Billie looked sidewise at me—a look that said “Beat it.”
The woman caught the glance. She twisted around on the bench to put a hand on his head.
“Poor Billie,” she cooed; “his head most cruelly hurt saving me, and now, when he should be at his home giving it rest, I keep him here talking. You go, Billie, and when it is morning and your poor head is better, you will telephone to me?”
His red face got dark. He glowered at me.
Laughing, she slapped him lightly on the cheek that bulged around his cud of tobacco.
“Do not become jealous of Jerry. Jerry is enamored of one yellow and white lady somewhere, and to her he is most faithful. Not even the smallest liking has he for dark women.” She smiled a challenge at me. “Is it not so, Jerry?”
“No,” I denied. “And, besides, all women are dark.”
Billie shifted his chew to the scratched cheek and bunched his shoulders.
“What the hell kind of a crack is that to be making?” he rumbled.
“That means nothing it should not, Billie,” she laughed at him. “It is only an epigram.”
“Yeah?” Billie was sour and truculent. I was beginning to think he didn’t like me. “Well, tell your little fat friend to keep his smart wheezes to himself. I don’t like ’em.”
That was plain enough. Billie wanted an argument. The woman, who held him securely enough to have steered him off, simply laughed again.