Whiskey and preserves

As the Inspector lowered his gun I felt some of the tension go out of my chest, and some of the tension go out of the bar.  When he tried to holster it again, having forgotten to set the safety catch, the gun went off and he was luckier than he had any right to be that he didn't put a hole in his boot and his toes.  Instead he put a hole in the floor, and while he was jumping back afrighted half the bar had pulled their own weapons out and were pointing them at him.  I noticed, with just a little chagrin, that some of them were pointing at me as well.
"Nothing to do with me," I said, lifting my hands slowly, palms open wide.  "You all know I don't carry a gun.  Never have."  And while there might have been a few head shaking there, disbelieving me, most of the folks in there did know me and knew that I disliked guns and that it was more than a fancy. Most of the guns then were swung away and pointed at the Inspector, who was now sitting flat on the ground with a look on his face like a guy that's pissed himself and doesn't want the world to know.  The spreading puddle beneath his britches was giving him away something rotten though.
One gun stayed with me though; I could feel it in the small of my back.  Bobby Kinsome leaned forward and whispered in my ear, "Well Evan, looks like I'm mighty pleased to see you!"  He tittered, and I had to resist the urge to turn my head and spit in his face.  "What say we have a little drink, like you suggested, and why-hi, you can tell me all about these wretched rumours sullying the good name of my family."  His breath smelled sour, like pickle-juice.
"My legs are trembling," I said.  "Who knows what that Inspector is like to do next.  A table and a stiff drink would do me the world of good, Mr. Kinsome, so I'll thank-you heartily for the offer."
"No tricks," whispered Bobby.  "You said it yourself, Evan, this here's a Kinsome bar.  My bar."
"No tricks," I said, and felt the pressure of the gun's muzzle ease up on me.  "Table by the window?  I think it's going to get mighty pungent in this corner shortly."
The guns were mostly put away now, and Darnell had picked the Inspector up by putting his hands under the Inspector's arms and hoisting.  The Inspector turned crimson as his situation was made plainly visible to everyone, and then Rita was pointing out the back and I had a feeling that the Inspector would be ending up in the privies.  Those were vile, to my certain recollection; Rita might manage a decent bar but her idea of housekeeping was mostly that someone else should do it, and that was a view shared by her whole family.
Bobby Kinsome and I sat at a table by the window where the breeze of the afternoon brought in scents of mown hay and pushed other, less savoury ones, away from our table.  Rita appeared and set down jars of jam and chutney and a chipped china plate holding a miserly selection of water biscuits, and Bobby ordered whiskey chasers.  Rita rolled her eyes but said nothing, and Bobby never noticed.
"Why-hi," he said, leaning back in his chair, which creaked and groaned.  "So I'm the Coffin-Robber am I now?  Anyone saying what coffins I'd be robbin', or why I might be stooping so low?"  He tittered again, and I allowed a half-smile to my lips.  It wasn't as bad a joke as usually passed for humour with Bobby.
"The Inspector had the papers," I said.  "Though I've a feeling they might be a trifle damp now.  That man hasn't the brain he went to school with.  They're just saying that you're the Coffin-Robber and wanted Dead or Alive."
"And you thought to be bringing me in dead, Evan?"
I didn't like the way he said my name, and he kept using it like he'd just learned it and wanted to make sure he didn't forget it.
"I thought I might ask you why there are folks out there keen to meet you no matter what state you might be in," I said.  "Seems to me that it's mighty easy to post a bounty on a man, but telling if that man's deserving of it... well, that's another matter."
"I can't tell, why-hi, why it should matter to you though," said Bobby.  He pushed the jars of preserves towards me.  "You're just a bounty-hunter, a dog for the sheriff when he's tired of kicking those dead-beats he calls his men.  Why ain't you just sitting down and belling for back-up like a proper dog would?"
I made him wait while I unscrewed the lid from the pear chutney and spread a little on a water biscuit.  The biscuit was fresh and snapped brittly when I bit into it; I was expecting that Rita would have put out the stale ones.  Maybe she cared more for Bobby than she let on.  I pushed the jar back towards him.
"Heck no!  Never did like all the sugar these things have in them," said Bobby.  "Whiskey'll do me just fine, Evan."
On cue, Rita set down two tumblers of whiskey and looked Bobby dead in the eye.
"There's plenty of family that put the effort in, Bobby," she said.  "You could be one of them."  Then she was gone again, hinking her way through the bar like she thought she was on a catwalk.
"It don't matter to me, Mr. Kinsome," I said at last, while he was sipping his whiskey.  But when I'm telling the stories of my life to my grand-children I'd like to be able to answer their questions."
Bobby put his glass down on the table softly and looked me up and down.
"You're planning on having grand-kids?" he asked.

