Stringer studied the surface of his whiskey for a moment and then drank some.

“How come?” Stringer said.

Virgil looked at me.

“He annoyed Virgil,” I said. “Kinda full of himself.”

Stringer nodded.

“Don’t make no mistake with him,” Stringer said. “He’s a horse’s ass, okay, but he knows what he wants. He’ll do what he needs to get it. He can shoot, and he will. Got some people working for him can shoot.”

“Twelve people working for him,” I said.

“Town got big fast,” Stringer said.

“Virgil and me ran it with two,” I said. “It get six times bigger?”

“More people work for you, more power you got,” Stringer said. “Callico’s ambitious.”

“He want to be sheriff?” I said.

“It’s the next step,” Stringer said.

“To what?” Virgil said.

“Governor.”

“Why’s he want to be governor,” Virgil said.

“Probably ’cause it’s the next step to senator,” Stringer said. “I don’t know what Callico wants.”

“What kind of lawman is he?” Virgil said.

“Tough, strict, fair enough, I think,” Stringer said. “But he got no heart.”

“Heart don’t do you much good,” Virgil said.

Stringer smiled.

“ ’ Course it doesn’t,” he said. “Makes you soft.”

“Get you killed,” Virgil said.

Stringer said, “You think Virgil Cole got heart, Laurel.”

Laurel was sitting next to Virgil with Allie on her other side. She showed no sign of having heard Stringer’s question.

“She hear me?” Stringer said.

“She don’t much talk with anybody but Virgil,” I said.

“Hell,” Stringer said.

Laurel leaned in close to Virgil and whispered to him. Virgil smiled. He looked at me for a moment, then at Stringer.

“Laurel claims I got the most heart in the world,” he said.

3

THE BOSTON HOUSE had changed hands twice since I had killed Randall Bragg. But Willis McDonough in his starched white shirt was still the head bartender. And he bought us each a drink when Virgil and I went in to say hello.