“Come here, white boy,” the big guy repeated. Quietly.
“So you got enough black customers to make a living?” I asked him.
“OK,” he said. “No hard feelings, right?”
“She’s a sick woman,” he said. “Very sick. Very pale, right? A very sick woman. Could be tuberculosis. I seen tuberculosis do that to folks. She used to be a fine-looking woman, but now she looks like something grown in a closet, right? A very sick woman, that’s for damn sure.”
“We’ve got a nice place,” he said. “Out on Beckman Drive. Bought there five years ago. A lot of money, but it was worth it. You know Beckman?”
“I asked the driver to stop,” I said. “He said he shouldn’t, but he did. Stopped specially, let me off.”