He kept on fretting about it, Buck did, saying I just ‘might’ kill the pimps because I’d always taken Ken’s advice in the past, no matter how nutty it was. And then when he saw how upset Ken was getting, he said that the law probably wouldn’t be too hard on him. Proba’ly wouldn’t be hard on him, a-tall, like they would me, but maybe let him off with thirty, forty years.

The upshot of it was that Ken finally tore out of his office, and caught the Red Ball freight to Pottsville. He hadn’t had too nice a trip because the caboose, where he was sittin’ had had an awful flat wheel. He said he was probably a lot sorer in the behind that I was from getting kicked, and all he wanted to do now was go to bed.

“I just had more’n one poor body can stand in a day,” he yawned. “I reckon you can put me up all right, can’t you?”

I said that I was right shamed, but no, I couldn’t. We just didn’t have no place where an extra fella could be bedded down.

“God-dang it!” he scowled. “All right, I’ll go to the hotel, then!”

I allowed that that might be kind of hard to do, seeing that Pottsville didn’t have a hotel. “If it was daytime, you could bed at the Widder Shoup’s place; that’s what the travellin’ salesmen do. But she sure wouldn’t let you in at this time of night.”

“Well, where the god-danged hell am I gonna sleep, then?” he said, “I sure as heck ain’t sittin’ up all night!”

“Well, let’s see now,” I said. “Danged if I can only think of but one place, Ken. A place that could bed you down. But I’m afraid you wouldn’t get much sleep there.”

“You just lead me to it! I’ll do the sleepin’!”

“Not at the whorehouse you wouldn’t,” I said. “Y’see, the girls ain’t had much business lately, and they’d all be mighty raunchy. Prob’ly be makin’ demands on you all night long.”

“Uh-hah!” Ken said. “Well, now! I reckon a fella can put up with anything if he has to. Nice young gals, are they!”

“No, they ain’t,” I said. “Most of ‘em are fairly young, maybe seventeen, eighteen. But they got this one old gal that’s every bit of twenty-one. And she just won’t leave a fella alone! She purely won’t, Ken, and it wouldn’t be fair not to warn you.”

A streak of spit was trickling down his chin. He brushed it away and stood up, a kind of glassy look in his eyes.

“I better be goin’,” he said. “I better be goin’ right this minute.”

“I’ll put you on the right road,” I said. “But there’s something you got to know first. About them two pimps . . .”

“Don’t you worry none. I’ll take care of ‘em!”

“You won’t have to,” I said, “because they won’t be there. They’ll be off somewheres drunk by now, and they won’t wake up until noon.”