“Don’t you ever question me about my personal, financial, or business affairs again, girl, hear?” growled the good imam. “Never again.”

It was several days before Billy Constable could catch up with Sven Svenson, the Swedish heavyweight boxing champion of Europe, and introduce himself. For a while Sven slept when Billy was up, and vice versa. When the two finally did meet, the first words the heavyweight boxing champ of Europe said to Billy were, “I am heavyweight boxing champ of Europe.”

“I know.”

“I’m going to be champ with the world you can make sure.”

“I hope so,” Billy said, being diplomatic. This was a new twist in Billy’s life. Being diplomatic. Billy wanted to add, “I don’t think you’re going about it the right way,” but didn’t. It wasn’t diplomatic.

“This,” said the heavyweight champion of Europe, making a muscle with his right arm and pointing to it with his left index finger, “is tunder of Tor.”

“Is what?”

“Is tunder of Tor.”

“What he’s trying to say is he’s strong, and he is,” said the Swede’s English-speaking younger brother, who was at least seventy-five pounds lighter and three inches shorter than the heavyweight champion of Europe. “The god Thor is the Norse god of thunder, which means war and strength and things like that.”

Billy Constable really liked the heavyweight champion of Europe’s brother. The brother’s name was Roddy, which was an anglicized twist on the Scandinavian word rod, meaning “red.” Roddy Svenson’s hair was red.

“There are not many Swedes with red hair,” he told Billy.

“My lucky…my lucky…,” said the heavyweight boxing champion of Europe, looking at his brother for help.

“Charm,” said Roddy. “I am my brother’s lucky charm.”

“Yeah?” said Billy, thinking, he’s going to need more than his little brother if he keeps dicking around with the girls like he’s doing all day and all night.

“I am killing Negro,” said the heavyweight champion of Europe. “Bet money. Bet lots of money on me killing Negro.”

In your dreams, thought Billy Constable, to himself, of course. It wouldn’t have been diplomatic otherwise.

The old cripple was shocked.

When the producer had finished watching The Death Game he walked out of the apartment without saying a single solitary word. Nothing.

It was a catastrophe. The cripple lay down on his bed and stared at the ceiling. He remembered feeling this bummed only twice before in his entire life. The miserable feeling of gazing sadly at the ceiling while lying almost comatose on a bed. The first time was when he was supine for weeks on a cheap cot in his twenty-five dollar-a-month office in the Writers & Artists Building on Little Santa Monica in Beverly Hills. It was right after ABC-TV passed on The Dating Game in 1965. That was bad, but not a catastrophe. The network changed its mind and put the program on television a month later. But when the movie of the cripple’s book Confessions of a Dangerous Mind tanked, that was definitely a catastrophe. It was probably the biggest disappointment of his life. The cripple remembered that disaster as if it were yesterday.