“And your idea of a good neighbor,” York said, “is me not dropping by?”
“You don’t boost my patrons’ thirst.”
“Sure I do, Cesar. When I leave.”
“So please do.” A request, not a threat.
York gave the barest head nod toward the poker table. “Those fellas over there. The gringos, the tall, the squat? How drunk are they?”
“Not very. They take in plenty, but they do it slow. Steady. Since before sundown. They been upstairs once already. Now, I think they just try and...”
“Regroup their troops?”
He shrugged wide shoulders. “They been here before. They know to go upstairs, early. Pretty soon, they go upstairs maybe with a different girl, this time usually stay the night. But, uh, Sheriff, they cause no trouble.”
“See any other gringo with them?”
“Did not notice.”
“A man with a scar through his mouth? Scar standing out white against a beard? Not a big man. Slim but looks like he can take care of himself?”
“No bell rings.”
“Name of Bill Johnson.”
“That’s a John Smith, Juan Garcia name.”
“It sure is. Cesar, you wouldn’t be forgetting ’cause you don’t want any trouble here?”
“Not so, Sheriff. I am a good neighbor.”
“Or maybe you got paid to forget?”
Cesar frowned and said, “No, señor. I don’t need that kind of money. I make plenty here in my honest business.”
“Then you don’t want to get closed down.”
“I do not, Sheriff.” Cesar poured another tequila, but York ignored it. “There was a Bill Johnson, I think, last year. Who would come in, time to time.”
“Is that right? With a scarred lip?”
“I think his lip, it is scarred. Now that I think on it.”
“Why don’t you drink some of that tequila, Cesar, and think on it some more.”
Cesar did.
York waited.
Then very quietly, the bartender said, “I have not seen him tonight. Bill Johnson. I speak truth.”
“Okay.”
Glancing at the poker table, seeing no eyes on him, Cesar said quietly, “But he always like one of my girls. Gabriella.”
“She working tonight?”
“Sí.”
“Your girls, do they use any available room, or do they have rooms of their own?”
“Of their own, señor.” He glanced at the ceiling. “Gabriella? First door on your left.”
“Locks on the doors?”
Cesar smiled slyly. “Sheriff, if you wish to know more about such rooms, there are girls here, they be glad to give you lessons. No charge.”
York grinned. “That good a neighbor I don’t need you to be, Cesar. Just tell me if that door is going to be locked.”
A shrug, a shake of the big head. “There are no locks in this part of town, señor. We are poor but honest people.”
Cesar and his wife didn’t live in the barrio. They had a former hacienda outside town a few miles. But York thought pointing this out might be unkind.
“Appreciate your help, Cesar. Now don’t get jumpy, amigo. But I’m going over to say hello to those gringos. Then make a show of leaving.”
Cesar nodded and went off to find a glass to polish. Or maybe just to wipe dry, since York had never seen him wash any.
York crossed the straw-covered floor and stood near the small table where the latest round of stud was going.
Fat Hoake looked up over his greasy cards and asked, “You want dealt in, Sheriff? It’s a small-stakes game. But we play it like it matters.”
The two señoritas were looking York up and down the way some men did good-looking women.
York said, “Just need a friendly word with you, Mr. Hoake. You, too, Mr. Pruitt.”
Looking at his cards, sitting near where York stood, Pruitt — a moist cigarette hanging so low his goatee might have caught fire — said, “Can’t this wait, Sheriff? We got a game here.”
“Please. Finish the hand.”
They did.
“You boys know a Bill Johnson?”
Hoake’s smiling words made his droopy mustache dance. “I think I know two, no three, Bill Johnsons, Sheriff. Maybe you can narrow it down some.”
While Hoake was looking right at York, Pruitt gazed straight ahead, sullen as hell.
York said, “You’d know this Johnson by the scar through his mouth.”
Hoake pretended to think. Pruitt didn’t bother.
“You’d also know him because, like you fellas, he was one of Harry Gauge’s men. Oh, not cowboys like you two. More a... special deputy.”
Hoake’s eyebrows went up; they looked like they were pasted on the flat, round face. “Oh. That Bill Johnson. What about him?”
York didn’t answer the question. Instead, he asked the tall outlaw, “How about you, Mr. Pruitt? You acquainted with this particular Bill Johnson?”
Now Pruitt turned to look up at York. His eyes were small and a light brown, like tobacco juice with plenty of spit in it. “We met. Ain’t seen him in some time. Why?”
“You boys must not get around. I thought everybody in the territory knew by now that Johnson’s wanted for robbing the First Bank of Trinidad. Got away with a hefty sum.”
“Do tell,” Pruitt said, those tiny eyes getting even tinier as they disappeared into slits.
“There’s a reward,” York said, “should you run into him. Or should it occur to you where I might find him.”
One of the Mexican cowhands at the table asked, “How much reward, Sheriff?”
“Ten percent of whatever’s recovered.”
Hoake said, “Well, what if somebody hauls Bill Johnson in, but nothing’s recovered?”
York fanned a big smile around the table. “I’m sure you would have the gratitude of your fellow good citizens. Maybe get a piece of paper from the mayor to hang on the bunkhouse wall.”
Pruitt and Hoake smirked at each other.
York said, “I’ll be in my office first thing tomorrow morning, gents, should something come to you. After I get a good night’s sleep, anyway.”
He summoned a yawn and stretched some.
“Enjoy your game, fellas.”
He nodded to them, tipped his hat to the señoritas, who gave him looks about as subtle as a mule kick in the tail, then sauntered out. He walked back through the sleeping barrio and across to the office/jail and went inside.
Tulley, seated at the little table by the stove and wall of wanted posters, swung the scattergun toward him, then backed it right off.
The deputy said, “I don’t see no customers.”
“I’m just making a show of it,” York said, and he cracked the door and peered across the street. The cantina was too far away to tell whether one or both of the gunhands had followed him to the door to watch him go. Had he looked back, he’d have tipped his hand.
But he felt sure they had. One of them, at least.
Tulley watched in confusion as York removed his spurs and tossed them on the desk with a jangle.
“You’re gettin’ ready for bed or somethin’?”
“In a way,” York said. He grunted a laugh. “Spurs are fine on horseback, Tulley, but they have a bad habit of announcing you, on foot.”
He waited five minutes before heading back. This time not even a dog barked and nobody was heading to the outhouse. Laughter and talk and guitar again welcomed his approach, without yet noting his arrival. The same horses were hitched outside the Red Bull.
York walked around to the side of the building where that exterior staircase took you closer to heaven and right next to earthly delights. Playing a hunch, he moved around back and found a lone horse hitched to a post.