Idgie, who had been in the bathroom, came out and saw everybody looking out of the window.
"What's going on?"
Ruth said, "Come here, Idgie."
Idgie looked out. "Oh shit!"
Onzell handed Ruth the baby and did not leave her side. Idgie said to Grady, "What the hell is this all about?"
Grady, who was still picking his teeth, said with certainty, "Them's not our boys."
"Well, who are they?"
Grady dropped his nickel on the table. "You stay here. I'm gonna damn well find out."
Sipsey was over in the corner with her broom, muttering to nobody, "I ain't scared of no white men's ghosties. No suh."
Grady went out and talked to a couple of the men. After a few minutes, one man nodded and said something to the others, and one by one, the men began to leave, as quietly as they had come.
Ruth couldn't be sure, but it seemed to her that one of the men had been staring right at her and the baby. Then she remembered something that Idgie had once said, and she looked down at the man's shoes as he was climbing into the truck. When she saw the shiny, black-polished shoes, she was suddenly terrified.
Grady came back into the cafe, unconcerned. "They didn't want nothing. They was just a bunch of old boys out to throw a little scare in you, that's all. One of them was over here the other day for something or another and saw you was selling to niggers out the back door and thought he'd try to shake you up a little bit. That's all.”
Idgie asked him what he had said to get them to leave so fast.
Grady got his hat off the hat rack, "Oh, I just told them that these are our niggers and we sure as hell don't need a bunch from Georgia coming over here telling us what we can and cain't do."
He looked Idgie right in the eye. "And I'll guaran-damn-tee you they won't be back," and he put his hat on and left.
Even though Grady was a charter member of the Dill Pickle Club and a confirmed liar, that day he had told the truth. What Idgie and Ruth didn't know was that although these Georgia boys were mean, they were not stupid enough to ever fool around with the Klan in Alabama and were smart enough to leave in a hurry and stay gone.
That's why when Frank Bennett did come back, he came alone ... and he came at night.
DECEMBER 15, 1930
Local Man Missing
Frank Bennett, 38, lifelong resident of Valdosta, was reported missing today by his younger brother, Gerald, after Jake Box, an employee of the elder Bennett, informed him of Bennett's failure to return home from a hunting trip.
He was last seen on the morning of December 13, when he left home and told Mr. Box that he would be returning that evening. Anyone having any information as to his whereabouts is asked to please inform the local authorities.
DECEMBER 18, 1930
It was another ice-cold Alabama afternoon, and the hogs were boiling in the big iron pot out in back of the cafe. The pot was bubbling over the top, full of long-gone hogs that would soon be smothered with Big George's special barbecue sauce.
Big George was standing by the pot with Artis, when he looked up and saw three men with guns strapped to their sides walking toward him.
Grady Kilgore, the local sheriff and part-time railroad detective, usually called him George. Today, he was showing off in front of the other two men, "Hey, boy! Come here and take a look at this." He held out a photograph. "You seen this man around here?"
Artis, whose job it was to stir the pot with a long stick, began to sweat.
Big George looked at the picture of the white man in the derby hat and shook his head. "No suh . . . I shore ain't," and handed it back to Grady.
One of the other men walked over and looked in the pot at the pink and white hogs bobbing up and down like a carousel.
Grady put the photograph back in his vest pocket, his official duty over, and said, "Hey, when are we gonna get some of that barbecue, Big George?"
Big George looked in the pot and studied it a moment. "You come 'round 'bout noon tomorrah . . . yes suh, 'bout noon it's gonna be ready."
"You save us some, y'hear?"
Big George smiled. "Yes suh, I will, I shore 'nuff will."
As the men headed to the cafe, Grady bragged to the others. "That nigger makes the best goddamned barbecue in the state. You've gotta get yourselves some of that, then you'll know what good barbecue is. I don't think you Georgia boys know what good barbecue is."
Smokey and Idgie were sitting in the cafe, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. Grady came in and put his hat on the rack by the door and walked over to where they were sitting.
"Idgie, Smokey, meet Officer Curtis Smoote and Officer Wendell Riggins. They're over here from Georgia, looking for a fella."
They all nodded hello and sat down.
Idgie said, "What can I get you boys? How 'bout some coffee?"
They all agreed that would be fine.
Idgie hollered to the kitchen, "Sipsey!"
Sipsey stuck her head out of the kitchen door.
"Sipsey, we need three coffees."
Then she said to them, "How ‘bout some pie?"
Grady said, "Naw, we better not, we're here on official business."
The younger, heavier-set man seemed disappointed.
"These two boys are over here lookin’ for a fella, and I've agreed to cooperate." He had only agreed to cooperate if he could be in charge of the photograph.
He cleared his throat and pulled the picture out, trying to look important and nonchalant at the same time. "Has either one of you seen this man, here, in the past couple of days?"
Idgie looked at it, said, no, she had not seen him, and passed it on to Smokey.
"What's he done?"
Sipsey brought the coffee, and Curtis Smoote, the wiry, skinny one with the neck that looked like a wrinkled arm sticking out of a white shirty said in a high-pitched, tight little voice, "He ain't done nothing that we know of. We're trying to find out what's been did to him."
Smokey handed the picture back "Naw, I ain't never see'd him. What you looking for him over here for?"
"He told some old boy who worked for him, over in Georgia, that he was coming over here, a couple of days ago, and he never did come back home."
Smokey asked whereabouts in Georgia.
"Valdosta."
"Well, I wonder what he was a-coming over here for." Smokey said.
Idgie turned around and called out to the kitchen, "Sipsey, bring us a couple of pieces of that chocolate pie, out here." Then she said to Officer Riggins, "I want you to try a piece of this for me. Tell me what you think. We just made it a few minutes ago, have a piece on me."
Officer Riggins protested, "No, I couldn't really, I. . ."
Idgie said, "Oh, come on, just a bite. I need an expert opinion."
"Well, okay, just a bite then."
The skinny one squinted at Idgie, "I told these boys that he most likely is on a drunk somewhere and gonna show up in the next day or so. What I cain't figure out is what, he was coming over here for. There ain't nothing here . . ."
Wendell said, between bites, "We figure maybe he had a girl friend around here, or something."
Grady exploded with laughter. "Hell, ain't no woman in Whistle Stop that somebody would come all the way from Georgia for!" Then he paused. "Except maybe Eva Bates."
Then all three of them laughed, and Smokey, who also had had the pleasure of knowing Eva in the biblical sense, said, "That's the God's truth."
Grady started in on the other piece of pie, still amused at his own joke but the skinny man was serious, and he leaned over the table to Grady.