WHEN ME AND SADIE GOT TO THE MEAT COUNTER, THERE WAS three huge jars sitting side by side, filled almost to the brim with plump, pickled pig feet. They was nice and pink, so I knew they was fresh. She opened the first jar, speared two with a fork, and wrapped them in a napkin and handed them to me. I didn’t waste no time biting a plug out of one. Being a cook, and a good one at that, I knew good food like I knew the back of my hand. These was the most scrumptious pig feet I ever ate. If Sadie hadn’t been standing next to me, I would have been gnawing like a beaver. But since I’d met Odell, I had picked up some of his good manners. Because of him, I didn’t even belch or pick my teeth with broom straws in public no more.

“Sister Sadie, I just love coming in this store!” I exclaimed. “I declare, Odell got it running like a babbling brook.”

“Aw, you just saying that on account of you and him is such close friends, ain’t you?”

“No, I’d feel the same way even if we wasn’t.”

“All I can say is that you should thank God every day for leading you and Yvonne to Odell and Joyce.” Sadie stopped talking and looked me up and down with that pitiful look still on her face. “Um, Milton, you know I’m a Christian, but I do believe in a eye for a eye. Whoever lied on you and Yvonne need to be taught a lesson. I’m pretty sure it started out as a prank, but it got way out of hand. Who would have thought that y’all would end up in jail?”

“Well, when we find out who fingered us, what we going to do to them won’t be no prank.”

I didn’t have no more time to waste because I had to pick up Willie Frank. He had come to the grill and loaned me his truck. When I got to Aunt Mattie’s whorehouse, where I’d dropped him off, two well-dressed men was rushing in, and one in overalls that looked like a farmer was strutting out smiling and brushing off his shirt sleeves. Right after I parked across the street in front of a sumac tree, Willie Frank stumbled out the front door. He was smiling, too. “Did Odell come through for you?” he asked when he crawled into the driver’s seat.

“He said for me not to worry. He’ll get back to me after he goes over his finances.”

“Good, good. I just hope y’all come up with enough to pay Uncle Lamar back. He ain’t the kind of man to play with when it comes to his money.”