Billy reached Fifth Avenue and was relieved to see so many people. New York was always full of people, forever crammed with New Yorkers and tourists. It was something Billy never got used to. He was constantly amazed at the number of people crowding the streets at all hours of the day and night. Say nothing of the cars and taxis. Billy Constable had never seen so much traffic at almost nine o’clock at night. My God, thought Billy, there’d hardly be a soul on the streets at this hour in Bowling Green.

Bowling Green.

That’s where he’d go. Billy would go home. By bus. Just like he came. He’d grab the next bus out of the Port Authority terminal and go back to Bowling Green. The mob would never find him there. They don’t even know I’m from Bowling Green, thought Billy, slaloming through the pedestrians as he ran toward Park Avenue.

When I have that bus ticket in my hand I’ll be a free person!

An empty cab passed him. Billy put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. The taxi stopped. Billy got in, said, “The bus terminal at Fortieth and Eighth Avenue, please,” and slid way down in his seat.

Billy pulled out his wallet and counted his money. Over three hundred dollars. Good thing he slipped those hundred-dollar bills and twenties out of Rosie’s pocketbook before they left for the studio. Something told him to do it. He’d pay her back. As soon as he found work in Bowling Green he’d start sending her the three hundred dollars.

Hell, that’ll be easy, he mused. I won’t owe anybody anything once I get home. Once that bus ticket’s in my hand, I’ll be debt free!

When the taxi arrived at the Port Authority building, Billy Constable gave the driver a twenty and said, “Keep the change.”

The cabdriver said, “Thank you!”

Billy ran inside the building. The woman at the information counter pointed to the row of windows where Billy could buy a bus ticket to Bowling Green. He ran to one of those windows and told the woman clerk, “One ticket to Bowling Green, Kentucky, please.”

“Return ticket too?” she asked.

“No, thank you, just one way. I’m never comin’ back here, ma’am.”

“I take it you didn’t like the Big Apple,” she said. She was an older woman with white hair done up tight to her head like a nun.

“No, ma’am. Not at all. As far as I’m concerned, that bus ticket you’re about to give me is a ticket to the Promised Land.”

“That’ll be a hundred and thirty-three dollars and fifty cents, please.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Billy, pushing two hundred-dollar bills toward her.