A heavy-set, middle-aged man wearing a felt skull cap, old mended sweater, corduroy pants and felt slippers, was emerging from the back apartment when the wheel crashed into the back wall of the hallway. He gave it a look, then did a double take. He looked about quickly, and, seeing no one, grabbed it, ducked back into his apartment and locked the door. It wasn’t every day manna fell from heaven.
Chapter 2
Roman Hill was driving the Cadillac. His thick, muscular shoulders, developed from handling a two-mule plough in the Alabama cotton fields, were hunched inside of his greasy leather jacket as though he were reining the four horsemen of the Apocalypse of St. John the Divine.
“Watch out!” Sassafras screamed. It was enough to raise the dead.
“Huh!” Air gushed from his mouth, and he gripped the wheel in his big, horny hands hard enough to break it.
He didn’t see the old lady. It was the scream that did it. When he first saw the old lady she was caught in the left headlamp as though she had come out of the ground. His cocked gray eyes tried to leave his head in opposite directions.
“Look out!” he shouted as he tromped on the brake.
His two passengers sailed forward against the instrument panel, and he bumped his chest against the steer-rag wheel.
The old lady disappeared.
“My God, where she at?” he asked in a panic-stricken voice.
“You hit her!” Sassafras exclaimed.
“Step on it!” Mister Baron cried.
“Huh?” Roman’s slack, tan face looked stupid from shock.
“Let’s go, for God’s sake,” Mister Baron urged. “You’ve killed her. You don’t want to stay here and get caught, do you?”