They’d be feeling their oats for sure by the time I got there. All sassy and nasty, and primed for meanness toward a fella that’d always been nice to them.

I struck a match, took a quick look at my watch, I began to walk faster. The steamer, ‘Ruby Clark’, was about due and I had to be on hand when it rounded the bend.

There’d been a pretty hard rain the week before; low river country, there’s always a lot of rain. The wet was all dried up by now, because we get a lot of hot sunshine too. But the road had gotten rutted here and there, and hurrying like I was I brought my foot down where I shouldn’t have.

I stumbled, almost taking a header before I could right myself. I paused, sort of getting my breath back, and then I whirled around. Straining my eyes and ears, scared stiff for a minute. Because I’d heard something. The same kind of clod-kicking sound I’d made, only not so loud.

I held my breath, telling myself that there couldn’t be anyone following me. Knowing that even if there was someone back there, I was still protected by the darkness.

I stood stock still for two, three minutes. Then, I heard the sound again and I recognized it for what it was, and I almost laughed out loud with relief.

It was just some of those god-danged big nightbeetles we have down here. They go swooping around, looking for each other, and then they come together in mid-air and go plunking down on the ground.

They can make a heck of a racket on a stilly night. If you’re maybe just a little uneasy like I was, they can give you a bad start.

It was two or three minutes later when I got to the whorehouse. I tippy-toed along the walk which ran down the side of the place, and went around to the rear.

The two pimps were there, right where I thought they’d be. They were sitting down with their backs to the mooring posts, a dimmed lantern and a jug of whiskey between them. They looked at me owl-eyed as I came in out of the darkness, and then the one named Curly, a kind of dude-ish fella with kinky scalp-tight hair, shook a finger at me.

“Now, Nick, you know you’re not supposed to come over here but once a week. Just once a week, and only long enough to pick up your graft and get.”

“That’s right,” said the one named Moose. “Fact is, we’re bein’ mighty generous to let you come here at all. We got a reputation to protect here, and it sure doesn’t help none to have a fella like you dropping around.”

“Well, now,” I said, “that’s not a very nice thing to say.”

“Oh, well, there’s nothing personal in it,” Curly said. “It’s just one of those unpleasant facts of life. You’re a crook, and it doesn’t look good to have crooks around.”