“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.
“Don’t tolerate rule-breaking,” I said.
The bearded man looked at the shotgun across my lap.
“You Hitch?” he said.
“Yes, sir, I am.”
He looked at the shotgun again.
“That an eight-gauge?” he said.
“Yes, sir, it is,” I said.
One of the other men said, “Christ. Pellets must look like billiard balls.”
“These whores got something belongs to me,” the bearded one said.
“You owe us,” the older whore said. “You owe us a lot more than we took, don’t he, Roxanne?”
Roxanne nodded silently.
“See,” the bearded one said. “See, she even admits she took something.”
“I don’t care,” I said.
“She give it back and there won’t be no trouble,” the bearded one said.
I stood up.
“Or if she don’t,” I said.
The bearded man didn’t seem to know what to say. His three companions shifted uneasily. The whores sat perfectly still.
“You ladies sit right there, where I can see you, make sure you’re not stealing any business from our girls,” I said. “You gentlemen step to the bar and I’ll buy you all a drink ’fore you leave.”
The men sort of looked at one another, then at me. Then the bearded man nodded.
“I could use a drink,” he said. “Night like this.”
11.
Place has turned into a fucking sanctuary,” Wolfson said.
I shrugged.
“It’s not just whores now,” he said. “Anybody got trouble comes running into my saloon and waits for you to protect them.”
Wolfson was leaning on the bar near my chair, sipping whiskey. He usually drank whiskey through the evening, but it didn’t appear to make him drunk. Maybe it was how slow he sipped it.
“For crissake, some guy made a pass at Harley Porter’s wife on the street the other day and she hustles right in here to tell you.”
“I know,” I said. “Maybe if there was a sheriff or something. ”
“You’re turning into the fucking sheriff,” Wolfson said.
“Except I ain’t,” I said.
“No, you ain’t,” Wolfson said. “You work for me.”
“I do,” I said.
“Keep that clear in your mind,” Wolfson said.
I nodded, watching the room. It was full and lively, the card tables were busy, the bar was crowded. Everything was in good working order. Wolfson sipped his whiskey and looked at the room, too.
“Nice and busy,” he said.
He snorted or laughed or something like that. It wasn’t a pleasant sound.
“Thing makes me laugh,” he said, “is my saloon, a sanctuary, like a fucking church or something. People come to my saloon because they feel safe.”
“That’s not bad for business,” I said.
“No,” Wolfson said, and made the laugh sound again. “That’s what’s so funny. I’m busier than I ever been.”
At a card table in the middle of the room somebody lost a hand he thought he had won, and got mad and slammed his open hand down on the table. The impact knocked over a bottle of whiskey that rolled off the table and shattered on the floor. The card player whirled toward me and put both hands, palms out, in front of his chest.
“No trouble, Everett. An accident. I’ll buy a new bottle.”
“That’ll be good,” I said.
The card player walked to the bar to buy a new bottle. A Chinese man with a broom came from someplace and cleaned up the broken glass.
“Ain’t it grand how they love you, Everett,” Wolfson said.
“Ever hear of a man named Machiavelli?” I said.
“No.”
“When I was at West Point,” I said, “they made us read some things he wrote.”
“I’m not much for reading,” Wolfson said.
“One thing he said sort of stayed with me,” I said. “It’s better to be feared than loved. Because you can’t make them love you. But you can make them fear you.”
“Pretty smart fella,” Wolfson said. “So what?”
I grinned at him.
“Koy Wickman,” I said, “did not die in vain.”
12.
It was payday at Fort Rucker, and the Blackfoot had a lot more soldiers than usual. They were noisy but peaceful, except for one fight, which I convinced the fighters to take outside. I watched them for a little while as they flailed away drunkenly until one of them threw up and the other walked away in disgust.