Adele and I were eye to eye. The waitress didn’t know what was going on and didn’t much care. She moved away from the booth.
“I didn’t say he did,” Adele said, playing who-blinks-first.
“Tilly says he did,” I said.
She shook her head.
“You figure Tilly’s going to tell that to a cop or a judge or a social worker? You think anyone would believe him?”
There was no reason to go on with this. I would leave that to Sally. Back in Chicago, I was on a case in which a dying black drug dealer, a kid a few years older than Adele, had been stabbed six times in the stomach. He was in a hospital emergency room when I saw him. He was dying and he knew it. The cop I was with asked the kid who had knifed him. He said it was his best friend, his street partner, but he wouldn’t give a statement against him.
“Him and me,” he said. “We was always tight. He was good to me, like, you know, a brother. He was real good to me till he killed me.”
The waitress came back with Ames’s apple pie.
“Fresh enough?” she asked.
“It’ll do,” he said, reaching for the fork.
“I’m real happy to hear that,” said the waitress, putting our check on the table and moving away.
Adele started to eat again, her eyes down. She was either thinking hard or working hard at not thinking.
Ames nudged me. I looked at him and he nodded toward the window.
The door of the Buick was opening.
A man I recognized stepped out. It was my guardian angel, the short, tough-looking bulky little man with less hair than I had, the one who had saved me from a hospital-size beating, or worse.
He didn’t look in our direction and Ames and I looked away before he caught me.
“What’re you two doing?” Adele asked, looking out the window.
“Ever see that man before?” I asked, still working on my chowder. “Man closing the door on that blue Buick?”
“No,” said Adele. “Wait. Is he coming in here to get me or something?”
“No,” I said. “I’m just being careful.”
“Fucking paranoid,” she said.
“I’d appreciate your watching your language when you’re in my presence,” Ames said.
“Who the…?” Adele began and then found Ames looking at her, fork holding a piece of pie.
Adele shrugged and pushed her plate away. Ames finished his pie. The bulky short man came into Denny’s and headed for the men’s room without glancing our way. He almost waddled.
I considered following him into the men’s room, asking him what was going on, what did he want, who did he know, but I dropped the idea. He wouldn’t tell me and I owed him one. There was also no long-term point in getting out and running while he was occupied. He knew where to find me. There was, however, a short-term reason for losing him: Adele.
“Let’s go,” I said. “Now, fast.”
I dropped a twenty on the table, a too-generous tip.
Ames put down his fork and Adele slid slowly out of her side of the booth.
“The guy in the Buick,” she said.
I didn’t answer. We moved toward the door.
“He’s after me,” she said, looking toward the men’s room.
Ames touched her arm, guided her quickly toward the door. Adele was shaking again. When we got in the car, Ames sat in the back with Adele while I drove. “I didn’t believe you,” she said.
“About what?”
“About my mother being dead. You were just trying to get me to say something bad about Dwight.”
“No, little lady,” said Ames. “Your mom’s dead.”
In the rearview mirror I could see Adele looking up at him and seeing the truth. Her mouth was open. The first cry was more of a scream, and then the tears came. Ames put his arms around her. She leaned against his chest, her fists clenched. Her right hand went up and for a second it looked as if her thumb was searching for her mouth. It stopped short and her fist rubbed against her cheek.
She didn’t stop crying until we pulled up in front of Sally’s office building.
Sally was waiting downstairs in front of the glass doors. Her arms were folded across her chest. She was wearing a very businesslike black skirt and a matching black jacket over a white blouse.
“I’m not telling her,” Adele said as I pulled up in front of Sally. “About the dead guy.”
“Up to you,” I said, getting out of the car.
Adele got out too, but Ames stayed where he was. Before she moved toward Sally, Adele looked at Ames. He looked back at her. There was something going on, some understanding, maybe some respect on her part.
“Adele,” Sally said, stepping forward, her arms now at her side.
“Sally,” Adele said cautiously.
“I can use a small hug,” Sally said, looking at me. “Or a big one.”
Adele moved to Sally and put her arms around her.
“I’ve got to go,” I said.
Sally nodded and met my eyes.
“I’ll call you later.”
“Do that,” she said, one arm now around Adele, who was crying again.
As she led the girl through the glass door and into the building, I got back in the car.
“She’ll run,” said Ames. “If they don’t lock her up, she’ll run to him.”
“I know,” I said, driving forward.
“What if he wasn’t there to run to?” asked Ames.
“That’s what I was thinking,” I said. “He killed Beryl. He has a record.”
“I was thinkin’ somethin’ faster, surer,” he said as we drove north on Tuttle.
“You can think it,” I said, “but don’t do anything more than think it. You know where I’m going now?”
“Yes,” he said.
“If you come with me, we do it my way,” I said.
“Till your way doesn’t work anymore.”
I looked at him. He didn’t look at me. He seemed to be admiring the trees and houses and, particularly, a concrete mailbox shaped like a manatee.
Sally had told me Dwight Handford worked out of a Texaco station on University Parkway, east of I-75. It was easy to find. It was a self-service place with a double-bay garage and two tow trucks. A good-looking blonde in shorts was pumping gas at one station. The others were empty.
We parked in front of the station, got out of the Geo and stepped inside. There was no one at the cash register, but there were two men working on cars beyond an open door that led to the garage. The hood of one car, a Mazda, was up. A heavyset man with a mop of white hair was leaning deep into the open mouth of the Mazda. He was wearing overalls. The heavyset man was talking to a kid in similar overalls. The older man’s voice echoed within the Mazda.
“Here, see this, right here. Leak.”
“I see,” said the kid, leaning forward.
The kid was skinny. Grease spotted his overalls.
“We’ll have to take the whole damn thing out,” said the heavyset man, easing back out from under the hood. “I told him it might happen. ‘Shit happens,’ I told him. You know what I mean, Arch?”
“I know what you mean,” the kid said. “Shit happens.”
The big man patted the kid on the back once and said,
“You’ll learn something with this one.”
The big man started to clean his hands with a cloth. He looked away from the Mazda at us.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“Dwight Handford,” I said.
“Don’t know the man.”
“Dwight Prescott.”
The big man gritted his teeth, looked away and said,
“He’s not here.”
“When will he be here?” I asked.
“Never,” he said. “If he shows up, I go for my gun and the phone. Son of a bitch should be locked up again.”
“You fired him?”
“Two days ago,” said the big man. “Who are you?”
“Friends of his wife,” I said.
The big man looked at Ames and then back at me.
“He’s married?”
“He was till yesterday,” I said. “She’s dead.”
“He kill her?”
Arch was fascinated by the conversation. He stood listening, mouth slightly open.
“Between you, me, Arch and my friend here, I’d say it was a good bet.”