We were still 24 hours from Tulsa, or at any rate the Folk Festival main stage, and apart from strolling up and down the street, quaffing some brew with Obannion the cop, pulling knives out of superannuated folkies like Ned Loonbucket, chatting with Arab oil brokers, swapping stock tips with Cosmo Tepperman, and a few other charming characters, I was still looking at my client, refurbished anorexic folk diva Condolezza Schwartz with a big bullseye painted on her fading front. Unless it was all a big scam. Maybe they had set it up so that the press would make something of it -- "Folkie Under Threat of Death Still Plays On" -- I wouldn't put it past Tepperman. Except that the knife was a bit of a sticking point.
Anyway, Lucky and I had barely made it out onto the street, with our Hardy Boys detective handbook under our arms, and a bounce in our steps, when a stretch limo pulls up. A different stretch limo. It was not a big town, I began to wonder if there was enough turning room in this burg for all the stretch limos that seemed to be arriving. Maybe they would have to rent another town for the weekend. The tinted window in the back rolls down, and an elegantly coiffed lady in an oh so subdued cream suit and a Lady Rolex on her tanned arm says:
"Blake. It is you. I knew it would be."
There is a story that a guy went on a round the world sailing trip in a oneman craft so as to get away from a woman, and somewhere in the Timors he stopped for an hour in a dockside bar to buy fruit and he got back into his boat and about three days later he unwrapped a bunch of bananas, and while he was chewing on a banana he happened to look down at the crumpled piece of newspaper that the bananas had been wrapped in, and there staring up at him was a notice that the woman had married someone else in St. George's Chapel, London, etc., etc. His boat was found bobbing around some months later.
To tell you the truth, I hadn't gone anywhere, nor was I eating a banana, but you get the idea.
"Hi Sherry. Long time. How's Florida?"
She smiled wanly. "I figure it was about $20,000 an overseas ballot by the time the dust settled, Blake. It staked me to Paris, and we bid farewell quite amicably."
"What brings you to our fair town once more?"
She looked at me in the old way. "Who's your lady friend?"
Lucky had meanwhile been checking out whether the clouds today were nimbus, cirrus, or cumulonimbus.
"Lucky Day, this is an old friend of mine, Sherry Aims." Get the order right, etiquette fans.
They shook hands. No conversation ensued. I segued deftly:
"So, Sherry, what brings you to our fair town once more?"
"Cosmo Tepperman, who has connections to our mutual friend in Florida, suggested that I might come and check out some business, that's all, and take in some music. We brought a picnic lunch and everything!" She waved a bottle of a modest Alsatian Riesling that would have paid off the Uruguyan deficit.
"We?" I said.
She gestured back towards the other side of the limo. I got a glimpse of a cowboy hat and boots. "This is a companion of mine, kind of a trail boss." There was an appreciative chuckle from beside her. "Blake Madison, Trail Mix." I reached in and shook hands with whoever he was. There was a ring from a cellphone.
"Well," said Sherry, "Must go. That's Singapore. See you at the frailing competition or whatever." And she rolled up the window, and the limo purred away.
There was a long silent pause. Then I said," You know what is wrong with this town?"
"What?" said Lucky.
"There aren't enough stray animals. When you want a stray animal to kick, zero."
"Oh," she said, "I'm sure you'll find something."