The Fixed Smile of Death

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None of the guys figured Orvie had any guts. They had told him that so many times that Orvie was more than half-convinced. They never gave him a real chance to find out what was going on with the boys, because everybody, including Orvie, knew that he’d spill under a little pressure. So, it was with a sense of sudden importance, that Orvie sat in one of the back booths of Farmer Ed’s Grill opposite Big Sanderson. The big boy had come in and chased away the two guys with whom Orvie had been drinking beer. Orvie sat breathless under the scrutiny of Big Sanderson’s small pale eyes, trying to look casual and hard.

“I been watching you for a long time, Orvie,” he said, and his lowered tone gave the whole thing an air of conspiracy and confidence.

“Yeah?” Orvie answered, in that new fiat tone he had suddenly discovered. He wondered how the Big Sand had been watching him. The only stuff he had pulled was peddling reefers at the joints around the high schools. It had kept him in clothes and beet, and lots of times be had felt like a big shot when he would walk into a grill full of those high school punks, but that wasn’t the sort of thing the Big Sand would care about. Orvie was puzzled.

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