Free Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 02 by Mischief In Maggody Page B

were headed in the right direction; Hammet hadn't been any help because he'd never driven home.
    "Yeah," he said. He flopped back against the seat. "You sure we're goin' right? I ain't seen this afore now."
    "According to the map, we're going toward your house. As for the accuracy of the map and my interpretation, I don't know. We may end up on County 103, having wasted about six hours in the process."
    "So you ain't so all-fired smart, huh?"
    I gave him a very quick glance, but it was long enough to see his lower lip stuck out past the tip of his nose. "No," I murmured, "I'm not so all-fired smart. What's bugging you?"
    "Macaroni, if you gotta know. Course you gotta know everything, don'tcha? Goddamn cops."
    "Marconi was an Italian physicist who invented radios," I said without taking my eyes off the road. "He won a Nobel Prize about seventy years ago."
    "So he's dead, huh? Big fucking deal. Ain't nobody what cares about some stupid old Eye-talian who's deader than a pump-handle."
    "Well, the radio is a useful invention. It lets me stay in touch with the dispatcher when I'm out of pocket."
    "Ain't nobody calling you on the radio."
    "But they could, if there were an emergency," I pointed out mildly. "Before Marconi invented the radio, messages had to be mailed or sent on a telegraph wire."
    "How'd he know how to make up this radio iffen there weren't no radios around he could copy off of?"
    I did my best to explain the concept of inventions. Hammet didn't buy any of it, but it got us most of the way to the cabin. As I parked in front of the ramshackle dwelling, I thought I might miss his company -- in an extremely obscure way. I gave him a smile and a pat on the shoulder, then got out of the jeep. As I started across the weedy yard, two children who came straight out of the Hammet mold appeared at the door. Both were larger, but they had the same tangled black hair, piercing yellowish eyes, and protruding brows.
    "Hi, there," I said, stopping at a safe distance. "I've brought Hammet back from town. Is your mother here?"
    Hammet tugged on my sleeve. "That be Bubba and Sissie," he whispered. "Sukie's likely to be hiding inside. She's right shy of strangers."
    The boy, thirteen or fourteen and leaner than a fence post, stared at me for a long while, then said, "Why do you be a-wantin' to know?"
    Hammet edged forward, but he clung to my sleeve. "She be the cop down in Maggody, Bubba, but she ain't all bad. She got me some vittles, and says she'll get y'all vittles, too, iffen we go to town with her."
    "I ain't goin' to town."
    "Me neither," Sissie said, sticking out her chin. "Besides, Her'd whup the tar outta us iffen we wasn't here when she come back."
    "Iffen you starve dead, Her won't find anybody left to whup," Hammet said, expressing my sentiment with succinctness.
    Bubba declined to debate the point. "I ain't goin' nowhere. Ain't none of us goin' nowhere with no goddamn motherfuckin' police lady. Hammet, you get your ass in the house iffen you don't want me to stomp it right now."
    "You're forgetting who stomped ass last time," Hammet replied smugly.
    The two were exchanging alarmingly militant looks when another child came to the doorway, a finger in her mouth. "Baby's a-cryin' again," she lisped through the unappetizing finger.
    "Git inside," Bubba snapped.
    I realized that we needed a social worker, a referee, or perhaps a few National Guardsmen with great big guns. I would have settled for Mrs. Jim Bob with a Bible. One lone (expletives deleted) chief of police was going to have a potentially volatile situation on her hands, as we say in official jargon, if she tried to force any of the Buchanon offspring into leaving. I considered a plea for reason. I considered a passionate appeal to whatever intelligence Bubba possessed. Once I recovered from that momentary flight of fancy, I went back to the jeep and sat down on the fender.
    "There's a lot of food in town," I said.
    "Yeah," Hammet said, nodding. "Cheeseburgers and