Nobody else good enough to keep a table if that black Nigger wanted it. He could hear them: Git up an' give Mr. Pettijohn yo' table. Any table for him. He'd show 'em! They'd never make a fool out of him again. How slowly the King was moving! He walked but he never seemed to come any closer.
Nobody in town can bake a sweet jelly-roll lak . . . Pzzz: a bullet whizzed past Byron's ear. A shriek . . . Pzzz! Another shot. Byron, dazed, turned his head. Weapon in hand, the Creeper stood poised for the fraction of a second. Yo' won't hitch on to no mo' mah gals! he muttered. Then like a streak he leaped through the crowd and disappeared through the doorway in the back wall. With a cry of 'Toly, the girl followed him. Pandemonium. Stampede. Glasses smashed. 'Tables upset. Shrieks. Cries. Howls. The room was empty.
Byron alone sat staring ahead of him. Ai fixed, blank stare. He was thinking how Paul Robeson looked when he sang Were you there? He remembered that he owed Howard a hundred dollars. Fingers like golden-brown chrysanthemum petals . . .
Then he saw the thing on the floor in a pool of blood under the amber moon. Fascinated, he crept slowly towards it.
Suddenly, he stamped on the face with the heel of his boot.
