one?” he asks me.
“No, thank you, and kindly quit trying to distract me.”
He tosses one of the lemon drops up in the air the way you do peanuts. “What’s giving your bounteous brain such a workout that you don’t have time to enjoy the finer things in life?”
“Well, amongst other things,” I say, looking past him at my sister, “Papa is threatening to send Woody away because she won’t talk.”
Sam jerks his head up and gives me a long, lingering look, like he wants to tell me something, but he doesn’t. That’s another of the qualities I really appreciate about him. He isn’t getting ready to say, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.” He knows that spouting that kind of hooey doesn’t make you feel better at all.
“And Beezy told me this morning that she believes that I might be takin’ too big a bite out of this rescuing- Mama idea,” I say. “She thinks I could use somebody to help me out. You know anybody like that? I can pay. Been beatin’ the snot out of Mr. Jackson and Louise in five card.”
“Son, would you mind bringing me that bar of candy that’s sitting on my desk?” Sam says to E. J.
See that? Just like Beezy, Sam is excellent at changing directions whenever the subject of my mama comes up. I have hinted and hinted, but he hasn’t yet offered to apply his detecting skills to find her. He’s a generous soul, so I don’t think he’s being withholding. No, it’s a combination of perfectly good reasons that he’s not stepping into the batter’s box.
I believe Sam lost some confidence after his partner get shot dead right before his eyes. A bad guy, whose name I’m sure was Stumpy or The Maggot or something simply awful like that, ambushed Johnny Sardino, who was Sam’s police partner and best friend. How that killing creep managed to get out on bail I can’t imagine, but the police found him dead two days later in a Decatur alley. It took some time to identify The Maggot because his face had been beaten to a pulp, but when the cops finally figured out who it was, the shadow of suspicion immediately fell upon Detective Sam Moody. Charges were pressed against him, but on account of what is known in legal circles as insufficient evidence, Sam got off. But not entirely so. His chief called him into his office and explained to him that even though he would be sorely missed by one and all, he thought it would be for the best if Sam took an early retirement. (He doesn’t know that I know this. I pried this out of Beezy.) Grampa lectures that “revenge is a dish best served cold,” but just like almost everything else he says, I disagree. When the wrong is still piping hot, when your blood is still on the boil,
“Here ya go,” E. J. says, coming out of the station office with the Baby Ruth in hand. He winds up and tosses it to Sam, who catches it one-handed.
“You know, now that I see this chocolate up close, I just recalled I need to lose a few pounds,” Sam says, throwing the bar back to E. J. “Go ahead and eat that temptation for me, will you?” (What he’s really doing here is being considerate of E. J.’s always-complaining stomach. Sam does not at all run on the chunky side. He’s built like a Popsicle stick. Arms and legs just dripping.) “That reminds me. Did you know that in the 1918 World Series the Babe-”
I interrupt him with, “Pardon me?” Sam pitched for a few seasons in the Appalachian League and once Number Eight gets onto the subject of baseball, he can go on and on about who hit this and who caught that. Babe Ruth’s not his favorite player, though. I try to make sure never ever to say the word
Sam gives me the kind of look a pitcher gives a batter when he’s deciding if he’s going to throw a fastball or a screwball. He says, “I ran into the sheriff this morning.”
He settled on the screwball.
“No kiddin’,” I say, not excited. I have suspected for some time that the sheriff is not on the up-and-up. I think Papa wrote Sheriff Nash a nice fat check for his Be-handy-Vote-for-Andy campaign. Sam doesn’t agree with me. He thinks Sheriff Nash is “doing the best he can given the circumstances.” I have seen the two of them now and again chatting away. It’s because they’re both cops that Sam likes Nash. Not me. The sheriff never did find Mama. The man couldn’t locate ants at a picnic. “Did you get anything out of him about Mama’s missing?”
“He’s not at liberty to discuss it,” Sam says.
Figured as much. I know the Eleventh Commandment-
Noticing, Sam points at my wrist and says, “You’re wearing Evie’s watch.”
I hold up my hand so the sun can catch it. “I know you told me to be careful, but… you don’t really mind, do you?”
I let him know right off when I found it last month by the old well. I went straightaway to his place. Sam was down by the creek fishing. “Look what I found!” I said, running up. “It’s the watch you gave Mama and it’s still running!” Since I was feeling like a month of Sundays, I was expecting a much livelier response out of Sam, but the air just went out of him like he’d sprung a leak. I hadn’t considered how seeing the watch might upset him, until I realized that if I gave someone a present nice as this one, I’d expect them to hold it dear. I’d feel that same way if I let myself wonder if Mama ran off and left me and Woody behind.
“Did you come across anything else?” Sam asked, setting his pole down that afternoon.
I said, “No, there wasn’t… oh yeah, there was.” I went into detail about what else I’d found not
He also asked, “Was there… did you find-” I closed my eyes and shook my head. He was asking about the note. Again.
“Sam?”
“I see him, E. J.”
A boy in a shiny white convertible has come flying into the Triple S. Skidding to a halt in front of pump two, he lays on his horn, and yells our way, “I ain’t got all day. Hop to.”
I’ve never actually seen Sam hop to. Mostly he stays on the porch and stares at whoever pulls into the station until he’s sure they’ve reached the worst part of uncomfortable before he decides to sashay their way.
“I’ll go,” E. J. says, starting to get up. “It’s-”
“I know who it is,” Sam says, unfolding his six-foot-and-more self.
It’s Remmy Hawkins. He’s what you’d call the bad boy of our town. A regular James Dean minus the good looks. Remmy’s built like a doorway, but his face is squashed in like he ran into a wall. And he doesn’t hardly ever wear a shirt and won’t care if you just about toss your biscuits looking at his spotty back. Worst of all? The boy’s got red hair. Not that Howdy Doody kind that’s not so bad. Remmy’s is more like Clarabelle’s and he’s just as honking dumb. The kid could throw himself on the ground and miss. His grandfather is the mayor. Remmy works for him doing this and that. Errands and such. And his aunt, Abigail, is the one that keeps bringing food to our place.
E. J. and I watch all atwitter from the porch. Even Woody seems on the edge of her crate when Sam sashays over to the side of the car. He reaches in and turns down the radio that’s blaring “Stand by Your Man,” which I really love and now I can’t anymore because this moron seems to like it, too. Sam says, “What can I do you for today, son?”
Remmy spits out, “I’m not your son, nig-”
Good thing he cut himself off. Woody and I used to settle disputes by playing Eeny Meeny Miney Moe Catch a Nigger by the Toe until Sam taught us, “You can catch a colored by the toe. You can catch a Negro by the toe. Even getting hold of a spade is not all that bad, but calling somebody a nigger? That’s not only behind the times, it’s hurtful.”
Remmy doesn’t look up, but says, “Ya sell gas in this dump, don’tcha?”
“Ya know, Mister Remmy,” Sam says, changing his usual educated voice to sound very much indeed like he just fell off the back of a turnip truck, “I don’ believe there’s nuthin’ I druther do more in the whole wide world than fill up this fancy go car with a tank of gas, no siree, Bob. That’d be a real privilege.”
“I ain’t got all day,” Remmy says, still not looking up.
