"You tell me. That's one reason I want you to look at it. Circle the black ones. If you're not sure, find out. If you know any of the white folks, make a note."
"I'll be glad to, Jake. This ain't illegal, is it?"
"Naw, but don't tell anybody. I need it back by Wednesday morning."
"You're the boss."
- - (tm)*, u..u JUK.C ncaciea tor the office. It was almost ten. Ethel had retyped the list from the initial one provided by Harry Rex, and a dozen copies had been hand-delivered to selected, trusted friends. Lucien, Stan At-cavage, Tank, Dell at the Coffee Shop, a lawyer in Karaway named Roland Isom, and a few others. Even Ozzie got a list.
Less than three miles from the tonk was a small, neat white-framed country house where Ethel and Bud Iwitty had lived for almost forty years. It was a pleasant house with pleasant memories of raising children who were now scattered up North. The retarded son, the one who greatly resembled Lucien, lived in Miami for some reason. The house was quieter now. Bud hadn't worked in years, not since his first stroke in '75. Then a heart attack, followed by two more major strokes and several small ones. His days were numbered, and he had long since accepted the fact that he would most likely catch the big one and die on his front porch shelling butterbeans. That's what he hoped for, anyway.
Monday night he sat on the porch shelling butterbeans and listening to the Cardinals on the radio. Ethel was working in the kitchen. In the bottom of the eighth with the Cards at bat and two on, he heard a noise from the side of the house. He turned the volume down. Probably just a dog. Then another noise. He stood and walked to the end of the porch. Suddenly, a huge figure dressed in solid black with red, white, and black war paint smeared wickedly across his face jumped from the bushes, grabbed Bud and yanked him off the porch. Bud's anguished cry was not heard in the kitchen. Another warrior joined in and they dragged the old man to the foot of the steps leading up to the front porch. One maneuvered him into a half-nelson while the other pounded his soft belly and bloodied his face. Within seconds, he was unconscious.
Ethel heard noises and scurried through the front door. She was grabbed by a third member of the gang, who twisted her arm tightly behind her and wrapped a huge arm around her throat. She couldn't scream or talk or move, and was held there on the porch, terrified, watching below as the two thugs took turns with her husband. On the front sidewalk ten
feet behind the violence stood three figures, each garbed in a full, flowing, white robe with red garnishment, each with a tall, white, pointed headdress from which fell a red and white mask that loosely covered each face. They emerged from the darkness and watched over the scene as though they were the three wise men attending the manger.
After a long, agonizing minute, the beating grew monotonous. "Enough," said the ruler in the middle. The three terrorists in black ran. Ethel rushed down the steps and slumped over her battered husband. The three in white disappeared.
Jake left the hospital after midnight with Bud still alive but everyone pessimistic. Along with the broken bones he had suffered another major heart attack. Ethel had made a scene and blamed it all on Jake.
"You said there was no danger!" she screamed. "Tell that to my husband! It's all your fault!"
He had listened to her rant and rave, and the embarrassment turned to anger. He glanced around the small waiting room at the friends and relatives. All eyes were on him. Yes, they seemed to say, it was all his fault.
Gwen called the office early Tuesday morning and the new secretary, Ellen Roark, answered the phone. She fumbled with the intercom until she broke it, then walked to the stairs and yelled: "Jake, it's Mr. Hailey's wife."
He slammed a book shut and angrily picked up the receiver. "Hello."
"Jake, are you busy?"
"Very. What's on your mind?"
She started crying. "Jake, we need money. We're broke, and the bills are past due. I haven't paid the house note in two months and the mortgage company is callin'. I don't know who else to turn to."
"What about your family?"
"They're poor folks, Jake, you know that. They'll feed us and do what they