As soon as I appeared he took his head off the pillows, sat upright and barked at me:
“Have you got as much guts as you’ve got gall?”
His face was an unhealthy dark red. The film was gone from his eyes. They were hard and hot.
I let his question wait while I looked at the corpse on the floor between door and bed.
A short thickset man in brown lay on his back with dead eyes staring at the ceiling from under the visor of a gray cap. A piece of his jaw had been knocked off. His chin was tilted to show where another bullet had gone through tie and collar to make a hole in his neck. One arm was bent under him. The other hand held a blackjack as big as a milk bottle. There was a lot of blood.
I looked up from this mess to the old man. His grin was vicious and idiotic.
“You’re a great talker,” he said. “I know that. A two-fisted, you-be-damned man with your words. But have you got anything else? Have you got the guts to match your gall? Or is it just the language you’ve got?”
There was no use in trying to get along with the old boy. I scowled and reminded him:
“Didn’t I tell you not to bother me unless you wanted to talk sense for a change?”
“You did, my lad.” There was a foolish sort of triumph in his voice. “And I’ll talk you your sense. I want a man to clean this pigsty of a Poisonville for me, to smoke out the rats, little and big. It’s a man’s job. Are you a man?”