Half the time they don’t know what they want, and the balance of the time they can’t tell it to you. The clock said twenty past twelve.
“No,” she says.
“No which?” I says.
“I ain’t had it,” she says. “That’s it.” She looked at me. “I got the money,” she says.
So I knew what she was talking about.
“Oh,” I says. “You got something in your belly you wish you didn’t have.” She looks at me. “You wish you had a little more or a little less, huh?”
“I got the money,” she says. “He said I could git something at the drugstore for hit.”
“Who said so?” I says.
“He did,” she says, looking at me.
“You don’t want to call no names,” I says. “The one that put the acorn in your belly? He the one that told you?” She don’t say nothing. “You ain’t married, are you?” I says. I never saw no ring. But like as not, they ain’t heard yet out there that they use rings.
“I got the money,” she says. She showed it to me, tied up in her handkerchief: a ten spot.
“I’ll swear you have,” I says. “He give it to you?”
“Yes,” she says.
“Which one?” I says. She looks at me. “Which one of them give it to you?”