Bobby

"Well," said Rita dropping her hands from her hips.  She tilted her head slightly to one side and raised a foot so that she was on tiptoe.  The culottes she wore concealed it, but she had muscular calves that she showed off most years when she competed in the Miss Rainville pageant.  She was posing like she was onstage already, and I was preparing myself to applaud with the audience.  "Well, seems to be like the man most entitled to that title would be Abraham Kinsome himself.  You'll find him atop the Turgid River Hill."
I let her words hang in the bar for a moment, letting the peanut gallery, the good old boys, work that one out for themselves.  The only thing atop the Turgid River Hill, named for a river that was diverted thirty six years back, is the Rainville Cemetary.
"Why Rita," I said pleasantly, "are you being telling me that you want your grandpappy dug up?"  She frowned, and opened her mouth, so I stepped in quick before she could reply.  "Happen as the Mr. Kinsome I'm looking for has already done that though.  I don't see as how Abe could really have been buried with a family fortune, but I'm betting that anything he was buried with has been checked through a dozen times by now."
"How dare you!"  Her words were as fast as her steps and her arm swept out wide in an arc that caused the Inspector to curse and duck, then came back in for my jaw. I caught her wrist in my hand and held it there, feeling her quiver with the effort of trying to get loose from me.
"Mr. Kinsome has been identified as the Coffin-Robber," I said.  "I have the documentatory evidence if you'll be seeing it."
"You can eat shit," she said.  She leaned forward and tried to spit in my face, but again she'd telegraphed her actions for me and I twisted out of the way.  When I righted myself again I thrust her wrist down to the floor, letting go but putting her off-balance.  She backed off, rubbing her wrist and snarling at me.
"Why-hi, what's the game here then?"  Bobby Kinsome had walked into the bar behind me.
Bobby Kinsome had a weak chin that he blamed his mother for, weak ribs that he blamed his father for, and carefully-groomed facial hair that he claimed was all his own work.  His rich, reddish hair grew over his scalp like clover over a meadow and descended the side of his face into his beard, which traced out the bone-structure of his face.  It made him look leaner and added shadows to the hollows of his cheeks; his eyes, even though they were brown, were intensified by the beard, and the moustache was both elegant and slightly rakish.  It belonged, without a doubt, on the face of a movie star.  It resided, however, on the face of Bobby Kinsome, and there it made do while waiting for its moment to escape.
"They're trying to finger you for the Coffin-Robber, Bobby.  You'd better get on out," said Rita.
"Why-hi!  I've never robbed a coffin in my life," said Bobby.  "And I'll not run from the likes of this man.  Only a ruffian would run in fear from the perpetrators of justice!"
Bobby was probably the only Kinsome to have ever gone to a university, and that was more because he pestered his parents until they agreed to send him.  His teachers petitioned his parents not to, mostly on account of his grades but also because they were worried about being tainted by association.  But Bobby's parents were insistent that Bobby wanted an education and they were sure that they weren't going to stand in his way.
I'm not aware that anyone's ever heard the story of why Bobby wanted to go to that university so much; there are those who say that he had gotten sweet on the boy he paid to do his homework in high school and was following him, and there are those who say that Bobby thought that university was just one long keg party, but I have my doubts about either.  Bobby Kinsome is far too self-centred to have gotten sweet on anyone, be they man, woman or goat, and while he might think that a year-long keg party would a thing, he had that back here in Rainville already.  Bobby came back after eight months, having tried out fifteen majors and abandoned them all, with no indication of what he'd been after in the first place, and fragments of an education that did no more than show up how little of it he'd really understood.  Hence the perpetrators of justice.
"I'll cover him!" said the Inspector sounding all excited.  He was fumbling at his waist for something, and I gradually realised that he was actually carrying a pistol with him.  I backed off immediately, for a man who doesn't understand a gun is a danger to everyone, but most especially himself.  The bar backed off with me, giving the Inspector space.  "Why aren't you arresting him?"
"Because this here's a Kinsome bar," I said slowly.  "Put the gun down, hey, Inspector?  You don't look like you've ever learned to use that thing."
"What matter that it's a bar?"
"No, Inspector, the problem is that this is a Kinsome bar.  Rita over there was born a Kinsome, and the guys on the door who're wearing the knuckle dusters and waiting for you to turn your back on them, they're Kinsome cousins, Jack and Darnell.  The guy serving behind the bar, well that's Oliver Kinsome, and somewhere out back will be his father and uncle, James and Anthony. You try arresting Bobby in here and you're not an officer of the law?  You'll be flying out that door so fast you'll land on the ground last Wednesday."
"Why-hi, the man's a prick but he has a point!"  Clearly Bobby thought that was wit as he sniggered in the silence.
"So put the gun away," I said.  "I came here to talk to Bobby and find out why people might be spreading such muck and dirt around about him.  Not to see him shot.  By an Inspector."

