“One thing I want to say is, you ain’t got no more on your mind than I got. So, get off my case.” I bit into a piece of bacon and started smacking. Then a idea popped into my head that I couldn’t wait to get out. I swallowed my food and took a long pull from the cup of coffee she’d set in front of me and let out a froggy belch. “If we don’t kill him, I just thought of something we could do that would make him wish he was dead! Something much worse.”

“What could be worse than us killing him?”

I winked at Yvonne. “Hear me out. After we get the money, we could tell Joyce about Betty Jean. If we make him lose everything he got now, his life wouldn’t be worth a plugged nickel. Remember how all them rich white folks jumped off bridges, and in front of speeding trains, blew their own brains out, and whatnot when the economy dropped so low and put them in the poorhouse?”

“Suicide?” Yvonne screwed up her lips like that word had a nasty taste to it. I couldn’t understand why. It was another form of murder. “Do you think Odell would be so distressed he’d take his own life?”

“Wouldn’t you if you was in his shoes? I know I would. That would be the sweetest revenge, and we wouldn’t have to get none of his blood on our hands!”

“Well, we did want him dead at first. And like Willie Frank said, as long as he’s breathing, he’ll be a threat. You know something, sugar; if he don’t take his own self out, I definitely do believe he’d lose his mind and end up in that nuthouse permanently, where some of them other folks went when they lost everything. That’s almost as bad as being dead, maybe even worse. No matter how you look at this situation, Odell’s goose is cooked.”

“To a crisp,” I added, laughing so hard my sides ached.

CHAPTER 21 - ODELL

CHAPTER 21

ODELL

FRIDAY EVENING AFTER BUDDY AND SADIE LEFT FOR THE DAY, I took all the money from the cash registers and carried it to my office. I locked the door when I got inside and dropped the money on top of my desk so I could admire it. “Lord, this is getting better and better. Every day is Christmas,” I said to myself out loud as I stared at the cash. Despite all the misery Yvonne and Milton was putting me through, I was still a very happy man.

After I set aside enough money to put back in the registers for us to make change on Monday, I took my cut off the top and put what was left into a paper bag.