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agency down there is sending her to New York. Since it was convenient I arranged for her to ride up with you. I thought you would welcome the company.”
    â€œYeah, Okay. It’s fine with me.” He tipped his hat and greeted her.
    Miss Phillips glared at Grady. “I hope you don’t think I’m gonna ride to New York with this country son of a bitch.”
    Grady laughed. “She’ll cool off, Norwood. It’s really me she’s mad at, not you. She thought she was going up on a Delta jet. Perhaps you can understand her disappointment. I didn’t think you would mind her coming along.”
    â€œNaw, it’s fine with me. If she wants to. I don’t think she wants to.”
    â€œShe’ll get over that.”
    â€œI wish Sammy Ortega was here,” said Miss Phillips. “He’d break your arm.”
    â€œI’d like to see him try it,” said Norwood.
    â€œI was talking to Fring, I wasn’t talking to you,” she said. “But he’d get you too if he felt like it, you bigmouth country son of a bitch. He’d kick your ass into the middle of next week.”
    â€œI’d like to see him try it,”
    â€œYou just got through saying that. Don’t keep saying the same thing over and over again. Don’t you have good sense?”
    â€œYou said you was talking to him the first time.”
    â€œYou peckerwood .”
    â€œThat’ll be enough,” said Grady. “I don’t want to hear any more out of you, little lady. Pick up your grip and go over there by the car and wait. I need to have a word with my driver,”
    â€œSomebody will get you one of these days, Fring.”
    â€œI said hush. Now get your things and move.”
    She flounced off and yelled at Tilmon and got him to carry her bag.
    Grady hitched at his trousers with his wrists and popped his hands together. “Okay, buddy boy, you’re gassed up and ready to go. Remember now, the George Washington Bridge, the West Side Drive, the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, the Belt Parkway, Exit Twelve, Parsons Street, Arnold’s Garage. Follow instructions and watch the signs and you can’t miss it. Now listen to this too. You are not authorized to deal with anyone except Arnold. If he’s not there then wait on him. The garage is open twenty-four hours and he’ll be expecting you late Monday night or early Tuesday morning. He’ll take care of everything—up to and including Miss Phillips. She has expense money so she will pay for her own meals. Don’t let her pull anything. Of course you may want to work out some personal understanding with her, I don’t know. I leave that to your own discretion. In any case remember that we are counting on you to arrive by Tuesday morning at the latest. Got it?”
    â€œI think so.”
    â€œOkay. Drive with care now. Watch the other fellow. Stay within the speed limits. Don’t get picked up in some little town. Those laws are for our own protection. A car is just like a gun. In the wrong hands it is nothing less than an instrument of death.”
    The tandem cars splashed down the alley and wheeled around the corner of the ice plant and were gone. A peach can clattered on the street. Grady and Tilmon listened to it until it stopped rolling.
    Grady said, “How much did they stick you for those peaches?”
    â€œThirty-nine cents,” said Tilmon.
    â€œThey saw you coming, didn’t they? That wasn’t even a number two can.”
    â€œThirty-nine cents is what they cost.”
    â€œI know what they do, they charge you more on Sunday. They jump those prices up on you. They’ll all do it. I don’t expect we’ll run into many grocers in the Kingdom of Heaven, Tilmon.”

NORWOOD and Miss Phillips sped north on U.S. 67. He told her fifteen or twenty jokes and pointed out amusing signs and discussed the various construction projects along the way but she wasn’t