When the telephone rang again, Leila Holmes thought it was Casper calling back.

“Yes.” She sounded cold enough to make icicles.

“Leave me talk with Casper,” a man’s voice said.

The hand holding the receiver began to tremble. She thought she recognized the voice, but she wasn’t certain.

“He’s still in the hospital,” she said, a sudden indeterminable fear making her voice sound parrotlike. “He’s had a relapse; he’s in a coma.”

“Can the bull,” the voice said. “That li’l lick on a booger’s head ain’t putting him in no coma.”

She felt certain of it now. It was a Southern voice with a Mississippi accent. It was a white man’s voice.

She began trembling all over, her breasts moving in the jersey-silk pullover like molded Jell-O.

“Telephone the hospital if you don’t believe me,” she said, furious with herself for sounding defensive, but she couldn’t help it. She was scared witless. There was something sadistic and inhuman about the voice. “He is in a coma,” she contended.

“If he wants any of his fifty G’s back, he better come out of it,” the voice said. “And nigger-quick.”

The use of the epithet steadied her fear and scalded her with rage. “Who are you, you mother-raping peckerwood,” she flared.

An evil chuckle came over the wire. “I’m the man who can help him get his money back—for a split,” the voice said.

She tried to think, but she didn’t know where to start. “You’d better call Casper at the hospital,” she said.

“You call him, sugar pie. I’ve called six times and can’t get through to him. So you do it, honey chile.”

“What shall I tell him?” she asked, then added viciously, “Redneck.”

“I’ll make your li’l neck red if I get hold of you,” the voice said, then added, “just tell him what I told you, and if he wants to do business, he better take my call.”

She remembered what Casper had told her about keeping her lip buttoned up. If she did the wrong thing, he’d be furious. She didn’t know what to do.

“It can keep, can’t it?” she said.

“Keep until when?”

“Until he gets out the hospital.”

“When will that be?”

“When?” She felt trapped. “I don’t know when. Ask at the hospital.”

“You ain’t doing him no good, baby doll,” the voice taunted. “He ain’t going to like it when he finds out what he’s missed.”

“All right, sonofabitch!” she flared. “I’ll call him and you call me back.”

“What good is that going to do? I got to do business with him. And it ain’t going to keep. If Casper wants to lie in the hospital with his head underneath the pillow, that’s just going to be his bad luck. And I’ll figure out some other way to get my split.”

Her mind exploded with vulgarity, as it always did when she felt cornered.

“For chrissakes, call back after eight o’clock,” she said exasperatedly. “I don’t know what the hell—”

She didn’t get a chance to finish it. A soft click sounded from the other end, and the line went dead. She sat staring at the receiver. She began trembling again. Scare went through her like acid.