“What?”she says. “What?”
“I most deeply appreciate your concern for your uncle. I’m leaving now, okay?”
“Okay, but—” She understands that something is up and I can’t talk.
“I need you to help me make a professional call, okay?”
“Okay”—baffled, but she’ll go along.
“I’ll see you in half an hour, okay?”
“Half an hour,” she repeats in a neutral voice; then collecting herself: “Fine, I appreciate it!”
I finish the last of the buttermilk. “Thanks, Hudeen. They’ll be back tonight.”
“Bless God! I sho be glad.”
“Hudeen, don’t call Carrie Bon about Claude. Don’t call anybody.”
“Bless God, I’m not calling a soul.”
10. THE COX CABLE VAN is still in place, the lineman still in his bucket, the driver still behind the wheel. Neither man looks at me.
A pickup follows me through town, but it passes me on the boulevard, a new four-door Ranger. The passenger on the right wears a new denim jacket, a long-billed, mesh Texaco cap. He does not look at me. There is a nodding toy dog on top of the dash and a gun rack in the rear window. There is only one gun in the rack, an under-and-over rifle-shotgun. For a mile or so the Ranger stays a couple of blocks ahead. But when I pull into a service station it keeps going.
I call Lucy at the pay phone. Her “hello” is guarded.
“I’m at a service station in town. I can talk. I’m on my way to pick up Margaret and Tommy and Claude at Belle Ame. I’ll explain. Since you are making a professional call there, why don’t I pick you up? That way I could drop you and Claude off. To save time, meet me at Popeyes. Okay?”
“Sure.” She is still cautious, knowing only that something is up.
No sign of the van or the Ranger on I-12 or the River Road.
Lucy’s truck is parked at the rear of Popeyes, backed in under a magnolia heading out. It is two-forty-five. I park close, heading in, make a motion for her to stay put, and open the driver’s door. She slides over. She wears her white clinician’s coat — good, she picked up on the “professional call”—and has her doctor’s bag. She places the bag precisely on her lap, her hands precisely on top of the bag. She gives me a single ironic look under her heavy eyebrows but says nothing.
“We don’t have much time,” I say. We are spinning up River Road. I feel her eyes on me as I drive. “I have something to tell you. I think you have something to tell me. I’ll go first.” “You go first,” Lucy says.
“Ellen has gone to a bridge tournament in Fresno for the rest of the week. Without Van Dorn. I have reason to believe she is not well. I also have reason to believe there is something going on at Belle Ame, possibly involving the sexual abuse of children. For some reason Van Dorn has arranged for Tom and Margaret and Claude Bon to stay there with the boarders. I am going to pick them up after school. I don’t think there is anything to worry about — with them. What I would like to do is have a word with Van Dorn, and while I’m talking to him, I’d like for you to look around, preferably in a professional capacity, maybe some sort of routine epidemiological check, talk to children and staff, whoever, see what you can see.”
She hangs fire, eyes still on me, not altogether gravely. “Is that it?”
“For the present.”
“As it happens, I can do better than that. I was over there last week checking on a little salmonella outbreak. Nothing serious, but it would make sense for me to make a follow-up call, collect a couple of smears. In fact, I ought to.”
“Good.”
“May I say something now?”
“Sure. Till we get there. Which is right up the road.”
River Road is sunny and quiet. The traffic is light: two tourist buses, three cars with Midwest plates, half a dozen standard Louisiana pickups, three hauling boats. No new Ranger or van.
She speaks rapidly and clearly. “Comeaux is on to you. Their mainframe flagged down all our inquiries last night. They know what we know and that we know, even the individual cases. I’ve been at my terminal and telephone for the last two hours.”
“That’s okay. I’ve already spoken to Comeaux.”
“Here’s something that’s not okay.” Her voice slows. “Neither NIH nor NRS nor ACMUI ever heard of a sodium pilot by the name of Blue Boy or any other name. What do you think of that?”
“Maybe they don’t want to tell you.”
“Tom, I’ve got Grade Four clearance. I can access all three of them. Furthermore, I talked to Jesse Land himself.”
“Who’s he?”
“The director of ACMUI, and a friend and classmate at Vanderbilt. He would know and he would tell me.”
“That is strange, but right now all I want to do is—”
“Tom.”
“Yes?”
“Listen, please. This is stranger than you think. This means that Blue Boy is unauthorized officially and must have been put together by some sort of dissident coalition from NRC and NIH with some foundation money, probably Ford — I think I picked up something from them — plus an interesting local political connection.”
“Very interesting, but what are you worried about? Evidently you’ve already blown the whistle, told Jesse whoever.”
“It don’t work that way, Tom.”
“It don’t?”
“You don’t keep up with politics, do you?”
“No.”
“The way it is in politics, Tom, is that if you’re head of an agency you generally like to keep your job.”
“I see.”
“Tom, may I give you a couple of elementary political facts?”
“Sure. You’ve got a couple of minutes.”
She speaks patiently, patting my thigh to make her points. “Number one: Tom, you are aware that the presidential election will occur next month?”
“I was aware of that.”
“You’re aware that the incumbent ticket is a shoo-in, almost certain winners?”
“I suppose.” I am thinking of all the political arguments at Fort Pelham, which were endless and boring and often inflamed to the point of fights.
“Tom, if this Blue Boy outfit can make it until November 7, they’ve got it made for good. Blue Boy can be presented as a fait accompli. They’ve got the clinical results, Tom, the numbers. And the numbers are going to be irresistible. And, Tom, they’re not only going to be authorized if they can make it by then, they’re going to be heavily funded. NIH can’t turn them down. You know that, don’t you?”
“Well—” I look at my watch. School is out.
This time Lucy’s hand stays on my thigh. “But there’s one fly in the ointment, Tom.”
“Is that so?”
“That’s so. Guess who?”
“Who?”
“You.”
“Me.”
“Tom, you’re the one thing they’re worried about. You’re the danger. They even have a name for you — or what they’re afraid you might become.”
“What’s that?”
“An intervener. Which is to say, the deadliest sort of whistle- blower. Tom, they have to do something about you.”
“I know. They offered me a job. On the team.”
“Are you taking it?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“Tom, for Christ’s sake, they can send you back to Alabama, or—”
“Or?”
“Nothing.”
“How could they send me back to Alabama?”
“Tom, you busted your parole when you crashed into the shunt site on Tunica Island. They have you.”
“I see. So?”
“He thinks you’ve already blown the whistle on them.”
“How’s that?”
“It seems the deal between your pal Bob and your Father Smith has fallen through. Father Smith is not only not going to sell his hospice to them, he called the wrath of God down on him. Bob thinks you told him about the pilot and that you’re going to turn loose the Catholics and fundamentalists on him. That would blow it.”