Wakulla Springs by Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages Read Free Book Online Page A

plenty colored enough that his breachingthe surface in the middle of the swimming area would empty the beach as quickly as a sea monster.
    Out here, though, rich visitors off the highway were actually pleased to see a neatly dressed colored boy strolling along the shoulder of Mr. Ball’s newly paved mile-long drive. He was a part of the exotic Florida landscape they had traveled to see, like an ibis in the marsh or a gator in the ditch.They figured he was on his way to bus tables or shine shoes at the Lodge. Sometimes they stopped to take his picture and, less frequently, give him a nickel.
    But the road was deserted at the moment, it being a Sunday afternoon, so Levi was in his preferred state: alone with his imaginings. As he walked, he repeatedly pulled an imaginary gun on an invisible saboteur, pretending he was HerbertA. Philbrick, hero of I Led Three Lives —Levi’s favorite TV show—on assignment to infiltrate a Communist cell headquartered at the Wakulla Springs Lodge. It could happen. Famous people had stayed there—though his mama didn’t like to talk about them much—and weren’t those the most likely targets of Soviet assassins? Famous people? Ordinary people just got killed.
    Given this morbid line of thought,he was spooked when a voice called out behind him: “Big House, Mister! I got your Big House!”
    It was just Policy Sam, hurrying to catch up. As usual, he paid little attention to where he was going, focused instead on re-counting the dozens of strips of paper he clutched, plucking them out of one fist and sorting them between the fingers of the other. As he ran, stumbling once or twice, the stripsfluttered in the breeze like tails of Spanish moss. “Oh, it’s you,” Policy Sam said when he caught up. His disappointment was obvious: He knew Levi’s mama would whale both of them if she ever caught her boy wasting good money playing the numbers.
    Policy Sam had been simply Sam when the boys were growing up, but Levi hadn’t seen him at the Sink for more than a year, since Sam had been hired asa runner for old Cooper, up at the Crawfordville Big House. Every boy in the area knew that once he was old enough to do the math, he could earn pocket money running numbers. Young boys were easy to overlook and hard to apprehend; they also were easy to hurt if they got caught pocketing more than the five percent due them. After a few weeks, once they realized the boss expected them to hawk numbersto everyone they met morning, noon, and night, most boys tired of the racket. But Sam always had been a motormouth, and the twenty-four-hour sales pitch suited him. Now everyone called him Policy Sam, and Levi could seldom get him to talk about anything else.
    “Good day today?” Levi asked.
    “Middling,” Sam replied. “But no interesting numbers. Everybody’s playing 19 and 53, for the year, or 18because it’s 1-9-5-3 added together, or 5 because the Yankees have won five straight series, or 16 because that’s how many series they’ve won total, or 13 because the Yankees won game six 4 to 3, or—”
    “Okay, okay, I get it,” Levi said. “Hard to surprise you with a number these days.”
    “Folks ain’t even trying,” Sam said. “The dull ones, they play the same number every day. Your Aunt Vergie, Iknow you love her, but it’s always 3 with her, ’cause her little girl was three when she died. Ain’t that the sorriest-ass reason for picking a number you ever heard? Some policy, betting on the age of a little dead girl?”
    “Three’s a lucky number, too,” Levi said.
    “Not for her,” Sam replied. “You been in swimming?”
    “Yeah. How you know that?”
    “You digging in your ears like there’s water inthere,” Sam said. He laughed. “And I know your mama didn’t give you no bath, ’cause it ain’t Saturday.”
    Levi shoved him, but laughed, too. “Get out! My mama don’t wash me. I do that myself.”
    “Yeah, washing in Mr. Ball’s water. I bet you pee in it,