“No, I didn’t,” Cane said. “He got ’em on his own. I wasn’t nowhere around.” It was true. Cob was already gone when he woke up this morning, even though Cane had told him yesterday not to leave again without letting him know first. His first thought was to go on the hunt of him, but then he figured what the hell. Chances were he was with his inspector buddy, and if he wanted to spend his last day here poking around in outhouses, that was his business. Looking forward to a little time of his own, Cane had taken a hot bath, then eaten a leisurely breakfast at the Mount Logan Café. He was finishing his waffles when the well-dressed man who had been with the girl from the bookstore last night walked in and sat down at the counter. Cane watched Sandy order a cup of coffee, then complain to the waitress in an acidy tone that it was cold. As Cane walked out of the diner, an urgent need to see the girl one more time before they headed for Canada suddenly came over him. He began walking toward the bookstore. He would ask for her address, he vowed right before he got to the door, write her a letter once they were settled. But to his disappointment, she wasn’t working. Instead, there was a palsied, half-blind gentleman in her place, sitting behind the counter with a woolen scarf wrapped around his thin, wrinkled neck, reading a yellowed pamphlet with a magnifying glass. Cane figured he must be the father she’d mentioned, though he seemed rather ancient to have a daughter her age. He ended up buying a copy of The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson, though he didn’t know for sure what an “essay” even was, and then walked back to the McCarthy to find out. As far as the girl went, by midday he realized how stupid he had been going back there again. What the hell had he been thinking? There was no way a woman like her would ever be interested in someone like him. Even he knew that the suit he was wearing didn’t fit right.
“I don’t want no dirt in my eyes,” Cob explained to Chimney. He had showed up at the hotel around four o’clock wearing the goggles and limping badly again from all the walking he and Jasper had done.
Chimney shook his head, but didn’t say anything. He had too many other things on his mind right now to even give a damn. All afternoon, he’d been planning what he was going to say to Matilda, had probably recited the little speech twenty times by the time he left the hotel room. He was prepared to offer Blackie all the money he had on him—$316.00—for her freedom, but just in case the pimp caused any trouble, he was taking his Smith & Wesson tonight instead of the Remington. He had the duster buttoned so that Cane wouldn’t notice the bulge of it in his pants.
“We all set for in the morning?” Cane said.
“Just tell me the time and the place.”
“I’m thinkin’ we should get an early start. Let’s figure you pick us up around daylight at the entrance to the park.”
“What about the horses?”
“We’ll just leave ’em. Couldn’t get nothing much out of them anyway.”
“Shit, I still got to get my rifle,” Chimney said. “I damn near forgot about it.”
“Well, do that ’fore you pick us up.”
Chimney nodded and started to leave, then stopped and looked back at them. He thought of the two boys he’d met earlier today in Bourneville, and it occurred to him that neither of his brothers had ridden in the Ford yet. Oh, well, by the time they got to Canada, they’d probably be sick of bouncing around in it. “What are you doing tonight?” he asked.
“We’re gonna try us some lobster,” Cane said, “and then go back to see that monkey again.”
“Mr. Bentley,” Cob said.
“Lobster? What’s that?”
“It’s sort of like a crawdad, only bigger,” Cane explained. “Cob saw a bunch of ’em yesterday in a water tank in the window at a place uptown, and they reminded him of Willie the Whale. Remember him?”
“Who could forget anybody that goddamn stupid?”
“I bet ye I can eat four or five of ’em, no problem,” Cob said.
“So I expect you’re headed back out to see the girls?” Cane asked.
“Just the one,” Chimney said. “Just the one.” Then he turned and walked away before any more questions were asked.