Willie Frank winked. “I’ll tell you what all we men know. When it comes to good loving, it ain’t the beauty, it’s the booty.” We guffawed long and loud. Willie Frank snorted and went on. “I took a shine to her the first time I pestered her. I fell even deeper for her when I got to know her.” Willie Frank abruptly stopped talking and gave me a guarded look. “By the way, ain’t you one of her steady tricks?”

“Yup,” I admitted with a sheepish grin. “But she ain’t nothing but a piece of tail to me. Yvonne is the only woman I love.”

Willie Frank’s tone got more serious. “Um . . . I don’t want you to think that Sweet Sue is just another piece of tail to me. I really do love her.”

“Oh? More than that woman responsible for you going to prison for cutting her husband when he caught y’all frolicking in bed together?”

“Milton, I was young and foolish back then. Of all the women I’ve ever known, colored and white, Sweet Sue is the only one who really listens to me when I talk. She asks me all kinds of things about my feelings and whatnot. I feel comfortable talking to her about anything. I bet if I gave her enough attention—and money—I could turn her around and she’d quit turning tricks. But her world-beating bedroom skills is icing on the cake. I love to have my cake and eat it, too.” We laughed some more. Willie Frank suddenly got serious again. “I hate to bring up this next subject, but I think I should let you know that I don’t feel comfortable at your house no more when Odell is there.”

“Me and Yvonne don’t neither. Don’t worry. He won’t be in the picture too much longer.”

“Did you and Yvonne decide if you want me to get the Klan involved?”

“I’ll know in a week or so exactly what we should do to that scoundrel,” I said as I climbed into the truck.

“All right. You drive careful now.”

I sped off like the police was chasing me. About half a mile from the grill on the same road, there was a bunch of convicts doing repair work on the road. Mean-looking guards stood off to the side holding shotguns. Vicious coon dogs on leashes was barking nonstop. Boy, did them things bring back some bad memories. It seemed like just yesterday that I was in a striped suit and working on the same kind of chain gang. I slowed down because I didn’t want to rile up them guards to make them suspect me of something. There was a heap of colored men rotting in prison now that hadn’t done nothing except be in the wrong place at the wrong time. When I got another half mile, I speeded back up.