3. In which Adam Rubin gets corralled by a talkative Josh Willingham and Freddie waits

The students went outside for a minute with their chaperone and Adam and Freddie blinked. Shaun was washing some tables, typical unflappable barkeep.
"I was wondering," Freddie said.
"Yes?" Adam said.
"Why is it that no one can remember Thelma and Louise's last names, you know, from the movie?"
Adam scowled. It was just like Freddie to bring up that kind of nonsense.
"I don't know," Adam said. "But I have a friend who is attorney to the housekeeper of the attorney of the housekeeper of Davis and Sarandon. You could ask him."
"Huh? Really?" Freddie seemed surprised.
"Yes. Let's call him on his cel right now." Adam dialed the number.
"Josh Willingham and Associates," said a voice.
"Hello, Josh?" said Adam.
"That's right," said a weird husky whine.
"Josh, it's Adam Rubin."
"Adaaaaaam!"
Willingham was sort of a smarm.
Adam held the phone away from his ear.
"Look, never mind all that," Adam said into the phone. "What were Thelma and Louise's last names. Can you ask Jillian to ask Ed to ask Shana to ask Geena and Susan..."
There was a low rumble. Freddie thought for a moment that it was coming from a nearby manhole cover (outdoors) and a series of ducts.
But it wasn't.
It was coming from Adam's friend.
"Well, my friend, it's not so simple," said Willingham. He spoke in a really odd register. As a child, Freddie had once wondered whether an entire classroom of children, with immense practice, would have been able to simulate the scratches and clipping inherent in a typical suburban school's public address system coming over a tinny loudspeaker, so as to be able to all work together and pipe the sounds, "Ms. Harrison, please come to the office. Ms. Harrison to the office please," so that the teacher would leave the room and the kids could raise a ruckus. The answer had usually been no, but this was the sensation brought about by listening to Josh Willingham talk.
Adam was looking weary. He sipped on a 7-up.
"No," Adam said. "Yes. No, look, I'm not going to go down to that Cash for Clunkers program with you because I don't have a car to trade in. Yes, no."
All Freddie could do was wait. He looked up at a silent monitor overlooking the phony tavern. It was replaying a tape loop of Sarah Palin's farewell speech. Once again, it was difficult to parse out the discrete combination of ingenuous and disingenuous in the Four Arms, in not being able to tell whether their point of origin was more pragmatic, plodding and personable, in which case they would probably be showing the Palin speech because the evening news had been on. or whether their point of origin was purposely pretty postmodern, in which case it was an art thing, similar to the intriguing new artform of live video editing at dance clubs, in which a moment, such as Lee Marvin kicking someone's ass, could be stretched out to a half an hour, or made to repeat in jittery fashion, rewinding by three moments, going ahead by four.
Adam put his head on the rutted wooden table.
Karen came back in with Kirstie and Otty. "We found a squirrel!" she said.