Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg [201]
“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 of fish 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 Communist 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.
Cecil Figgs, a.k.a. Ramon Novarro
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, tax-free bootleg rum from Cuba, which Rodney Tillman had arranged to take back to Missouri as well.
Later that night after