When she heard me coming down the dirt road that led to the big shade trees and the trailer, she stopped her work and waved at me. Pepper came out to run around my car and lead me the rest of the way. Sue and Pepper and the clothes on the line… how much Kenny’s life had changed for the better.
Sue always had a hug for me. “Shush, Pepper,” as the dog raced around and around me. Pepper was in bad need of more visitors, it seemed. All her attention focused on a single person was pretty much overwhelming. “He’s inside working. He got up at dawn and started in. Fortunately I’ve learned how to sleep through the typing. Any special plans for Labor Day?”
The smell of the fresh wet wash was sweet on the dusty heat of the early afternoon. “Nothing planned. I’m working for Harrison Doran.”
She nodded, her pretty Italian face breaking into a smile. “All last night Kenny was telling me how much you hated Doran. He called your office a while ago and talked to Jamie. She said you’d agreed to help him. Molly must have changed your mind.”
“Yeah, Molly did-and Cliffie. He’s already convicted Doran. And there’s no other lawyer in town who’ll help him.”
“I have to say Doran’s pretty hard to take. I sat in Burger-Quik one afternoon and listened to him tell anybody who’d listen what a cool guy he was.”
“Yeah, but still-”
She kissed me on the cheek. “But you’re doing the right thing. Go in and tell Kenny to rest for a while. He needs a break.”
Sue had turned the small silver trailer into a home. The floor was carpeted, the furniture was new, as was the gas range and washerdryer. And gone from the walls were the framed covers of a few of the soft-core novels Kenny had written. All that remained was the framed photograph of Jack Kerouac. Most people had Jesus on their walls, Kenny had Jack.
Kenny worked at a small oak desk pushed against the west wall. Sometimes he worked with music in the background. His taste ran to Miles Davis and John Coltrane and Hank Williams. He could type ninety words a minute perfectly. I never mentioned that to Jamie.
He usually worked nonstop. He wasn’t aware of me until I was two feet from his desk and said, “I don’t think there’s enough sex in that scene.”
He looked up, smiling. “Hey, I hear you’re working for Doran. Good, because the radio makes it sound like he’s already convicted. He’s an asshole, but he deserves somebody helping him.”
I pointed to the paper in his typewriter. “What’s this one?”
“‘Twisted Twilight.’”
“Lesbians?”
“You can’t go wrong with lesbians.”
“Guy comes along and rescues one of them from decadence?”
“Rance Haggarty’s his name. Pro football player and world-class lover. Got a schlong that spoils women for life.” He laughed. “There’s some very cold Pepsi in the fridge. Why don’t you get both of us one?”
“Rance as in ‘rancid’?”
“I keep wanting to write a book where the lesbians end up happily together. You know I correspond with gay women who write soft-core. They’re very bright nice women. Fortunately for me, they understand the market and what you have to do, so they don’t hate me. But then, hell, their own books have to have the endings when one of the women goes off with a guy. Or gets hit by a train.” His laugh hadn’t changed in twenty-two years.
I got our Pepsis. I sat on the couch. Kenny turned his chair around so he could face me. “Time for me to pull out my deerstalker cap?”
“I really need some help. Linda Raines isn’t going to help me and neither is William Hughes. I need to know who really had it in for Bennett.”
“Plenty of people, from what I’ve always heard.”
“But I need to narrow the list down.”
“I can probably do that for you.”
Kenny knew as much about our little town as anybody in it. He started a novel set here when he was still in high school. In doing research, he learned not only our history but also who was who and why in our own time. Despite the books he writes, most people like Kenny. They’ll talk to him because his boyishness puts them at ease.
“Who’re you going to talk to next?”
“Lynn Shanlon. She knows a lot about the Bennett family. I know they never accepted Karen.”
“No surprise there, Sam. She came from the Hills and she had a limp. You sure wouldn’t want either of those things in the blood line.”
“Choate. West Point. Hyannis Port. Lou did all right for himself coming from here.”
“Yeah, but only because his old man inherited a fortune when Lou was eight years old.”
That was what I meant about Kenny knowing the town. “I’d forgotten that. Where’d the money come from?”
“Oil. The father’s brother was a wildcatter. He was also a convicted felon. Nearly killed a man in a bar fight in Waco. Served three years. But all was forgiven when his gushers came in. Full pardon from the governor.” He smiled. “You know how fast money can make you respectable. Surprised the Pope didn’t make him a saint.”
“What about Bennett’s business partner Roy Davenport?”
“Another felon. Lou liked to walk right up to the line legally. He had a number of businesses that probably involved outright crime, including cheap cigarettes in from Canada. He needed a fixer. Davenport was his fixer for the side businesses, but he was impressive enough to meet people at the country club.”
“Why’d Davenport leave Bennett?”
“A woman named Sally Crane. She was one of their secretaries. Lou hired good-looking married women who were willing to stay a little late if there were bonuses in their paychecks. Davenport started sleeping with the Crane woman on the side. Except Bennett didn’t want to share her and couldn’t believe that Davenport actually had feelings for her. They got into a fistfight one night and Davenport beat him up pretty badly. And that was that.”
“If you hear anything more about Davenport, let me know, huh? I already owe you a good meal for what you just told me.”
“I’ll keep calling people, seeing what I can find out.”
By the time I reached the door, Kenny had already turned back to his typewriter. By the time I reached the ground and was greeted by a hand-slurping Pepper, Kenny was punishing his typewriter at a rate poor Jamie could only dream of.
Lynn Shanlon wore a white T-shirt and red shorts. She probably caused more than one man to gawk at her as he passed by in his car. She was comely and cute as she shoved the hand mower across the sloping front yard of her small white clapboard house. If she noticed me pulling into her driveway, she didn’t let on. She thrust that mower with serious intent. A buccaneer of the blades.
I stood on the edge of her lawn and waited until she’d turned back in my direction. I waved when she saw me. She didn’t wave back. She mowed her way to me and then stopped, wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her arm. The displeasure in the brown eyes told me that she knew who I was and didn’t like me at all.
“Wondered if I could talk to you.”
Despite the wrinkles around eyes and mouth, her perfect little features would always keep an air of youth about her.
“I guess you’re forgetting what you did to me, Mr. McCain.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My neighbor down the block-Mrs. Hearne?-you represented her against me. She claimed that my boyfriend’s dog always tore up her garden?”
“She filed the complaint against him, right? Pekins or something like that?”
“Perkins. And it was one of the reasons we broke up. I got too good a deal on this house to move, and he wouldn’t live here with me without his dog.”
“But the dog was tearing up her garden. She had a pretty reasonable complaint.”
She sighed. Her thin arms were covered with blades of grass. She dug into the pocket of her shorts and
