“What it is,” he said, giving the standard response.
The girl smiled and said, “You ain’t no Algerine.”
“No, I’m not,” he said. “I’m looking for your mother.”
“Why?”
“A friend of hers is in the hospital,” Sangster said. “I just want to let her know.”
“I can tell ’er.”
“I’d like to tell her myself,” he responded. “Where she is?”
“She’s workin’.”
“Your little brother told me that much. Can you tell me where?”
“It’s Tuesday, so I think today she’s doin’ the schools.”
“The schools?”
“Yeah,” the girl said. “She cleans a couple of the schools.”
“Which ones?”
“I think she’s on Old Aurora today,” she said. “That’d be Alice M. Harte Elementary or Edna Karr High.”
Sangster didn’t know the schools in Algiers, but he could find them.
“Thanks for the information, Octavia.”
She cocked her head to one side and said, “You wanna maybe come in, have a drink?”
“How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“Yeah, sure,” he said. “Call me in four or five years, Sweetheart.”
As he walked away he heard her say, “Chicken.”
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