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By Root 1886 0

them and found out he was still alive, they might try it again. Desperately, he tried to figure out what to do next. While he sat before his cold coffee in a dilemma, pondering his future and perhaps his impending murder, it struck him like a bolt of lightning. Wait a minute, he thought. In the middle of this seeming tragedy there was another part of it he had just realized. He was, for all intents and purposes, dead, or at least everyone thought he was. For the first time in his life he was free. Free to be who and what he really was. He would no longer have to lead a double life, always looking over his shoulder, afraid of getting caught; always terrified he might upset his mother or disgrace the family. He’d have to die to do it. It would be a big price to pay but he figured it would be worth it.

In the end, the man Hamm and the boys had taken the meeting with in New Orleans said nothing. He could not afford to have his name involved in any scandal. Mr. Anthony Leo of St. Louis did wonder what had happened to the boat and his missing dynamite but he was certainly in no position to say anything and for years continued to wonder but kept his mouth shut. The man who’d sold Rodney the illegal Cuban rum said nothing and the man who’d sold Cecil the stolen formaldehyde certainly said nothing. And Cecil said nothing.

In fact, there was no Cecil. From that day forward, nobody but himself knew that Miss Anita “Boom Boom” De Thomas, gorgeous headliner at the famous My Oh My Club in New Orleans, Louisiana, was the sole survivor of the late Mr. Cecil Figgs of Missouri. Cecil had been given an opportunity that few people in this world ever get. He had been shown an open door that led to a new life and he had walked through it to the other side and there was no turning back. Mother Figgs and the entire Figgs clan were left a small fortune and the warm memory of a good son and he was going to have a good time the rest of his life. He had only one major and painful regret in leaving Cecil behind. It had just about killed him not to be able to plan the governor’s funeral. It would have been the triumph of his career. Oh, well.

Time to Say Good-bye

MACKY COULD READ the handwriting on the wall. Long before he said anything to Norma, he knew he just could not compete as a small hardware store. Three different malls had sprung up, and now with the brand-new Home Improvement Center in one and Wal-Mart and Ace Hardware in the other, he had lost business. Most of his old customers had tried to stay with him but with so many new people moving in and the prices being so low, he was losing them one by one, and as he told his friend Merle, “Hell, I can’t blame them, I’d shop out there myself.” Selling out and retiring had been in the back of his mind but he had not had any serious thoughts about it until lately. But events tumbling upon one another had brought him to the moment when he actually sat down and talked with her about the prospects of selling their house.

Pretty soon Macky and Norma started sending off for brochures of retirement communities. From the pictures of the good-looking silver-haired men and women standing around having cocktails, playing golf, tennis, and swimming, it looked like fun. “Your home away from home, only better,” they said.

As it turned out, the decision was made in less than forty-eight hours and it had nothing to do with anything that was planned. Verbena and Merle called in a fit. They had a nephew who was living in a gated community in Vero Beach and he had just found out that a house was coming up on the market in a few days and he’d called to see if they were interested. He said that it was one of the best retirement complexes down there and if somebody moved fast, before the Realtors found out about it, they could buy it from the owner, a friend of his, and not have to pay the commission.

After Macky got off the phone he told Norma all about it. “But the bad news,” he said, “is we have to make up our minds right away. Merle said there are people waiting in line to buy it if we don’t.”

Norma