The man was talking again and she listened, still looking at Jack. “He wants to know why we’re being difficult.” Translating as the face with the sunglasses spoke through the window. “He says it will only take a minute. He wants you to turn off the motor and get out. With the key.” She listened again and then said, “If you try to drive off someone will be dead in this coach. If there isn’t someone already.”
He saw her eyes and then she was turning away, saying something back to him now in rapid Spanish, fluent, an edge to her tone. The window framed the face with the sunglasses and the BIG SPRING TIRE SPECIAL behind him, lettered on the window of the empty station with the light on inside and the decals on the door.
Jack said, “Don’t get him mad, okay?” He took the key from the ignition and she turned back to him as he opened the door. “But keep talking.” He got out, pushed the lock button down and closed the door.
The farm boys across the street were uncapping beers in the sunlight, still watching, a boy turning his head to remark, speculate, force a laugh, fool with the bill of his tractor cap. Trying to liven up a Sunday afternoon in St. Gabriel. Jack had known some farm boys at Angola, one who’d killed a man with a beer bottle, drunk.
He’d known guys like the face with the sunglasses and the Creole-looking guy standing in front of the hearse, the guy turning to face him as he came around. They’d stand like that in the Big Yard looking for some new guy to turn out, give him that sleepy mean look and not move out of the way. The dead-eyed stare saying, Walk around me, man. But knowing if you did you might as well hand over your balls, they weren’t yours anymore. He would walk around this one; there was nothing to prove. But you didn’t have to walk around any of them in the yard if, one, you walked over them or, two, you used your head. If you knew before they tried to turn you out you were smarter than they were, smarter than at least 95 percent of the entire prison population…
Smarter than these two assholes giving him that old familiar look. Jesus, he hoped so, if he had learned anything of value in those thirty-five months. A good rule was, whenever you were with people whose intentions were in doubt, the first thing you did was look for a way out or something to hit them with.
He nodded and smiled at the Creole-looking guy with the nappy hair as he walked past him. “How you doing, partner?” And said to the face with the sunglasses, the guy stepping away from the hearse, “This never happened to me before. Long as I’ve been in the funeral business.” Jack kept moving toward the station.
The guy said, “Hey, where you going?” Coming after him now, the Creole-looking guy closing in, too.
Jack stopped at the door and half turned. “I have to get something.”
The face with the sunglasses, close to him, said, “No, you can’t go in there. Look.” He reached past Jack and tried to turn the knob on the glass, wood-framed door. “See? Is locked. You can’t go in there.”
Jack said, “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” He looked around, frowning, and said, “Shit. Now what am I gonna do? I have to go to the toilet and the key’s inside there. See, it’s on the desk. Has a hunk a board wired to it so nobody’ll steal it. Toilet keys being as valuable as they are.”
The face with the sunglasses said, “Go someplace else. Tha’s no problem for you.”
They stood close to each other. Jack said in a quiet voice, “I think we both have a problem. You want my car key and I want the key to the toilet. We’re a couple of desperate characters, aren’t we? Desperadoes. You know what I’m saying to you?” The face with the sunglasses staring at him, not answering. “Only I’m more desperate than you are, partner. You don’t believe it I’ll show you.”
Jack turned to face the door, took a short place-kick sort of step, his eyes on the VIDETTE ALARM SYSTEMS decal, and punched the sole of a black loafer through the plate glass.
The blast of sound from the burglar alarm was so immediate and loud he barely heard the glass shatter. Even louder than he’d expected. He looked around at the guy in the sunglasses edging away. The Creole-looking guy didn’t move and the other one had to gesture to him. Jack watched them move off in a hurry, turned, and there was Sister Lucy’s face in the side window, staring. And beyond the hearse the farm boys across the road, their heads raised to the clanging racket, heads turning now to follow the black Chrysler peeling its tires out of there, from shade into sunlight and gone, down the blacktop toward the interstate. Jack watched too, thinking, Well, there were other roads home, with bathrooms along the way. He had not felt this good in… he couldn’t remember.
The sister had a different look for him as he slipped in behind the wheel. Not exactly wide-eyed, but sort of stunned, lips parted, eyes staring in what he would like to think was respectful amazement. She didn’t say a word. He didn’t either until they were pulling away from that urgent sound and he gave her his nice-guy smile.
“That’s why I only went into hotel rooms.”
AS SOON AS JACK turned onto Camp Street he saw the white Cadillac stretch limo in front of the soup kitchen.
Right away he tried to think of a clever line, a quick, offhand comment. He would have said to Helene the first thing that came to mind: “Boy, you must really cook good.” For Lucy he’d try a little harder.
But then, when he saw the way she was looking at the car, not the least bit surprised, curiosity messed up his concentration. So he didn’t say anything. He angled across the one-way street to bring the hearse in close behind the limo. Then, just as Sister Lucy was saying, “That’s my dad,” a black guy in a tan chauffeur suit was getting out.
Giving Jack a crack at another line. There was another obvious one. But now he was thinking that if her dad rode around in a stretch limo this was a nun from a very wealthy family. Which he’d never heard of before. But could explain how she’d bought the VW in Nicaragua-something he’d been wondering about. Except she would have taken a vow of poverty along with chastity and obedience… And by this time it was too late to think of anything clever. She was out of the hearse as her dad made his appearance.
He came ducking out of the car quick and agile, that wiry kind who reaches his fifties with still a lot of boy in him. Jack saw his energy, then his confidence in the relaxed way he stood: arms open to his daughter but with the elbows tucked in, cocking his head now, holding that pose as he called to her. “There’s my girl. Sis, I mean to tell you, you look just great.” He seemed easy to type, coming out of a limo in his soft calfskin jacket and tailored jeans down on his hips, his cowboy boots. But Jack wasn’t sure if he looked like a retired rodeo star or a movie producer. He had seen movie producers on location in New Orleans, had watched them shoot in the Quarter realizing, shit, that’s what he should be, a movie actor. It was strange to see Sister Lucy going into a man’s arms, giving him a kiss on the cheek. He held onto her, patting her back with big hands for a man his size, a ring gleaming there, which Jack squinted to appraise. Now they were talking face to face-she didn’t have his nose-her dad keeping a hand on her arm.
Jack turned to slide open the glass partition. He could see the crown of Amelita’s head, her body encased in the plastic bag. “You okay?” She murmured something and he saw her move. “Hang on. It won’t be long.” Amelita seemed like a very patient girl. She didn’t have Bambi eyes, but they were nice ones, a liquid brown.
The plan was to drop Lucy off so she could get her car. She’d said “my car,” which had sounded strange, vow-of-poverty-wise, another one to add to the list of questions he might ask her sometime. He’d take Amelita to the funeral home and Sister Lucy would call later with the next move. Some plan. Leo would be there by seven. It was now a quarter to-
Sister Lucy was motioning to him, her dad looking this way. Jack got out and walked over. She said, “Jack Delaney, my dad,” letting it go at that.