“Want to come with us for pizza?”
“No, but I can stay outside the place.”
“I know who it is, Ames,” I said, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt. “I know who shot at me at Midnight Pass and the Laundromat. I don’t think they’ll take another chance. I’ll be fine. A little before nine about fifty yards down from Hoffmann’s gate.”
He nodded.
“Suit yourself,” he said, and started to turn toward the back of the bar.
“Wait,” I said, reaching into the bag I was carrying and handing him a small desk clock with a picture of John Wayne on the face. The Duke was wearing a red vest, a battered brown cowboy hat, and over his shoulder, a shotgun not unlike the one Ames liked to hide under his slicker when weaponry was called for.
“Hondo,” Ames said, picking up the clock.
“I noticed you didn’t have a clock in your room,” I said. “This one works on batteries. Even has an alarm.”
Ames touched the face of the clock with the long knobby fingers of his right hand and said, “Thank you, Lewis,” he said. “I’ll set it for eight-thirty.”
“One more thing,” I said. “Flo’s having a barbecue Sunday. Adele said she wanted you to come.”
I got along well with Adele, but it was Ames she had bonded with and he with her. They hardly ever said a word to each other when they were together, but it was there.
“Tell me when. I’ll be there.”
I left.
I drove around for twenty minutes through subdivisions just off of Lockwood Ridge to be sure no one was following me. No one was. I got to Honey Crust a little before Sally and the kids arrived. There was the usual evening crowd and the smell of onions, garlic, and oregano.
Sally sat across from me in the booth. Michael sat next to me. Susan sat next to her mother. We ordered a large deep-dish with onions, pepperoni, and sausage with extra cheese. We got a pitcher of Diet Coke and a large salad to share while we waited.
“You have that statement for me?” Sally asked.
She meant the one she wanted to put in her file about the Severtsons, the one in which I told her what had happened in Orlando.
“Here,” I said, pulling it from the paper bag between Michael and me.
“It’s all true, right, Lew?” Sally said, taking it.
“What’s there is true,” I said. “What’s there is not all. It’s the best I can do right now.”
She nodded and placed the folded sheets neatly into her purse.
“What’s this?” Michael asked, looking down at the paper bag.
I reached into it and came up with an Elvis Presley statue about five inches high. He was standing on a square black box. Elvis was wearing a black-and-white horizontal shirt and pants. He was holding a guitar. I handed it to Sally.
“There’s a button on his back,” I said, showing her where it was. “Push it.”
She did.
“Someone threw a party at the county jail,” Elvis sang. His voice was small and tinny but it was Elvis. That was all he sang.
“Fonesca,” she said, looking at it. “Sometimes I worry about you.”
“You have enough to worry about. You like it?”
“It’s great,” she said, leaning over the table to kiss my cheek. “I’ll keep it on my desk at work.”
“I assume you have something equally nuts for us,” said Susan.
“I do,” I said, reaching into the bag and pulling out a Buffy the Vampire Slayer doll. It was still in the box.
“It’s old,” she said.
“Susan,” Sally warned.
“And it’s not Sarah Michelle Gellar,” Susan said, looking at the doll’s face.
“It’s Kristy Swanson,” I said. “She was in the movie. She was the first Buffy.”
“No way,” Susan said.
“Definitely way,” said Michael, leaning over to see what there was for him.
It was a piece of thick folded paper. The white was showing. I handed it to Michael and he started to unfold it. When he had it down to the last fold, he stood up and let the poster flop open.
“‘Star Wars: Episode Two,’” he said. “Nice copy.”
“It’s original,” I said. “It’s signed by Carrie Fisher.”
He turned the poster around and examined the white dress of Princess Leia. There was the signature.
“It’s real?” he said.
“It’s real,” I said.
“Mom,” Michael said, folding the poster carefully. “Marry this man.”
“He’s…” Susan started, and looked at her Buffy doll. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t marry people because they buy you things,” Sally said.
“It doesn’t hurt,” Michael said, sitting down, poster in his lap. “And lots of people do marry other people because they give them things.”
“But they don’t stay happy with just things,” Susan said. “Right?”
She was looking at Sally, who was smiling at Elvis.
“Right,” Sally said, putting Elvis on the table.
We finished a pitcher of Diet Coke and our salad and the pizza came. Susan ate the most. Michael was second. Sally third, and I had a single slice.
“Is this like the real way pizza’s supposed to be?” Susan asked me.
“Tastes fine to me,” I said.
“You’re Italian,” Susan said. “You should know. Didn’t your mother make pizza?”
“No.”
“Your grandmother?”
“No.”
“How can you be Italian? My mom makes matzo ball soup.”
“So did my mom,” I said.
“But you’re Italian, not Jewish.”
“We liked matzoball soup,” I said.
“You know,” Susan said. “I can never tell when you’re serious and when you’re trying to be funny.”
“It’s a curse,” I said. “I’m working with a doctor to find the charm that’ll free me.”
We finished the pizza and I paid the check. Sally left the tip. It was what we had agreed to do whenever I invited them out.
I walked them to their Honda, each carrying the gift I’d given them from Mickey’s Collectibles.
“Come over for dinner Sunday,” Sally said.
She looked tired but she was smiling. Her skin was clear, and in the red, white, and yellow lights of the stores in the mall she reminded me of Ava Gardner in The Barefoot Contessa.
“Adele invited us to come to Flo’s for a barbecue,” I said. “You, the kids, me, Ames.”
“What time?” she asked.
I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Michael and Susan waved to me as Sally drove off. I checked my watch. If I didn’t drive too fast, I’d be in front of Hoffmann’s at least fifteen minutes before nine.
14
I was across from Kevin Hoffmann’s impressive iron gate and high brick walls at ten minutes to nine. I didn’t
