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a taxidermist. I’ll talk to anybody. Talk to a nigger and you might learn something. I sold him four hundred worms.” He looked at his watch. “You’re right on the money, Norwood. I like a man who does what he says he’ll do.”
    â€œI got me a good watch.”
    â€œYou have for a fact. . . . Here, let me get a look at you. That’s all right. You look like the Durango Kid, perhaps better known as Charles Starrett. What’s the guitar for?”
    â€œIt’s mine, I thought I’d take it with me.”
    â€œYou didn’t tell me you were a musician.”
    â€œI fool around with it a little, that’s all.”
    â€œYou should have said something about it. I have a few contacts in the music game.”
    â€œYou do?”
    â€œWell, I know some of those boys. I have some music machines down around Bossier City.”
    â€œDo you know anybody on the Louisiana Hayride ?”
    â€œI know everybody on the Louisiana Hayride.”
    â€œThat’s what I’d like to get a shot at.”
    â€œI expect I could pick up the phone and do you some good. We’ll talk about that another day. Right now we’d best get to the business at hand. I know you’re anxious to get rolling.”
    Grady unfolded a map of New York City and laid it out on the steering wheel. The delivery point, a garage in Brooklyn, was marked with a circle. Grady explained about the route. It was very complicated. He went over it again, then once more. Norwood lied and said he thought he had it. Grady gave him the map and a stiff fiber envelope holding titles and pink slips and two sets of keys and a Gulf credit card in the name of Tilmon Fring and twenty-five dollars expense money.
    Norwood said, “I guess I’ll get some more in New York then.”
    â€œSome more what?”
    â€œWell. I don’t know. Some more money.”
    â€œWasn’t that credit card in there?”
    â€œYeah, there’s a credit card here. But I was wondering if this was enough money.” He held up the five fives.
    Grady was baffled and hurt. “That’s the usual. I thought it would be ample. I’ve never had this come up before. This is embarrassing. You have your credit card. Figure a six-day trip at the very outside, that’s more than four dollars a day for your meals and the little contingencies of the road. These warm nights you can pull over and catnap right there in the car if you get tired. Most of the drivers drive straight through. Arnold has a comfortable cot in his garage—”
    â€œWhen do I get the fifty dollars?”
    â€œWhen you get back. Cash on delivery.”
    â€œI couldn’t get it now?”
    â€œWhy no. You’re not even bonded, Norwood.”
    â€œWhat does that mean?”
    â€œThat means you get your money when you get back.”
    â€œI’d like to have some of it now.”
    Grady showed signs of distress. He took a kitchen match from his pocket, one with garlands of blue lint on it, and burrowed earnestly in one ear with it. When he was through he examined the match and buzzed down the automatic window a couple of inches and tossed it out. He brought his billfold from his inside coat pocket. “Here’s what I’ll do, Norwood. I’ve never done this before. I’ll give you another ten toward expenses. We’ll write that off. That’s expenses. Then—I’ll give you an advance of twenty-five. That’s off your fifty. Now I’ll hold the balance here— on my person —and then, see, you’ll have that much more when you get back. To buy things that you need and want. Go off to New York with a lot of money and you’ll spend a lot of money. I’ve seen it happen too often. . . . You know, some people would be willing to pay us for an opportunity like this.”
    Norwood counted the money and folded it into a hard square and stuck it in his watch