I finished the ice cream, watching kids on the slides and the swings, and then strolled down to the river to watch the light die on the bridge. I took a sketch pad with me and got a fair view of the thing, but I doubt I’ll ever do a painting. The angles are all wrong.

John was at Marvel’s.

“June wedding, up in Memphis,” Marvel said. “You’re invited. And LuEllen. Bobby’s set for best man. On a computer.”

“You’re looking pretty fuckin’ smug,” I said to John.

“What can I tell you?” he said. “I’m old, bald, and dumb, and she said she’ll marry me.”

“Let’s not talk about old,” I said. “You’ve got about three weeks on me. Let’s talk about somebody else being old.”

Marvel said she had been disappointed by the ice cream social. Ninety percent of the kids had been black, she said. They had to do better with the whites.

“We’ll do better,” John said. “It’ll take a while. Maybe we should have another social in the summer.”

“Maybe,” she said. “I sure do like ice cream.”

“How’d you figure the bridge out?” I asked her.

She shook her head and turned away.

“He’s got a right,” John said softly. “Wasn’t no white boys beat him up in Memphis. You know that.”

She looked at me, and I shrugged.

“Tell him,” John said.

“I bought it,” Marvel said. “With the money you took out of the City Hall.”

“Bought it?”

“Ain’t it wonderful?” John asked.

“I did what had to be done,” Marvel said. “I called up my man at the capital, told him in one minute what was happening - how close we were to taking the town - and then I asked if seventy-five thousand dollars in untraceable cash would buy me the bridge. He said if I got it to the right three or four legislators, it’d buy me a bridge and two ferryboats if I wanted them. I said the bridge would be enough, but I had to have a commitment quick. He got a phone number from me, for Bell’s office. Then I went and sat there, chewing my nails, and fifteen minutes later, with Bell getting pissed, the phone rings, and the speaker of the house tells Bell he might be able to work some kind of deal on a bridge

Said I ‘was a pretty convincing gal,’ is what he said.”

“And Bell went out and voted against your ticket, but you had the votes,” I said.

“That’s right.”

I looked at John and remembered that he’d said something about Commies and hobby politics. “Doesn’t sound like hobby politics to me,” I said.

“Woman learns quick,” he said.

“What about Darrell Clark and his family? Did you reopen the case?”