“When is this joker coming?” He was all for business now.

Sassafras stood up and shook down her skirts. Her face was sweaty, and her eyes looked sleepy. Her dress was stretched out of shape.

“He ought to be here any time,” she said, but she sounded as though she didn’t care if he never came.

Roman began looking worried again. “You’re sure this joker can help us? I’ve got a notion we’re up against some rough studs, and I don’t want nobody messing around who’s going to get rattled.”

Sassafras ran a greasy bone comb through her short, tousled hair. “Don’t worry ’bout him,” she said. “He ain’t going to lose his head.”

“This waiting around is dragging me,” he said. “I wish we could do something.”

“You call what we been doing nothing?” she said coyly.

“I mean about my car,” he said. “It’s going to soon be daylight and ain’t nobody doing nothing.”

She went over, put some coal on the fire and adjusted the damper. Her dress was pulled out of shape and hung one-sided.

“I’m going to see if he got any whisky left,” she said, rummaging about the shoes on the floor of the curtained-off clothes corner.

He followed her and saw a green dress hanging with the men’s clothes.

“This looks like your dress,” he said suspiciously.

“Don’t start that stuff again,” she said. “You think they only made one dress when they made mine. Besides which, his girl friend is about the same size as me.”

“You’re sure she ain’t wearing the same skin?” he said.

She ignored him. Finally she came up with a bottle of cheap blended whisky, three-quarters full.

“Here, drink this and shut up,” she said, thrusting the bottle into his hands.

He uncorked it and let whisky gurgle down his throat. “It ain’t bad, but it’s mighty weak,” he appraised.

“How you going to know bad whisky?” she said scornfully. “You’re been drinking white mule all your life.”

He took another drink, bringing the level down below half. “Baby, I’m hungry enough to eat a horse off his hoof and leave the skeleton still hitched to the plow,” he said, flexing his muscles. “Why don’t you see if your girl friend’s boy friend has got anything to eat in this joint.”

“If I found something, it’d just make you more suspicious,” she said.

“Anyhow, it’d fill my belly.”

She found some salt meat, a half loaf of white bread in wax-paper wrapping and a bottle of molasses in the bottom drawer. Then she opened a back window and delved into a screened cold-box attached to the sill; she found a pot half-filled with congealed hominy grits and a frozen can of sliced California peaches.

“I don’t see no coffee,” she said.

“Who wants coffee?” he said, taking another swig from the bottle.

Shortly the room was filled with the delicious-smelling smoke of fried fat meat. She sliced the gelatinous hominy and browned it in the hot fat. He opened the can with his pocket knife but the contents were frozen solid, so he put the can on top of the stove.