Old man Springer laughs; he snorts and snarls so his little gray mouse of a mustache merges with his nostril hairs. “Did you hear about Teddy Kennedy this morning?”

“What about him? No.”

“Shut your ears, Nellie. I forgot you were in the car or I wouldn’t have mentioned it.”

“What, Grandpa? What did he do? Did somebody shoot him?”

“Apparently, Harry”—Springer talks out of the side of his mouth, as if to shield Nelson, yet so distinctly the child can easily hear—“he dumped some girl from Pennsylvania into one of those Massachusetts rivers. Murder as plain as my face.” Springer’s face, from the side, is a carving of pink bone, with rosy splotches where the cheekbones put most pressure, and a bump of red on the point where the nose turns. An anxious sharp face creased all over by a salesman’s constant smile. One thing at least about setting type, there’s a limit on how much ass you must kiss.

“Did they get him? Is he in jail, Grandpa?”

“Ah, Nellie, they’ll never put a Kennedy in jail. Palms will be greased. Evidence will be suppressed. I call it a crying shame.”

Rabbit asks, “What do you mean, dumped some girl?”

“They found her in his car upside down in the water beside some bridge, I forget the name, one of those islands they have up there. It happened last night and he didn’t go to the police until they were about to nab him. And they call this a democracy, Harry, is the irony of it.”

“What would you call it?”

“I’d call it a police state run by the Kennedys, is what I would call it. That family has been out to buy the country since those Brahmins up in Boston snubbed old Joe. And then he put himself in league with Hitler when he was FDR’s man in London. Now they’ve got the young widow to marry a rich Greek in case they run out of American money. Not that she’s the goodie-gumdrop the papers say; those two were a match. What’s your opinion, Harry? Am I talking out of line? I’m such a back number now I don’t trust to hear myself talk.” Aha.

“I’d say,” Harry says, “you’re right with it. You should join the kids and buy yourself a bomb to throw.”

Springer looks over from driving (the yellow parabolas of a McDonald’s flash by; the tinsel spinners of a Mobil station break the noon sun into trinkets) to see if he has oversold. How timid, really, people who live by people must be. Earl Angstrom was right about that at least: better make your deals with things. Springer says, hedgily smiling, showing porcelain teeth beneath the gray blur, “I’ll say this for the Kennedys, however, they don’t get my dander up like FDR. There was a man, Harry, so mad he died of maggots in the brain. One thing to be said for the Kennedys, they didn’t try to turn the economy upside down for the benefit of the poor, they were willing to ride along with the System as it’s been handed down.”