He bent down to sniff over the plate like a leery polecat. "What be this stuff?"
"A cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, onions, pickle relish, and mustard. I might add that I am often told I fry the best cheeseburger on this side of Starley City," Ruby Bee said. She didn't sound real friendly.
"I ain't eating this crap." Hammet pushed the plate away and lunged for another bag of corn chips.
I caught his wrist and explained that he was going to eat the cheeseburger, one way or another, and that one of those ways included physical acts on my part and a great deal of discomfort on his. He offered a comment that implied I had engaged in a series of unnatural sexual encounters with various barnyard animals. Ruby Bee cut in with a few comments that might have come from the prissy lips of dear Mrs. Jim Bob. Hammet repeated the terse yet effective witticism that gave Mrs. Jim Bob the bout of hyperventilation. Ruby Bee slapped her hand to her heart and started hyperventilating. I suggested everybody shut up. Nobody did.
We were going at it real good when the kitchen door opened and out waddled Dahlia O'Neill. She was wearing her customary tent dress (which could have slept six-and probably had on more than one occasion) and an apron embroidered with daisies and her name. The sight stopped me in mid-word. Even Hammet broke off with a gasp, giving Ruby Bee the golden opportunity to swoop in for the last word. A favorite hobby of hers.
"I have never in all my born days heard such filthy language. You just eat that cheeseburger right now, young man!" She stepped around Dahlia and vanished into the kitchen.
"How ya doing, Arly?" Dahlia said.
"Fine," I croaked. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm the new barmaid. Madam Celeste-do you know her? Well, anyways, she told me that I needed to make what she called a career move, so I quit my job at the Kwik-Screw. Ruby Bee done hired me as a barmaid, and it's working out right nice. She, meaning Madam Celeste and not Ruby Bee, told Kevin the exact same thing, which is why he's cleaning the commodes at the high school and sweeping nights at the PD. You must of seen him, Arly-you being the chief of police and all."
"I've seen him," I admitted. Maybe Madam Celeste would counsel a career move for me. Something in the range of five hundred miles.
Dahlia beamed. "I figured out you had. You want I should get you a beer or something?"
"I'll take coffee, and Hammet'll have a glass of milk."
She figured out how to open the refrigerator under the bar for milk and, after a few false moves, how to coax coffee from the urn. All this in less than five minutes, too. Hammet tore into the cheeseburger with the grace of a hyena, splattering his bare torso and a goodly part of the immediate area with grease. By the time Dahlia put a glass in front of him, he'd polished the burger off and was peering from under his brow at the chips.
"I'll ask this woman to bring you a piece of pie-if you agree to a bath afterward," I said.
"Don't need no goddamn bath." He rubbed his palm across his glistening front, then carefully licked it.
"But are you willing to submit to one in exchange for a piece of Ruby Bee's homemade apple pie-with a scoop of ice cream?"
"I don't need no goddamn bath 'til next year. Creek's colder'n a well-digger's ass."
"My creek is not, however. My creek is warm, and it doesn't have any crawdads, snapping turtles, minnows, or rusty cans in it. Deal?"
He nodded without enthusiasm. Dahlia, who'd been listening to all this with a perplexed look, served the pie and even remembered the ice cream. His enthusiasm restored, Hammet tore into it.
"Why's he with you?" Dahlia asked, her cheeks puffed out like a bullfrog's on a summer night as she watched Hammet slurping his way through dessert.
"In the metaphysical sense, I have no idea. Mrs. Jim Bob gave him to me, and I haven't figured out how to pass him along to someone else." I nudged my ward. "You ready for a bath and an exciting ride in a jeep?"
We went to my apartment, and he did indeed take a bath while I washed his overalls in the sink, then dashed over to the Suds of Fun and stuck them in a dryer for a few minutes. When I returned, I threw them into the bathroom. I then called the sheriff's office to arrange for a vehicle worthy of logging trails, dried-out creek beds, animal carcasses, and whatever else I expected we'd encounter.
Hammet came out of the bathroom, his hair slicked down and minus a couple of layers of grime. "That's right smart," he said as he looked around curiously. "Havin' water in the house, I mean. It ain't bad, lady."
I told him he could call me Arly, which brought a shy smile. We went across the street to the PD to get my car, then drove over to Starley City. Hammet had a good time playing with the radio, which actually was functional for the moment. I filled out the paperwork at the county compound, took the keys to a spiffy red jeep, and had enough sense to grab a survey map before we set out into the vast, skimpily charted wasteland of Cotter's Ridge.
"I will see you for only ten minutes," Madam Celeste said through the screen door. "I have a busy schedule, and I do not like to be inconvenienced by intrusions. But stop that whining and come in."
Carol Alice Plummer glanced over her shoulder, then slipped inside. "Thank you kindly for taking me without an appointment, Madam Celeste. I'm in terrible trouble, and I just can't think what to do. You see, I told Bo what you said about us being incompatible because he's a four and I'm a six. Well, you'd of thought I said his foreparents were all white trash. He started fuming and swearing and-"
"Come to the solarium," Madam Celeste said, pointedly looking at her watch. "I have no time to listen to you dither."
Carol Alice followed the psychic through the dining room. "Anyways, Madam, Bo got so teed off that he told my pa that I was under some sort of magic spell. Then Pa got madder than a coon in a poke and said he was going to whip me so hard I'd forget all this tomfoolery and start worrying about cheerleading practice, like I used to do all the time."
Madam Celeste pointed at a chair. "Sit down and be quiet, you silly girl. You should not have repeated the details of your reading; in fact, I told you quite clearly that everything I reveal to you must be kept confidential."
"I had to tell Bo something when I broke up with him."
"You did not have to involve me in your petty love affairs. You should have told him nothing." Madam Celeste's eyes narrowed. "So both this miserable boy and your father are upset, yes? What do they intend to do?"
"I don't know," Carol Alice said, gulping. "Bo takes after his pa, who gets as mean as a diamondback rattlesnake when he drinks. And my pa ain't exactly Prince Charming, even when he's sober. Of course it's getting near deer season, so that might distract them. They're real big on hunting."
"What comfort for me to know they possess guns," Madam Celeste said coldly. After a minute of thought, she said, "I shall give you a reading right now, and for this one time will not charge you the regular fee. We will use the Mesopotamian sand, I think."
"Oh, that'd be great. Is there any chance the sand'll tell me that Bo and I can get married next June like we planned to do? Then Bo'd stop being so mad, and maybe Pa'd stop saying all those wild things about coming over here to have it out with you."
"I cannot say what the sand will reveal. The Mesopotamian sand can be very precise, or it can be general and only reveal trends. Here, make a handprint and allow me to study in silence."
Carol Alice managed to hold her snuffling to a minimum while the psychic gazed into the Tupperware bowl, but it wasn't easy. She hadn't told Madam some of the names Pa had used, nor had she mentioned that Bo and some of his football buddies had some right ugly plans. If only Bo had understood when she had tried her darndest to explain-about the numbers and the vibrations and everything…Maybe, she thought with a wince, he was all riled up because he'd just finished telling her he had his uncle's Trans Am for the whole weekend. Carol Alice knew what that meant. After all, didn't she have a sister over in Hasty with living, screaming proof? She wondered if she'd sounded a mite relieved when she said she wasn't going out with him no more. She sighed noisily.