away from the booth where they sat, I saw who they were. I paused a moment to gather myself.
Who was it? Mose signed desperately.
“You remember the man with the hunched-over boy in the first tent show we saw? That boy who was bent over so bad he could barely walk? And when Sister Eve touched him, his spine just straightened right up? They were both there. And the woman who stuttered and we couldn’t understand what she was saying? She was there. And the cripple guy who threw away his crutches? Yeah, he was there, too. All of them being paid off for the show they put on. Or maybe being paid for the next one, because when Sister Eve gets to Des Moines, they’ll be there, too.”
They stared at me, all of them as speechless as Mose.
“Don’t you get it?” I screamed at them. “She’s a fake. Everything about her is a lie.”
“No, Odie,” Emmy said. “She’s an angel.”
“Some angel,” I said bitterly, and tears rolled down my cheeks again and I didn’t bother trying to stop them.
Mose signed, What about the man with the dead wife?
“She didn’t heal the dead wife, did she? And if Emmy hadn’t told me to play my harmonica, Sister Eve wouldn’t have a face now, would she? Tell me who saved who that night.”
“She’s healed so many people, Odie,” Emmy argued. “They can’t all be fakes.”
“I saw a lot of envelopes with money in them. I think whenever Sid disappears in the morning, he goes to pay off the people who’ve put on a show for Sister Eve.”
What about Whisker? Mose signed. Tsuboi? Everybody else? She helps them.
“Or just uses them,” I said. “Until they get hauled away like Dimitri.”
“We should ask Whisker,” Emmy said. “He wouldn’t lie.”
“How would you know? You’re just a kid.” I said it harshly, and as soon as the words were out of my mouth and I saw how they struck Emmy, I regretted them.
Albert hadn’t spoken in a while. Now he said, “Whisker’s your friend, Odie. Would you know if he was lying?”
I said, “I’m thinking he won’t lie if I ask him straight.”
“Then ask him straight,” Albert said.
“All right, I will. But one thing first.” From my shirt pocket, I pulled the snap case.
What’s that? Mose signed.
“Sid’s a dope fiend.” I opened the case and showed them the syringe and vials.
“Doesn’t surprise me,” Albert said. “Get rid of it, Odie.”
“That’s exactly what I was going to do.”
I snapped the case closed and threw it as far as I could. When it hit the river, it disappeared with barely a splash.
“Let’s go get some answers,” Albert said.
CHAPTER THIRTY
AT THE TENT, we were told that Sister Eve and Sid had gone to the police station to try to spring Dimitri, who, we learned, was wanted on suspicion of selling bootlegged liquor, which to Albert and me was really no crime at all. We found Whisker alone on the platform inside the big tent, his thin, fast fingers doing a little skip across the piano keyboard. When he played during a crusade service, his head was bare, but most other times, he wore a little black fedora at a jaunty tilt. As we mounted the platform, his dark blue lips curved in a warm smile.
“Hey, Buck. We were worried. You kinda disappeared.”
“Just had to get away and do some thinking, Whisker.”
His fingers stopped tickling the ivories and the skin around his eyes crinkled seriously as he studied me. “Whatever you were thinking, it looks like it didn’t sit with you all that well.”
“I’ve got a question to ask you, Whisker. I need the truth.”
He sat back on the piano bench, and his eyes went from me to Albert, to Mose, and finally to Emmy. It was hot in the tent, and a little sheen of sweat formed a glistening mustache above his upper lip. “Knowing the truth ain’t always what it’s cracked up to be, Odie.”
“Will you tell me the truth or not?”
“If I know it.”
“Sister Eve, does she really heal?”
“Now what kind of question is that?”
“Just answer it.”
“Odie, I seen more miracles inside this tent than I can recall.”
“Real miracles or fake? Fake like that boy with the bent-up spine and the woman with the twisted tongue.”
“Ahhh,” he said with a nod. “So, you think you know the truth about those folks, do you?”
“I saw Sid paying them off.”
“Them’s Sid’s people all right.”
“What about all the others?”
Whisker put his fingers on the keys again and softly began to