“Now I sure wish I’d of gone to college and learned useful words like that. I sure do,” Griffin said. “Once when Vy and me were traveling through Georgia, we run into an evangelist by the name of Stevens, and he listened to us pitching a special fuel filter and come over afterwards and told me I’d made a total of seventy-­nine errors in English. He knew because he’d counted ’em! But then he said that if I ever got an education, I’d stop selling filters. Maybe that’s part of your trouble. You think? Maybe when you get educated your head’s so full of knowledge there ain’t any room for intelligence. Because if you was intelligent, you’d be able to see that it isn’t Carey and Dongen who’s the suckers—it’s you. They’re using you and your name and this Snap thing, and the whole kaboodle for themselves. What I mean, like with the King of England—you’re nothing but a figurehead, Adam.”

“That’s a lie!”

“Did you order ’em to blow up the church?”

“No. But—”

“Well, that’s just the beginning. Plenty more’ll happen without you having any say. Only when the troops come in—guess who’ll get the blame. Except there won’t be nobody around to spring you then. These boys don’t give a hoot for all this fancy line you been feeding out. I mean the real bosses don’t. All they want is a good fight, a chance to kill some nigras, right here in Caxton. When they get it, just where do you think young Mr. Cramer’s gonna be?”

Sam Griffin laughed one more time; then he walked across the room and opened the door.

“In a way,” Adam said coldly, “it’s a shame you’ve got to go looking for your wife. I’d love to have you stick around for the show. You might be surprised.”

Griffin’s laughter hardly diminished, but a strange, hard look came into his eyes. “Now, you ought to know me better than that, Adam,” he said.

“Which is supposed to mean?”

“Well, like I said with the gun: You never want to be too sure of anything. Rule of the trade, boy. I never told you I was going after Vy right away, did I?”

Adam looked at the heavy sweating man with the red face.

“No, boy. I’ll find her just as easy a day from now—or a week from now. In the meantime, just in case old Sam is wrong, in case you got a little high card stashed away somewheres, I believe I will stick around. You won’t see me, likely, but I’ll be here.” He winked and started down the hall; then he turned. “Always did like fireworks,” he said; and Adam could hear his laughter long after the door had slammed.

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