I sometimes found it hard to remember that Adele was only sixteen.
“Got something,” I said, getting the bag I had brought in and placing it next to my bubbling glass of Dr Pepper.
I fished into the bag and came up with a rattle. It was purple and white plastic. I handed it to Adele, who looked at the picture on it and said, “Who’s Clarabelle?”
“A clown,” I said. “From an old television show for kids.”
“Weird looking, isn’t she?”
“Clarabelle was a man,” I said.
“That is weird.”
“Sorry.”
“Sometimes I like weird,” she said, placing the handle of the rattle in Catherine’s right hand. Small pink fingers clutched it tightly and accidentally shook it. The little pellets inside gently clacked. Catherine’s eyes turned toward the rattle.
“Something for you too,” I said, going back into the bag.
I handed her the foot-long cylinder. She turned it over in her hand and read the words on the side next to the picture of the rocket ship.
“Tom, Corbett, Space Cadet?” she asked.
“Another old television show. It’s a kaleidoscope.”
“I gotta say you come up with some weird stuff.”
She held the kaleidoscope up toward the window, closed one eye, and looked into the small round circle. She twisted it a few times and put it down with a smile.
“I like it,” she said. “You are a strange man, Lewis Fonesca. You get something for Flo, too?”
I went back into my bag and came up with a 33 ^1?3 album cover. I showed the cover to her. It was black-and-white with the photograph of a plain-looking man playing a guitar. The only words on it were “Hank Williams.”
“Hank Williams?” Adele said.
Catherine shook the rattle again.
“Flo will understand. The record’s in perfect condition. I’ve got to go.”
“Coming back later? Flo’s bringing back barbecue from that shack she knows on Martin Luther King.”
“Not tonight,” I said. “I’ve got to rescue a man from a castle.”
“Just another day’s work,” she said.
“Another day,” I said.
“Take care of yourself, Lewis,” she said, getting up as I did and moving close to kiss my cheek. “Notice anything?”
“What?”
“My language,” she said. “Flo and I have cleaned up together. Take care of yourself.”
She smiled and looked at Catherine, who was trying to focus on the rattle.
“How are things really going?” I asked.
“Hard,” she said. “I don’t really fit in. It’s not the baby. I’m just not a kid like the rest of them. I pretend. I get along and everyone knows about Catherine and they’re cool with it. See, I can even say words like ‘cool’ when I remember. But I don’t have any real friends but you and Flo. I’m not complaining. That’s fine with me, but it’s not easy. You understand?”
“What about that boy you were seeing? The one who worked at Burger King?”
“He graduated,” she said. “He’s at the University of Florida. He calls me when he’s back here, but Lew, he’s still a boy. Maybe things will be different when I go to college, but that’s two years away.”
“Where are you thinking of going?”
“Lewis,” she said. “I’ve got a baby. The University of North Carolina isn’t going to let me go to classes with a two-year-old. Flo said she’d come with us wherever we went if I wanted her or she’d pay for a nanny.”
“You don’t have to think about it for a while,” I said.
“I do,” Adele said, touching the baby’s cheek. “You see, for fifteen years I didn’t have a future. Now that I’ve got one, I want to think about it.”
And I, I thought, had a future for almost forty years and now had only a past and a present.
“I’ve got to go,” I said.
“Kids to help, bad guys to catch?” she asked.
“Something like that,” I said.
“Say, how about you come over Sunday,” she said. “We’ll grill stuff. Bring Ames, your friend Sally, and her kids. Flo’ll love it.”
“I’ll get back to you,” I said.
I had vaguely planned, if I lived to Sunday, to sleep it away. It had been almost two days since I had slept, and Sundays were the hardest days for me. They held more memories than other days.
I was back at the Texas Bar and Grill twenty minutes later.
The Texas was busy. The buffalo and steer heads on the wall looked content. Johnny Cash sang out that he was walking the line and keeping his eyes wide open, and Ames was talking to someone on the telephone at the bar.
“Your lucky day, Lewis,” said Ames, as he put the phone down but didn’t hang it up. “Got a fella on the phone, Snickers. Got a sweet tooth. Says he broke into the Hoffmann place two years back, doesn’t want to talk about it. But he says he’ll get you in and out if the price is right.”
I put my hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and asked Ames, “How much should I offer him?”
“Snickers owes Ed,” Ames said, looking at Ed Fairing, who was leaning over a table across the room and laughing along with two customers. “A couple of hundred if you can get it,” said Ames. “But he’ll take less. He owes Ed.”
“Two hundred,” I told Ames.
Ames picked up the phone and said, “Man I was telling you about says two hundred.”
Pause. Ames covered the mouthpiece and said, “Two hundred and twelve and the bar bill.”
“Two hundred and twelve?”
“Doesn’t want it to seem like he comes cheap on the first offer.”
“How big is his bar bill?”
Ames asked and put the phone aside again.
“Forty-six dollars and change.”
“Deal,” I said.
Ames relayed my message and handed me the phone.
“Snickers?”
“It is.”
“Meet us across the street from Hoffmann’s gate at nine tonight. Don’t be late. Cash comes half when you get there, half when we get out.”
“Fair,” Snickers said. “That’s fair. Okay if I pick up a few things when we’re inside?”
“No,” I said.
“See you at nine,” Snickers said, and hung up.
I called Reverend Fernando Wilkens’s office and spoke to three people before he came on.
“Yes?” he said hopefully.
“If things go right,” I said. “I’ll have Trasker at that meeting by ten or a little after. Stall.”
“Won’t be that hard unless the others know the way Trasker plans to vote. They want him there, too.”
“I can have someone call and say Trasker is being held up by a flat tire,” I said.
“Not necessary. Just bring him, Fonesca.”
“I’m pumping as fast as I can,” I said. “One more thing. If this works, I’ll need more money for someone who’s helping me.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred and fifty-eight dollars.”
“Done,” Wilkens said.
I had Wilkens call the mayor, one-third of the solid three. He patched me in so I could hear the conversation.
The mayor was a woman. She was all business and thought that Democrats were a little lower than University of Florida alumni. The mayor was a proud grad of Florida State University. Only the people in Florida and those who followed college football knew that there was a difference.
“Beatrice?” Wilkens said, sounding remarkably sober. “This is Fernando. Just got a call from Bill Trasker. He told me to call you and say he’s on his way, but he’ll be very late for the meeting. He said to tell you he knows the vote is important and he’ll be there if he has to hijack an eighteen-wheeler.”
“Why didn’t he call me?” she asked suspiciously. “You two are hardly the best of friends.”
“Perhaps he couldn’t reach you,” Wilkens said. “You can ask him tonight. I have to go now.”
Wilkens hung up before the mayor could ask any more questions.
I called Sally at her office and asked her if she could meet me for pizza with the kids at Honey Crust in about an hour. First she said she didn’t think so. Then she said, “Lewis, I’ve made a discovery. I’m tired and I can’t save the world.”
“You knew that already.”
“Yes,” she said. “I knew it, but somehow I wake up in the morning, providing I’ve been able to sleep, and manage to convince myself that maybe, just maybe I can keep one kid’s raft afloat for another day. Okay. We’ll be there in an hour.”