“Three,” Dean answered.
“Three’s right.” Jak ran a hand across his clothing, touching the hafts of his hidden knives. “Now, which three?”
“A test?” Dean grinned at his companion.
“Mebbe. Good to know if we agree on targets.”
Some of the smile left Dean’s face. “You think they’re going to try to brace us? Wouldn’t that be bastard stupe after what Kirkland and the sheriff said?”
“Stupe to ignore possibility,” Jak argued. “Mebbe these friends with Liberty. Mebbe found after we get here.”
Dean nodded. “Guy behind us on the right side of the street. Got a limp in his left leg. Man directly behind us. I keep track of him by that stinking cigar he’s smoking. And the guy up ahead of us carrying the bull-snake whip with the silver handle. Mighty stupe to carry something that lights up so well after dark.”
“Those are three,” Jak said. “Good eye. See deputy anywhere?”
Dean shook his head.
“Got ask where he is.”
“The sheriff did make a big deal out of the fact that we were going to be followed everywhere, didn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
“Not likely that he lost us in all this rush of folks out this late at night, is it?”
Jak looked at the empty streets. A few of the windows spilled warm yellow light out onto the wooden boardwalks. The sound of music came from up ahead, punctuated by the roar of drunken voices and ragged cheers. “Not likely,” he agreed.
“It’s going to be hard to get away from these guys and get a look at those stables,” Dean said.
Jak knew that. He was already working on resolving the problem. If it had been just him, he probably could have melted into one of the shadows getting fat between the buildings. And maybe Dean was even good enough to avoid detection the same way, if they’d been out in the rough, in the trees and underbrush that were a lot more forgiving of a wrong move than the straight lines and angles of a villescape.
“Mebbe not,” the albino said. “Want look at girls?” He pointed his chin toward the gaudy house in front of them. The open door spewed the piano music and bawdy talk out onto the street.
Dean tried to keep a smile from his face. “Okay.” He struggled to sound complacent, but Jak could hear the excitement in the younger boy’s voice.
“Like girls, Dean?” Jak asked.
“Sure. I mean, who wouldn’t?”
“Girls can be rattlesnake mean,” the albino warned.
“Guys can be a lot meaner.”
“Yeah.” Jak nodded. “But not matter how pretty guy is, if you not turned that way. Think wrong about girl, your head all stupe inside. Think so much, forget rattlesnake mean. Till wake up, find dick laying on chest.”
“Don’t have to be like that. You had Christina for a while.”
Jak closed off the pain he still felt from his wife’s and daughter’s deaths. Even his acceptance that such things happened didn’t let him completely forget. He was strong enough to move on afterward, and strong enough every now and then to spend quiet moments thinking about them, wondering how his life might have been different. “Not always like that,” he admitted. “Enough like that, don’t let many close.”
“I understand that.” Dean paused at the doorway, peering in over the bat-wing doors.
A big man with a shaved head and a huge walrus mustache graying at the ends stepped forward through the bat-wing doors. He wore a leather vest with fringe and had incredibly hairy shoulders. He carried a billy club in one hand, waving it slightly like he was really looking forward to using it. “Something I can do for you two?” he asked.
“We come to see the show,” Dean said. His eyes were locked on the naked dancer twirling around a brass pole mounted on the center stage inside the small, low-ceilinged room.
The bald man studied them in an exaggerated fashion, then kept his eyes on Dean. “You look a little young for the Brass Ass, boys.”
Jak lowered his hand to the butt of the .357 pistol. “Used to going my own way.”
A distasteful look covered the bald man’s face. “No reason to go getting all heated up.”