The Bird Boys. Lisa Sandlin
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a girl once could read a worried person’s mind. But your Aileen’s in a bigger league. Thank you, ma’am.”
Mrs. Kirk’s smile quavered with gratitude and dread.
Aileen was not drinking a restorative glass of water. The rain had paused, and she was out in the oil-spotted driveway peering into the Dodge. “I like this car, lady,” she said. “Fast. Is it yours?”
“No.”
The red-haired girl’s gaze passed over her. “Not fibbing about that.”
“No, I’m not. Answer me something, OK?”
Aileen skittered away from the car window into the yard. Poked both sets of fingers into her tight jean pockets and looked off across the street to where an optimist neighbor was pinning wet sheets to a clothesline.
“If I can. But only if I want to.”
“Fair enough.” Delpha leaned against a fender. “That black thing you were talking about. Was it on the man or was it loose? Is that—can that black cave get on the inside of people?”
“You did see it. I knew it!” Expressions tumbled over Aileen’s freckled face: satisfaction, vindication, a shudder. The girl’s gaze attached to Delpha. “Inside of a person? Man, I don’t know. Wasn’t in you.”
She stood for a good minute, eyes unseeing, nose up, as if sniffing a patch of air that was a channel to the air of everywhere else.
Delpha felt a mild jolt. Aileen reminded her of herself in the hospital, lying still, gazing through the windows to green treetops so as to leave behind pain and clatter.
The teenager turned to Delpha. “The point is, duh lady, I wasn’t sposed to see it. It was an accident. Now you, seems like it showed itself to you.” The smooth brow furrowed as she stared, the emphasis of the double beauty marks startling. “But, look, there’s a…you know a little tiny girl’s following you?”
Delpha didn’t move. Softly, “No, Aileen, I didn’t know that.”
“Welp. Not now. But I swear she was there in Nana’s office. Wore a little blue smock.”
“Who is she?”
Aileen angled away as if to escape, and then irresistibly back again, so that she appeared to perform a rippling dance move. “I wouldn’t know if you don’t. Hey, you come again let me drive that car, OK? Friday I’m a get my learner’s permit.”
She twirled away. “Bye.”
VIII
PHELAN HAD DECIDED that an hour or so spent on Louisiana birth records might not be a waste of time. Might provide a fallback in case the house search did not uncover Rodney. By finding baby boys born two years apart in the New Orleans area, 1898 and 1900; they could find the Bell brothers—Rodney’s real name, parents’ names, maybe an old address.
Phelan hit up 4-1-1 to ask for the number of the Louisiana Vital Statistics Office. After hearing his request, Vital Statistics informed him he needed State Archives, which resided at the Secretary of State’s office. He duly connected with this office, was transferred, and held while Louisiana Archives in Baton Rouge searched out the proper clerk.
A voice like a trellis twined with honeysuckle identified herself as Louisiana Archives and wished him a good morning so fragrantly that September 10, 1973, rainy or not, became a very good morning. Phelan gave her the name of his business, his location, and said what he wanted.
The clerk interrupted his request: he wanted wha-at? All Orleans Parish births for 1898 and 1900? Couldn’t he just supply her a surname? He was afraid he couldn’t. Ga lee, he didn’t know this was gonna run him a arm and a leg?
State office. Why wasn’t it free?
“Oh, honey. This is Louisiana. Nothing’s free to Texas.”
“All righty then. Tell me what I owe you. Who’d begrudge you a dime, Miss?”
A laugh. “Watch out who you Miss-ing, Sugar-mouth. I got eight kids. Listen, gimme your number, I’m on have to call you back just to tell you how big a check to send us. Gotta count the pages.”
When Mrs. Louisiana Honeysuckle called back with the amount, Phelan jotted the number and squinted at it. Not a fortune, but sure seemed steep. He grimaced and, equipped with a Louisiana-addressed envelope, trotted off to the bank to buy a money order so they wouldn’t have to wait for a check to clear. Shielded his head with newspaper on his run to the car, which took care of reading any unpleasant headlines about the White House today. Phelan slotted the envelope with the money order into a mailbox and skidded into the office just in time to catch the ringing phone.
On the line was the manager of Bellas Hess, a rambling store that aimed to be your one-stop shopping. Except it didn’t sell liquor or food, so that threw a lot of its Beaumont, Texas customers into two or three-stop shopping.
High-ticket items—TVs, stereos, cameras, car tape decks, handguns, shotguns—were walking out of the store. It was happening at night, of course, they’d find the stuff gone the next day. Only the manager and the assistant manager carried keys, Ralph Bauer, the manager, told Phelan. Yes, they kept the keys with them at all times. Headquarters was planning on adding more security, fancier cameras and monitors, but the manager had seen one of Phelan’s ads in the Enterprise, and he thought maybe they could fix the problem before the company went to that expense.
“Be real good if the problem got fixed fast,” he said.
Ralph wanted it fixed on his watch, get a backslap and a head-rub from the company. Phelan understood that.
“Our current schedule’s pretty busy, Mr. Bauer.”
“Aw, now.” The man pushed out a heavy breath. “I was hoping for quick.”
“OK, I tell you what. We’re waiting on some records, so I could work you in right now.”
Silence. Then, a happier tone. “Hold on, lemme go check on something—”
Bellas Hess’s manager came back on the line to report that, all right, the job could be started this afternoon. He was at the store right now in case Phelan wanted to see the lay of the land, so to speak.
Phelan’d been in Bellas Hess before. The land lay flat like every other big store he knew, a concrete plain broken up into corrals, each with a cash register and a minimum-wage captive. 1973’s hourly ran to $1.60, been stuck there five or six years.
“Six p.m. is fine, Mr. Bauer,” Phelan told him. Now he’d have a while to dream up the plan. He hung up, lit a cigarette, and plotted out the next few days. Then closed his eyes.
Two jobs going, and the first was, if not a piece of sponge cake, then simple—an earnest, stuffy old guy looking to be reunited with his slippery brother.
And Delpha was back. She was back.
Though he had almost lost her again on the very day she returned.
An hour after Bell’s departure, the mail slot had clinked, and a couple of letters had dropped onto the floor. With a light step, he went and scooped up the two envelopes.
One white and windowed, one an unbroken expanse of luscious French vanilla. When Delpha’s hand closed on them, Phelan had recalled that the mail was her job. He let go, then scanned the return addresses.
Gulf States Utilities. Griffin and Kretchmer, Attorneys at Law.
“Pay ’em both out of the account,” he said.
“No sir. I’ll pay this one.” Meaning Griffin and Kretchmer. Which would be Miles’ bill.
He looked at her. “You’re not calling me sir?”
Without