11

ABOUT FIVE HOURS later, shortly after dawn, Sam woke up full of beans and raring to go. Which was rather a shock, since she hadn’t gotten to sleep till after three. But there she was ordering herself some room-service coffee, sitting back and sipping it, thinking about what she might do with this jump on the day. The first thing she wanted to do was go and see about Olive. The last thing was to get embroiled again with Jinx and the kidnapping.

She’d had enough of that last night. Though she had to admit that the screaming and carrying on in Kitty’s room until the wee hours had had a certain salutary effect. It had certainly kept her mind off Harry. That is until Jinx had chunked a Coke can at her, screaming, “I know why you want me to call the police and get Speed killed! Because you’re jealous that you don’t have a boyfriend of your own! Lost him to a younger woman!” Sam had caught the Coke and hurled it back at Jinx, missing her by millimeters. But her killer look at Kitty, the blabbermouth, hit its target. So did her reply. “Yes, indeedy. Another woman, Jinx, another sleazoid blonde, just like you.”

It had been a tacky evening, all right. With Kitty chorusing now and again, “Excuse me. Could we get back to the subject? A man has been kidnapped here. Hello? Yoohoo.”

Finally, without making a phone call to the police or any other authorities, they’d chucked it in, Kitty and Jinx collapsing in Kitty’s room, God bless the child who had her own.

Now after a couple cups of coffee, Sam felt exactly the same way she had last evening: Whatever Jinx chose to do about her purloined fiancé was her own affair. Sam herself was more concerned with making sure her new friend Olive was all right. Had she ever shown up at the party or not? She looked up Loydell Watson in the phone directory, and was about to give her a jingle when her phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Hi. It’s me, Harry.”

Sam dropped the receiver into the cradle like it was a snake. Her head was buzzing. The blood in her veins was backing up. She was stunned. She stared off into space for five full minutes. What did he want? Why was he calling? Now that he’d turned her world upside down, why didn’t he leave her to sort through the debris? Did he think she was going to say, Oh, I understand, if I hadn’t been afraid of commitment, you wouldn’t have been screwing around.

Then she stood. She absolutely was not going to think about Harry. She was going to keep moving in a forward direction. She made herself focus on Loydell’s number, and she picked up the phone.

Loydell answered on the first ring. “Oh, Sam, I’d hoped you were Olive. It’s about the right time for her to call.” Loydell sighed. “I guess I’ll drive out to her house. I was going to last night, but I don’t see so good in the dark, I’d probably drive off in a ditch, then there’d be two old ladies for the police to look for.”

“Did you call the police?”

“I did. But I don’t even want to waste my breath talking about them. I’ll tell you, the police ain’t what they used to be. Used to help folks. Don’t get me started.” Then she paused. “I guess you wonder why I’m not asking about Jinx’s fiancé.”

Sam didn’t know exactly what to say. It wasn’t as if Speed had been number one on her Hit Parade either. Actually, she felt a little ashamed.

Loydell continued, “I know I ought to call Jinx and see what’s happening with her fiancé being snatched up. But frankly, I have to tell you, compared to Olive, I just don’t care very much. I had a hard time working up any enthusiasm about the little man from the get-go. Not that I have anything against him personally, though I never trusted him any further than I could throw him. Of course, that’s pretty much the way I feel about most people.” She paused. “Including Jinx. I guess that’s a terrible thing to admit, not caring much for your only child, but I swear, we’ve had about as much in common as a Martian and a Venutian from the minute we first spied one another. That child popped out, took one look at me, and set to squalling so loud I wanted to slap her, and it’s been pretty much that way ever since. And, don’t mistake me, it’s a two-way street. We’re just oil and water.”

“Well, Loydell.” Sam didn’t know what else to say. She’d felt exactly the same way about Jinx, but it was strange, hearing her mother say these things. Especially because Loydell seemed so warm.

“It’s kind of a tragedy,” said Loydell, “our feeling that way, but you know, you play what you’re dealt in this life. On the other hand, you take Olive.”

Sam could hear the tears building in Loydell’s voice.

“We met on the first day of first grade, sixty-six years ago, and we loved one another on sight. Not that we were always best friends, you understand. In fact, there were years that went by that we hardly spoke. It wasn’t that we were mad at one another, just that our lives took off in different directions. Olive’s got real different there for a while when she was working in one of those old cathouses up here behind Central. Just a block down from where I live right now.”

Sam thought back to Olive telling her about the hot times in old Hot Springs. Olive had had more than a passing familiarity with the naughtiness of those days.

“There were those,” said Loydell, “who didn’t speak to Olive ever again after that. I, personally, have no use for those people. Hypocrites, with their thin little mouths.” She stopped and took a deep breath. “Well, listen to me rambling on. That’s what happens when you get to be an old lady. But all of that’s to say, I’m desperate to know where Olive’s got off to, but I don’t plan to put one iota of effort into Speed McKay’s search and rescue. And them that don’t like it can go suck eggs.”

Sam laughed. “Well, I’m happy to help you look for Olive. Why don’t I drive out to her place?” Proceeding, full steam ahead in a forward motion. Not stopping to think about Harry. Not stopping for Go.

