Free The Final Confession of Mabel Stark: A Novel (An Evergreen book) by Robert Hough

don't want anyone eavesdropping on our frank conversations. Plus
we'll be more comfortable here, in my house, than in those little huts
made to look grass walled but in fact are polystyrene. While the past
couple of afternoons haven't been too bad, you get a hot one and the
damn things'll heat up like a woodstove. Louis, the old owner, tried
installing air conditioners about a year ago, but that caused havoc with
the fuses. Was a lot of sparking and power outages and one day the
dromedary pen caught fire so he took the units out and sold them for a
quarter of what he'd paid for'em. Course, that was always Louis's way
of doing business: buying high and selling low and finding the whole
thing damn funny. No wonder I liked him so much.

    About six months ago, he found me at the snack bar. Was
lunchtime, and I was tucking into the same thing I eat every day: a hamburger Annie had leaned on between paper towels to get the fat out,
washed down with my second Hamm's of the day.
    "Can I sit, Mabel?"
    "Course, Louis."
    He gave a little tug on his checkered slacks and sat. He was such
a tall man he had to turn sideways so his legs would have somewhere to
go. He twisted his body around so he faced me, and when he spoke it
was in a lowered voice. His forehead was long as an egg flipper.
    "Mabel, you've been here for how many years?"
    "Thirty-six, or leastways close to it, Louis. Came when the
Barnes show closed for good-you know that."
    "Well, that means you've been here longer than anyone. So I
want you to know first. I'm selling. I'm retiring. I'm going to spend my
days watching rodeo in Santa Rosa. I'll make the announcement tomorrow. There just isn't any money in this business, Mabel."
    "That's never bothered you before, Louis."
    "That was then and this is now. Even Feld's Ringling show is
going bust-who would've thought that could happen? I'm getting on, and problems start to wear when you're not so young anymore. It's
high time I took a breather."

    "You're kidding."
    "Nope."
    "Louis Goebbel leaving the animal business?"
    "Running is more like it."
    I was beginning to think he was serious.
    "Who's buying?"
    Here he started laughing. "A couple of candy butchers, if you can
believe that. They go by the names of Jeb and Ida Ritter. Plus another
partner named Ray Labatt. Seems he's got a rich wife who needs to lose
some money for tax reasons. Mostly it'll be Jeb and Ida running the
show."
    "They know anything about running an animal park?"
    "Enough, I suppose."
    "They good people, Louis?"
    Here he paused, long enough his answer didn't exactly fill me
with confidence.
    "Good enough, Mabel."
    Three weeks passed, maybe a little more, till the day came when Louis
was leaving for good and of course he threw himself a going-away
picnic. Clowns on stilts wondered about, and there were kegs of free
beer along with a banquet table covered with food. Word got out,
JungleLand filling that day with old troupers, wranglers and carnies,
half wanting to wish Louis their best and the other half attracted by the
notion of free food. Must've been three, four hundred people easy.
Midway through the afternoon I was standing at the banquet table, in
front of the cheese-and-pickle roll-ups, waiting to get at the tray of
devilled eggs, when I smelled something: menthol and perfume, with
some spearmint gum thrown in for good measure. I turned and saw a
woman in tight pink pants with a flowery shirt tied at the waist. She was bare ankled, and her hair had been lacquered into a beehive; a tornado
wouldn't've ruffled it. With her do and her heels she must've stood six
and a half feet tall. Her bracelets and big hoopy earrings jangled. When
she bent over to reach a buttered bun at the back of the table, her navel
almost grazed the roll-ups.

    Now none of this bothered me unduly, though it's true I dislike it
when women dress in a manner designed to redirect the eyeballs of
men. What did bother me was her reaching hand