“But a scrootch owl,” Huey continued, “he slips into the roost and just scrootches up to the hen and sweet-talks her. And then the hen falls in love with him, and the first thing you know…there ain’t no hen!”

The crowd laughed, on the other side of the tent. Back here, two of Huey’s own people were staring at each other coldly. I had a gun, too-a nine-millimeter Browning in a shoulder holster. This would be a first: shooting it out with somebody I was bodyguarding with.

“Now Hoover was sure enough a hoot owl,” Huey’s booming voice continued, “but Roosevelt-he’s a scrootch owl!”

There was laughter and applause, and I said, “Don’t do anything stupid, Joe.”

Messina’s tiny dark eyes-like the black beaded eyes sewn on a rag doll-narrowed in something approaching thought, reminding me that anything this beefy little bastard did was bound to be stupid.

Huey said something else, but I wasn’t listening. I said, “Joe-you were making your boss look bad. I was just trying to help.”

“Heller’s right,” a commanding male voice said, and we both turned to see Big George McCracken, the third member of our bodyguard squad, come lumbering up. Burly, with the puffy, lumpy features of an ex-pug, his dark baggy suit from the same thug haberdashery as Messina’s, McCracken was no dope.

Especially compared to Messina.

“Those people saw you smack that sumbitch,” McCracken said to Messina.

Messina’s head drooped like he was a scolded school kid and McCracken the teacher.

“You want the lyin’ papers to pick up somethin’ like that?” McCracken asked. “Next time, jest yank ’im outa there, and don’t commence to beatin’ on ’im ’til you’re behind the goddamn tent.”

“Okay,” Messina said, reluctantly.

“And be careful. You don’t wanna kill some fucker. Just shut him up, teach him a little lesson, and shoo him off. Got it?”

Messina nodded.