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Lee’s murder—we’d simply have to run for it. We could run faster, farther, and more anonymously in
a V-8 Chevy than in a Volkswagen Beetle.
She saw the gun when I put it into the inside pocket of my sport coat and said, “No. Outside
pocket.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Where I can get at it if you all at once get tired and decide to take a nap.”
We went down the walk, Sadie hitching her purse over her shoulder. Rain had been forecast, but it
looked to me as if the prognosticators would have to take a penalty card on that one. The sky was
clearing.
Before Sadie could get in on the passenger side, a voice from behind me spoke up. “That your
girlfriend, mister?”
I turned. It was the jump-rope girl with the acne. Only it wasn’t acne, it wasn’t rubella, and I
didn’t have to ask why she wasn’t in school. She had chicken pox. “Yes, she is.”
“She’s purty. Except for the”—she made a gik sound that was, in a grotesque way, sort of charming
—“on her face.”
Sadie smiled. My appreciation for her sheer guts continued to go up . . . and it never went down.
“What’s your name, honey?”
“Sadie,” the jump-rope girl said. “Sadie Van Owen. What’s yours?”
“Well, you’re not going to believe this, but my name’s Sadie, too.”
The kid eyed her with a mistrustful cynicism that was all Mercedes Street Riot Grrrl. “No, it’s
not!”
“It really is. Sadie Dunhill.” She turned to me. “That’s quite a coincidence, wouldn’t you say,
George?”
I wouldn’t, actually, and I didn’t have time to discuss it. “Need to ask you something, Miss Sadie
Van Owen. You know where the buses stop on Winscott Road, don’t you?”
“Sure.” She rolled her eyes as if to ask how dumb do you think I am? “Say, have you two had the
chicken pox?”
Sadie nodded.
“Me, too,” I said, “so we’re okay on that score. Do you know which bus goes into downtown
Dallas?”
“The Number Three.”
“And how often does the Three run?”
“I think every half hour, but it might be every fifteen minutes. Why you want the bus when you
got a car? When you got two cars?”
I could tell by Big Sadie’s expression that she was wondering the same thing. “I’ve got my reasons.
And by the way, my old man drives a submarine.”
Sadie Van Owen cracked a huge smile. “You know that one?”
“Known it for years,” I said. “Get in, Sadie. We need to roll.”
I checked my new watch. It was twenty minutes to nine.
3
“Tell me why you’re interested in the buses,” Sadie said.
“First tell me how you found me.”
“When I got to Eden Fallows and you were gone, I burned the note as you asked, then checked with