“Oh, good. Sugar, you do that, and I’ll call the hospital, and if Olive’s not there, I’ll zip around to our favorite haunts, see if maybe Olive stopped somewhere, like maybe went for a bite of barbecue at McClard’s and had a stroke out in her car. For all we know, she could be sitting, stove up, out in a parking lot somewhere. Let me get going here, you call me later, and in the meantime, maybe she’ll show up.”

“I’m sure she will, Loydell.”

“Sure.” The old lady laughed. Sam could tell it was an effort. “I bet she’s been shacked up with some young man, now she’s too embarrassed to show her face, missing the party. She’s sitting over in the Pancake House trying to make up a good story.”

“I bet she is,” said Sam. “Or I’ll catch the two of them still in bed back at her house. Now, let me dress and get moving.”

Which is how Sam came to be walking into the Gas ’N Grub at eight A.M., saying to the young man who was standing there, “Hello. Do you happen to know where the older lady who works here might be?”

She was thinking, Jesus, was Loydell right or what? Could she have spent the night with this young hunk? Except the kid was young enough to be Olive’s grandson.

Then, sure enough, the young man in the plain white T-shirt, khakis, and white running shoes reached over and touched Sam’s arm lightly with his fingertips like he wanted to show her that he wasn’t going to hurt her, not now, not ever, and said, “Ma’am, that old lady’s my grandma, I’m Bobby Adair, and she’s who I’m here to visit, and I’m real worried about her. She ought to be here, and I don’t know where she’s got off to. It’s gonna be up to me and Pearl here to find her. That is, the Hot Springs cops don’t lock me up first.”

That was certainly an interesting train of thought. And obviously Pearl was of the same opinion, for when Bobby said the dog’s name, the redbone hound began to shake her head with its long lovely ears and bawl like a baby.

“You can see Pearl’s real upset,” said Bobby. “When I got here, just a little while ago, she was carrying on like this. I got the feeling she’s been doing it for some time. I was just about to see if I could start her tracking Mamaw. Are you a friend of hers?” Then he gave Sam a long look, taking in her white linen jacket, navy-and-white striped T-shirt, jeans, loafers. “No, you don’t look like you’re from around here.”

Bobby Adair himself was an innocent-looking boy of about 25 years, five-ten, clean-featured, with a brown crew cut and clear blue eyes that seemed to look straight through your head, watch the picture show you were running in there. He had a nice tan and a very good build, which made Sam wonder aloud if he’d just come home from someplace like Venice Beach in California. But then, why would he be talking about the Hot Springs Police?

“No, ma’am, I haven’t been to any beach. In fact, I just yesterday afternoon late got out of Cummins, that’s the correctional facility for stone-bad motorscooters down between Pine Bluff and McGehee. Not that I’m that bad, but the reason they sent me there is related to your other question about the Hot Springs Police.”

Working the crime beat, Sam had met more than her share of cons, ex-cons, and pre-cons, but she had to tell him he was the most polite member of any category she’d run up on.

“Well, yes, ma’am, I believe in politeness. Which is why I sent away from prison for a membership and joined the Graciousness Society which is headquartered in Elberton, Georgia. I look forward to their bimonthly newsletter which gives tips on how to make the world a kinder and gentler place. For real. Not just giving lip service to the idea, like some people I might mention. I have my Graciousness Society card right here in my wallet, if you’d like to see it.”

You know, thought Sam, maybe she ought to give up on writing American Weird. Because, more and more it seemed, weird wasn’t weird at all. It was the norm, like the dysfunctional family. It’s just that now there was a name for it.

She said, “Could you go back and do the part about the Hot Springs Police Department again? It’s early, and I’m tracking a little slow.”

“Well, they never took kindly to my assaulting Archie Blackshears,” Bobby said in his nice polite voice, like you’d asked him the time and he’d checked his Timex and was pleased as punch to be sharing it with you.

Sam said, “Cops usually don’t take to people assaulting one another.”

“Well, I didn’t hurt him nearly as bad as he had coming to him. But you’re right, even if you just mess somebody up a little, they take it real hard. Especially when he’s one of their own.”

“Archie Blackshears is a cop?”

“Yes, ma’am, he is. And he’s a good cop, I always gave him that. But he’s a bad person. A very bad person.”

Sam nodded, trying to figure out what it was this very polite angelic-looking self-admitted cop-assaulter might mean.

Bobby helped her. “He was very good at doing his job without busting too many heads. I used to see quite a bit of him, he was my girlfriend Cynthia’s daddy.”

“You assaulted your girlfriend’s dad?”

“You’d have to have been there,” Bobby said without an ounce of irony, looking her straight in the eye. His mouth seemed to hold itself in a naturally sweet expression. “You’d have to have seen how he did her when he got to drinking.”

Oh, yes. Having once been a member of that worldwide organization of folks who took leave of their senses behind a few belts, Sam was well aware of the possibilities. Her personal specialties had been mostly self-destructive, but she knew lots of drunks, men especially, who went in for other forms of abuse that involved their tongues, fists, feet, and other people’s more tender regions.

