In the Moon of Red Ponies (Billy Bob Holland 4)

“That pretty well sums it up. But right now I need to use the can,” Darrel said, tapping the rim of his Styrofoam coffee with his fingernail.

“Do you believe this fucking guy?” one of the other security men said.

“Don’t use that language in here,” Merwood said. He blew out his breath. “Go with him.” He gestured with his thumb toward the office restroom.

The silver-haired man and the one whom Merwood had corrected for his profanity went inside with Darrel. But Darrel did not go to the urinal. Instead, he began unbuckling his pants as he entered a stall.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the man with silver hair said.

“I got to take a dump. I had clam linguine and a few brews last night. Want to hang around, be my guest,” Darrel said. He squatted on the toilet and blew a gaseous explosion into the bowl.

When Darrel and the security men came out of the restroom, Brendan Merwood was talking on the phone. He said something into the receiver Darrel couldn’t hear, then replaced the receiver on the carriage.

“How much do you want for your information?” he asked.

“I’ll take that up with Mabus,” Darrel replied.

“Are you serious?” Merwood said.

“I told you he was a hardhead,” Greta said.

“These gentlemen here will take you to see Mr. Mabus,” Merwood said. “Go out the back door, if you would.”

“I want my twenty-five, my nine-Mike, my blade, and my sap back,” Darrel said.

“We’ll sack ’em up for you,” the man with silver hair said. “Let me have your keys.”

“What for?” Darrel said.

“There’s a guy outside who’ll drive your car. You come in ours,” the man with silver hair said. He eased back the receiver on Darrel’s .25-caliber automatic and looked at the round that was seated in the chamber. He laid his arm across Darrel’s shoulders, tapping him good-naturedly with the pistol. “This is gonna work out, believe me.”

Darrel thought he could smell the sweat and deodorant in the man’s armpit. For a second Greta’s eyes settled on his, gleaming with victory.

AFTER I LEFT Wyatt’s place on the Blackfoot, I went to the office and tried to work. But it was no use. Why did I want to even pretend I was an attorney? My deeds had proved over and over again that I was little different from Wyatt Dixon or Darrel McComb. There was no psychological complexity waiting to be discovered at the center of my life. The truth was, I lusted to kill. It was cleaner, easier, and simpler than the drawn-out processes of the law. Jailhouses and prisons are filled with people who are ugly and stupid and who probably deserve to be there. But rich guys don’t stack mainline time, and men like Karsten Mabus, no matter what they do, never ride the needle. So why not kick it on up to rock ’n’ roll? I told myself.

I was almost convinced by my own rhetoric when Hildy, my receptionist, buzzed my phone. “I’ve got Amber American Horse on the line. Want to take the call?” she said.

I hesitated, then said, “Put her on.”

“Billy Bob?” Amber’s voice said.

“Are you on a cell?” I said

“Yes.”

“My phones are probably tapped. Get off the cell and use a land line. Call me in fifteen minutes at a place where the bindle stiffs smile at you from the walls. You hearing me on this?”

She paused only a second. “Make it a half hour. I have to drive. It’s dangerous,” she said.

“Hey, cowgirls never get the blues,” I said.

“What?” she said.

But I hung up the phone before a trace could be made, then went out the back door of my office and down the alley to Higgins Street. I walked past a newsstand and the Oxford Bar and crossed the street to Charley B’s. The walls inside were hung with the work of a West Montana legend, Lee Nye, who had been employed there as a part-time bartender in the 1960s and whose photographs of seamed, wind-burned faces were like a pictorial history of the American West and the landless blue-collar men who had built it.

The phone behind the bar rang five minutes after I arrived. The bartender picked it up, then handed it to me. “Hello?” I said.

“It’s Amber,” she said.