What the fuck are you?” Wolfson said. “Fucking
Saint Everett of the Whores?”
"Just keepin’ order,” I said.
“You know who that was you kicked in the balls last night?”
“Can’t say that I got his name,” I said.
“Name’s Greavy,” Wolfson said. “Matthew Greavy. He’s a county commissioner.”
I had a bite of biscuit so I chewed and swallowed before I answered. Wolfson drank some coffee.
“So it’s okay if he abuses your whores?” I said when the biscuit was down.
“It’s important for me to stay on the right side of the county,” Wolfson said. “I ain’t out here looking to sit here in a saloon kitchen for breakfast all my life.”
“Pretty good breakfast,” I said.
“You know what I mean,” Wolfson said. “A business is like a lot of things: It grows or it dies. I plan to grow.”
“So maybe you should issue an abuse-my-whores pass to guys like Greavy. Then when I start to kick him in the balls, he can flash the pass, and I stop.”
“You being funny?” Wolfson said.
I put some sorghum on another biscuit and ate it.
“I guess not,” I said.
Wolfson stood up and walked around the kitchen. The Chinaman was busy chopping onions and paid us no attention. We never talked when he made my breakfast. I didn’t understand Chinese. I didn’t know if he understood English.
“You’re good at your work, Everett,” Wolfson said. “Don’t know if I ever seen better. You’re good with a gun. You’re good with your fists. You ain’t afraid of much. And people like you. But whores are fucking whores, you understand. They get abused, they get abused. They’re used to it.”
I nodded.
“You buy what I’m saying?” Wolfson said.
“You’re the boss,” I said.
“I know that, I want to make sure you know it, too,” Wolfson said. “Anytime you think the whores are having problems, you bring them to me.”
I nodded and ate some biscuit. I didn’t know about his language skills, but the Chinaman made a nice biscuit.
“You buy that?” Wolfson said.
“When I can,” I said.
“What do you mean, ‘When I can’?”
“Sometimes this kinda work,” I said, “you don’t have time to consult your employer.”
“So you use your own judgment.”
“I do,” I said.
Wolfson fixed me with his one-and-a-half-eyed stare.
“You do, and it’s the wrong judgment, and you’ll be out of a job,” he said.
“I’d surely miss these biscuits,” I said.