Steve Morgan, I can’t live in uncertainty…. You will tell me the truth this time, by God!

Humid air lay in a cloud on Gallatin Street, oppressive and muggy, so that breathing left a bad taste in the back of Steve’s throat.

“Here, amigo,” Paco said, holding out a tumbler full of whiskey, “this should kill the taste of the air.”

“Or me.” Steve eyed the tumbler with distaste. “I don’t know how you drink this rotgut.”

“Quickly.”

Feeble light flickered from open doors of dance-hall saloons and barrelhouses, the only illumination provided in this dingy, dangerous section of the Vieux Carré. It was the haunt of pickpockets, cutthroats and thieves, riverboatmen and prostitutes. A short thoroughfare of only two blocks from Ursuline Avenue, through Hospital and up to Barracks Street, it contained some of the roughest dives in all of America, as well as New Orleans. The district was the natural habitat of the men they had come to meet.

The overflow of this vicious underworld spilled into adjacent Levee Street and Bill Swan’s Fireproof Coffeehouse. The coffeehouse was the only establishment in New Orleans where the Live Oak Boys were welcome, Swan having been a member of this formidable gang of ruffians himself before he managed to amass enough money to purchase his own, different brand of thievery. The Live Oaks took his resort under their protection, partly for old times’ sake, and partly because he was wise enough to give them free liquor. It was an arrangement that worked well, for the Live Oaks were known to take great pleasure in intimidating and raiding other resorts, either on commission from a rival establishment or because they just took pleasure in it.

“Bishop must have lost his mind,” Paco muttered when they entered the coffeehouse; he was fortified with whiskey and determination, but still had reservations. “A man can get himself killed in this place.”

“It’s the only place we won’t arouse too much suspicion by meeting our contacts.”

“Sí, but we look more like easy marks than patrons,” Paco grumbled.

Steve grinned. “You always look like an easy mark. It’s your innocent face that gives you away.”

"¡Mierda!" Paco swore, then laughed. “Only you would think I have an innocent face, amigo. Your wife sees right through me. I saw her today, down at the docks as she was riding back with Girard. She has a way with her, you know, and somehow I let it slip that you would not be staying with us the entire way to Mexico. Por Dios, but she can make me say things I had no intention of saying, and then I stand there like a fool trying to explain it away.”

“I know the feeling. Don’t worry, I’ll handle Ginny.”

It was said more confidently than he felt at the moment. Christ, Paco was right. Ginny had a way of making him say things he regretted later.