Quicksilver(44)

“Or,” Bridget said, “we could save a lot of time and just ask Mr. Ching about one of them. After all, he must know everyone from Sulphur Flats to Vulture’s Roost to Tarantulaburg.”

“There’s no town named Tarantulaburg.”

She said, “I find that hard to believe. So we don’t want word getting out that you’re poking around here, and suddenly the ISA gets wise to us. We can’t ask Ching about all three men, because he surely remembers the baby being found on the highway, and he seems like a guy who can read the stitching on a fastball with his eyes shut.”

From the back seat, Sparky said, “Our story could be that I’m an old friend of Hakeem’s, I lost track of him years ago, and I’m hopeful of getting in touch while we’re here, see if he has any advice about Winkelville.”

I said, “That sounds simultaneously ridiculous and workable. Go ahead and give it a try.”

“Not a good idea,” Sparky demurred. “Ching is an intuitive guy. He kept giving me suspicious looks, like he knows my kind.”

“You mean he suspects you were once something, then something else, and then another something that you don’t talk about.”

“Precisely.”

“That’s amazingly intuitive,” I said. “As if he has a nose on him more sensitive than Winston’s.”

“Grandpa has incredible intuition of his own. I’d trust him on this, Quinn. Bart.”

“Anyway,” Sparky said, “son, you’re the only one who has any kind of established relationship with Ching.”

“Relationship? We aren’t going steady, for heaven’s sake.”

“But he likes you,” Sparky insisted. “You amuse him. Go in there and amuse him and get an address for Hakeem Kaspar.”

When I went inside once more, John Kennedy Ching was moving large bags of water-softener salt from a cart onto a display near the front door.

I said, “We wanted to tell you that those sandwiches were absolutely delicious.”

He cocked his head like a bird looking at something curious. “You seem surprised. I would have thought, considering all that the good people of Winkelville had to say about Ching Station, they would have especially praised our sandwiches.”

I was no match for this guy, so I stopped trying to be clever. “The thing is, my future father-in-law, Vernon, fell out of touch with an old friend of his who lives in this area. He’s hoping to find him while we’re here, pick up where they left off, share some stories about the old days. We thought you might know him, where he lives now.”

“Who is this old friend?”

“Hakeem Kaspar.”

“Yes,” said Ching, “he is a lineman for the county.”

“That’s him!”

Ching said, “He rides the main road.”

“Vernon will be so happy.”

“Like most days, he’s been searchin’ in the sun for another overload,” Ching said.

“Do you have an address for him?”

“His place is on the old Apache Trail. It’s a dirt road with no signs. I’ll draw you a little map. You’ll be there in ten minutes at this time of day. At night, in May, with the spring insects at their peak, spattering your windshield, and the bats swarming, you’d need twenty minutes, maybe more. Go while it’s light.”

He went behind the checkout counter and took a small tablet from a drawer. He wrote directions on the front of a page and then drew a map on the back of it.

When he handed the paper to me, I said, “Swarming bats?”

“From mid-May through mid-June, when the flying insects are most plentiful, the bats come to feed on them in flight. Thousands of bats, clouds of wings that hide the moon.”

“Wow. That must be quite a sight.”

“Yes,” Ching said, “but not one that a sane man should want to see.”

“We’ll scoot right out there. I hope he’s not on the job.”

“Well, the lineman is still on the line. He starts before dawn,” Ching said, “but he finishes with that stretch down south about now. You’ll probably catch him just as he’s getting home.”





|?20?|

John Kennedy Ching had not only written directions and drawn a map, but he also had sketched a perfect image of the mobile home in which Hakeem Kaspar lived. It was a handsome fifty-footer raised on concrete blocks. At one end was a covered patio where you could sit during an afternoon and watch the desert vegetation wither in the heat as small animals and lizards dragged themselves across scorching sands. At the other end was a carport in which stood a Ford F-150 pickup with oversized tires. An array of three satellite dishes on the roof evidently provided him with TV and internet access, though I couldn’t imagine why anyone would seek refuge from the madding crowd in this wasteland and then subject himself to Twitter.

Hakeem’s front yard was dirt and gravel stone and a few sprigs of gray grass. I didn’t feel that it was rude to park on it.

When we got out of the Explorer, we heard a generator most likely fueled by propane. Hakeem was beyond the reach of the public power supply, so he had to provide his own electricity in order to enjoy the amenities of civilization, as well as to pump water from his well. He evidently had added a muffler to the generator, because it labored softly, like a family of bears snoring in hibernation.