He would not have answered that question for all the tea in China.
When Macky walked in the door Norma was waiting for him in T T the living room and said, "Macky, sit down." The look on her face told him she was about to tell him something terrible or wonderful, he never knew which. But he sat down.
"What is it?"
"I've been on the phone with Linda," she said.
"Yes, and?"
"And. She said she wants to have a baby, she says her biological clock is ticking."
"Uh-huh, has she met someone?"
Norma got up and started to rearrange the pillows on the sofa, just like she always did when she was nervous. "No, she hasn't met anyone but she has been calling different agencies."
Macky was alarmed. "Agencies? What the hell is she doing that for? There are plenty of men where she works."
Norma cleared her throat. "That's just it, she doesn't want a man; well, at least not in person. She wants the baby but not the husband… that's what she said."
"What?"
"Now, before you get mad at me, I did not say I thought it was a good idea but she has decided to go to a'Norma weighed her words very carefully'a place that specializes in that sort of thing. She's looking into one of those… you know… bank things."
"Banks?"
Norma was becoming impatient. "Oh, Macky, don't make me have to spell it out for you. She wants to get pregnant but she does not want to get married again. She's going to one of those places that deal in… frozen"
Norma struggled but no matter how hard she tried she could not bring herself to say the actual word. She glanced out the front window to see if anyone was in hearing distance, then spelled it out:
"S-P-E-R-M."
"What?"
"Macky, have you never heard of artificial insemination? That's what she wants to get and she just wanted to let us know."
"Good God."
"You always said she could tell us anything well now she has. I just don't know what to say or what to think. She's your daughter. If you hadn't acted like you wanted a grandchild so much that other time, this might not have happened."
"Norma, she was pregnant what was I supposed to say?"
"You acted like a grandchild was the only thing you'd ever wanted in your entire life, then when she had the miscarriage it made her feel even worse." Norma suddenly burst into tears and wailed, "I hope you're satisfied. You're about to have one with a Popsicle for a father!"
But after months of trying and many disappointments, Linda's attempt to become pregnant was not successful and she finally gave up. Macky and Norma assumed that was to be the end of it but when Macky came in from a fishing trip Norma met him at the back door and announced, "Well, I hope you like chop suey."
"What?"
"Your daughter called while you were gone. She is now on her way to China to pick up a foreigner baby."
"What?"
"She said she applied for a little girl a year ago. She said she didn't tell us before because she thought she would never hear from them but three days ago they called her and told her to come over and pick it up."
He stood there holding his string offish with his mouth open. It was the last thing in the world he expected to hear.
"Congratulations, Macky, you are now the grandfather of a corn munist who will probably grow up and murder us all in our beds." With that she left him standing in the kitchen and went back to bed in tears.
As upset and worried as they both were, the moment they saw the beautiful little button-eyed girl Linda had named Apple, they fell in love. Two years later Norma was out at the mall proudly wearing a sweatshirt with a picture of the little Chinese girl on it. Printed underneath was:
SOMEBODY SPECIAL CALLS ME GRANDMA.
When the body of the large, heavyset woman in the red wig had been picked up off the street and brought to the Cecil Figgs funeral parlor for embalming, they discovered that the lady on the table was no lady. Imagine their incredible surprise when they were told that the man in the bright green dress was none other than Mr. Cecil Figgs!
What a scandal. Thank heaven, Cecil's mother had not lived to see it.
Jake Spurling immediately flew to New Orleans. But even he, with all his powers of deduction and all the resources of the F.B.I, behind him, could not figure out how Figgs had wound up living in New Orleans for the past twenty-something years as a Miss Anita "Boom Boom" De Thomas.
As hard as he tried, Jake could come up with nothing. The only human being who had really known what had happened to Hamm and the rest of the men was now dead, and even he had not known it all. Jake might have solved some of it but he had missed out on a very important clue years ago.
A piece of wood had washed up with the word AYE written on it. The river rescue authorities checked their logs, and a boat registered to a Mr. J. C. Patterson named Aye Aye, Skipper had been lost eighteen years ago. They assumed it was from the Patterson boat. But they were wrong. That piece of wood was from the only thing left intact of The Betty Raye.
When The Betty Raye had docked in New Orleans, Cecil had the name of a contact in Louisiana who would sell him formaldehyde by the ten gallons at a cut rate, so he figured that as long as he was there, he would have the man load The Betty Raye with eighty gallons, and Cecil would bring it back to Missouri.
Cecil did not know that the reason the man was selling the formaldehyde at such a good price was because it had been stolen from one of Cecil's own warehouses. While Hamm and the other men were off having their meeting, Cecil was in the French Quarter, and the boat was loaded not only with the formaldehyde but with fifty cases of cheap, taxfree bootleg rum from Cuba, which Rodney Tillman had arranged to take back to Missouri as well.
Later that night after the meeting, The Betty Raye, loaded to the gills with cheap booze and cut-rate formaldehyde, took off, headed back to the boathouse. They were playing cards enroute and Seymour Gravel was chewing on his smelly cigar. "I'm out," he said and threw his cards down, complaining about his bad hand, and began looking for a match.
It was a hot night and the rest of them were in the middle of a pretty intense poker game.
Hamm said to Seymour, "If you're gonna smoke that thing, go sit in the back."
Seymour waddled back and sat down on a box and continued to search his pockets for a match. "Hey, Wendellthrow me your lighter for a minute."
Wendell, preoccupied with trying to decide whether or not to raise Hamm, reached in his shirt pocket and tossed his heavy silver Zippo with the marine insignia on it back to him. Seymour reached out but missed, and it sailed on past him. As it was turning over in midair, the top of the lighter flew open, and when it hit the side of one of the boxes, it landed right smack on its small wheel. As people often say when such a freak thing happens, "If you tried you would not be able to do it again in a million years." The spark from the lighter ignited the dry straw the liquor was packed in and started to spread like wildfire.
What none of the men knew was that a few months ago, the real owner of the boat, Mr. Anthony Leo, had acquired some stolen dynamite he was planning to use in the future to settle a business dispute. And he had it stashed in a secret compartment in the bottom of The Betty Raye for safekeeping.
The gallons of flammable formaldehyde, boxes of ninety-proof alcohol, and a cargo full of dynamite below proved to be not only illegal but a lethal combination. Two men who were out on the river in a rowboat fishing that night came in and said they had just seen a huge comet come hurtling down from the sky. They said it had shot across the horizon and had landed about a mile upriver. But they were wrong. What they had seen that night had not been a comet coming down. It had been Hamm Sparks, boat, and cronies going up!
The bad news: this spectacular event had certainly ended a remarkable political career.
The good news: Hamm Sparks had always wanted to go as high in the world as he could and he had. And as usual, the rest of the men had just been along for the ride. But as it turned out, there was one man who had not been along that night.
Cecil Figgs had failed to show up at the time they were scheduled to leave and they had left without him, which was fine with him. He was having too much fun. He had left the car keys with Rodney, and Cecil figured he could always fly home.
He woke up in New Orleans two days later in a seedy hotel in the French Quarter with a bad hangover. His young companion was gone but had left a note.