Hopp said, “I’ll play bingo.”
“Hopp’s got bingo,” Elam said. He turned to Wheat. “What about you?”
“I’ll drink nickel beer,” Wheat said.
Elam said, with incredible patience, “You’ll go to the antiques show and that other junk at the, what is it?”
“Grange Hall,” I said.
“Grange Hall,” Elam said. “Understand?” And he prodded Wheat’s chest, gently, with a stiff finger.
Wheat said he understood. Then he said, “My mom collects antiques.”
Everybody looked at him for a moment, trying to figure out what that had to do with anything, and when nobody could, Elam finally went on, turning to me and saying, “You. You plop your butt on one of them benches over there and just watch the entertainment. And watch everything else, too. Keep an eye on what’s goin’ on, and if the situation changes at all, come tell us, each of us. For example, if those cops move their car for some reason, givin’ us a berth to get out. Or if, uh, the situation should change in any other way, if you know what I mean, kid.”
I knew what he meant. He meant watch the bank.
“Now,” Elam said, thoughtfully, “all I got to do is figure out something for myself.”
“Excuse me,” the Mayor said.
He was on the stage. Talking in the mike.
“Excuse me” he said again, “but we seem to be missing someone. Has anyone seen Jack Wynning?”
There was no particular response from the audience. (And in case you’re wondering, a lot of people in Wynning were named Wynning. I didn’t find that out till later, but I don’t see any reason not to tell you now.)
The Mayor repeated his question and then added, jokingly, “I hope our local banker hasn’t run off with all our money.” Some of the crowd laughed.
Elam, Hopp and I were not among the amused.
“Hey,” Elam said. “He’s talking about that damn banker.”
Wheaty didn’t catch the full significance of that, of course, not realizing that the banker in question was bound and gagged in the bank across the street.
Someone from down in the audience was handing a note up to the Mayor.
“Oh,” he said, “Jack’s daughter says her father was called out of town on business, at the last minute.”
Elam grinned.
So did Hopp.
So did I.
Wheat said, “What are you guys grinning about?”
“I’m afraid,” the Mayor was saying, “that Jack’s absence presents a problem. We’re now one cook short over at the VFW Hall. Anyone who’d like to volunteer, please come forward. Is there a short order cook in the house?”
“See ya later,” Elam said, and went forward.
Chapter 27
After Hopp headed off for the bingo tent, I took Wheat by the arm and said, “Don’t screw around.”
“What do you mean, Kitch?”
“This is a serious thing. These guys have us involved in a serious thing.”
“Who says they don’t?”
“Wheat, did you like jail?”
“It wasn’t a bad place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.”
“Well keep that in mind, because if you take this too lightly, we just might be living there for a while.”
“I understand that, Kitch.”
“Good. Now run along and be inconspicuous.”
“No problem,” he said, and wandered off.
I myself went and found a bench (not in the front row, this time!) and sat, entertaining not just a few doubts about Wheat’s ability to be inconspicuous.
No entertainment was as yet under way on the bandshell stage. The Governor was still standing down in front of the bandshell, chatting with his constituents, granting autographs, while Highway Patrolmen lurked in the backgorund. This went on for another fifteen minutes or so, and finally the Governor departed, waving as he walked back to his black Cadillac. Soon the Cadillac and the two accompanying Highway Patrol vehicles had managed U-turns in the relatively narrow Wynning main street and were headed out of town.
This left the street temporarily clear, though the Mustang was still banked (you should pardon the expression) by the remaining Highway Patrol car and the Tacomobile. Still, the departure of the other Patrol cars was good news indeed. I considered asking the Chinese lady in the Tacomobile if she could back up just a hair, so we could get our car out. Those other two Highway Patrolmen were apparently here for the day, but presently they seemed to be swallowed up in the crowd, and the crowd itself’s attention was hardly drawn toward the bank, so perhaps the money could be moved from the bank to the car without anyone noticing. It was still risky, to say the least, but I began to wonder if we’d been hasty in settling down for the Founder’s Day duration. Maybe we would be able to get out of Wynning, yet. In one piece, even.
I was just getting up off the bench, to go tell everybody about the Governor and the Highway Patrol cars leaving, and about my idea for us leaving too, when the trucks rolled in.
Platform trucks. Two of them. The type of truck that has a sort of floor it drags along behind its cab, just a flat open floor. A platform.
The two trucks took up a lot of the space in the street.
Both of them pulled down by the saw-horse divider that was blocking the street off, and as soon as they had come to a stop, two panel trucks rolled in and joined them.
The panel trucks had writing on them. One had the words “Country Plowboys” written on the side. One had the word “Rox” written on the side. I watched, in fascination and horror, as amplifiers and other sound equipment was hauled out of the panel trucks and set up on the platforms of the platform trucks. It was, of course, the country western band (the Plowboys) and the rock group (Rox) who were setting up to play dance music at different intervals during the afternoon and perhaps (I shuddered to think) the evening, as well.
Meanwhile, the talent show was getting under way on the stage. A boy of about thirteen was playing “Jesus Christ Superstar” on a saw. What can I say.
After the musical saw number terminated, a girl played a medley of Beatles songs on the Hammond organ, which gave me the insane urge to rollerskate to Liverpool, and I began looking at people in the crowd, studying them, trying to see who made up the little town of Wynning.
They were just people. Not hicks, either. There was a certain number of men who were obviously farmers, with old-fashioned apparel of the man who works on a farm and is proud of it. But the wives and children of these men didn’t look any different from the wives and children of the middle class anywhere.
Of course I admit I grew up in Nebraska, and went to school in Illinois, and that naturally means the ways of the Middle West aren’t new to me. They are, in fact, all I know. But as far as I can tell, those ways aren’t particularly different from any place else in the country. Television is probably what’s done it, what’s made us all pretty much the same. I guess maybe we should be thankful for things like the Wynning Founder’s Day, and other regional nonsense, designed to make us remember we come from towns and states, and not just a country.
Anyway, the people here looked normal enough. The town seemed to have its share of kids with long hair and fashionably sloppy clothes, and pretty young girls in stylish, sexy outfits, and young married couples wearing the same sort of clothes young married couples in New York wear on a hot summer day, I suppose. And little kids were running around and making noise and falling down and wearing clothes that were already dirty, even though the morning was barely half over.