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By Root 4416 0

didn't remember her name. But then even at eleven I was learning that there are people like Butch who dont remember anybody except in the terms of their immediate need of them, and what he needed now (or anyway could use) was another woman, he didn't care who provided she was more or less young and pleasing. No: he didn't really need one: he just happened to find one already in the path, like one lion on Ms way to fight another lion over an antelope that he never had any doubts about licking (I mean licking the lion, not the antelope) would still be a fool not to try throwing in, just for luck you might say, another antelope if he happened to find - one straying in the path. Except that Miss Reba turned out not to be an antelope. What Butch found was another lion. He said: "This is what I call Sugar Boy using Ms head; what's the use of him and me being all racked up over one hunk of meat when here's 'another exactly like it in all important details except maybe a little difference in the pelt."

"Who's that?" Miss Reba said to Everbe. "Friend of yours?"

"No," Everbe said; she was actually crouching: a big girl, too big to crouch. "Please—"

"She's telling you," Boon said. "She aint got no friends no more. She dont want none. She's quit, gone out of business. Soon as we finish losing this horse race, she's going away somewhere and get a job washing dishes. Ask her."

Miss Reba was looking at Everbe. "Please," Everbe said.

"What do you want?" Miss Reba asked Butch.

"Nothing," Butch said. "Nothing a-tall. Me and Sugar Boy was kind of bollixed up at one another for a while. But now you showed up, everything is hunky-dory. Twenty-three skiddoo," He came and took hold of Everbe's arm. "Come on. The surrey's outside. Let's give them a little room."

"Call the manager," Miss Reba said, quite loud, to me. I didn't even have to move; likely, if I had been looking, I could have seen the edge of Mm too beyond the door. He came in. "Is this man the law here?" Miss Reba said.

"Why, we all know Butch around here, Mrs Binford," the clerk said. "He's got as many friends in Parsham as anybody I know. Of course he's from up at Hardwick; properly speaking, we dont have a law officer right here in Parsham; we ain't quite that big yet." Butch's rich and bulging warmth had embraced, invited the clerk almost before he could enter the door, as though he—the clerk— had fallen headlong into it and vanished like a mouse into a lump of still-soft ambergris. But now Butch's eyes were quite cold, hard.

"Maybe that's what's wrong around here," he told the clerk. "Maybe that's why you dont have no progress and advancement: what you need is a little more law."

"Aw, Butch," the clerk said.

"You mean, anybody that wants to can walk in off the street and drag whichever one of your women guests he likes the looks of best, off to the nearest bed like you were running a cat-house?" Miss Reba said.

"Drag who where?" Butch said. "Drag with what? a two-dollar bill?" Miss Reba rose.

"Come on," she said to Everbe. "There's a train back to Memphis tonight. I know the owner of this dump. I think I'll go see him tomorrow—"

"Aw, Butch," the clerk said. "Wait, Mrs Binford—"

"You go back out front, Virgil," Butch told the clerk. "It aint only four months to November; some millionaire with two registered bird dogs might walk in any minute, and there wont be nobody out there to show him where to sign Ms name at. Go on. We're all friends here." The clerk went. "Now that that's all out of the way," Butch said, reaching for Everbe's arm again.

"Then you'll do," Miss Reba said to Butch. "Let's me and you go out front, or anywhere else that's private, too. I got a word for you."

"About what?" Butch said. She didn't answer, already walking toward the door. "Private, you say?" Butch said. "Why, sure; any time I cant accommodate a good-looking gal private, I'll give Sugar Boy full lief to step in." They went out. And now, from the lobby, we couldn't see them beyond the door of the ladies' parlor, for almost a minute in fact, maybe even a little more, before Miss Reba