She said, “So you told Archie to stop, and he didn’t?”

“That’s right.”

“But you didn’t shoot him. We’re not talking about a gun here?”

Bobby smiled sweetly. “At the time I didn’t know what it was I’d picked up. I really wasn’t thinking. Cynthia had a broken arm and was bleeding sideways out of her squashed nose. Archie was charging me like a big old bull, so I just grabbed for something. It turned out it was this great big trophy he’d won for target shooting. I think it was that little pistol on the top that knocked the hole in his noggin.”

“You hit him with the trophy in self-defense?”

“Well, the cops, they said he wasn’t armed.”

“And?”

“You know, I never was sure. I mean, the thing happened in such a blur. I was so mad, seeing Cynthia like that, and I’d seen Archie with a gun so many times—I didn’t really think about it. I just hit him.”

“What’d Cynthia say?”

“At the trial she said he wasn’t armed. And other than that, well, she’s never spoke to me again personally. She let it be known she didn’t want anything to do with me.”

It could happen. Thank you very kindly for saving my life, now hit the road. It could have been that way. And then, on the other hand, it could be that none of this was true. Sam had known enough cons to know that almost all of them had convenient and colorful imaginations. If he even was a con—but it was your rare bird who’d claim to be and wasn’t.

“The way I figure it,” said Bobby, “you do what you’ve got to do. What I had to do then was stop Archie from doing anyone any more harm. What Cynthia had to do, well, I know the whole thing had to be hard for her. And what I have to do right now is figure out why my Grandma Olive’s not here, not in her little house there up the hill, my car she was keeping for me’s gone, and Pearl here’s about to have a fit.”

At that, Pearl started up her bawling again, Owwwrhuuuuu, Owwwrhuuuu, so loud and pitiful Sam had to cover her ears.

“What makes you think she didn’t just go off to run an errand, leaving Pearl to guard the store?” Sam doubted that seriously, but she wanted to know Bobby’s theory.

“With the door open? She’d never do that. And she’d never take my Sunliner either. You know the car I mean—retractable hardtop convertible coupe? This one’s a black-and-gold sixty-one, you saw it it’d make your heart beat faster. She’d take her old Rabbit if she was going somewhere, and it’s still sitting up at her house. Furthermore, the cashbox’s clean. It’s like somebody came in here, snatched her up along with every last red cent. And I found this.” He held up a ring.

Sam reached out and took it from his hand. She said, “I don’t remember her wearing this yesterday. I stopped to buy some gas and had a nice long chat with Olive.”

“It was kicked up in a corner underneath the counter. Tell you the truth, I don’t think this thing looks good.”

Sam had to agree. She stared at the ring, thinking. The diamond looked like a pretty good fake to her, but if someone had robbed Olive, would he know that? Toss it on the floor? Or, in some flurry of activity that she didn’t want to think about, had it just been overlooked? This could be an important piece of evidence. Or it could be nothing. But it was certainly worth hanging on to.

Pearl sniffed the air and howled again. Then she ran to the door and hurled herself against it.

Sam said, “I know what you said about the police, but if you think something’s happened to your grandmother, well, to tell you the truth, the main reason I came by this morning is because she didn’t show up last night at a party we were coincidentally both going to.”

Sam looked around the store, checking for traces of blood, but the place looked squeaky clean. “Anyway, I know you don’t want to go to the police, but don’t you think you ought to report it if you really think something’s happened to her?”

Or maybe you know for sure. Maybe you robbed her and stuffed her in the broom closet. That could have been what happened. What did she know? She certainly didn’t know who this young man was. Not really.

“I just got here,” he said as if he could read her mind. “Ten minutes before you. Tell you what, would you like to see my parole papers?”

Before she could answer, Bobby had reached in his back pocket and pulled them out. There was even a photo ID. Yep, that was Bobby Adair, all right. Not that that proved he was Olive’s grandson. Not necessarily. But probably he was.

“And, like I said, I go to the police, they’re gonna have me locked up in about five seconds. Probably say I’m the one who made my grandma run off. And the terms of my parole, I’m not even supposed to be here. Not supposed to be within fifty miles of Hot Springs or Cynthia or any of her daddy’s cop friends. But I had to come and see Mamaw. She’s the only family I’ve got, her and Pearl. And I thought I’d try to see Cyn.”

With that, Bobby Adair opened the door of the store. Pearl took off like a shot, toenails scratching the pavement, nose low on the ground, high in the air, down in the dirt, headed straight down Highway 70 toward Hot Springs like they were holding a reservation in her name at the Palace Hotel. And before Sam knew it, she had handed Bobby her car keys, and she was riding shotgun down the road after Pearl in her own BMW. She was swept away with the passion of the hunt, her head hanging out the window following Pearl’s bawling as surely as if she and Bobby were running through bogs and bushes behind a grand champion about to chop on a big boss coon.

She and Bobby weren’t saying much. In particular, he hadn’t said a word about her palming and pocketing that fake diamond ring.