That stopped her. “What other stuff?”

Ray-Ray motioned to the counter. “He been comin’ in with like his high school ring, his good fishing rod. I think I got his watch around here somewhere. His mamma come in yesterday with some rings, and his old man the day before with his World War Two souvenirs, some German stuff.”

She looked into the display case and saw an opal pin Paul’s mother wore on Sundays. “None of them’s found a job?”

“They ain’t no job for nobody to find. The old man’s car broke down and they had to sell my boss some stuff so they could try and fix it.” Ray-Ray shook his head. “They in Spameatin’ shape right now.”

She stood a long time looking into the counter. “Is that high school ring the only ring he sold you?”

Ray-Ray nodded. “That’s the onliest one so far. But if he got another one, I guess we’ll see it before too long.”

She bit the corner of her mouth. “That bad?”

“Hey, I saw him at the Little Palace the other night, and he bummed money for a beer offa me. How’s that for a switch?” Ray-Ray did a little dance and turned around. “He told me he tried to get a job holding the flag with a road gang, but they hired the mayor’s nephew instead.”

“He actually said he’d work holding the flag?”

“That’s a fact.”

“In public, where everybody in town could see?”

Ray-Ray tilted his head and looked Colette up and down. “I think the idea is to get everybody to look at that flag, yeah.”

*   *   *

Bucky Tyler dated Colette two weekends in a row, and when he called and asked a third time, she told him that her belly was too big and she felt awkward going out in public with a man she wasn’t married to. He told her they could do something about that, and she laughed him off and hung up, feeling that she’d just dodged a speeding truck. She liked Bucky Tyler’s moves; she liked the way he could squeeze money out of anything through hard work, but there was something behind his amber eyes that she was not sure of. It was not clear what he wanted from her.