“They got no respect,” the old bastard said thickly. “Nor understanding, either.”

“Aye, so they don’t,” said Depape, who had not yet gotten the accents of the seacoast and the Drop out of his speech.

The old bastard stood swaying, looking up at him, wiping ineffectually at the blood which ran down his wrinkled cheeks from his lacerated scalp. “Son, do you have the price of a drink? Remember the face of your father and give an old soul the price of a drink!”

“I’m not much for charity, old-timer,” Depape said, “but mayhap you could earn yourself the price of a drink. Step on over here, into my office, and let’s us see.”

He’d led the old bastard out of the street and back to the boardwalk, angling well to the left of the black batwings with their golden shafts of light spilling out above and below. He waited for a trio of miners to go by, singing at the top of their lungs (“Woman I love... is long and tall... she moves her body... like a cannonball...”), and then, still holding the old bastard by the elbow, had guided him into the alley between Hattigan’s and the undertaking establishment next door. For some people, Depape mused, a visit to Ritzy could damn near amount to one-stop shopping: get your drink, get your bullet, get laid out next door.

“Yer office,” the old bastard cackled as Depape led him down the alley toward the board fence and the heaps of rubbish at the far end. The wind blew, stinging Depape’s nose with odors of sulfur and carbolic from the mines. From their right, the sounds of drunken revelry pounded through the side of Hattigan’s. “Your office, that’s good.”

“Aye, my office.”

The old man gazed at him in the light of the moon, which rode the slot of sky above the alley. “Are you from Mejis? Or Tepachi?”

“Maybe one, maybe t’other, maybe neither.”

“Do I know you?” The old bastard was looking at him even more closely, standing on tiptoe as if hoping for a kiss. Ugh.

Depape pushed him away. “Not so close, dad.” Yet he felt marginally encouraged. He and Jonas and Reynolds had been here before, and if the old man remembered his face, likely he wasn’t talking through his hat about fellows he’d seen much more recently.

“Tell me about the three young lords, old dad.” Depape rapped on the wall of Hattigan’s. “Them in there may not be interested, but I am.”

The old bastard looked at him with a bleary, calculating eye. “Might there be a bit o’ metal in it for me?”

“Yar,” Depape said. “If you tell me what I want to hear, I’ll give you metal.”

“Gold?”

“Tell me, and we’ll see.”

“No, sir. Dicker first, tell second.”

Depape seized him by the arm, whirled him around, and yanked a wrist which felt like a bundle of sticks up to the old bastard’s scrawny shoulderblades. “Fuck with me, dad, and we’ll start by breaking your arm.”