She took his two dollars and wrote Bud Lite on her pad.

“I know y’all’re telling her,” Reese insisted.

“Tell you what,” said the guesser. “For two dollars, I’ll make ‘em stand behind me and I’ll tell you what kind of car you drove here tonight, okay?”

“Now here’s where I get you your teddy bear, Patsy,” Reese told his girlfriend as she joined us behind Tally Ames.

Once more, the woman looked Reese up and down, then started writing on her pad. Patsy peered over her shoulder and began to giggle. “She’s got you, babe.”

I looked, too. Ford pickup.

“Now, how the hell you do that?” Reese asked, totally amazed. As if everybody in the world couldn’t look at him and know that he drove a truck and that the only chancy thing would be whether it was a Ford or Chevy. She’d had a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right.

“You’re a good sport, son,” she said. “I’m gonna give you a free teddy bear, okay? You deserve it.”

My eyes met Dwight’s above Sylvia’s head. He winked at me and I knew I wasn’t alone in figuring out that Reese’s “free” teddy bear, a fuzzy little blue thing no bigger than my hand, had cost him ten bucks.

But Patsy was happy as she and Reese wandered away and Tally Ames turned back to us.

“Guess your weight, guess your age, guess how long that goldfish is gonna live?”

Avery and Portland laughed and Dwight held up his hands in surrender. “You’re too good for us.”

She laughed and called to one of the women standing at a Bust the Balloon concession. “Hey, Lia, mind the Guesser for me a few minutes?”

“Sure,” said the woman.

Past the midway and one row over, I saw a large and colorful slide that undulated as people slid down the rainbow arc.

“Is that your Pot O’Gold?” I asked.

“That’s it,” Tally Ames said.

As she led us toward her slide, I heard the woman behind us chant, “Guess your age, guess your weight, guess if you’re gonna get lucky tonight? Two bucks to play, win a bear if I’m wrong.”

Along the way, our tour guide paused at a Cover the Spot game, where the object was to drop five flat metal disks so that they completely covered a large red dot. It was being tended by a lanky teenager who exhorted passersby to give it a go. “A game of pure skill, folks. All it takes is a steady hand. A dollar tries and you choose your prize.”

Even if I hadn’t heard Mrs. Ames’s courtroom testimony, the boy’s height and coloring would have told me he was her son Val. He fanned the metal disks, then dropped them one by one almost casually on the target. Not a smidgen of red could be seen. Avery couldn’t resist. He immediately handed the boy a dollar. Four dollars later, he admitted defeat.

Reid asked to see it demonstrated again. Five dollars, no prize.