Madness In Maggody

Hammet and his companions were hunkered down way in the back corner of the baseball-practice pasture, hidden for the most part by a scraggly mess of stunted firs and prickly blackberry bushes.

Their expressions ran a broad gamut, from shock and incredulousness to straight-out disgust. Eyes widened from time to time, and jaws were going up and down as if they were chewing big wads of bubble gum.

"I cain't believe that," Hammet gasped.

"I don't even wa

"I may just puke. Look at that calf slobber all over them."

"That one's homely enough to crack a mirror, fer chrissake. Why'd anyone want to put whipped cream there?"

Hammet bravely turned the page.

10

Ruby Bee's was sparsely populated, which was fine with me. I waved to a couple of people in the front booth, then stopped in the middle of the dance floor as I caught sight of the occupant in the last booth, way back in the corner where it was almost too dark to read the menu. Jim Bob was slumped down so far, his head was barely even with the back of the booth, and he appeared to be having a dispirited conversation with three beer pitchers and a bowl of pretzels.

As far as I could tell, he was doing all the talking, but you never know.

Ruby Bee hissed at me to get myself over to the bar. I sat on a stool beside Estelle, who was hunched over a glass of sherry and snorting under her breath.

"Where have you been?" Ruby Bee snapped.

"I'm surprised you don't know every single place I've set foot in today," I said. "What's the matter-grapevine let you down? What a shame."

"Don't get prissy with me, Miss Mute Mouth. You sailed out of here a good seven hours ago…and you didn't have the decency to warn me you wouldn't be back until late. Then you had the audacity to order me to go watch those youngsters beat each other up. Then you hung up on me just like I was trying to sell you vinyl siding."

"All true." I nudged Estelle. "Have fun at baseball practice?"

She took a deep drink of sherry, and in a voice more suited to a heavy smoker on a respirator, said, "I think you're right about them not being ready to play on Thursday." She pulled back her cuff to show me a red, crescent-shaped indentation. "You see that? Teeth marks. All I was doing was trying to pull them apart, and now I most likely need a tetanus shot. My legs took like I was stomping purple grapes to make wine."

I was about to show her the bruises on my shins when something struck me. I'll readily admit I don't have a great memory and the cliché about out of sight and so on has some personal applications. While living in Manhattan (the cat-burglar capital of the world), I'd dialed 911 once when I'd heard someone trying to get into my apartment, but at the last second remembered I was married and what's his face not only lived there but also had a key. During my senior year in high school, I dropped Ruby Bee off for a doctor's appointment in Farberville, bought a fashion magazine at the drugstore, and was home reading on the sofa when I realized something was amiss(-ing). I never attempt to introduce anyone to anyone. I check myself in the mirror when leaving, not out of vanity but out of concern I might have forgotten to button my shirt or put on my badge.

"I drove by the field," I said carefully, "to make sure you two were there. I told you to expect seven players, but I saw only six. Where was Hammet?"

Ruby Bee fluttered her hand. "He…he had other things to do, I guess. Maybe he got busy."

"What other things?"

Estelle snorted. "Other things. He had other things to do, that's all."

"He left under his own steam," Ruby Bee added. "He was right upset about you abandoning him, if you must know."

"Is he at my apartment?" I asked.

"Why don't you call and find out for yourself." She flounced away to a safe distance, muttering something about someone's inability to keep track of her own houseguests.

I went over to the pay telephone and called, but there was no answer. My palms were wet as I replaced the receiver, and my legs weren't at their best as I went back to the bar. "Listen, you two, I want to know where Hammet is. We've got a maniac ru

Ruby Bee's defiant expression slipped. "Is it true what I heard about Buzz Milvin's mother-in-law?"

"Heard what from whom?" I said.

She fiddled with her apron for a minute, shooting desperate little glances at Estelle, who managed not to notice. "Well, I just happened happened to call over to the sheriff's office, hoping I might find out where you were, and LaBelle may have said something about the ambulance and all. When I happened to call back later in case she'd heard from you, she told me Buzz and Martin were at the hospital and poor Mrs. Smew was headed for the morgue."

I poked Estelle's arm. "Okay, let's get all the gossip out in the open. What did you say Perkins's eldest said Mrs. Jim Bob said-or something like that, anyway? Go ahead, spit it out. I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

"Mrs. Jim Bob took a message for Jim Bob from some bank in Little Rock or Hot Springs; Perkins's eldest wasn't real sure which. I don't know why she'd get the two mixed up. They don't sound the least bit alike, you know. If it was Springdale or Springfield, I could see why-"

"It doesn't matter," I cut in. "Mrs. Jim Bob took a message from a bank. Did he bounce a check?"

"No, but after she hung up, Mrs. Jim Bob said a four-letter word, slammed down the pencil, and went upstairs, sizzling like a slice of bacon on the grill. Perkins's eldest couldn't help but be curious, so when the coast was clear, she took a peek at the pad of paper by the telephone."

"And?"

"And Mrs. Jim Bob had written the number twenty thousand and there was a dollar sign in front of it." Estelle pulled me closer, and with a narrow look at the back booth, she whispered, "The other thing she wrote was the word Thursday, and it was underlined underlined three times! Do you want to know what I think?"

I shook my head and went to the back booth, where Jim Bob was still mumbling away to his inanimate and therefore captive audience. "I have a question," I said as I sat down across from him.

"Get yourself an encyclopedia. Get a whole damn set of 'em."

His breath smelled so bad that I was surprised I couldn't see it. I exhaled vigorously and said, "The answer won't be in an encyclopedia. Are you and Petrel supposed to close some kind of loan Thursday-something to do with the financing for the supermarket, for instance?"

"Goddamn permanent financing, but none of your goddamn business." He hiccuped loudly and gave me what he probably thought was a sneer, although gravity was doing strange things to one of his eyelids and his lower lip.

"And you are supposed to come up with twenty thousand dollars?"

"That ain't the half of it." He hiccuped again. "Mebbe it is. Yeah, the half of it."

"More than twenty thousand? Forty thousand, for instance?"

"Thought you had questions, Chief. Sounds like you got answers, so why don't you remove your butt from the seat and mosey back to the bar?"

"But I do have a question: Is the closing at noon?"

"How the fuck do I know," he said petulantly. After a couple of near-misses, he got hold of a pitcher and filled his glass with what was apt to be flat, tepid beer. "Go ask Petrel; he's the bigshot businessman businessman-except when the shit's in the fan and we can't stay open long enough to play a tune on the cash register, much less make any money." His eyes turned watery and he slid into good old-fashioned maudlin drunke