“I think I do.”
“Good night Achilles,” she said, pronouncing his name correctly.
Her scent lingered. He understood what she meant. He felt the same way about Troy. He loved him, but sometimes he was angry, and other times jealous that there might be someone somewhere who knew Troy better, someone he trusted more, maybe even Wexler. Maybe Bethany felt out of the circle; it was a men’s circle. It was a man’s, man’s, man’s world. Only men could understand what they had chosen, and why they would gladly return. It was a family too, a family who stood by you even when it meant risking a limb they couldn’t grow back.
“The couch,” called Bethany from the bedroom.
“Yes ma’am,” he called back. Women made you think. What was it like to have one always around and within easy reach? Did you stop masturbating? Was it like having an endless supply of beer in the refrigerator? If you wanted some sex, did you just go to the bedroom and get it?
“The couch,” she called again.
“Yes ma’am.” If only it were covered in plastic.
He retraced his steps, looking for any clues he might have missed when he was there. The baby-doll heads: smudged and disfigured, the limbs mangled, the eyes locked on his. He kept seeing the head rolling off the edge of the landing and into the space where the stairs should have been. Those tiny limbs forever tumbling, as if drowning. This image brought him to a halt as he was driving to the new St. Jude for the third day in a row. He yanked the wheel, jerked the car over to the side of the street, and called the morgue.
A man with a clipped voice answered the phone. Yet again Achilles described his brother: five eleven, 185 pounds, light-brown skin, green eyes. The man with the clipped voice read the description back to him: average height, average build, average complexion — he pronounced it “complected.” He also said “ABM,” which Achilles thought he remembered Morse saying.
“Hold on.” The man sighed deeply. Achilles heard the phone drop, a chair creak, and the raspy groan of reluctant metal file cabinets.
On the sidewalk, the crowd swam by. How did so many people manage to avoid touching? A welcome shadow fell over his car as the St. Charles streetcar came to a halt beside where he had parked. An elderly couple with a small boy squeezed their heads through one of the narrow streetcar windows, their tanned faces glowing in the sunlight. The man took photos, the camera glued to his face as if he were a Cyclops. The woman directed the boy’s gaze toward nearby landmarks: the listless flag atop Jax Brewery, the Aquarium, and the Customs House. The child waved at passersby, who mostly pretended not to see him, as did Achilles when the child waved in his direction. The child persisted, his waving becoming frantic. Achilles cupped his cell phone tighter to his ear, looking straight ahead to avoid the child’s insistence and the pedestrians’ charades. The light changed, the streetcar lurched forward, the trolley pole sparking as it dragged along the overhead wires. The electricity in the air smelled like boiling artichokes. He watched the streetcar travel three blocks and turn up St. Charles toward the Garden District, an area of town he’d never seen.
When the phone was picked up again, a different voice said, “When you come down use the Rampart Street entrance, not the Tulane Avenue entrance. It’s the one nearest the Superdome. There’s a great big sign says Charity Hospital of New Orleans.”
He remembered Troy on the side of the road a few hours after they’d driven over the IED, glowing, with the sun behind him like a sombrero. Troy, his smile big enough to swallow the sky. Achilles had let them all down. He should have driven more, canvassed, called the morgue sooner, or the hospitals, put up posters, put out a radio ad … Before he could reply, there was a muffled exchange and he heard the phone being dropped and picked up again. The clipped voice returned and muttered an apology. “He thought you were someone else.”
Relief. His heart was still racing. The clipped voice continued. “Anyway, I’m sorry, but you’ll need to come down here. There’s too many guys fitting that description. Do you know where we are?”
Achilles hung up. He’d already heard the directions once and besides, he had his map. He gripped the wheel with both hands in an effort to steady himself. How could he have ever been mad at Troy? How could he have even been angry about things that were out of his control? He was only six, he couldn’t have known. It wasn’t like Troy had planned his arrival.
CHAPTER 7
ACHILLES STARTED HUMMING A FOUR-COUNT THE MOMENT HE ENTERED the cool, dim marble lobby of Charity Hospital. While waiting for the elevator, he thrummed his fingers against his thighs and tapped his foot, keeping cadence until he reached the subbasement and was in the morgue office showing a photo to the attendant, a white man with thick black hair, a dingy lab coat, and the kind of belly developed by years of eating at a desk. Between the smell of Grecian Formula and the antiseptic hospital odor, the room smelled like a barbershop. The man thoughtfully studied the photo. It was taken two years before at the Baltimore water park, before basic and infantry training, before their tour of duty. Troy smiles, the gap in his front teeth prominent, his green eyes razors in the sunlight. He wears flip-flops and shorts, no shirt. It was hot that day, or so they’d thought at the time. Against Troy’s broad shoulders, the swim towel around his neck is a mere cravat. He has hair. There were more recent photos, but they were all from Goddamnistan. In them Troy is wearing his uniform, and Achilles doesn’t want to open up the questions that would raise, such as why Troy couldn’t simply be identified by his prints.
The man glanced at Achilles, then at the photo again, squinting as if noting the differences: Achilles was darker than Troy, almost six inches shorter, and had smaller eyes and a wider nose. True, he and Troy looked nothing alike, but most white people didn’t notice. The man glanced at Achilles, and again at the photo.
“How long have you been a diener?” It was a term Achilles had learned from the German soldiers.
“They don’t call us that anymore.” The man worked his jaw like he was chewing on the words. “We got two you should look at. One’s pretty rough. Sure your brother doesn’t have prints on file? It would be much easier on you.”
Achilles: “None.”
“Follow me.”
The viewing area was a narrow room barely large enough for the three chairs that sat facing the dull, mirrored glass in the opposite wall. The left wall was blank. On the right wall hung a bulletin board with posters for crisis hotlines and HIV prevention, and beneath that, an intercom with red, black, and green buttons. The attendant pressed the black button and requested D-782. Achilles pressed his nose to the glass but couldn’t see anything. He pressed his fingernail against it and tried to recall the test for two-way mirrors. Was a space between the reflections a positive indication, or was it the reverse? Either way, he knew this one had two sides, and either way, from his side of the mirror, it didn’t matter. It mattered even less from the other side. He counted the tiles on the floor and ceiling — sixty-five and twenty-two respectively. After a moment he heard the squeak of rubber soles on linoleum, the distinctive rattle of old gurney wheels, and the rustling of a sheet. The noise died down. The attendant asked if he was ready. Achilles nodded and fingered his dented locket, remembering that Troy had one just like it. The attendant rapped his knuckles against the mirror, then stepped back behind Achilles. His hands clammy, Achilles ordered himself to relax, unracking his shoulders and tightening his stomach as if preparing for an unavoidable punch.
Light spat and flickered in the room behind the mirrored glass. He could barely see the outline of a body, then it was overlit, then it was again dark. Finally, the sputtering buzz settled into a hum, and the room was blanched in fluorescent light.