“‘All’ of ‘em!”

“All of ‘em. Except Myra, of course. His sister.”

Ken snorted and ran his hand over his mouth. Then, he kind of got a grip on himself, and his talk slowed down a little. But he still couldn’t get off the subject.

“Ain’t much family resemblance between Lennie and your wife. Hardly know they was brother an’ sister unless someone told you.”

“That’s right, I guess,” I said. “Can’t say that I ever thought much about it.”

‘But I had thought about it. Yessir, I’d thought plenty about it’.

“Was you acquainted with Lennie before you married? Know that you was goin’ to have a idjit for a brother-in-law?”

“Well, no, I didn’t,” I said. “I didn’t even know that Myra had a brother until afterwards. Came as quite a surprise for me.”

“Uh-hah!” Ken snorted. “Well, don’t be surprised if you get another surprise some time, Nick. No, sir, don’t you be surprised at all.”

“What?” I said. “How do you mean, Ken?”

He shook his head, not answering me, and broke out laughing. I laughed right along with him.

Because it was a pretty good joke, you see. ‘I’ was a joke. And maybe I couldn’t do anything about it right now, but I figured I would some day.

Ken took a couple more long drinks. I stood up and said maybe we’d better be going. “Got quite a little walk to the station, and I want you to meet a few fellas. Be a big treat for ‘em to meet a big-city sheriff like you.”

“Why, now, I bet it would be that,” Ken said, staggering to his feet. “Prob’ly ain’t every day they get to meet a real man in a pisspot of a town like this.”

“Tell ‘em how you took care of them two pimps,” I said. “They’ll be right impressed hearin’ how you took on two pimps all by yourself, and gave ‘em what-for.”

He blinked at me owlishly. He said, what pimps, what the god-danged hell was I talking about, anyway? I said, the pimps I’d warned him about last night—the two that were bound to try to give him some trouble.

“Huh?” he said. “What? Did you tell me somethin’ like that?”

“You mean you let ‘em get away with it?” I said. “Ken Lacey took dirt from a couple of low-down pimps?”

“Hah? What?” He rubbed his hand over his eyes. “Who says I took dirt from pimps?”

“I knew you didn’t!” I said, giving him a slap on the back. “Not Ken Lacey, the bravest, smartest peace officer in the state.”

“Well,” said Ken. “Uh, you shorely spoke a mouthful there, Nick. You shorely did, and that’s a fact!”

“Any other man, I wouldn’t have let him go over there last night. But I knew you could stand up to those pimps if they come at you with guns and knives. I knew you’d make ‘em wish they’d never been born.”

Ken put a stern look on his face, like that fella William S. Hart does in the movies. He squared his shoulders and straightened up, or as much as he could straighten with the whiskey wobbling his legs.