“You don’t have a key, how you plan to get in the man’s room?”
“Maybe we won’t have to.”
“Then what do we need a burglar for?” Roy said. “What’s your part in this deal?”
“You afraid you’re gonna do all the work?”
“I have so far.”
Was he being serious? Jack wasn’t sure. He got out a cigarette and scratched a hotel match to light it. Roy’s tone was always the same unless he was talking to traffic or a lavatory door, so it was hard to tell. But was he serious at this moment or not?
“I’m gonna follow the guy,” Jack said, “and learn all about him. Where he banks, where he eats his supper… If I have to go in his room I’ll find a way, so don’t worry about it. Okay?”
Roy said, “I’m not worried. I already found you a way.” He sipped his drink, not taking his eyes from Jack, then put on a grin as he said, “You starting to feel some strain?”
It told Jack, yes, Roy had been serious a moment ago and now he was letting up, turning it around. Roy was a friend, but Roy had to be handled with a pair of Leo’s rubber gloves, carefully.
Jack said, “You found somebody working here you know,” and watched Roy put a little more into his grin.
“Guess who.”
“Man or woman?”
“Man.”
“Black or white?”
“Dark brown. Give you a hint-great big nigger.”
“I know him?”
“There was a time he might’ve killed you, if it weren’t for me.”
Roy was maintaining his importance. Jack said, “It surprises me I even knew how to take a leak before I met you, Roy. This was up at the farm you’re talking about. Lemme think… The time I was watching TV and the hogs came in the room and switched the channel.” He saw Roy nod. One of his first nights in Big Stripe. The lights went off in the dormitory at ten-thirty, but TV could stay on, in the bare room with folding chairs, till twelve.
That same day, just before they blew the yard at six and everybody had to be somewhere, the black con had approached him making a kissing sound, said, “Hey, bitch, I think you my style, yeah,” made that kissing sound again and Jack hit him in his puckered mouth, half turned and threw the punch with a lot of body in it. He took the guy by surprise and decked him the same way he used to do it when he was fifteen and sixteen at the river beach and it was for fun, not a matter of staying free, out of some guy’s bunk after lights out. He had heard guys with each other in the dark, Jesus, and couldn’t believe it. Right after he hit the guy and a crowd began to close in, Roy had walked up and said, “You willing to fight anybody wants you as their gal-boy?” Jack had all his adrenaline there handy and said, “You want to find out?” Roy said, “You need me, Delaney.” Knowing his name already. “There are seventy-one of them and eighteen of us.” Meaning blacks and whites in the dorm. “If you don’t care to be part of a mixed marriage then tell them you’re Roy Hick’s round-the-way. You understand? You’re my home-boy, friend from civilian life. It’ll save you breaking your hands or dying, one.”
Now at the table in the hotel courtyard Roy said, “You were watching ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’ and the three hogs come in and switched it to ‘Bugs Bunny’ or some fucking thing.”
Jack said, “ ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,’ the burglar’s dream program, wasn’t on the air yet. I was watching a movie and I’ll tell you what it was, it was The Big Bounce, a terrible movie, but Lee Grant was in it and I was in love with her at the time. Woman has a wonderful nose. And the hogs, they came in and switched it to ‘Love Boat,’ which I couldn’t stand to watch. So I got up and switched it back.”
“That’s when I came in,” Roy said. “And who was it switched it back to the ‘Love Boat’?”
“Biggest black guy I ever saw-up until the Superbowl and the Refrigerator was playing with the Bears. You mean to tell me Little One is working here at the hotel?”
“He’s a waiter,” Roy said. “I just saw him, pushing a table into the elevator. Little One, that night, he switched the TV back and you didn’t know what to do.”
“You talking about? I would’ve switched it back soon as Little One sat down. You walk in, look at me. You go, ‘What’re you watching this shit for?’ I wasn’t watching it, I was watching the movie.”
“He’d a killed you.”
“He might’ve tried.”
“I told him, ‘Little One, sit down.’ You remember? I told him, ‘You behave, or I won’t let you join the Dale Carnegie Club. Shit, I was on the executive committee and Little One knew it. He was dying to get in the club ’cause you know the man liked to talk. But they wouldn’t let him in account of he was such a mean asshole.”
“I remember you tried to get me to join.”
“You should’ve. Dale Carnegie changed Little One’s life. They even let him in the Angola Jaycees.”
“You mention the fundraiser to him?”
“Sure I did. He knows him. Says the man’s running up a bill you wouldn’t believe, but doesn’t tip for shit.”
“I wonder when he’s coming back.”
“That desk clerk’s got his head up his ass-the man never left. He’s sitting right in there, in the cocktail lounge.” Roy nodded. “That door over in the corner. The dining room and the bar.”
Jack didn’t move. “Little One said he’s in there?”
“Last time he saw him.”
“Were you gonna tell me or keep it to yourself?”
“I just told you, didn’t I?” Roy leaned back in his chair as he said, “Jack, if it ain’t fun, it ain’t worth doing. I thought we were of a mind on that.”
Jack felt off-balance, awkward, but didn’t believe it showed. He drew on the cigarette, blew a thin stream of smoke, and said, “I forgot. Make it look easy.”
“Like we played the two guys in the car. Nothing to it.”
“He’s in the bar, uh?”
“I don’t think you should stick your head in there, let him see you,” Roy said. “That might not be too funny, would it? We could have us another beverage, wait for him to come out. There’s no way he’d recognize you in this shitty light. Though you might move your chair back a speck, get behind the tree more.”
Jack said, “That’s an idea.”
Roy grinned at him. “I thought you’d like it.”
They had fresh drinks in front of them when Jack saw Roy look up and open his eyes with some expectation. Jack bent his head back as far as it would go as the black trousers and white jacket appeared next to him at the table. He said, “Little One, is that you up there?”
Little One said, “Mr. Jack Delaney, it’s a pleasure to see you, but we better skip shaking hands. The man’s coming out this minute and I don’t know you gentlemen from any other convict dudes come in here.” He walked off toward the lobby.
Roy said, “That must be him now.”
Jack looked over his shoulder, surprised to see two figures, Mutt and Jeff: the colonel wearing that same tan suit and black tie, moving with the same confident, lazy stride, talking with easy gestures, using his hands a lot.
Jack said, “The short one.”
Roy said, “I know that. But who’s the gringo?”
Yeah, guy about fifty in a dark suit, dress shirt but no tie, dark-rimmed glasses, thin sandy hair. Little One held the door open, glanced back, and then followed them into the lobby.
There was a silence at the table until finally Jack said, “Maybe he’s a contributor, an oilman.”
Roy said, “Uh-unh, he’s the law. I can’t tell what branch of government, but you can put it down in your book he’s a fed.”
TUESDAY MORNINGJack had to pick up a body at Hotel Dieu, an eighty-five-year-old woman who’d spent her last month there at the hospital, light as a feather lifting her onto the mortuary cot. Back at Mullen & Sons he wheeled the cot onto the floor lift, pushed the button, and watched it rise through the opening trapdoor in the ceiling to the second floor. Jack went up the back stairs, wheeled the cot off the lift and into the prep room, where Leo was filling the embalming machine with Permaglo.