Jim Lonborg.?
Coca-Cola and Wonderbread delivered their wares during the morning, and that was all that kept Cubbah from sacking out and letting Mrs. Riley run things for a while.
Wonderbread bet ten on the Philadelphia Bells over Chicago, and Coca-Cola told Cubbah that Angie was fooling around with Seven-Up. He also dropped off twelve nickel-and-dime bets from his plant.
At lunchtime Cubbah?s twelve-year-old, Bennie, showed up from St. Joseph?s. Bennie was supposed to help his father with the lunch crowd. This started by taking all the three-ounce hamburger patties out of the fridge, and stacking them on the counter.
?How?d you do on your big math test?? Joe Cubbah asked as they worked.
The boy bit off some Boarshead liverwurst. ?Ninety-three,? he said.
?Ninety-three your ass.? Cubbah?s face showed some pain. ?What?d you get, a fucking thirty-nine, Bennie??
The boy shrugged, smiled, talked with brown meat all over his teeth. ?Sister d?in finish correcting them. Sister Dominica had a heart attack or sum?n. So Sister Marie d?in finish correcting the math.?
?So now you?re all happy poor Sister Dominica had a heart attack, huh??
?Nah ? Well, a little bit.?
Joe Cubbah laughed. Bennie was fat and funny, and sometimes he liked the little chublet better than anybody else.
Just then Cubbah looked up and saw a police detective he knew named Michael Shea. Shea was a nothing plainclothesman, but he dressed better than the mayor of Philadelphia. He was wearing a neat gray plaid suit with patent leather loafers. He was standing by the screen door, looking around like he owned the place. He nodded to Cubbah, then started to walk back toward the kitchen.
Cubbah poured two cups of coffee, then went back himself.
?Hey, sweets.? Shea gave him smiling Irish eyes. ?How you makin it??
?Little of this, little of that,? Cubbah said. ?How?s it with you??
?Can?t complain,? the nattily dressed policeman said. ?That your boy?? he pointed a finger and a signet ring out to the main store.
?That?s Bennie,? Cubbah said. He was trying to be nice. ?He?s failin? out of grammar school, the chooch.?
Shea grinned effectively. ?Listen Joey.? He sat down on the edge of the stove. ?I have a possible for you??
?Yeah, I know,? Cubbah said. ?Tell me about it, Mikey.?
Shea told Cubbah all that he knew?which was basically that another hired gun, a tricky, expensive guy, was being set up somewhere down South. He said someone else would be around with all the details if Cubbah took the job. They?d give him the place, and the exact time schedule he?d need to work under.
?They?re offering ten plus expenses.? Shea took a Danish to go with his coffee. ?Somebody thought you might be the perfect guy for it.?
?Yeah, that?s real nice of somebody,? Cubbah said. ?Does this other guy have any idea somebody might be out after him?? Cubbah asked.
?My people say
What the hell, I?d tell you something like that first thing out of the box.?
Shea took out a thick envelope that looked like an unbelievably huge phone bill. ?Half now, half later,? he said. ?You want it??
Joe Cubbah shook his head slowly from side to side. ?No owsies,? he said.
Shea then took out a second envelope and set it down on the first. ?I forgot,? he grinned. ?Sorry about that, sweets.?
?OK,? Cubbah said. He put both envelopes under his apron. ?I?ll think about it,? he said.
He left Shea and walked out in the main part of the store again.
?Hey, wait a minute,? Shea called after him. ?What?s this think about it shit??
But Joe Cubbah had no more to say to the detective.
Whitehaven, July 2
Magnolias and azalias wave like high and low flags along the long, straight, whitestone drive leading up to the Powelton Country Club in the southwestern corner of Tennessee. The trees and bushes eventually open onto a grand antebellum plantation house with a great flagstone porch and thirty-foot-high Doric pillars. The ponderous building dwarfs people, motorcars, the realities of the twentieth century.
Short-haired blackmen in white coats shuffle around with silver trays holding mint julep, Jack Daniels, even Budweiser and a little Falstaff these days. Boys and girls ride and swim, play golf and tennis; and they fuck in the abandoned slaves? cabins still standing around the grounds.
For five thousand dollars annual dues, the residents of western Tennessee can enjoy the South of their daddies and mammies at the Powelton Club.
On one end of the long, flagstone porch, Johnboy Terrell sits with silver-headed Dr. Reuven Mewman, a famous veterinarian with enough cotton money to paper both ends of all the Q-tips sold in America.
People watch the two men from respectable distances. Even the black waiters watch. They all try to guess what Johnboy wants with the Silver Fox.
Terrell was puffing on a satisfying, but dangerously dark Corona. ?I have recently read a very outstandin? book
