He learned that her name was Leanne Lancaster, that she was from Luna Pier, Ohio, and had been at Weeki Wachee-this was her third year and she loved it, even if it wasn’t doing her hair a lot of good. That their changing room was down underneath “where we zip up our tails,” smiling at him by now. There were three mermaids named Kim in the show, out of thirteen, and last year there were four, really, all named Kim. He learned that a hundred thousand gallons of pure water a minute rose from the depths of the spring, up through cracks way way down there, and that he ought to catch the Birds of Prey Show and then take the jungle river cruise, see pelicans, raccoons, sometimes even alligators. Leanne hunched her shoulders and gave him a cute shudder as she mentioned gators. She said they could swim into the spring from the river but hardly ever did ‘cause the water was so cold, hunching her little shoulders again as she said, Brrrr… Bob Gibbs said, “Why don’t we sit down and have a Coca-Cola?”

He told her he was from right here in Hernando County originally, born and raised, but had never seen the mermaid show before today. “You imagine that? The show’s been here what, forty years and this is my first time?” He told Leanne he had returned home to attend a funeral but came here instead, acting on some impulse. Strange? He didn’t mention being hung over from partying the night before, unable this morning to bear sitting through a Baptist eulogy. “And I used to work for the deceased when he was Hernando County state attorney, back before I moved to West Palm as a prosecutor, ran for judge of circuit court and have been presiding ever since.”

Leanne had kept staring at him, nodding very slowly as he spoke.

She said, “I have been visited by a wise man,” her look becoming strange, trancelike. “You’re famous, aren’t you? Sure, I saw you on the cover of a magazine.”

“That’s right. It was Newsweek.”