Read Online The Buck Passes Flynn by Gregory McDonald - Free Book Online

football. You’d never believe how much. He’s up North someplace, now. Coach of one of those big state-university football teams.” Marge looked at her husband like a child looking into a bird’s nest to see if there were any chicks. “Sandy would know which university. I understand you can see Tommy on television once in a while. He always says he comes from Ada, Texas, which is real nice of him, I mean, seein’ he left here when he was age twelve and all.”
    “I guess I’m asking about someone even richer than Tommy Jackson.”
    “Richer than Tommy? They say he lives in a big house, with a swimming pool. There was a piece about him in
Parade
magazine a few years tack.”
    “I mean someone who went somewhere, discovered oil, put together a big company, owned an airline, a lot of real estate, banking … something … became a billionaire.”
    Marge Fraiman’s eyes had grown wider.
    “No, Mister Flynn. I’ve never known of anyone like that.”
    “Never even heard of anyone like that?”
    “Well, sure, I’ve heard of them. We don’t have a television and don’t believe in cluttering up our minds with magazines and like that. If you can read the Word of the Lord, why read anything else, Sandysays.” The minister’s head went up and down in agreement. “But I know such people exist. There was that man, Howard Hughes—”
    “Right,” said Flynn. “Someone like him.”
    “From right here in Ada?”
    “That’s the question.”
    “Why, no, Mister Flynn. Who’d ever think a thing like that? All that money, and women, and flyin’ around in the face of the Lord? I surely would pray nothin’ like that would happen to anyone from Ada. Not anyone I know.”
    Flynn stared at her a moment, and then said, “Amen.”
    “No one like that from Ada, Mister Flynn. I pray the Lord my husband’s ministry has been better than that.”
    “You mentioned that Mrs. Lewis had a son who ran off and became rich?”
    “Oh, that. That’s just a story about the pig woman. I never laid eyes on any son of hers.”
    “It could have been long ago. Before you were born.”
    “Well, it would have been. Of course. Old Mrs. Lewis, why, she’s a hundred years old if she’s a minute and a half.”
    “You don’t know anything definite about her son?”
    “Definite? I don’t even know she had a son. People love to make up stories about poor unfortunate critters like that. I mean, here she is, out livin’ in that gully with her pigs, givin’ herself airs, dressin’ up in face makeup and spangly glass to pour slop out to the pigs, so everyone goes around sayin’ she has a son rich as Croesus livin’ in a mansion on Park Avenue, New York. Just ’cause everyone’s always said it doesn’t mean it’s true.”
    “I suppose not,” said Flynn.
    “No. It’s just a small town’s way of feelin’ sorry for her, you know? The poor crazy old woman. No one in this town ever’s gotten free and had any money,Mister Flynn. No one, except Tommy Jackson, of course. Why would you ask such a thing, anyway?”
    Flynn said, “I think you should know—and I think you should tell your husband when you can—that I believe every man, woman, and child in Ada, Texas, received a package just like yours—with one hundred thousand dollars cash money in it.”
    “I can’t believe that, Mister Flynn.”
    “Mrs. Lewis received such a package.”
    “Mister Flynn, there are some things that are to be believed, and some things that are not to be believed. I told you about the earthquake—”
    “Satan walked the land,” the Reverend Sandy Fraiman said.
    Flynn rose from the floor. His knees were stiff.
    Still holding her husband’s hand, Marge Fraiman said, “I won’t walk out with you, Mister Flynn, if you don’t mind.”
    Flynn said, “May I ask what you and your husband are going to do?”
    “I’ll just sit with him,” she said, “until it’s time to pray.”
    “And then what will you do?”
    “Why, I said: we’ll