“They can make us happy, too. On top of the money we need for Lamar, we should hit them up for as much extra as we can. Especially Odell.” We had the goods on Odell, so he was ripe for the taking. When him and Joyce got married five-and-a-half years ago, her folks retired from running MacPherson’s, the most successful black-owned country store in Branson. They had put Odell in charge right away. On top of the big bucks Joyce’s parents was paying him, Joyce was making good money as a teacher’s aide at Mahoney Street Elementary School, the top school for colored kids in town. Besides all that, Odell had a outside woman named Betty Jean and three little boys with her that he was supporting. They lived fifty miles away in Hartville. Milton had accidentally busted him a few months ago when him and a friend happened to stop for a snack at the restaurant where Odell and his secret family was kicking back. Odell gave us money not to blab, whenever we asked for it. Now he was going to have to pay us even more until we made up for the money we’d lost by being stuck in jail. “If we going to borrow a bunch of money anyway, we might as well get enough to treat ourselves to something good. Whatever we get from Odell and Joyce, we could take our time paying them back—if at all. If Joyce puts pressure on us to repay the loan, we’ll borrow more from Odell without her knowing. We can pay off the first loan with the money from the second loan we get from Odell. She’d never know we was robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

“Hmmm.” I must have really struck a nerve because Milton’s eyes was sparkling like black diamonds as he stared at me. “I’m glad you brung that up, Yvonne. I been meaning to tell you that I had already thought about doing that. If we can scrape up enough extra from all the folks we planning on hitting up, I’d like to take you for a buggy ride.” Milton tapped the tip of my nose with his finger and then he leaned over and kissed it. “We ain’t done nothing that much fun since we visited that alligator farm in Florida on our honeymoon.”

“Baby, I’d loved to go for a buggy ride. And I’d like to go gawk at them alligators again someday. But we need money for more important things first. If we get enough, I can buy some smell-goods. I’d like a bottle of that new French fragrance that just came out. I’m getting sick of splashing on vanilla extract.”