Page 44 of Never Flinch

“They say, and I quote, ‘RJ is against police brutality except when the brutality in question is employed to protect her precious butt.’ Nice, huh?”

Corrie says nothing, so Kate employs her chick telepathy. “Okay, the pity party’s over. You’re right, the show must go on, so how do we handle this? I have a couple of ideas, but I want yours.”

“Start with a statement. There’s a ton of press downstairs. Something along the lines of how everyone’s on edge after what happened in Reno and Omaha.”

“What else? Show me how much you’ve learned.”

Corrie is simultaneously amused and resentful. It crosses her mind that by the end of August, which is how long the tour is supposed to last, she might actually dislike Kate. If they were together until Christmas (please no, she thinks reflexively), dislike might become outright loathing. Is it always that way with famous people, or only famous people who are totally fixated on their causes?

“I’m waiting,” Kate says.

“We need to go straight to the hospital and visit Ms. Herron. If she’ll see us, that is.”

“She will,” Kate says with utter confidence.

And she does.

3

Kate gives Cynthia Herron a signed Woman Power shirt. (“To make up for the one that got champagne stains on it.”) One reporter and an accompanying photographer are present, and in tomorrow’sRegisterthere will be a photo of Herron not screaming in pain but holding Kate’s hand and looking up at her with starry eyes.

Kate answers a few more questions in the hospital lobby. Then they’re back in the truck and bound for Iowa City. No bustling metropolis, maybe, but Kate’s motto is “when you go small, you get big rewards.”

“I think that went all right,” she says.

Corrie nods. “It did.”

“I want you to get on your iPad, hon. Research the next stops on our tour. We need somebody watching out for us, you were right about that, but no more men. Packer meant well, but the big strong manprotecting the damsel in distress…” Kate shakes her head. “Wrong look. You agree?”

Corrie does.

“No more men,” Kate says, “and no more cops.”

“Who does that leave?”

“Fifty per cent of the population. You figure it out.”

And before they get to Iowa City, Corrie thinks she has.

4

While Kate and Corrie are on their way to the Athens of the Midwest, Holly, Izzy, and Barbara Robinson are having lunch in Dingley Park. Barbara regales them with stories of Sista Bessie’s rehearsals at the Sam’s Club and tells them about how she and Betty are actually collaborating on turning Barbara’s poem “Lowtown Jazz” into a song.

“Except she just wants to call it ‘Jazz,’?” Barbara says. “She says that when she plays the Mingo, starting the thirty-first, she’ll sing ‘Jazz, jazz, that razzmatazz, play that Lowtown jazz.’ But when she’s in Cleveland—”

“It’ll be that Hough jazz,” Izzy says. “And in New York, that Harlem jazz. The personal touch. I like it.”

“That’s not all,” Barbara says. “One of Betty’s roadies had a heart attack, not too bad but he’s got to take it easy for awhile. I talked to Acey Felton, he’s in charge of the crew, and asked if I could take Batty’s place.”

“Batty,” Holly says, and chomps into her Chicago dog. “That’s quite a handle.”

“His real name is Curtis James, but the story is that when he was on a Black Sabbath tour, he… never mind, it’s just that roadies have the best nicknames and the best stories. I’m writing them down in a notebook. Might do something with them, I don’t know what. Anyhow, Acey made me roll one of the monitors and lift it, and when he saw I could, he hired me! I think Betty—you know, Sista—thinks having a poet move trusses and roll amps is sort of funny.”

This is all very interesting, but Holly can no longer rein in her curiosity. “What do you know about the man who was murdered out in Tapperville, Izzy? Was he Bill W.’s work?”

Izzy gives a meaningful look at Barbara.

“I think you can trust Barb,” Holly says. “She was offered a lot of money to contribute to Buckeye Brandon’sHouse of Horrorspodcast about the Harrises, and turned it down.” Nor is that all. Barbara once saw something in the elevator of Holly’s building that was beyond all rationality, and has never said a word about it… unless you count the title poem of her book, which is of course about the nightmare who went (in Buckeye City, at least) by the name of Chet Ondowsky.

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