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she’d inadvertently knocked down and almost trampled earlier that evening. He had apparently just come around the far corner of the whiskey mill and stood there, hatless, coatless. His hands opened and closed in a convulsive manner on his jacket lapels. He was staring at the fire.
    No. Inez realized he was staring at the half-dressed woman, horror and fascination warring across his face. Perhaps sensing that he was being watched, he turned his head, catching Inez’s gaze with his own. His eyes widened. Recognition flared, and something else, some furtive emotion, twisted his features. It took a moment for her to identify it.
    Guilt.
    “What’re you starin’ at?”
    Startled, Inez whirled and caught the woman glaring at her. “Never seen a tit before?” She squelched forward a step, waving the bottle like a sword. “A-ha! You…got…company!” She pointed the bottle at the older man. “I know you. Prick. Couldn’t keep your eyes off…”
    Inez turned to see how he was taking this calumny.
    He was gone.
    The woman continued to harangue as if he was still there. “Come sniffin’ aroun’. Ha! Attics. I’ll bet! Doors. Think you can stop me? Wait’ll Flo hears…”
    The back door to the saloon slammed open again, cutting off her crazy rant. The subdued glow from interior lamps spilled out, painted the rain as a delicate scratch of lines in the air. The woman shrank away, convulsively gripped the front of the robe with one hand, clutching it closed, bringing the curtain down on the show.
    The door darkened as four more men and another keg came through and thundered off the plank landing. The men floundered momentarily in the mud before gaining their footing and heading toward the back of the brothel. Lynch stepped out onto the plank landing, wiping his hands on the rag hanging off his apron. His attention swerved from the keg brigade to the woman swaying in the mud-splattered robe, half visible in the shadows of the alleyway.
    “Lizzie, Lizzie.” His previously loud voice was now soft. Affection, rough from disuse, colored his words. “What’re you doing out here? Like this? Come inside, warm up by the stove ’til Flo can fetch you. Come along, dearie, that’s a girl.”
    He stepped down the porch steps and gingerly into the liquefied alley, the surface pocking with intense raindrops. “You’re going to catch your death out here dressed in nothing but a wee gown like that.” He advanced, hand outstretched.
    Lizzie reared back.
    Watching the scene unfold from the shadows, Inez saw the whites of her eyes, desperate, like those of a wild animal scenting the hunter.
    Lizzie pitched her bottle at him.
    Despite Lizzie’s inebriated state, her aim could not be faulted. If Lynch had not thrown up an arm, the bottle would likely have hit him in the forehead. Instead it hit his forearm, and fell into the ooze at his feet.
    “Bastard!” she shrieked. “I’ll bet you’d like me over there. Warm up by the fire. Catch my death. Wouldn’t you like that. Not bloody likely!”
    With an alacrity that Inez would not have believed possible from someone who had drained a bottle of—Inez glanced at the label, face up and barely visible in the mud—Angelica wine, Lizzie tore up the alley toward the Silver Queen, robe hiked high, mud-splattered white calves flashing, like a besmirched ghost fleeing in and out of the gloom.
    Lynch took two steps as if to follow and then spotted Inez, who had moved out of the shadows.
    He stopped, shook his head. “Drunk. And crazy, too. Poor soul. Don’t know why Flo keeps her on.”
    He seemed to straighten, inflate his chest. “Never let it be said that Frank Lynch wasn’t a man to extend a helping hand, even to those more sinning than sinned against.”
    Smoke obscured the alley. Inez was seized by a fit of coughing.
    “Ah, good,” Lynch said, somewhere behind the screen of smoke. “Fire’s near out. ’Twas piss-poor beer, that’s true, but still, I wasn’t lookin’