Free A Moment to Prey by Harry Whittington Page B

for the doctor. She was afraid he would say he would not come unless he got paid and she couldn't stand to hear that.
        "Maybe she was hoping that he would think about her and know how ill she was and come out anyway. She had to hope for a miracle. And that's the way she died. In a room uglier than this one. And I sat on the floor beside her bed and I cried. I remember the flies in that room and the way I brushed them away from her until my arm almost fell off. I remember the way she would catch my hand and tell me not to do it any more because it didn't matter. And I'd think about the way she walked around the house barefooted, saving the only shoes she had for church or Saturday in town. She said she was dying just because she had nothing any more to live for."
        "All right. You had it tough. You think you're the only one."
        "Idon't care about anybody else. Nobody cares about me, so I care. I ain't going to be like Ma. I ain't marrying some no-good man that's got to think he's a god before he'll give you money for bread on Saturday night. The man I marry will know why I'm marrying him-and so will I."
        "You got it all figured out."
        "I got it all figured out."
        "What do you want?"
        "That's easy. I want out of this scrub."
        "Hell, that ought to be easy."
        "Sure. But when I go, I'm going far. I ain't planning to come back."
        "Men out here all the time. Charlie Bullock. Your old man said he had more power than any other guy in this part of the state."
        "Sure, and he's married, too."
        "That shouldn't stand in your way. A gal as tough as you knows what she wants. What's a wife in the way?"
        "She wouldn't matter. Not if I wanted him. But that's where you're wrong. I wouldn't touch him."
        "What you want? Your old man says Charlie is a VIP?"
        "Sure. Around here. He comes out fishing, drinks, throws his weight around, has some money. In a little town like Ocala, he's a big wheel. That's not what I want."
        "You got to start somewhere."
        "No. I'm going to clear out. Some day some guy will come here to fish, from Jax, or Atlanta, or maybe a big town in the North. A man that's got something. A man that is somebody. I don't want to go to some little town like Ocala. What would I be there?"
        "Looks like you could have been Mrs. Charlie Bullock if you'd played it right."
        "No. I'd still be Lily Sistrunk. That ain't where I want to be. I want to get out of this country, be where nobody knows I ever was Lily Sistrunk, and where I can forget it myself."
        
***
        
        She was stringing a net between the slicked cypress uprights on the dock. It was the middle of the morning and she had not been out of my thoughts.
        She glanced over her shoulder. "You still here?"
        "Lily, I want to talk to you."
        She went on stretching the netting. A fish struck in the river, glistening wetly silver for a moment in the sun.
        "Do I look like anything you might want, Lily?"
        She did not smile. She shook her head. "Pa looked through your wallet. I watched him do it."
        "It doesn't matter what's in my wallet, Lily."
        "It matters to me."
        "Suppose I could give you some part of a hundred thousand dollars? I don't know how much yet. But if you helped me find Marve Pooser-"
        The breath exhaled from her. "Marve Pooser again. You got two things on your mind, haven't you? Getting me in a bed and finding Marve Pooser." She laughed, shaking her head. "Two of the worst things that could ever happen to you."
        I looked at her. "I'll take my chances. Marve Pooser has got part of a hundred grand-"
        "Marve?" She had bent over the netting again. She straightened up, and I saw the scowl, the pull between her brows. "Marve Pooser? What you been drinking?"
        "It's the truth. He, he robbed me. I'm going to get that money back.