I ambled up to the counter. It was manned by a wizened, deeply tanned man in a baggy blue Truman shirt, ball cap, and loose pants. His face looked like it had collapsed on itself; it had no substance at all except for the wad of chew in his left cheek. As I approached, he sang, “Yes sir, yes sir, win a big prize today, win a big prize. Two chances for a thin dime, five for a quarter. What’ll it be, young fella?”
“Hi,” I said, grinning at him. “I’m looking for Herndon. Jimmy Herndon.”
“This ain’t the missing persons bureau. How many chances you want, now?”
“I don’t want any. Look, I know Herndon works here at the carnival. Where is he?”
The carny stepped back and glared at me, tiny points of light burning in his remote eyes. “You’re blocking paying, customers. Pay up and play, or move on, kid.”
I glanced around. No one else was there. Not even Fast Eddie. Bored already, he’d wandered across the fairway to the Rifle Range and was chatting with the overweight blonde who ran it. She beamed at him in a way that women never beamed at me, and I felt the resentment that went back to when Fast and I were six: how in hell does he do it?
I glared at the carny. “There’s nobody else here, mister. Now I asked you a question. Help me out and I’ll be on my way.”
The sawed-off ball bat came up with blinding speed, swung down and smashed the counter top. I nearly jumped out of my shoes. The carny raised the bat again and waggled the business end like Rocky Colavito, staring hotly at me. “You heard me!” he screamed. “Get moving!”
I gulped. “Okay, okay. No offense.” I backed away from the booth. Several other customers were staring at me. The other carnies paid no attention at all. Fast Eddie had vanished. So had the blonde lady.
I continued up the midway. Gradually my heartbeat got back under control. Big deal, I told myself. You ran into a hard nose first time out. Keep trying. Someone will come across.
Wrong. I worked the midway for better than an hour. I talked to carnies, concessions people, roughnecks and drivers. Leaving out the ball bat part, they were as cooperative as the ring-toss man. Never heard of Jimmy Herndon. Get moving, kid. Mind your own business.
They were lying. I was sure of it. But, I thought as I retraced my route down the midway, there’s no way to prove it. Dead end. I walked on, bound for the exit, wondering where Fast Eddie was, wondering what to do now—
“Hey, Benjy!”
I turned. Fast Eddie gave me the come-on wave. I trotted toward him. “What’s up, Fast?”
He looked excited. “Come here. Quick, before she changes her mind.” He led me between two of the carny booths. Behind the midway was a sprawling grassy area parked full of trucks. One of them, a big panel job, sat facing me with its tail doors swung open. Sitting on the bumper was the blonde woman I’d seen Fast talking with earlier. She was smoking a cigarette and looked nervous. “This is my friend Erma,” Eddie said. “Erma, this is Benjy. Now tell him what you told me.”
Erma’s close-cropped hair hadn’t always been blonde. She stretched a cowgirl outfit and big tall boots, and was ten years and fifty pounds ahead of Eddie, not that it made any difference to him. She scanned me indifferently, glanced around, then said in a low voice, “Jimmy Herndon was a roughneck here at the carnival.”
I glanced at Fast. He was beaming. “I know that,” I told her. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell him the story, Erma,” Fast Eddie said.
She shut her eyes tightly for a minute. Then: “There was a big brawl last week in a bar up on U.S. 12 somewhere. A man got knifed. Throat cut, bled to death. Jimmy was there. Word is, he did it. He’s hiding out. Cops are after him. He don’t dare show his face around here.”
“Nice guys your little sister hangs out with, Benjy,” Fast noted.
“Shut up.” I leaned close to Erma. She smelled of makeup and sweat. “You sure about this, Erma?”
“Swear to God.” Her eyes flickered. “We’re not supposda talk about him. Bad for business.”
“I’ll just bet.” I stood. “Any idea where he went?”
She shook her head and inhaled on her cigarette jerkily. “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. Jimmy Herndon is slick and tricky and pure trouble all the way through. You boys stay clear of him.”
“We can’t,” I said, putting all the tough I could into my voice. “Him and me, we got business.”
She smiled sadly. “Then be careful, boys. Be plenty damn careful.”
After thinking it over, I decided to park in the lot of the Michigan Bank, across Grand River from Redford High. I couldn’t park too close or Libby would spot me. I couldn’t park too far away or I’d miss her. This was perfect. Hopefully.
As I waited, the radio whispered the three o’clock news: Tshombe, Katanga, the Democratic Convention, and today’s All Star Game. It was a warm and muggy Monday, had rained earlier and would again. I smoked a Camel cigarette and thought about what I was doing. I’d bombed out with Herndon. Now to go at it from the other end. Follow Libby and see where she went.
Gaggles of kids left the building as summer school classes let out. When I spotted Libby, she was walking east along the sidewalk on Grand River, about to cross Westbrook. Headed away from home.
When she stopped in front of Sock’s Texaco amid a mixed group of whites and Negroes, I realized she was waiting for a bus. I put out my cigarette and started the car. Libby didn’t seem anxious or furtive. She wore a generously cut pleated shirtdress in light blue, with a big wide belt and sandals, and carried her textbooks as if they weren’t important.
A DSR bus came along and roared to a stop. I wheeled my car into one of the eastbound lanes of Grand River as the bus gobbled up its passengers and continued toward the distant skyline of downtown Detroit.
The radio began to croon Percy Faith’s “Theme from ‘A Summer Place.’ ” I’d heard it to death already. I twirled the knob to the next station: Elvis doing “Stuck on You.” Much better. I kept the left lane of Grand River, and followed the bus at the thirty-five mph speed limit. The back ad panel advertised Channel 7, WXYZing, Detroit’s Big Station.
I wondered where the hell my sister was going.
The bus stopped at every major cross street. Each time I hugged the curb, watching fruitlessly for Libby as people got on and off. We passed near the National Food Store where I worked and I flipped it the finger as we went by, knowing I was out of there in less than a week. St. Mary’s Catholic, Ward’s and Penney’s, the Bow Wow Coney Island, the Bel-shaw plant. Traffic was light, but the speed limit was thirty now and we crawled. Winkelman’s, Sears, Charlie’s Cadillac and Dawson Edsel; downtown was rising before my eyes and still no Libby—
I damn near blew it. The bus stopped across from the Riviera Theatre; I watched the disembarking passengers idly and then scanned the marquee: A Tall Story starring Tony Perkins and Jane Fonda. When the bus moved on, I did too, and belatedly spotted Libby half-jogging across Grand River headed for the front of the theater.
Cursing myself, I U-turned in front of Kresge’s and came back as several homebound commuters honked angrily. Libby was not in sight. One thing I knew for sure: she didn’t need to come all the way down here for movies, not with the Redford Theatre right around the corner from our house.
I gingerly turned north on Riviera Street. Libby was half a block away, crossing the narrow street toward the front of a gaunt, gray, two story apartment building. As I rolled slowly that way, she went inside. I pulled into the Riviera Theatre’s parking lot across from the apartment building, drove down to the end, and parked by a tree.