woman, waiting there for me. You should have seen her face light up when I gave her the money. Out in the parking lot, I mean.”
“I’ll bet,” I said. “Meet me outside Higher Grounds in ten minutes.”
“Naw. I got a good safe place here. I’m going to just enjoy myself for a couple more days, knowing I did a good thing for a good woman. My scorpion, I named him Rudy. Oh. Oh shit, Robbie.”
Even coming from a satellite orbiting the earth in space, and through the miles of ether it took to travel to my ear, the sound of the shotgun blast was unmistakable. So was the second blast, and the third.
A few days later I flew to Little Rock and rented a car, then made the drive north and west to Center Springs. Farrel was right: it wasn’t on the rental-car company driving map, but it made the navigation unit that came in the vehicle.
The Ozarks were steep and thickly forested and the Arkansas River looked unhurried. I could see thin wisps of wood stove fires burning in cabins down in the hollows and there was a smoky cast to the sky.
The gas station clerk said I’d find Farrel White’s dad’s place down the road a mile, just before Persimmon Holler. He said there was a batch of trailers up on the hillside and I’d see them from the road if I didn’t drive too fast. Billy White had the wooden one with all the satellite dishes on top.
The road leading in was dirt and heavily rutted from last season’s rain. I drove past travel trailers set up on cinder blocks. They were slouched and sun-dulled and some had decks and others just had more cinder blocks as steps. Dogs eyed me without bothering to sit up. There were cats and litter and a pile of engine blocks outside, looked like they’d been cast there by some huge child.
Billy answered my knock with a sudden yank on the door then studied me through the screen. He was mid- fifties and heavy, didn’t look at all like his daughter. He wore a green-andblack plaid jacket buttoned all the way to the top.
“I’m a San Diego cop looking for your daughter. I thought she might have come home.”
“Would you?”
“Would I what?”
“Come home to this from San Diego?”
“Well.”
“She okay?”
“I think so.”
“Come in.”
The trailer was small and cramped and packed with old, overstuffed furniture.
“She in trouble?”
“Farrel and her boyfriend hustled a guy out of some money. But he had to take the money from someone else.”
Billy handed me a beer and plopped into a vinyl recliner across from me. He had a round, impish face and a twinkle in his eyes. “That ain’t her boyfriend. It’s her brother.”
“That never crossed my mind.”
“Don’t look nothing alike. But they’ve always been close. Folks liked to think too close, but it wasn’t ever that way. Just close. They understood each other. They’re both good kids. Their whole point in life was to get outta Center Springs and they done did it. I’m proud of them.”
“What’s his name?”
“Preston.”
“Did they grow up in this trailer?”
“Hell no. We had a home over to Persimmon but it got sold off in the divorce. Hazel went to Little Rock with a tobacco products salesman. The whole story is every bit as dreary as it sounds.”
“When did Farrel and Preston leave?”
“Couple of months ago. The plan was San Diego, then Hollywood. Pretty people with culture and money to spend. They were going to study TV, maybe go start up a show. San Diego was to practice up.”
“The scripts.”
“Got them from the library up at Fayetteville. Made copies of the ones they wanted. Over and over again. Memorizing those scripts and all them words. They went to the Salvation Army stores and bought up lots of old- time kinda clothes. They both did some stage plays at the junior college but they didn’t much care for them. They liked the other kind of stories.”
“What kind of stories?”
“Crime stories. Bad guys. Mafia. That was mainly Preston. Farrel, she can act like anything from the Queen of England to a weather girl and you can’t tell she’s acting.”
“Have they called lately?”
“Been over a week.”
“Where do you think they are?”
“Well, Center Springs is the only place I know they ain’t. I don’t expect to ever see them out this way.”
I did the simple math and the not-so-simple math. Eight grand for two months of work. Farrel dancing for tips. Preston delivering pizza and working his end of the Vic hustle. Vic caught between Farrel’s good acting and his own
