Helene handed him her empty glass. “Why are you telling me all this, Jack? Why haven’t you called Lucy or one of your buddies?”
“I’ll see ’em tomorrow.”
“I think you want to hear yourself,” Helene said. “Hear what it sounds like out loud.”
“Maybe.”
“You’re not telling it to impress me. Like the first time, when we met and you were dying to tell somebody about your secret life. This is a lot different.”
“You bet it is. These guys are awake.”
“But you’re in it for more than the money, or the excitement.”
“I don’t know…” Jack got up, went to the refrigerator with their glasses, poured a couple more ice-cold vodkas, and then stood there, holding them. “On the news this evening, I look up, there was Tom Brokaw asking Richard Nixon, for Christ sake, what he thought about our giving the contras a hundred million dollars. Asking Nixon, who used to have this gang of burglars working for him and didn’t do one fucking day of time. Nixon says, sure, they need our help. Brokaw says, but couldn’t that lead to our military involvement down there? Nixon says, no, it will prevent having to send our young men later. And Brokaw says, ‘Thank you, Mr. President.’ He doesn’t say, ‘Are you out of your fucking mind? Why would we send our young men? You want to go, go ahead. And take all those asshole advisers in the White House with you.’ No, Brokaw says, ‘Thank you, Mr. President.’ ”
“What else’s he gonna say?”
“I know, but I got mad. Asking that fucking crook his opinion. He didn’t even do trash time in a country-club joint.”
Helene said, “You know what I think?”
“What?”
“I think you’ve taken sides.”
Jack opened his eyes to a sight that, fantasized, could carry a convict through the day and into the night: Helene coming out of the bathroom in just her tiny little panties. He told her she better get back in bed, quick, before she caught cold.
“You’re suppose to pick somebody up at ten?”
“Cullen. We’re going to Gulfport.”
“I thought you went yesterday.”
“We did, but the guy wasn’t there. Here.” He raised the sheet.
“It’s twenty to.” She began doing a twisting exercise, feet apart, hands on her hips, her breasts a half beat behind her shoulders. “You realize we didn’t make love? We fell asleep? I don’t believe it. I think you’re getting old, Jack.”
“I’m ready-you’re the one got up.”
“Do you know that’s the first time we ever slept together and didn’t?”
“I think you’re right.”
“We may as well be married.”
“There’s a kitchenette down the hall, next to the embalming room…”
“Oh, God, this place.”
“If you want to put some coffee on.”
Jack took a shower and put on a work shirt and cotton pants, picked up his jacket, and walked down the hall. The kitchenette was dark. He saw the doors to the prep room open, the light on, then saw Helene as he heard Leo’s voice.
“No, that’s arterial, the Permaglo, it takes the place of the blood. What I’m injecting now, through the trocar, is cavity fluid. It’s a chemical you use to firm up the organs.”
Leo had a body on the embalming table. A man, it looked like. Helene was standing at the head of the table in her black dress, watching.
“You want to shoot some inside the mouth, too, so you don’t have any sag.”
“It’s fascinating,” Helene said.
“See this? It’s a trocar button.”
“Oh, to fill in the hole.”
“Right, so you don’t have to suture it as you do incisions and lacerations. Then you cover ’em with a special wax we use.”
Jack said, “I don’t suppose anybody made coffee.”
“Hey, there he is,” Leo said. “I was just showing your friend here how we prepare the deceased.”
“This’s Helene, Leo.”
“Yeah, we met.”
“If nobody made coffee,” Jack said, “I have to leave.”
Helene said, “Oh, nuts. I wanted to see how you do the cosmetics.”
“Stick around,” Leo said. “I can drop you off later. Sure, no problem.”
“I’m going to Gulfport,” Jack said. He walked off. Helene was asking, what’re those? And Leo was telling her eye caps, you slip ’em under the lids.
People were acting weird. Everyone he met.
Or it’s you, Jack thought. The way you see them.
Franklin de Dios, watching Lucy Nichols’s house, saw the old car arrive: the light-colored one he believed was a type of Volkswagen and needed repair, something to make it quiet. He knew whose car it was.
It turned into the driveway. Thirty-five minutes passed. Now the dark-blue Mercedes sedan, two people in it, came out of the driveway and turned toward St. Charles. Franklin de Dios was parked on a beautiful street named Prytania, near the corner where it joined Audubon. He gave the Mercedes the head start of a block before he got after it: up to Claiborne Avenue and then to the interstate, number 10, going toward the east… going far out of the city and across the lake on a beautiful day, following the Mercedes in the rented black Chrysler Fifth Avenue. If he could buy any car he wanted it might be one like this. Or the Cadillac he drove for Crispin Reyna in Florida. He had never driven a Mercedes. He had driven a truck and an armored troop carrier after he had learned to drive in 1981. A man who worked for Mr. Wally Scales in Honduras had taught him to drive and said in front of him to Mr. Wally Scales he was a natural-born driver with a respect for the machine, not like those others who became crazy behind the wheel and destroyed whatever they drove.
Mr. Wally Scales had said to forget about Lucy Nichols, but the colonel had insisted. Watch her house. If the car leaves, follow it.
Crossing the state line at this moment into Mississippi.
Franklin had lost confidence in Mr. Wally Scales, in his ability to see into people; but he did trust him and could talk to him. He could not talk to Colonel Godoy or Crispin Reyna. The reason was simple. They didn’t listen when he said something to them. He was beneath their social class, far beneath them with his mixed black and Indian blood.
But it was Mr. Wally Scales, the CIA man, who had brought him to Miami; they were in a way friends, or they could be friends. Mr. Wally Scales listened when he said something to him. He listened this morning when Franklin de Dios told him he no longer trusted the word of the colonel or Crispin Reyna. Mr. Wally Scales said, “Why is that, Franklin?”
“They talk always of Miami, Florida, but not the war.”
“Oh, is that right?” Mr. Wally Scales said, trying to act as though he was concerned. “Well, then you better keep an eye on them.”
See? He was kind and he listened, but didn’t have feelings that told him about people. Or he didn’t care.
When Franklin de Dios asked him about Lucy Nichols, the CIA man said, “Oh, she’s a peace marcher. One of those bleeding-heart types. Had it in for the colonel, so she got his girl friend out of town most likely. No big deal.”
When he asked about the guy at the funeral place, Mr. Wally Scales said, “Jack Delaney? She must’ve suckered him, that’s all. Used him. Hard-up ex-con with no brains.”
That was when Franklin de Dios realized he could trust the CIA man as a friend but not rely on his judgment. He decided not to ask any more questions or tell Wally about meeting the guy with no brains five times in the past week.
Maybe the sixth time coming up.
The guy, Jack Delaney, and another guy were in the car he was following, the dark-blue Mercedes turning off the highway now at the second exit sign to Gulfport.
Anything else he wanted to know, he would have to talk to the funeral guy himself.
Ask him why he didn’t kill you.
Ask him what he was doing.
Ask him what side he was on.