"You wouldn't know a young lord from a young turd," said a miss who appeared to have all of four teeth left in her charming young head.
There was general laughter at this. The old bastard looked around, offended. "I know, all right," he said. "I've forgot more than you'll ever learn, so I have. One of them at least came from the Eld line, for I saw his father in his face . . . just as clear as I see your saggy tits, Jolene." And then the old bastard had done something Depape rather admired - yanked out the front of the saloon-whore's blouse and poured the remainder of his beer down it. Even the roars of laughter and heavy applause which greeted this couldn't entirely drown the girl's caw of rage, or the old man's cries when she began to slap and punch him about the head and shoulders. These latter cries were only indignant at first,but when the girl grabbed the old bastard's own beer-stein and shattered it against the side of his head, they became screams of pain. Blood - mixed with a few watery dregs of beer - began to run down the old bastard's face.
"Get out of here!" she yelled, and gave him a shove toward the door. Several healthy kicks from the miners in attendance (who had changed sides as easily as the wind changes directions) helped him along. "And don't come back! I can smell the weed on your breath, you old cock-sucker! Get out and take your gods-cussed stories of old days and young lords with you!"
The old bastard was in such manner conveyed across the room, past the tootling trumpet-player who served as entertainment for the patrons of Hattigan's (that young bowler-hatted worthy added his own kick in the seat of the old bastard's dusty trousers without ever missing so much as a single note of "Play, Ladies, Play"), and out through the batwing doors, where he collapsed face-first into the street.
Depape had sauntered after him and helped him up. As he did so, he smelled an acrid odor - not beer - on the old man's breath, and saw the telltale greenish-gray discolorations at the comers of his lips. Weed, all right. The old bastard was probably just getting started on it (and for the usual reason: devil-grass was free in the hills, unlike the beer and whiskey that was sold in town), but once they started, the finish came quick.
"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, hail 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."