I posted Judy’s letter in the mail box on the corner of Virginia Street. The neon-lighted oasis of the River House reminded me of the sandwich I’d left untouched on the table after my encounter with Mr. Ewing, and I turned along First Street and went in. A crowd of people in varying degrees of Westernalia were dancing to the aching moan of a cowboy orchestra from Hollywood. Half a dozen little groups were seated on high leather-topped stools at the bar. The news of Dex Cromwell’s murder had spread to all the regular customers. Everybody—even the dealers in a little huddle at the end of the deserted row of brightly lighted gambling tables—was discussing it . . . in discreet guarded undertones, so that the dancers, who were mostly transient visitors, neither members of the divorce colony nor
