Some Buried Caesar

"Not at all. She paid me two bucks to save her brother from a fate worse than death. Boy, is it fun being a detective! Up half the night chaperoning a bull, only to be laid waste by a blonde the next day at lunch. Look, we'll have to send a telegram to Fritz; here's a button off."

4

I DIDN'T get to share any secrets with any stars. Clouds had started to gather at sundown, and by half past eight it was pitch-dark. Armed with a flashlight, and my belt surrounding a good dinner-not of course up to Fritz Brenner's standard, but far and away above anything I had ever speared at a pratteria-I left the others while they were still monkeying with coffee and went out to take over my shift. Cutting across through the orchard, I found Dave sitting on an upended keg over by the fence, clutching the shotgun.

"All right," I told him, cutting off the light to save juice. "You must be about ready for some chow."

"Naw," he said, "I couldn't eat late at night like this. I had some meat and potatoes and stuff at six o'clock. My main meal's breakfast. It's my stommick that wakes me up, I git so derned hungry I can't sleep."

"That's interesting. Where's the bull?"

"I ain't seen him for a half hour. Last I saw he was down yonder, yon side of the big walnut. Why the name of com- mon sense they don't tie him up's beyond me."

"Pratt says he was tied the first night and bellowed all night and nobody could sleep."

Dave snorted. "Let him beller. Anybody that can't sleep for a bull's bellerin' had better keep woonies instead."

"What's woonies?"

He had started off in the dark, and I heard him stop. "Woonies is bulls with their tails at the front end." He cackled. "Got you that time, mister! Good night!"

I decided to take a look, and anyhow moving was better than standing still, so I went along the fence in the direction of the gate we had driven through in our rescue of Wolfe. It sure was a black night. After making some thirty yards I played the flashlight around the pasture again, but couldn't find him. I kept on to the other side of the gate, and that time I picked him up. He wasn't lying down as I supposed he would be,' but standing there looking at the light. He loomed up like an elephant. I told him out loud, "All right, honey darling, it's only Archie, I don't want you to get upset," and turned back the way I had come.