“Good! Let’s hear it.”
“Okay,” I said, and I told him my idea.
He laughed. Not derisively, either.
“That’s beautiful kid,” he said, tears in his eyes from laughing so hard. “You really got a mind for this kind of work. You sure you don’t want a share of the loot? You deserve one, if anybody does.”
“I’m sure,” I said. “I’m, uh, sure of something else, too.”
“What’s that?” he asked, still laughing.
“You don’t get a share, either. Or Hopp. Or Wheat, for that matter.”
He stopped laughing.
“What?” he said. Clipped. Like a fast jab.
“I told you how we can get out of town. My idea is good. You agree with me. And I’m willing to go through with it. But the money is out. We have to leave it behind.”
Elam looked at me for a long time. He didn’t get mad. I thought he’d go absolutely off his nut, strangle me, jump up and down on me, everything. But I underestimated him. He was a professional. He knew I wouldn’t suggest that if there wasn’t a reason.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because otherwise Wheat and me won’t get you out of this mess.”
“Blackmail, huh?”
“There’s more to it than that,” I said, and told him. And, finally, reluctantly, he agreed.
“But don’t tell Hopp,” he said. “I’ll tell him the money’s already in the trunk, then break him the bad news later. He’s a good man, but when he gets upset, he can cause a scene.”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “I got a friend like that, too.”
Chapter 34
Elam and I went to see Hopp, in the bingo tent.
There were four big long tables put together to form a square, and inside the square were four smaller tables covered with prizes. These tables also formed a square, and inside was a man with a microphone and a wire basket that whirled around, out of which he drew the numbers. The prizes ran mostly to small kitchen appliances, like toasters and mixers, many of them tagged and sort of set aside, which I assumed meant they’d already been won and would be collected by their winners at the end of the evening. The man with the microphone was hoarse and beginning to weave; evidently he’d been at this since the beginning, which was something like twelve hours ago. There were about a hundred people at the tables, mostly women, housewives and older ladies both, even a few teenagers and some old men. And Hopp.
Hopp sat between an old lady and housewife, both of whom were giving him plenty of room.
Hopp was playing eight cards.
Seeing him huddled over his cards, sitting there at the table, spine arched defiantly, brow knitted with concentration, took me back to the jail and the metal picnic tables where we’d played pitch and Hopp had said, “Deal the cards.”
There was plenty of space for Elam and me to squeeze in on either side of him.
“Come on,” Elam said.
Hopp stared down at his cards.
“B ten,” said the man with the microphone.
“We’re going,” Elam said.
Hopp put a piece of corn on the upper left corner of the third card down from the right.
“We’re leaving, I said,” Elam said.
“Getting out of town,” I said.
Hopp said, “Not yet.”
“N forty,” the man with the microphone said.
“Not yet?” Elam said.
“Not yet?” I said.
Hopp looked at his eight cards.
Elam looked at me.
I looked at Elam.
“B four,” the man with the microphone said.
Hopp put a piece of corn on the square below the one he’d filled a few moments before.
“One more letter,” Hopp said.
“I nineteen,” the man with the microphone said.
“One more letter?” Elam said.
“And then what?” I said.
Hopp pointed to three of his eight cards, each of which was one letter short of spelling out the word BINGO in pieces of corn placed on numbers beneath the letters above.
“G sixty,” the man with the microphone said.
“One more letter,” Hopp said, pointing at the table of gifts right in front of us, “and that blender is mine.”
I covered my eyes.
“The blender is yours,” Elam said.
“One more letter,” Hopp nodded.
The housewife next to me leaned over and said, bitterly, “He’s already got a waffle iron, a toaster, a steam and dry iron and a set of coasters, and is he satisfied? No, he’s got to have the blender, too.”
Hopp pointed a finger at the housewife. “I told you to shut-up a long time ago, lady.” He returned to his cards.
Elam was shaking his head.
I started playing an extra card that was in front of me.
Hopp said, “I haven’t seen my wife in a year.”
Elam said, “And you think a blender would make her happy.”
Hopp nodded.
“0 seventy,” the man with the microphone said.
Elam said, “She wouldn’t be satisfied with just a waffle iron.”
“No,” Hopp said.
“G forty-eight,” the man with the microphone said.
Elam said, “She wouldn’t be satisfied with just a toaster.”
“No,” Hopp said.
“B six,” the man with the microphone said.
Elam said, “She wouldn’t be satisfied with just a steam and dry iron.”
“No,” Hopp said.
“N forty-five,” the man with the microphone said.
Elam said, “She wouldn’t be satisfied with just a set of coasters.”
“No,” Hopp said.
“I sixteen,” the man with the microphone said.
Elam said, “She’s got to have the blender, too.”
“Right,” Hopp said.
“Bingo!” I said.
Chapter 35
Tall thick shrubbery lined the edge of the park, with the graveled surface of the oil company storage depot area on one side and the back of the bandshell on the other. There was a small open area between the shrubbery and the bandshell, and that’s where I met Sue Ann.
“I couldn’t find your friend anywhere,” she said.
I had sent her in search of Wheaty, while I went to round up Elam and Hopp, both of whom were now waiting by the stolen Mustang in front of the bank, waiting for me (and, hopefully, Wheat) to get us all out of here. I had watched from a distance as Elam and Hopp loaded Hopp’s bingo loot (waffle iron, toaster, steam and dry iron, set of coasters and, yes, the blender, which I donated to the cause) into the back seat. I was rather glad about Hopp winning all that junk, as it might soften the blow a little when he found out later that the money from the bank robbery was not in the trunk of the Mustang, as Elam had told him, but still safely in the bank, sitting in laundry bags next to the trussed-up bank teller and Sue Ann’s bank manager father.
Which leads us back into the bushes, or rather the open space between the bushes and the bandshell, where I was speaking to Sue Ann. Normally, it would’ve been pitch black in that open space, which was overhung by the shrubbery, but there was a full moon tonight and enough light was filtering down through the bushes for Sue Ann to see the incredulous look on my face when I heard her say she couldn’t find Wheaty anywhere.
“He’s around,” I said. “I don’t see how you could miss him.”
“That’s what I thought, so I asked some of my friends about him.”
“You what?”
“I asked some of my friends if they’d seen him.”
“Sue Ann, I asked you please not to do that. I said please just look for him yourself.”
“I know, but what could it hurt?”
I was tempted to tell her, but managed to resist. Instead I said, “What did your friends say?”