“What about the other fella?” Virgil said. “The young one, real tall, skinny, long hair, scraggly beard?”
“No . . . don’t see him,” I said. “Just the older one.”
Virgil nodded a little, glancing up to the second floor.
“What’s upstairs?” he said.
“I think Meserole has his office up there, but I don’t know for a fact.”
Virgil nodded a little and glanced around some.
“They ain’t whoring here?” he said.
“No,” I said. “Just saloon girls, flirting and hustling whiskey.”
“We wait?” I said.
Virgil nodded a bit.
A small woman came walking in from a door near the bar and glanced around some, then looked over to me. She nodded a little to me—the friendly “buy me a drink, paying customer” nod. Then she tilted her head and casually meandered her way over and settled between Virgil and me.
“Wet enough for you?” she said.
Virgil turned toward her a little. The move put his back even more to the big-chested guy with the feather in his hat.
“Is,” he said, then smiled.
“How y’all doing this evening?”
“Better ’an most,” I said.
Virgil nodded a bit and looked to me.
“Real good,” I said.
“That’s good,” she said. “That’s good.”
“And you?” I said.
“Peachy.”
She was attractive for a woman who barely filled her dress and shoes. Every part of her was thin: her fingers, her face, her figure, everything.
“What’s your name?” Virgil said.
“Betty,” she said with a smile as she twirled a strand of her hair with her finger.
“Betty,” Virgil said with a nod. “It’s a pleasure.”
“Likewise,” she said as she twirled the strand one way, then twirled it in the other direction.
“You been in here most the evening?” Virgil said.
“I have,” she said. “And I’ve yet to have a single drop, if you can believe that?”
Virgil glanced to me.
“Whiskey,” I said to the bartender.
She looked to me, smiled. “Why, thank you,” she said.
“Got a few questions for you, Betty,” Virgil said.
She smiled and looked down at her skinny body.
“Let me see if I can find the answer you are looking for,” she said, then looked back to Virgil with pouty lips that turned into a coy smile.
“I’m Virgil and this fella here is Everett. Everett and me are here on official business.”
“I’m about as official as they come,” Betty said with a laugh.
Virgil smiled.
“What could be more official than little ol’ me?” she said.
Virgil slyly pulled back his jacket and showed her the star pinned on his vest.
“Right now we have some marshaling business to attend to.”
She looked back and forth between Virgil and me.
“Am I under arrest?”
“No,” Virgil said. “The official business we are here to conduct has to do with two fellas we are searching for.”
Her demeanor changed and she stood a bit taller, as if she were in trouble.
“I want you to smile and enjoy your whiskey,” he said. “There is no reason you need to do otherwise. Don’t want you to draw attention to nothing out of the ordinary, okay?”
She glanced to me then cut her eyes back to Virgil and nodded.
“Okay.”
“Just over my shoulder,” Virgil said. “There is an older fella. He’s a big fella sitting with a couple of gals under that stairway landing.”
She leaned a bit.
“That’s Debbie and Ellen.”
“Just look at me,” Virgil said. “Like I said, I don’t want you to get anyone’s attention.”
She nodded.
“Smile,” he said.
She smiled.
“So, real casual-like,” Virgil said. “You got a good look at the man I’m talking about, sitting with Debbie and Ellen?”
“I do,” she said.
“Do you know him?”
“No.”
“Seen him in here before?”
She nodded.
“I’ve seen him before, yes, but I don’t know him, honest.”
“He have a friend, too?”
“He does.”
“Big, tall young fella with long hair and a scraggly beard.”
“That’s right,” she said.
“Any idea where he is?”
She nodded.
“He’s walking down the stairs as we speak.”