"We're opening a supermarket, not a baseball season. Now I want to meet with the entire staff first thing tomorrow to review the stock procedures. Tell them to be in front-"

"Hold it, Lamont," Jim Bob said, his feelings hurt just a smidgen. "I know we're opening a supermarket, but there's a way we can get a whole lot of publicity and community goodwill without it costing us a plug nickel. I realize you own three supermarkets and know a damn sight more about it than I do, but I'm a businessman, too, and I can appreciate the value of gettin' something for nothing."

Lamont accepted the distasteful fact he was going to have to hear Jim Bob out before they could get back to business. He flipped a hand in the general direction of the bed, made himself a stiff drink, and lit a cigarette, all the while admiring the overall composition of his demeanor in the mirror. Jim Bob's brown hair was showing a trace of gray, but it lacked the impact of sterling silver.

"This baseball team has to be sponsored by a local business or civic organization, see? The boys wear uniforms saying who's sponsoring them so everybody knows. Then they go play ball in front of a whole bleacher of parents, who tell each other how nice it is of the Lions Club or the beer distributor or whoever the hell it is to encourage these little boys to play baseball."

"So?" Lamont said real quietly.

"So we round up ten or twelve boys, dress them up in uniforms that say Jim Bob's SuperSaver Buy 4 Less, and send them out to do some free advertising for us." Jim Bob rubbed his palms together and gave his partner a sly grin. "Pretty damn smart, huh?"

Lamont found a certain joy in preparing to prick the prick's balloon. "Yeah, pretty damn smart, Jim Bob. But aren't you forgetting something?"

Jim Bob conscientiously searched his mind, because according to Mrs. Jim Bob, he was all the time forgetting something, even though she was usually referring to hoity-toity table manners or saying amen in church. "Are you worried about finding enough boys? I already asked around and I can get at least ten, most of them pick of the litter. Maybe we'll get some walk-ons once we start practicing."

"Good, Jim Bob, good. I was thinking about something else. As you explained so well a minute ago, we sponsor the team, which means we provide the equipment, the uniforms, and the registration fees. My store in Farberville sponsored a team one year, and it wasn't cheap."

"No problem there. The letter said we should enter our local championship team, so I figure the town ought to foot the bill. All I have to do is call a town-council meeting and run it through before anyone can blink an eye. After all," Jim Bob said, puffing up just a bit, "I am the mayor of Maggody."

"I'm keenly aware of it," Lamont said in all sincerity. No one else could have rezoned the land adjoining the Kwik-Screw with a mere flick of a pencil.

"I was thinking we could have the Jim Bob's SuperSavers at the grand opening, too. All shiny-faced and dressed in clean uniforms, ready to play good ol' American baseball."

"Sounds great, Jim Bob. One other minor…very, very minor thing. Who's going to coach the SuperSavers-you?"

Jim Bob choked on a mouthful of bourbon, spewing amber droplets all over himself and the bedspread. Even though he was coughing, he stuck out his glass. Lamont silently refilled it and returned to the chair, where he picked up his notebook and scribbled a memo to buy a whole damn case of bourbon next time he went home.

Jim Bob downed half the whiskey, wiped his eyes with the corner of the pillowcase, and said, "Why, one of the boys' daddies. You know I'm as busy as a stallion in a field of fillies. As much as I'd dearly like to, I don't see how I could make any time to coach the boys." He wiped his eyes again, pretending to be misty about not getting to coach the boys but actually thinking what sweet Cherri Lucinda would say if he started showing up less often at her door. She had the longest dadburned fingernails in the state and wasn't averse to making a point with them if she was in one of those moods.

Lamont, who knew all about Cherri Lucinda, among other interesting tidbits, had no problem reading Jim Bob's mind, which was pretty much printed in crayon. "See if you can talk someone into being the coach. It's not a bad idea, and we might be able to get some free publicity. The media's real fond of little boys with toothless grins. Shall we get back to the grand opening?"

Dahlia O'Neill snuggled up to her honey-bunny and said, "Kevin, my honey-bunny, would you be so kind as to read me again that part about employee break time?" She was perfectly capable of reading it herself, but she had a bottle of root beer in one hand and a tantalizingly soft cream-filled sponge cake in the other, and she knew in her heart of hearts that Jim Bob and that other fellow'd be sore if her employee manual was sticky.

"Oh, yes," Kevin cooed, seizing the opportunity to burrow into her pillowy, billowy (but not willowy) softness until he could swear it was her breast against his elbow. It wasn't that she was a prude, he thought as he opened the manual. It was downright amazing the things she'd taught him when they first started keeping company. Things that brought tears to his eyes just remembering. Things that caused him to gulp several times before he could trust his voice. But now that they was officially engaged, Dahlia had insisted they stop doing all those amazing things. Which Kevin didn't rightly follow but went along with his apple dumpling, anyways.

"It says we get fifteen minutes at the end of two hours, twenty minutes for lunch, and one other fifteen-minute break, depending on how busy the store is," he said after some studying. "Doesn't say anything about calls of nature."

"Well, of course not, Kevin Buchanon! They don't talk about that kinda thing in books. It's not nice to write about potties and a person's private business. I don't even want to think about someone who'd write that kinda thing in a book!"

Kevin waited until she'd popped the last of the little cake into her mouth and methodically licked her fingers, then half-closed his eyes and, in his sexiest voice, said, "Do you recall that night we spent in Robin Buchanon's outhouse, and how the moon shone through the knotholes and you were so scared you thought you was going to get sick? Then you realized I was going to protect you no matter what, and we got to kissing and-"

Dahlia's eyes bulged like charred cherries embedded in a piecrust. "I told you not to talk like that anymore. I am the head cook in the deli and you're the assistant night manager. We are engaged to be married and we have to behave like respectable folks. Furthermore, I seem to recall you was the one moaning about throwing up and making me squish against the wall so's you could bend over the hole."

"You held my face amongst your soft breasts and-"

"You stop right this instant!"

"And your nipples was like rosebuds, and I-"

"I'm warning you, Kevin Fitzgerald Buchanon-you stop this filthy talk right now or I'm gonna climb out of this porch swing and march right into the living room to tell your ma what all you're saying to me. She'll tan your hide till you can't sit down at the supper table for a month of Sundays."

Kevin wanted to stop. He didn't want to distress his goddess of love, nor did he want to even think what his ma would do. But he couldn't. He was possessed by the devil. And all of a sudden, he realized the devil was putting pictures in his head and licking on his loins with a fiery serpent's tongue.

Kevin fought as long as he could, but, with a yowl not unlike that of an alley cat, he succumbed to Satan. He clambered onto Dahlia's broad, cushiony thighs and put his mouth right on her best blue blouse and tried to gnaw through it like he was a gopher burrowing for grubs. Dahlia grabbed his shoulders to push him back, but the devil was bracing him from behind. "Kevin! Stop that! You're ruining my best blue blouse! What do you think-stop it, I said! Stop it now! Kevin!"