We are right,” Sarah insisted. “Look at this house. We can make money here that we couldn’t make in Central, even sitting on top of the mines.”
“How?”
“High dollar.” Sarah studied her friend. “Think a step up from what you planned in Central. Then think another step. Like the best of Chicago, or even New York, or San Francisco.”
“Hard to get the girls. That kind of quality? That takes money.” Aggie leaned back, a frown twisting her scars. “And Sarah, it’s short-term. High overhead. Limited clientele. Not many men around who can afford talented cunt, new and strange, or a trick.”
“A trick?”
“Make-believe. And it better be good. Like dressing a girl up like Helen of Troy. Fixing the room to look like Ancient Greece. Making the johnny part of a theater.” She was thoughtful. “If the money’s right, you could lure the right girls. But the local talent? They’re trained to get johnny in the saddle, get a squeeze on his cock, pull his trigger, then get him out the door and another one in.”
“That’s why I need you, Aggie.”
“Damn, Sarah! You’re talking like you’re in the business. You did something, didn’t you? With Pat? Is that why he’s so closemouthed about you?”
“George Nichols,” Sarah said softly. “He calls me the goddess. A thousand dollars a night. That’s some kind of record, ain’t it?”
Aggie shook her head. Green eyes on Sarah. “It won’t last. You’re novelty. Men will come just to see you. But there’s maybe ten men in the territory who would pay that much for a fuck, no matter how good.”
“Maybe I want to be exclusive.”
“Maybe you’re going to end up humping for what the traffic will bear when the cash runs out and the bills are due.”
“So, how do we keep that from happening?”
“You really want to do this? Take up whoring?”
“You taught me that there’s a difference between a madam and a whore.”
“Best you can do? You drop the advertised price of your personal slick down to two-fifty a throw, but you take a hundred from very special clients. That’s still ten times the price of any other tail in town. And you’ve got the right to say no if you don’t like the johnny.”
“And if some filthy miner comes stumbling in with a chunk of gold in his hand and pus running out his prick?” Sarah asked softly.
Aggie arched a scarred eyebrow. “We wine him, dine him, and dope his drink so he thinks he had the ride of his life when he wakes up the next morning.”
“You still think it’s short-term?”
“Sarah, I paid attention in Chicago. A lot of houses specialized, but it’s still a business. If one of them figured
