"He graduated," she said. "He's at the University of Florida. He calls me when he's back here, but Lew, he's still a boy. Maybe things will be different when I go to college, but that's two years away."

"Where are you thinking of going?"

"Lewis," she said. "I've got a baby. The University of North Carolina isn't going to let me go to cla.s.ses with a two-year-old. Flo said she'd come with us wherever we went if I wanted her or she'd pay for a nanny."

"You don't have to think about it for a while," I said.

"I do," Adele said, touching the baby's cheek. "You see, for fifteen years I didn't have a future. Now that I've got one, I want to think about it."

And I, I thought, had a future for almost forty years and now had only a past and a present.

"I've got to go," I said.

"Kids to help, bad guys to catch?" she asked.

"Something like that," I said.

"Say, how about you come over Sunday," she said. "We'll grill stuff. Bring Ames, your friend Sally, and her kids. Flo'll love it."

"I'll get back to you," I said.

I had vaguely planned, if I lived to Sunday, to sleep it away. It had been almost two days since I had slept, and Sundays were the hardest days for me. They held more memories than other days.

I was back at the Texas Bar and Grill twenty minutes later.

The Texas was busy. The buffalo and steer heads on the wall looked content. Johnny Cash sang out that he was walking the line and keeping his eyes wide open, and Ames was talking to someone on the telephone at the bar.

"Your lucky day, Lewis," said Ames, as he put the phone down but didn't hang it up. "Got a fella on the phone, Snickers. Got a sweet tooth. Says he broke into the Hoffmann place two years back, doesn't want to talk about it. But he says he'll get you in and out if the price is right."

I put my hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and asked Ames, "How much should I offer him?"

"Snickers owes Ed," Ames said, looking at Ed Fairing, who was leaning over a table across the room and laughing along with two customers. "A couple of hundred if you can get it," said Ames. "But he'll take less. He owes Ed."

"Two hundred," I told Ames.

Ames picked up the phone and said, "Man I was telling you about says two hundred."

Pause. Ames covered the mouthpiece and said, "Two hundred and twelve and the bar bill."

"Two hundred and twelve?"

"Doesn't want it to seem like he comes cheap on the first offer."

"How big is his bar bill?"

Ames asked and put the phone aside again.

"Forty-six dollars and change."

"Deal," I said.

Ames relayed my message and handed me the phone.

"Snickers?"

"It is."

"Meet us across the street from Hoffmann's gate at nine tonight. Don't be late. Cash comes half when you get there, half when we get out."

"Fair," Snickers said. "That's fair. Okay if I pick up a few things when we're inside?"

"No," I said.

"See you at nine," Snickers said, and hung up.

I called Reverend Fernando Wilkens's office and spoke to three people before he came on.

"Yes?" he said hopefully.

"If things go right," I said. "I'll have Trasker at that meeting by ten or a little after. Stall."

"Won't be that hard unless the others know the way Trasker plans to vote. They want him there, too."

"I can have someone call and say Trasker is being held up by a flat tire," I said.

"Not necessary. Just bring him, Fonesca."

"I'm pumping as fast as I can," I said. "One more thing. If this works, I'll need more money for someone who's helping me."

"How much?"

"Two hundred and fifty-eight dollars."

"Done," Wilkens said.

I had Wilkens call the mayor, one-third of the solid three. He patched me in so I could hear the conversation.

The mayor was a woman. She was all business and thought that Democrats were a little lower than University of Florida alumni. The mayor was a proud grad of Florida State University. Only the people in Florida and those who followed college football knew that there was a difference.

"Beatrice?" Wilkens said, sounding remarkably sober. "This is Fernando. Just got a call from Bill Trasker. He told me to call you and say he's on his way, but he'll be very late for the meeting. He said to tell you he knows the vote is important and he'll be there if he has to hijack an eighteen-wheeler."

"Why didn't he call me?" she asked suspiciously. "You two are hardly the best of friends."

"Perhaps he couldn't reach you," Wilkens said. "You can ask him tonight. I have to go now."

Wilkens hung up before the mayor could ask any more questions.

I called Sally at her office and asked her if she could meet me for pizza with the kids at Honey Crust in about an hour. First she said she didn't think so. Then she said, "Lewis, I've made a discovery. I'm tired and I can't save the world."

"You knew that already."

"Yes," she said. "I knew it, but somehow I wake up in the morning, providing I've been able to sleep, and manage to convince myself that maybe, just maybe I can keep one kid's raft afloat for another day. Okay. We'll be there in an hour."

"What about the one with the gun?" Ames said when I hung up. "Might take another shot at you."

"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 Pa.s.s 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 k.n.o.bby 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 c.o.ke 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 b.u.t.ton 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 a.s.sume 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 Mich.e.l.le 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."