“They had a remarkable change of attitude,” Bell said dryly. Then he laughed. “Two weeks after we elect her mayor, with the town in an uproar, she drives into the capital, meets with the governor and the old redneck who’s the speaker of the house, and they all get their picture taken on the capitol steps, shaking hands on the deal. That stopped a little traffic, I’ll tell you.”

“It’ll be a pretty bridge,” I said. “There are lots of pretty bridges over the Mississippi. I’m happy to see you keeping it up

How about you? For reelection?”

“No. I’m gone,” he said, shaking his head. “I never did like this peckerwood town anyway. I moved back across the river, where I belong. Besides, it took the folks about fifteen minutes to figure out what I should have done that night: that I should have walked out and prevented a quorum. They figure I made a deal with Marvel.”

“Did you?”

He squinted down at me with a small grin. “Yep.”

I nearly choked on my last bite of cake, laughing, and Bell stood up and brushed off the seat of his pants. Then he dug into a pocket and took out a computer key. The key, if anyone had bothered to check, would fit the front panel of my North-gate IBM clone. I’d had it in my pocket the night I went into animal control.

“You know what this is?” he asked.

“I don’t believe so,” I said, taking it from him. “Looks like what, a key to a Coke machine?”

“Maybe,” he said, taking it back. “The police found it under St. Thomas, out at animal control, when they picked him up off the floor, dead. It didn’t match up with anything of his.”

I tried to look puzzled. “Why would I know what it is?”

He shrugged. “It’s just kind of a mystery. I’ve been walking around for a year, asking a lot of people. Nobody recognizes it.”

“Me either,” I said.

“And it’s about time to bury the past,” he said. He pitched the key toward a fifty-five-gallon oil drum being used as a trash can. He was no basketball player, and the key bounced off the side, into the sand.

“Never be in the NBA,” he said, echoing my thought. “Say hello to Miz LuEllen for me? If you see her?”

“Sure.”

He wandered away. I watched him cross the park, speak to Marvel and then to John, then drift over toward the City Hall. He stopped at the corner, looking down toward the river. From there he should be able to see the bridge just fine.

I got seconds on ice cream, served by Marvel herself.

“Tonight, about ten o’clock, at my place?” she said.

“Sure.”