Then Buck Kincannon leaned toward his mother, said something. Whatever it was didn’t agree with her. She slapped his face so hard it sounded like a gunshot. No one else seemed to notice or care.
A black stretch limo rolled into view. The family grouped together as the chauffeur emerged to open the doors. The black beast pulled from the curb. I saw an impenetrably dark window roll down. A male face, contorted in anger, yelled, “Get a life, asshole.”
The curtain fell.
It was almost midnight when our driver returned us to Dani’s, the night drenched with haze and lit by moon glow, the air perfumed with dogwood and magnolia. Arms linked, we walked to the porch as a night bird sang from the eaves. She shook her keys free of her purse, opened the door. The cool, clean air felt good after sharing the exhalations of three hundred others for two hours. I looked at her phone, a red LED blinking.
“You’ve got a message.”
She went to the kitchen to rattle the lock at the back door, the habitual checks of a woman living alone. “Probably Laurel Hollings twitting me for the speech. He does that kind of thing when he’s had a few. Punch it on while I look out back.”
I heard the kitchen door open, the screen slam, as she went out to check the back porch door. I tossed my jacket into a chair, walked to the phone, pressed Message.
“It was great to see you this evening, dear DeeDee. I meant everything I said about the bright future. And by the way, that red dress was fantastic. I’ll talk to you soon.”
Four hours earlier I wouldn’t have recognized the voice. But now I did.
Buck Kincannon.
I closed my eyes and wondered what to do, then diddled with the reset button on the phone. Dani returned a minute later. I stood in front of the hall mirror, fiddling with the button on the vest.
“Crap,” I snarled.
“What?”
“The button’s snagged. Wrapped in a thread.”
She looked at the phone, the display blinking like it had never been touched.
“You didn’t check the phone?” she asked.
I glared at the button. “If I tear the damn button off they’ll probably charge me thirty bucks. There still scissors in the bathroom?”
She nodded and I hustled to the john, closed the door. I stood in the dark with my racing heart as she checked her message. My straining ears caught Buck Kincannon’s voice again roaming through Dani’s house.
It was a business call, I told myself; Buck Kincannon was the capo di tutti capo of the Kincannon family and Clarity Broadcasting. He probably called all the station’s speechgivers, made them feel part of the team. It was just business.
I returned a couple minutes later, vest in hand. Dani was in the kitchen moving dishes from the dishwasher to her shelves.
“Can’t that wait until tomorrow?” I asked.
She shrugged; put on a smile. “Just felt like doing something. Excess energy or whatever.”
“The message, was it your jokester from the station?”
Her eyes wouldn’t meet mine; she turned and slid a dish into place, spoke into the cupboard. “Nothing important. A friend wanting to talk when I have a chance.”
That night we lay in her bed, but neither made motions toward making love. Lightning flashed at the windows and filled the room with shadows, but rain never came. Just past dawn I arose without waking her, penciled a note explaining I had a busy day, and fled into a day already breathless with heat.
Harry shoved aside a file of forms on his desktop, set a new stack in its place. He paused and stared at me.
“You all right, Cars?”
“Sure, Harry. Why?”
“You’ve said maybe three words since you got in this morning. How was the big kick-up for Channel 14? Dancing and prancing with the swells? That was this weekend, right?”
“It was fine.”
I realized if I didn’t go into detail, Harry’s antennae would register my distress. I gave a brief synopsis of the evening: impaired music, great eats, first-class beverages, lots of chatter in biz-speak.
“Plus I even got a look at upper-crust Mobile: a family called the Kincannons. They were so –”
Harry broke into my recitation. “You meet Buck?”
I stared at my partner like a plumed hat had appeared on his head.
“What?”
“Buck Kincannon. You get a chance to say hi?”
“How the hell do you know Buck Kincannon?”
“Back four or five years ago I was working with a civic group in north Mobile, by Pritchard. Maybe you remember?”
“I recall a couple months when all your nights seemed locked up. Weekends, too. Something about a ball league?”
He nodded. “The group’s big push was getting inner-city kids into sports, baseball. Kids from ten to fourteen years old. Keep ’em on a ball field, not the streets. We were beating our heads against the wall, scratching up third-hand equipment. We’d been trying to get the city to let us use an abandoned lot as a practice field, but they kept whining about liability. Mardy Baker, the director of a social services organization, sent letters to all the big civic and charitable organizations, trying to scratch up money. No go.”
“Where’d Kincannon fit in?”
“One of the letters had gone to the Kincannons’ family foundation. A philanthropic deal. Kincannon himself showed up at our next meeting, checkbook in hand.”
“Keep going.”
“Suddenly our ragtag kids got Louisville Slugger bats, Rawlings gloves, uniforms. It wasn’t just money, it was influence. Like he walked into City Hall with a shopping list and said, ‘Here’s what I want.’ Two days later all permits are in order, insurance isn’t a problem, nothing’s a problem. The old field got re-sodded, sand and dirt trucked in to fill the baselines, build a pitcher’s mound. Stands went up so parents could sit and cheer for the kids.”
“So you sat around while Kincannon waved a magic wand?”
“The group was moms mainly, plus a couple of community-activist types. They made me designated hitter for dealing with Buck, me being a big, important cop and all. We went to lunch, him laying out plans, me nodding and going, ‘Sure, Buck, sounds good.’”
“What’d you think of him – Kincannon?” I sounded casual.
Harry flipped a thumbs-up. “From setting the city straight to setting the timetable, he took over. You don’t think of people with that kind of power and influence getting down in the gritty, and he’s cool in my book.”
I stopped listening, put my head on nod-and-grunt function as Harry continued enumerating the angelic feats of the Holy Buckster.
“ …opened that field and you should have seen the kids’ eyes. Buck later said it was one of the highlights of his …”
Nod. Grunt. Nod. Grunt.
“ …all the local politicos showed up like it was their idea, standing next to Buck and getting their pictures taken …”
Nod.