“So how the hick did you wind up here?”
“I was invited,” I said.
“You are a piece of work, all right. Stick was tellin? me about you. „He?s a real piece of work,? he
said. He left off that you?re nuts.”
“Well, that?s what happens when you?re in a strange town,” I said. “You?ll do anything for a laugh.”
We watched a lot of coming and going, a lot of lean men in felt hats, overalls, and galluses, a lot of
weary women in Salvation Army duds dragging four-and five-year olds with them, a few friendly
arguments over the merits of the dogs, two freckle-bellied high school kids wandering off into the
brush to settle a dispute over a cheerleader who looked thirteen years old except for a bosom you
could set Thanksgiving dinner on, a woman nursing a child old enough to tackle a two-dollar steak,
and a few blacks, all of whom were men and all face-creased, gaunt-looking, and smiling.
As it started getting dark, the visiting team rolled up, a group of edgy, sharp-faced badgers in
polyester knits. Mug-book faces. Twenty in all and travelling in a herd. The Romans had arrived; time
for the festivities to begin.
“Track dudes,” Mufalatta said. “Always a bunch don?t get enough action at the races. Look at those
threads, man. Now there?s a fuckin? crime.”
Next the emperor arrived—in a silver and gray stretch Lincoln limo big enough to throw a Christmas
party in. The chariot stopped for a chat with the guard at the road.
“That?s Elroy Luther Craves in that car there,” the Mufalatta Kid said. Now I knew what the Kid was
doing there.
“Elroy Luther?”
“That?s his name, babes, Elroy Luther Graves,” he said.
“Nice to know,” I said, and decided to get a peek at the man everybody seemed to have a healthy
respect for. As I started toward the limo, I ran into the back of Mufalatta?s hand. He never looked at
you when he spoke; he was always staring off somewhere at nothing in particular.
“Uh-uh,” he said.
“Uh-uh?” I said.
“Uh-uh. Not that way.”
“Fuck him,” I growled.
Mufalatta moved his hand. “Okay,” he said, “but you?re on his turf, man. No place to start trouble”
I thought about that for a minute. What Mufalatta was telling me was that it wasn?t just Graves? turf, it
was the Kid?s too.
“I didn?t know you had something going,” I said. “Sorry.”
