“Yes, sir, yes, sir,” Stagg said into the receiver. “It’s gonna be quite a place. I haven’t stopped thinking about the Wild West since I was a kid. You know, all that stuff we growed up on. Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy. Dang Lash LaRue. Reason I came to the idea was that one of my grandbabies, Marla’s boy, had never even heard of Jesse James or Cole Younger. Even kids growing up behind us had the Gunsmoke and Bonanza to watch. They got a little bit of our culture and heritage in them shows. This will be a place to display it while offering the young’uns a safe place and some real wholesome family fun. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I sure do appreciate that. Mmm-hmm. Well. When you get as old as me, you start looking on things, and figuring out how a man might make a real difference in his community. Yes, sir. Mmm-hmm. Sure do appreciate it. Yep. You have a blessed day, too.”

Stagg kept on smiling until he put down the phone and turned to Chester Pratt. The smile dropped. “Glad to see you, Mr. Pratt,” he said. “You got my goddamn money?”

“Almost,” Chester Pratt said.

“Almost ain’t no answer,” Stagg said. “Looks like you got my message.”

“Yes, sir,” Pratt said, touching his forehead where that man Bishop had pistol-whipped him. “I don’t think all that mess was necessary. That crazy-ass monkey destroyed some valuable inventory.”

“If this here deal was just between you and me, it wouldn’t be of any great concern,” Stagg said. “But what you asked for called for some special favors from Jackson and even help from some boys down in New Orleans. You know I don’t like to name names. But they’re not exactly the patient type. Consider me sending over Mr. Bishop just a friendly reminder of how late you’re getting on what’s come due.”

“Christmas wasn’t what we’d hoped for.”

“Christmas ain’t never what a man hopes for,” Stagg said. “Life ain’t all candy canes and cute little elves tickling our nutsacks. You came to me as one businessman to another. Besides, you see that lot out back?”

“You mean the Booby Trap?”

“Booby Trap’s long gone, son,” he said. “I’m gutting that old cathouse that Fannie Hathcock called Vienna’s Place. Took me nearly two weeks to fumigate the smell of dead shrimp and sardines from there. What I’m proposing is a world of family fun and adventure. Do you like the Old West, Chester?”

“Sure.”

“With a name like Chester I would hope you would,” Stagg said. “Ole Dennis Weaver. Man, he was something. Come on. Let’s go take a walk. Time for me to stretch my legs and for us to figure out some kind of payment plan to get you straight with me and my associates.”