The Darling Dahlias and the Silver Dollar Bush

“Jeez.” Mr. Dunlap was mournful. “Fifteen. Just a kid.”


Buddy shrugged. “Old enough to make shine. Not that anybody wanted it to happen, of course. All I mean is, if you’re going to do something like that, you have to reckon up your chances.”

“Let’s hope the boy’s okay,” Myra May said. She looked up to see Raylene standing, white-faced, on the kitchen side of the pass-through, with a plate of waffles in her hand. She was shaking her head. Myra May understood what her mother was telling her, and her heart sank. The boy was dead.

“You don’t s’pose you could get Raylene to fry me up a couple of waffles, do you?” Buddy asked hopefully. “Workin’ all night sure makes a man hungry.”

“Here you go, Buddy,” Raylene said. “Here’s your waffles.” She put the plate on the shelf of the pass-through and Myra May set it in front of Buddy, with a bottle of maple syrup. “On the house.”

“That was fast,” Buddy said admiringly. “How’d you do that?”

“Trade secret,” Myra May replied.

“Hey,” Mr. Dunlap protested. “How come I don’t get free waffles?”

“You climb out of bed and go out at night when there’s trouble and you might,” Myra May said.

Buddy unscrewed the lid and poured maple syrup liberally over his waffles. “I guess if you want to know about the boy, somebody could call over to the Monroeville hospital and ask.”

“We don’t have to,” Violet said from the doorway, and broke the Exchange’s cardinal rule. “That was Mickey LeDoux’s mother on the phone. She was calling Mickey’s grandmother to tell her that Rider died a little while ago. The doctor said he never had a chance.”

“Them revenuers can go to hell,” Mr. Musgrove said darkly. “Why cain’t they just leave us alone?”

“’Cause it’s their job.” Buddy’s voice was muffled as he bent low over his waffles. “It’s their goddamn job.”





TEN


Charlie Dickens: The Morning After the Night Before