“We’ll watch him, too,” Max affirmed. “She’ll come back. And if she talks to him again, we’ll know there’s definitely a connection.”
Ladybird clasped her hands on the table in front of her, her gaze still on the man. “When Witt was about five, I took him to the zoo. He wanted to know the name of every animal. And not the normal name, you know, like lion or polar bear, no, he wanted to know their Latin names, too. We had to go home and look them all up in the encyclopedia. I couldn’t pronounce most of them. But Witt, he sounded every one out. Those we couldn’t find, he looked up in the library at school. He wouldn’t let it go until he had them all in his head, memorized. When Horace got home from work, Witt went through them all again for his father. Now, I was never very smart, and Horace really didn’t care much about schooling. I’ve always wondered where Witt got that from.”
Not wanting to disturb the discussion with asking why the hell Ladybird bothered to bring the tale up now, Max commented, “I thought you said Witt didn’t like learning.”
“No, he just didn’t like school. But that boy could read anything from a very young age. It was like he had a photographic memory. He’s the same way with things now. He can describe a crime scene right down to the carpet fibers.”
Max waited for Ladybird to make her point. One was coming, and Max was sure she wasn’t going to like it.
“If we tell my son one little bit about tonight, he’s going to want to hear the whole thing. Then he’s going to know what we’ve been up to. And he’s not going to like that I’m here with you.” She took Max’s hand in hers. “So I vote we don’t tell him anything at all and stay here until she comes back.”
Max wondered how the hell they could begin to hide their trip from Witt. Bringing Ladybird along had been a very bad idea.
*
They’d waited twenty minutes. Neither Angela nor Blondie returned. Blockhead didn’t leave either.
“Okay, so maybe twenty minutes was asking too much,” Max whispered to Ladybird as if someone might overhear them. She looked at her watch. Nine-thirty. They didn’t have much time before Ladybird turned into a pumpkin.
Another hour went by. Blockhead was on his third beer. Ladybird was into her fourth cocktail and getting tipsy. Max couldn’t for the life of her say why the little lady wasn’t already under the table. She herself had taken to drinking coffee to remain awake. If Angela didn’t show soon, she was going to have to carry Ladybird home.
Max gave up when Ladybird’s head started to droop towards the table. They had five blocks to walk to the car. It hadn’t seemed so far earlier in the evening. Max called for the bill, did a double take on the amount, then thanked God once more for giving her enough cash.
Getting Ladybird on her feet was another matter. Five blocks seemed like an awfully long way, but somehow Max managed. She strapped the little woman in, started the car, and left the underground parking garage. It wasn’t terribly late, but the streets were empty. She found the freeway easily and had Ladybird home in less than an hour. Putting the lady to bed was a more difficult process, embarrassing even since Max had to undress her, then get her in a nightgown. Thank God Witt had not checked on his mom. Hopefully, he was digging bodies out of the city dumps. That would keep him busy.
Back in her car, the engine on, the clock on her dash tripped to midnight. “Speaking of pumpkins.” It would take Max over half an hour to get home.
Max couldn’t have said when she first noticed the car following her. Sometime after she entered the freeway. Maybe it was the headlights that never wavered in her rearview mirror, or the way the car dogged hers, passing slower cars when she did, then returning to ride her ass. For a moment she thought cop, then rejected the idea. She was a habitual watcher. She had to be since she loved speed and California roll-stops, but didn’t like tickets. She’d scanned the road for black-and-whites. She was almost positive none had entered the freeway at any of the on ramps she’d passed. Easing off the accelerator, she waited for the car to pass.
It didn’t. It slowed and stayed behind her, leaving a few car lengths between them. A sedan perhaps, the lights far apart and slightly higher than her own sporty model, but not high enough to be a truck or an SUV. Just a sedan.
Her stomach churned. For a moment, thoughts of lone women stranded on the freeway rushed through her head, all the stories, all the warnings.