Макс Коллинз - Shoot the Moon (and more)

“I have?”

“He told me so, when I mentioned you were here. He seemed delighted. He’s waiting downstairs to see you.”

“Sue Ann, I have never met your uncle.”

“Look, I’ve already figured out how you found out about me, if you’re still trying to keep that a secret.”

“I’m really not following this at all, Sue Ann.”

“Hey, now, don’t be mad at Uncle Phil for telling on you. He didn’t say a word. I figured it out myself.”

“You did?”

“Sure! When I found out you’d been to his house, I knew why you’d gone over there. I knew you looked Uncle Phil up so you could find out about me. So now I know, and you’re afraid some of the romance has gone out of it, right? Don’t be silly. And don’t pout! I’d have made you tell me yourself, sooner or later.”

“Really, Sue Ann, I...”

“Come on,” she said, grabbing my hand and pulling me out of the chair. “He’s waiting to say hi. Come on!”

I gave up. I offered absolutely no resistance, and let her lead me down the hall, down the steps, into the living room. Where a heavy-set man was rising off the sofa and extending a hand. He was not a good-looking man. He had a little head on his big body, a receding hairline, bulging eyes, wide mouth. He was wearing the same yellow shirt and tan shorts he’d been wearing the day I met him at his home.

“Well, well!” DeKalb’s Chief of Police said, cheerfully. “If it isn’t my little girl’s favorite reception guest!”

There was no time to be surprised or shocked or anything. Besides, by this point I was pretty well used to having the worst happen. And I guessed this must be the worst yet.

“So you’ve taken a shine to my little niece, huh?” the Chief (or Uncle Phil, as Sue Ann thought of him) said. “Can’t say as I blame you. Tell me, if you marry her, are you going to have the reception at the Holiday Inn?” And he laughed boisterously.

I laughed too, but I’m afraid mine was more along the lines of hysterical.

Neither Sue Ann nor her uncle caught that, however, and the Chief put a hand on my shoulder and said, “You look a little worried, son. I hope it’s not because of me.”

I said, “Well, uh...”

Sue Ann said, “Why should he be worried because of you, Uncle Phil?”

The Chief said, “I’m an officer of the law, honey, and he’s afraid I might interfere with what he’s doing here.” My knees began to knock. Knees really can do that, you know.

Sue Ann said, “I don’t get you, Uncle Phil.”

“Kitchen here does,” the Chief said, and winked at me, and punched my arm playfully. “But don’t you worry, son. I don’t have any jurisdiction here. I’m just another Wynning boy come home to roost for the big celebration. Sue Ann’s dad and me are great-great nephews of the man who founded this little town. We never actually lived here, of course, but like a lot of people named Wynning scattered here and there around the countryside, we make a thing of getting here for the annual Founder’s Day blow-out. Sue Ann’s dad always wanted to retire to here, and I guess he has at that. Anyway, frankly, I think what you’re here for’ll be great for the town. Terrific publicity, what with all the reporters around.” And he narrowed his eyes conspiratorially and said, “Just don’t get caught.”

“Uh... uh, I’ll do my best, sir,” I said. I wasn’t sure I was hearing this. Why on earth would the DeKalb Police Chief want to help me get away with robbing a bank? Was he crazy, or was it me? Or both of us? Or was I still sleeping up in Sue Ann’s canopy bed?

He punched me on the arm again. I wasn’t asleep. He grinned and said, “Well, I hate to run, but it’s well after eight, and the big watermelon-eating contest is at eight-thirty, and I don’t want to miss that. See you kids later. And Sue Ann?”

“Yes, Uncle Phil?”

“You give your daddy hell when he gets home tonight, for skipping out today. Isn’t like him to miss Founder’s Day. And I thought he was supposed to be taking it easy these days. What’s he running around the countryside on business for, anyhow? The mercenary so-and-so.”

Sue Ann said she’d relay that message, and her uncle pumped my hand, looked right at me and laughed like I was the funniest thing he’d ever seen, advised me again not to get caught, and left.

We sat on the couch. Sue Ann did not seem as puzzled as I was, so I asked her, “What was he talking about?”

“About not getting caught? What do you think? He knows you’re here to see me. He knows we’ve been alone together all afternoon in the house. He probably means don’t let my daddy catch you and me in my bedroom, silly. What else could he mean?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“He’s a fantastic uncle. Really great. I mean, look at his attitude about when you streaked my cousin’s wedding.”

Cousin’s wedding? Okay. Okay... now Uncle Phil the DeKalb Police Chief was making sense to me. I hadn’t had the time to put it together before.

Sue Ann had been staying at the Holiday Inn in DeKalb because she was there for the wedding. That’s what she’d been talking about earlier, when she said she knew how I figured out where she lived. She thought I had checked at the Holiday Inn to get her name, and that I’d found out she was the niece of the DeKalb Police Chief, and that I’d looked up the Chief to find out more about her.

“Tell me, Sue Ann,” I said. “Why weren’t you at the reception? Why were you in your swimming suit when I bumped into you?” Which of course was the reason why I hadn’t thought of connecting her to the wedding.

“I’d already been there,” she explained. “It was just a lot of old people, and boring relatives, and my cousin Kathy and her husband are older than I am too, so even the young guests were old. Clear into their twenties.”

“I’m twenty-one, Sue Ann.”

“But you don’t seem that old, silly.”

But I feel older, I thought. Much older.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I got bored and left. So did Mom. We caught heck later, because we missed out on the family picture. Either way, I guess you and me would’ve run into each other, huh?”

“I guess so.”

“Uncle Phil was tickled by all the publicity you got him by doing that at Kathy’s reception. It saved him money on the wedding pictures.”

“Yeah, he told me.”

“Are you getting tired of hanging around here? You want to go back and do some of the Founder’s Day stuff?”

“Maybe we should. Listen, I got to think for a few minutes. You suppose you could get me something to drink? A Coke or some ice tea or maybe some coffee?”

“Sure!”

She trotted off, and I sat and tried to put some more pieces together.

I doubted the Chief (Uncle Phil) had been talking about Sue Ann and me fooling around when he advised me not to get caught. But it was insanity to think he’d caught onto the robbery somehow and was not blowing the whistle because he liked me or thought it’d be good publicity for Wynning or something.

Then Sue Ann was handing me a glass of ice tea. I glanced up to thank her, and noticed she was naked.

When some girls take off their clothes, they just take off their clothes. When Sue Ann takes off her clothes, she’s naked.

I forgot my problems for a second and smiled and reached out for her and she let out a giggle and ran off.

And I got an idea.

No, not the idea you think...

I found Elam sitting on the cement steps behind the Grange Hall. He was stripped down to his tee-shirt, with a dirty white apron around his waist and a battle-worn chef’s hat on his head. He was smoking a cigarette and looked tired and, well, content. Lights were on in the kitchen behind him, where some guys were busily and somewhat noisily washing dishes.