“I seen a saloon that was called the Shamrock Saloon, ’n I just likened the sound of it so I taken it for my own name. Anyhow, I don’t know why you’re so surprised. After you got me off that last charge, you told me I should change my name.”
“Indeed I did tell you that,” Houser said. “Your real name had accumulated too much opprobrium.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that people connected your name to the evil things you had done.”
“Like the name you used for a while? What do you think people thought when they heard that name?”
“That was no more my real name than this one is,” Houser said. “I not only shed myself of that name, I have also abandoned the persona of my former self. I take it that you have done the same thing. Is Shamrock your first or last name?”
“It’s my last name. Sid is my first name. Sid Shamrock.”
Houser nodded.
“What’d you send for me for? I thought you said you didn’t want me comin’ round no more. You told me to keep away.”
“Yes, but I also told you to keep in touch with me, so I could get ahold of you if it became necessary.”
“Yeah, well, you done that, ’n here I am. What is it you’re a-wantin’?”
“Have you any money?”
“What? No, I ain’t got no money. That is, I don’t have none to speak of. You’re a big rich lawyer, what are you askin’ me that for? You wantin’ to make the borry of some money? ’Cause if you do, you done come to the wrong person.”
“I don’t wish to borrow any money. I asked you about the state of your finances to see if you would be interested in a job I have for you.”
“A job? You mean a job like goin’ to work ever’ day?”
“No. I mean a job that will pay you ten thousand dollars.”
“Ten thousand dollars?” Shamrock said, fairly shouting the words. “You’ve got a job for me that pays ten thousand dollars?”
“Why don’t you go outside and shout it in the street?” Houser invited.
“Why do you want me to do that?” Shamrock asked, clearly confused by the suggestion.
“Never mind. Actually, I will pay you fifteen thousand,” Houser said. “I expect you to find someone to work with, and you can pay him five thousand.”
“Who do you want me to kill?”
“I don’t want you to kill anyone. As a matter of fact, if you do kill someone in the course of this job, you won’t get one . . . red . . . cent.”
“All right, all right, I won’t kill nobody. What is the job?”
“I want you to rob the Bank of Sulphur Springs.”
“Are you kidding? You want me to rob a bank in your own hometown? I thought you was always a-sayin’ you didn’t want me to be doin’ nothin’ anywhere close to where it was that you was a-livin’.”
“Yes, because neither your skills nor your demeanor are sufficient to the task of keeping my name out of it. But this is a job I have conceived myself, and if you follow my instructions explicitly, you will make yourself a tidy sum of money, and you won’t be in danger. But of course you must leave town immediately and never return.”
“Yeah, all right, I can do that. Leave town, I mean. But what does expilla . . . explea . . . uh, whatever it is that word you say that I’m supposed to follow?”
“It merely means that you are to do everything I say.”
“All right.”
* * *
Two days later, Brad Houser spent the afternoon with Arnold Stone, a nearby rancher who was a client of his. Houser had helped him draw up a will.
“You’ve done quite well for yourself, Mr. Stone,” Houser said as he examined the figures.
“Yes, well, I came here right after the war, was able to get the land for a song, and then make a gather of cattle that, during the war, had run free ’n started multiplying.”
“So ranching can be quite a lucrative profession.”
“Well, if you got into it early enough, yes.” Stone shook his head. “Not that many opportunities left here in Texas now. If a man really wanted to get a start now, why, he’d have to go someplace like Wyoming, or Utah, or the Dakotas, I would think.”
“Interesting observation,” Houser replied. He put the papers he had been working on in a small satchel. “You come into town sometime next week, Mr. Stone, and I’ll have these papers ready.”
“Thanks. And thanks for coming out here to work on this for me. You didn’t have to, you know. I would have been glad to come into town.”
“I didn’t mind at all,” Houser said.
* * *
In Sulphur Springs, Sid Shamrock and Abe Sobel waited outside the bank.
“It’s near to four o’clock now,” Shamrock said. “Brad told me that the teller leaves at four ’n locks up, but Dempster, the banker, stays there until ’bout four-thirty. So when we see the teller leave, we’ll go in.”
“How are we going to get in, if the bank is locked?”
Shamrock smiled and held up a key. “This’ll get us in,” he said.
Abe didn’t ask how Shamrock came by the key.
“Look there, he’s about to come out,” Shamrock said, pointing across the street.
They watched as shades were pulled down in each of the two front windows and in the door. A sign, reading CLOSED, was turned around, then a man stepped through the door, locked it, and walked away.
“Wait till he gets around the corner,” Shamrock said.
A moment later, when the street was clear, Shamrock and Abe hurried across, unlocked the door, then stepped into the bank.
“What did you forget, Lee?” Dempster called without looking around. He was standing in front of the open vault.
“Put your hands up,” Shamrock called out.
Dempster put his hand on the vault door, as if to close it, and Shamrock pulled the hammer back on his pistol.
“You close that door and you are a dead man,” Shamrock
