Down toward the river, Billy left his bike outside the giant, twirling yellow neon for CLUB LASSO, Reuben’s joint, and walked into the narrow café, over the beaten honeycomb-tile floors and through small little groupings of tables and chairs. On a stage toward the back by the toilets there was a girl dressed in a cowboy outfit shaking her big titties to a lone saxophone player who played the theme to Red River.

Reuben was behind the bar dressed in an ugly tropical shirt and talking on the telephone – more like calling someone a jackass on the phone – between drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette, and when he saw Billy he nodded and crooked a finger toward the bar and his son sat down and stared into the bar mirror over his dad’s shoulder. Billy saw just a skinny kid in a rangy white T-shirt and silly green military hat that once belonged to his old man during the war. He was so skinny and his teeth so big that he looked away.

Reuben reached into the cooler and pulled out a cold Coca-Cola, and Billy sat up there and drank while the saxophone music ended and the girl stepped from the soft red light by the toilets and slipped into a Chinese robe.

“Hey, I’ve been busy,” Reuben asked, “you still got food?”

“I could use five dollars.”

“What for?”

“We need some milk and cereal. I also wanted to go to a picture show.”

“You love those picture shows, don’t you? You know, you really should go see The Robe,” Reuben said. “It’s a picture about Jesus Christ.”

“I’m going to see Hondo. John Wayne’s in it.”

“That the one in 3-D?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, finish up that Coca-Cola and get gone.”

“Yes, sir.”

Some of Reuben’s negro dealers sat at empty tables waiting for folks to play blackjack and roulette and craps. And they looked funny and slick in their ill-fitted tuxedos while they shuffled cards and worked a pair of dice with fast, quick hands – with palms oddly pink to Billy – that loaded every flick and throw.