Willie Frank’s theory sounded good to me so I ran with it. “You could be right. Odell ain’t never caught us stealing, but how do we know him or Sadie or Buddy didn’t see us taking stuff? That’s a good reason for him to want to get rid of us. And him being such a big shot muckety-muck in this town, he didn’t want to look like a bully by accusing small fries like us. I bet that’s what it is!” I hollered. “That and him being jealous of me having a woman like Yvonne . . .”

“Aw, Milton. You making me feel embarrassed,” Yvonne said shyly, turning one shade of red after another. “Seriously, if lusting after me and us stealing merchandise was all it took for Odell to try and get rid of us, he is too dangerous for us not to do something.”

“Thank you. That’s why we have to be careful what we say and do so he won’t suspect nothing,” Milton advised.

“Sure enough,” Willie Frank agreed.

“If he do get suspicious, what could he do? Leave town?” Yvonne asked.

“I doubt if he’d do that. He got it too easy living here. But if he figures out that we on to him and might want revenge, he could make hisself so scarce we’d have a hard time getting our hands on him when the time comes,” Willie Frank pointed out.

“It wouldn’t be easy to get him at work, or on the street. That joker is too sly to get ambushed.” Yvonne was talking so fast, spit was flying out both sides of her mouth.

“And another thing. I been thinking; we shouldn’t kill him,” Willie Frank said with a grimace.

“What? You was the one who said we should blow his head off with a shotgun,” I reminded him.

“You done chickened out now, Willie Frank?” Yvonne asked.

He shook his head. “No, it ain’t nothing like that. I mentioned the shotgun thing before we knew who it was. Odell ain’t just another colored man, he’s a big wheel in this town, see. If somebody was to kill him, there ain’t no telling what might happen. I can just see one of them agitating, do-gooder politicians cooking up a speech that would cause a ruckus. I got a better idea. We can fix him in a way that would cause him enough pain, he’d never try to get back at y’all again.”

“Yeah, right. If we don’t want him to lie on us again, we’ll have to cut his tongue out. But a slick sucker like him would probably write something on a piece of paper,” Yvonne hissed.