“I told you, I’m not here,” Chester said to the closed door. “Jesus H. Christ, Jimbo.”

The Nix boys, Dusty and his daddy, walked into the storeroom, nobody around to even stop them, strolling on down the rows of booze like they owned the place. Flem licking his dry lips, thinking that he must have died and gone to heaven, floating on that old whiskey river. The grizzled old fucker plucking himself a bottle of Blanton’s and uncorking it with his teeth.

“You expecting someone else?” Dusty Nix asked.

Chester Pratt didn’t answer.

“Mr. Stagg wants to know if you heard from the Byrd girl.”

“Mr. Stagg?”

“See?” Flem said, chugging down a quarter of that little round bottle. “You was expecting old Bishop. Military man who’d been giving your ass fits. The military man come to take out the Nix boys on Nix land. Wadn’t he a real thorn in your backside?”

“I don’t know any such person,” Chester said.

“Hell, you don’t,” Dusty said. “You made a deal with Stagg to shoot us in the back.”

“No, sir,” Chester said. “Why would I throw in with Johnny Stagg?”

“ ’Cause a Nix can’t be had,” Flem said. “A Nix sets out right fast on what needs doin’. Don’t worry none, Chester. We ain’t here to kill you. Not right yet.”

Chester Pratt swallowed, not moving from the overstuffed leather chair. He waited for these two to walk down row after row and knock over bottles, same as Bishop had done a million nights back, back before he’d made the deal with the devil. Mr. Stagg now his legal partner in Bluebird Liquors.

“We’re asking again,” Dusty said. “Have you heard from the Byrd girl?”

“Once.”

“When?” Dusty asked.

“Two nights ago.”

“And what did she say?”

“She thinks I killed her momma,” Chester said. “You heard it. Everyone’s saying it.”

Dusty Nix put his hands on his waist, looking like he just might break into a little Irish jig, clodhop his old boots around the storeroom. But he didn’t. He stood stock-still, scratching at his stubbled, bulging neck and cutting his eyes over at his daddy for nearly finishing that bottle. “Quit now,” he said.

“Sorry,” Pratt said. “I can’t help you.”

“What number’d she call with?” Dusty asked.

“The girl used a burner.”

“What number?” Dusty said. “Maybe I’ll get lucky. Have her talk dirty to me. I seen her little tatas and that tight little ass on the internets.”

“Y’all shouldn’t have done what y’all did,” Chester said.

Dusty Nix smiled, his teeth brown and broken, before turning his head to spit on the floor. Daddy Nix put down the bottle and walked to a far corner where he started to urinate into a box of champagne bottles.