The bar of the Hotel Washoe looked at the moment more like a morgue than a hot spot. The gaming tables were empty, the dealers clicking their chips and piles of silver dollars in vain. The bartenders in their white coats were in one dismal little huddle, the musicians in another. A few bewildered newcomers in Eastern clothes were in one corner with the hotel hostess, an Eastern girl in a red evening dress, treating them to their first—and last—drink on the house, and being determinedly and unconvincingly cheerful.
At the table at the end of the bar I saw Kaye Gorman, Whitey and Joe Lucas—Cowboy Joe—all more or less plastered, or pretending they were, with two other men and a couple of girls in Western clothes that I didn’t know.
I signalled Eddie the waiter. “Get me a sandwich—anything b
