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She hands Bill the Benelli. He takes it over into the light of the nearest candle.

“This is another one of your fashionable modern shooters with too many shots and no way to keep track of them.”

“It’s called a Benelli. It’s Italian.”

He turns the shotgun over. Tries it against his shoulder. Studies it with the interest of a man who appreciates guns and has been bored out of his mind for some time.

“I knew some fine ladies with Italian frocks, but I never took those fellers for gunsmiths. Live and learn,” he says.

He hands the Benelli back to Candy.

“Is anyone going to introduce the young lady or am I expected to spend the rest of eternity guessing her name? Not that I have fuck else to do these days. Pardon my language, miss.”

That makes Candy smile.

She slings the Benelli back over her shoulder and extends her hand.

“Hi. I’m Candy.”

They shake.

“Sweet to the ear and the eye,” he says. “Well, come on, you two. Belly up to the bar.”

We drag a couple of stools down to where Bill left his newspaper.

The shelves behind the bar, which normally hold rows of liquor bottles, are empty.

“Business a little slow?”

Bill raises his eyebrows.

“You could say that. I ran out of the good stuff a few months back. Sold it or traded it away for this and that. Mostly, and it shames me to say it, protection. I ran out of bullets before I ran out of liquor, so I had no choice. Bands of scoundrels ran wild in the streets. Looted and banditized the market. Back then, I could buy patrols from Hellion Legionnaires with hooch. Now both the scoundrels and the Legions have pissed off into the wind like everything else.”

“I’m sorry, Bill. This is my fault. If I hadn’t talked Upstairs into opening Heaven and then the deal falling apart, none of this would have happened.”

“Don’t fret,” he says. “You did your best and with good intentions. That’s all a man can do. If the world is determined to go bad, it will find a way.”

Candy says, “Stark has told me a lot about you, Bill. You’re one of his heroes.”

“Is that right? Well, you must take good care of him if he has time to contemplate such things as heroes.”

“We take good care of each other.”

“And yet you still call him ‘Stark.’”

She looks at me.

“It’s how I first met him and the name kind of stuck.”

“I understand,” he says. “Most strangers who met me toward the end of my days only knew me as Wild Bill, an adequate moniker at one time. But tiresome at the end.”

“What should I call you?”

“Since you haven’t used up ‘James’ on that obstinate creature next to you, that’ll do. Or ‘Jim.’ Some ladies called me that.”

“‘Jim’ it is, then. Did anyone ever call you ‘Jimmy’?”

“Not twice.”