Bounty Hunter

I'm sat out back when he comes round; white collar on his shirt and nicely pressed cuffs.  Hands that look like they know what a manicure is.  There's a smell about him too, takes me a minute or so to realise that it's cologne.
"Evan?"
I grunt and point towards the outhouse.  It's a wooden structure, two stories and you don't want to be pissing downstairs when it's busy and everyone else is pissing upstairs.  The man shakes his head and there's a fine sprinkle of dandruff comes off him and floats around him for a moment like a dandelion clock exploding in September.  I shrug, spit at a beetle that's pushing some ball of dirt along and hit it.  Not sure it likes it.
"Evan."  Ah, there's no question now.  Someone knew who he was looking at all along and thought he'd be clever about it.  I point at the outhouse again like there's a devil sitting on my shoulder, egging me along.
"Right," says the man.  His voice is rougher than I was expecting from someone who takes such good care of hisself.  "So I go and check out that edifice and when I come back you're gone and no-one knows where, right?"
Edifice?  Last time I heard that word was in a saloon bar where two old ladies decided to sit and play scrabble while their grand-daughters led the burlesque show.  That was quite a sight, and it was a damn shame I was there to collect a bounty on one of the bar-staff.  When he saw me he took down a bottle of good sipping whisky and threw it at my head.  Missed by a barn-door, but it clonked one of the grannies good and hard; knocked her false teeth out of her mouth and across the board.  While I was drawing and getting a clear shot, the burlesque girls had left the stage and stormed the bar; I ended up having to pull him free but I was a bit on the late side; one of the girls had got her thighs around his neck and strangulated him.  He looked happier than he would have done if I'd got to him first, but it was another of those dead rather than alive bounties.  Folks tend to pay less if they don't get to inflict their own brand of justice.
"You're Evan the bounty hunter.  You brought in the body of Dougal "Four shots" McInney, the body of Singapore Sally, and...," he pauses for a moment, his eyes looking up at the sky.  I could tell him there's nothing up there, not even a turkey vulture today.  Might be a cloud in that bright blue if you're hunting hard though.  "... and the face of Georgia Oates."
Hah, yes,  Georgia Oates.  Sweet girl by all accounts, bit on the heavy side but could still make a leg on the dance floor and popular afterwards too, from what I heard.  Took herself off with a lad from Nags Hill way and her family couldn't quite handle the idea.  So they took out a bounty on her, but as it was told afterwards, they couldn't manage the alphabet between them and didn't understand that it read Dead or Alive.  That's not the way I got it, and I spend time talking to both of her brothers, but it's sure the way they told it later.  She wasn't hard to find, wasn't hiding, just living her life with the guy of her choosing and his sister.  So I turned up and explained to them what needed to happen for everyone to go on being happy and we were mostly sorted out and organised to go when her father-in-law turns up and turns out to be Jeddy Teems, a man who's never let his gun out of his hand.  Then there's shouting and there's arguing and hollering, and despite it all being sorted and easy already Jeddy's having none of it.  And then it all went a bit messy.
So... since no-one was paying me for Jeddy Teems, even though by all rights I should have picking up six or seven bounties for that one, we sat down together with a sheep-knife, some lipstick and a needle and thread and I went back with the face of Georgia Oates.  And if there's a girl out there, bit on the heavy side, who looks a lot like her still, then I guess that must be one of them doppelgoers you hear tell about.
I point at the outhouse again.  I doubt it's going to work but sometimes with these clever ones if you act dumb enough it gets to be catching.  He shakes his head.
"There's a new bounty out," he says.  "They've got a name for the Coffin-robber.  Robert Kinsome."
Bobby Kinsome, huh?  I figured he was up to something, but bodysnatching seems low even for him. And he'd sell his mother and his grandmother to the brothel in exchange for a room there for the night and not complain when the management puts his mother and his grandmother in his bed.
"You going after him?"
I nod, there's not much point denying it.  Everyone knows that I pick up the bad bounties.
"That's great," says the man.  "I'll be coming with you."
I don't say nothing, but I can feel my eyes widen in surprise.  Before I react any further he's talking again, and I'm starting to get pissed off.
"Don't bother, Evan.  I know what you're thinking, I know what you're going to say.  But that bit of paper you got, the one that says you're a bounty hunter?  That's got an expiration date on it.  And that date is just seven days away.  You need it renewed, Evan, and that means you've got to convince me that you can do the job."
"Inspector?" my voice always surprises them, it's almost high enough to be a woman's.  Guess it never broke from when I was a kid.
"That's right Evan.  Of the last twenty bounties you've run you've brought in every one of them dead. We're assessing you to make sure that you're not just taking the easy option."
Easy option?  Singapore Sally with her bodyguard disguised as a nursemaid and her poison-dipped shuriken and a line in arson that'd make a pyromaniac look like a kindergartener was the easy option?
"So, you and me, Evan.  Bringing in Robert Kinsome."
Well now, that could be fun.  I wonder if I'd get re-licensed if I bring Bobby in alive and the Inspector in dead?