“It’s a bingo bash,” she corrected him. “And it is a real meeting.”
“Ready, gang? The next number is O-66. Get your kicks on oh-six-six . . .”
Rebecca dutifully erased the board and printed a neat O-66.
“I thought you said you got Tom a gig in front of the political committee of the Silver Panthers, not their bingo club!”
“I did get him in front of them, if he’d only show up!”
“In here?”
The announcer looked over his shoulder at Matt and Rebecca; Rebecca quickly walked to the edge of the dais and squatted down. A hint of her perfume wafted over Matt, and damn it if it didn’t instantly stir up all the stuff he’d worked so hard to push down. And she looked, he noticed, very rattled, which instantly made him feel weirdly protective of her all over again. “Matt,” she said, with what sounded like a tinge of hysteria in her voice, “I’ll be done in a moment. Jo Lynn was going to do this, but she wanted to play a few games first—”
“Jo Lynn?”
“Listen—do you see those Q-tips out there?” she whispered frantically. “They can’t hear and they can’t see, and I have to write the numbers on the board. Just give me a minute. One minute. That’s all I am asking.”
When she asked so imploringly, he could imagine giving her as many minutes, hours, days, or nights as she wanted, and backed off. That, and the entire sea of sno-cones were staring at him. “Okay, all right,” he said, and backed away.
“Well, lookie here, we got us a G-56. Gee-five-six, folks.”
“Go sit with Grayson,” she ordered him, and stood up, walked back to the white board, and violently erased it.
Matt stepped away, shoved his hands into his pockets, and strode down the row of tables, spotting her kid for the first time since he had come in. He was sitting at the very end of the table, next to woman with bottles of colored liquid and several stuffed bears.
As Matt neared the boy, he noticed that every number on his sheet had been marked. The kid saw Matt looking at his card, and instantly threw his arms and head over it so Matt couldn’t see it.
He grinned at the kid and continued to the back where Gunter and his photographer were taking pictures of the group. And there he remained until the announcer said the next session would start in twenty-five minutes. “In the meantime, help yourself to a delicious brisket dinner. Remember, it’s free! Just don’t forget to stay away from the beans, folks—be considerate of your neighbor,” the old man reminded them as they made an instant and mad stampede for the smaller room, practically flattening Matt against the wall.
When the biggest group had passed, Matt spotted Rebecca at the table with her son and started toward her. When he reached her, Rebecca looked up, smiling a little deliriously. “Hey!”
“When you said you had this thing lined up, I thought you meant you had it greased,” he said. “I don’t believe the words crash a bingo hall ever passed your lips.”
“A cheery hello to you, too,” she said. “We are not crashing a bingo hall. I set up the bingo,” she continued matter-of-factly, pausing to flash a smile at a trio of leering old men in Sansabelt slacks floating by in the river of people headed for the free buffet. “These people like bingo.”
“I noticed. Like it so much that we hardly have their undivided attention, do we? And Christ, I don’t even want to imagine how much money—”
“Yo. Dude. He’s here.”
They both looked past Gunter, who had appeared from thin air, and to the door, where Tom, Pat, and Angie had managed to squeeze past the thundering herd. Gunter was already moving, quickly cornering Tom, making him pose for a couple of pictures before he took one more step, which, naturally, Tom was happy to do.
“Parrish! What the hell are you doing here?”
Matt stifled a groan. He knew that voice.
“Someone wants you,” Rebecca said, and turned around to her kid and the two old ladies he’d obviously been assigned to this evening.
Suppressing a sigh, Matt turned around to face the top of Judge Gambofini’s head. He’d never seen Gambofini without his robes—the judge was wearing a red, horizontally striped polo shirt, only the stripes were much smaller on the top than those stretched across his enormous middle. Even more noticeable was that Gambofini was actually grinning for the first time Matt could remember. “Judge, how are you?”
“Almost had bingo a couple of games back. Saw you up at the dais. You’re a little young to be hanging out with the Silver Panthers, aren’t you?”
“Actually, I—” What he was about to say was interrupted by a strong slap to his shoulder that almost knocked the wind out of him.
“Parrish! There you are!”
“Senator,” Matt said, rubbing his shoulder. “You know Judge Gambofini, don’t you?”