“The shit bastards.” She put both hands on the dash and clenched her fists. For reasons he couldn’t begin to explain to himself, he had an erection.

“They did it because of his pamphlets, didn’t they?”

Leo shrugged. He reached over to put his hand on her leg, to squeeze it once as some kind of answer, but she was right up against the door and he didn’t want to lean to do it. “I think it was Floyd’s revenge, that’s all.”

“With a bat?”

They were climbing a rise, and down and off to the right Leo could see the wide and rain-dimpled Connecticut River. He pictured a funeral procession going along that river, a black hearse followed by Chick’s wife’s black Star Chief, her inside it with little Chris and some relatives. Tailgating them would be Leo and Allie in Jim’s Valiant, Leo dressed in clothes he wore once or twice a year up to Katie Faye’s grave, a gray tweed jacket that didn’t fit anymore, white shirt, black pants, and a maroon silk tie with little half-moons embroidered into it that you couldn’t see unless you looked real close. He pictured Allie in some black dress, a red flower in her hair.

“My mother refuses to go to Mississippi, Leo. I’ve been meaning to tell you that.”

Leo downshifted, then looked over at her as they cleared the rise. “Is that why you’ve been so far away?”

Allie unclenched her fists and sat back against the seat.

“Huh?” Leo took the left up another hill. On both sides of the road water flowed so fast in the culverts most of it was splashing right over the street grates. He could see the hospital up ahead.

“There’s so much I have to tell you, Leo.” She was looking at him now. In the gray of the cab her cheeks looked blueish and she seemed very tired.

20

But she didn’t tell him a thing. How could she? With the policeman talking to him? And her mother on the way with little Chris? And her father up in something called an Emergency Triage Ward?

The policeman was as wet as Leo. He was young and handsome and he had very black short hair. Allie could see them both from the waiting area where she sat. They were sitting at a small pink formica table inside a glassed-in cafeteria called the Care Canteen. The policeman kept licking the tip of his pen as Leo talked. Allie had asked to be included but he said he had to speak with Leo alone.