The second call was to his younger sister, Carmen, in Berkeley. A male voice answered the phone in her apartment, Kevin somebody if Adam remembered correctly, a steady companion for several years now. Carmen was soon on the phone, and seemed anxious to hear about events in Mississippi. She too had followed the news closely, and Adam put an optimistic spin on things. She was worried about him down there in the midst of all those horrible Kluckers and racists. Adam insisted he was safe, things were quite peaceful, actually. The people were surprisingly gentle and laid-back. He was staying at Lee's and they were making the best of it. To Adam's surprise, she wanted to know about Sam - what was he like, his appearance, his attitude, his willingness to talk about Eddie. She asked if she should fly down and see Sam before August 8, a meeting Adam had not contemplated. Adam said he would think about it, and that he would ask Sam.
He fell asleep on the sofa, with the television on.
At three-thirty Monday morning, he was awakened by the phone. A voice he'd never heard before crisply identified himself as Phelps Booth. "You must be Adam," he said.
Adam sat up and rubbed his eyes. "Yes, that's me."
"Have you seen Lee?" Phelps asked, neither calm nor urgent.
Adam glanced at a clock on the wall above the television. "No. What's the matter?"
"Well, she's in trouble. The police called me about an hour ago. They picked her up for drunk driving at eight-twenty last night, and took her to jail."
"Oh no," Adam said.
"This is not the first time. She was taken in, refused the breath test of course, and was put in the drunk tank for five hours. She listed my name on the paperwork, so the cops called me. I ran downtown to the jail, and she had already posted bail and walked out. I thought maybe she'd called you."
"No. She was not here when I woke up yesterday morning, and this is the first thing I've heard. Who would she call?"
"Who knows? I hate to start calling her friends and waking them up. Maybe we should just wait."
Adam was uncomfortable with his sudden inclusion into the decision making. These people had been married, for better or for worse, for almost thirty years, and they had obviously been through this before. How was he supposed to know what to do? "She didn't drive away from the jail, did she?" he asked timidly, certain of the answer.
"Of course not. Someone picked her up. Which brings up another problem. We need to get her car. It's in a lot by the jail. I've already paid the towing charges."
"Do you have a key?"
"Yes. Can you help me get it?"
Adam suddenly remembered the newspaper story with the smiling photo of Phelps and Lee, and he also remembered his speculation about the Booth family's reaction to it. He was certain most of the blame and venom had been directed at him. If he'd stayed in Chicago, none of this would've happened.
"Sure. Just tell me what - "
"Go wait by the guardhouse. I'll be there in ten minutes."
Adam brushed his teeth and laced up his Nikes, and spent fifteen minutes chatting about this and that with Willis, the guard, at the gate. A black Mercedes, the longest model in history, approached and stopped. Adam said good-bye to Willis, and got in the car.
They shook hands because it was the polite thing to do. Phelps was dressed in a white jogging suit and wore a Cubs cap. He drove slowly on the empty street. "I guess Lee has told you some things about me," he said, without a trace of concern or regret.
"A few things," Adam said carefully.
"Well, there's a lot to tell, so I'm not going to ask what subjects she's covered."
A very good idea, Adam thought. "It's probably best if we just talk about baseball or something. I take it you're a Cubs fan."
"Always a Cubs fan. You?"
"Sure. This is my first season in Chicago, and I've been to Wrigley a dozen times. I live pretty close to the park."
"Really. I go up three or four times a year. I have a friend with a box. Been doing it for years. Who's your favorite player?"
"Sandberg, I guess. How about you?"
"I like the old guys. Ernie Banks and Ron Santo. Those were the good days of baseball, when the players had loyalty and you knew who'd be on your team from one year to the next. Now, you never know. I love the game, but greed's corrupted it."
It struck Adam as odd that Phelps Booth would denounce greed. "Maybe, but the owners wrote the book on greed for the first hundred years. of baseball. What's wrong with the players asking for all the money they can get?"
"Who's worth five million a year?"
"Nobody. But if rock stars make fifty, what's wrong with baseball players making a few million? It's entertainment. The players are the game, not the owners. I go to Wrigley to see the players, not because the Tribune happens to be the current owner."
"Yeah, but look at ticket prices. Fifteen bucks to watch a game."
"Attendance is up. The fans don't seem to mind."
They drove through downtown, deserted at four in the morning, and within minutes were near the jail. "Listen, Adam, I don't know how much Lee has told you about her drinking problem."
"She told me she's an alcoholic."
"Definitely. This is the second drunk driving charge. I was able to keep the first out of the papers, but I don't know about this. She's suddenly become an item around town. Thank heaven she hasn't hurt anybody." Phelps stopped the car at a curb near a fenced lot. "She's been in and out of recovery half a dozen times."
"Half a dozen. She told me she'd been through treatment three times."
"You can't believe alcoholics. I know of at least five times in the past fifteen years. Her favorite place is a swanky little abuse center called Spring Creek. It's on a river a few miles north of the city, real nice and peaceful. It's for the wealthy only. They get dried out and pampered. Good food, exercise, saunas, you know, all the bells and whistles. It's so damned nice I think people want to go there. Anyway, I have a hunch she'll turn up there later today. She has some friends who'll help her get checked in. She's well known around the place. Sort of a second home."
"How long will she stay there?"
"It varies. The minimum is a week. She has stayed as long as a month. Costs two thousand bucks a day, and of course they send me the bills. But I don't mind. I'll pay any amount to help her."
"What am I supposed to do?"
"First, we try to find her. I'll get my secretaries on the phones in a few hours, and we'll track her down. She's fairly predictable at this point, and I'm sure she'll turn up in a detox ward, probably at Spring Creek. I'll start pulling strings in a few hours and try to keep it out of the paper. It won't be easy, in light of everything else that's been printed recently."
"1'm sorry."
"Once we find her, you need to go see her. Take some flowers and candy. I know you're busy, and I know what's ahead for the next, uh-"
"Nine days."
"Nine days. Right. Well, try to see her. And, when the thing down at Parchman is over, I suggest you go back to Chicago, and leave her alone."
"Leave her alone?"
"Yeah. It sounds harsh, but it's necessary. There are many reasons for her many problems. I'll admit I'm one of the reasons, but there's lots of stuff you don't know. Her family is another reason. She adores you, but you also bring back nightmares and a lot of suffering. Don't think bad of me for saying this. I know it hurts, but it's the truth."
Adam stared at the chain-link fence across the sidewalk next to his door.
"She was sober once for five years," Phelps continued. "And we thought she'd stay that way forever. Then Sam was convicted, and then Eddie died. When she returned from his funeral, she fell into the black hole, and I thought many times that she'd never get out. It's best for her if you stay away."