A SHORT, fat man with a goatee, wearing a flat-crowned black hat, came into the Boston House in the late afternoon with Lamar Speck. He and Speck located Virgil leaning on the bar.

“Virgil,” Speck said. “This is Buford Posner.”

Virgil nodded.

“I own the Golden Palace,” Posner said, “down the street, and there’s trouble there right now.”

“I suggested you and Everett,” Speck said.

He was speaking very fast.

“Whaddya need?” Virgil said to Posner.

“A group of cowboys are causing trouble in my place,” Posner said. “They’ve run off my lookout, and Lamar tells me you’ve been successful with this sort of thing in the past.”

“Why not the police?” Virgil said.

“Like Lamar, I am not on good terms with the police,” Posner said. “I will pay you, of course.”

“Be a favor to me, Virgil,” Speck said.

Virgil looked at me.

“Everett?”

“Why not,” I said.

“They say they are going to destroy my saloon,” Posner said.

“Then we better hurry,” Virgil said. “Everett, bring your eight-gauge.”

The Golden Palace wasn’t much on the outside, but inside it was a fancy, fussy little place with murals painted on the walls and ornate plaster moldings. There were eight cowboys in there, drinking whiskey from the bottle. A couple were sitting on the bar, the rest at a pair of tables. The spittoons had been tipped over. There was broken glass on the floor, and someone had shot holes, kind of strategically, in the mural of a wood nymph.