Cullen’s voice said, “Jack, they’re gonna throw me out of here, say I have to leave. Soon as they get hold of Tommy Junior he has to come get me. They spoke to Mary Jo and she told ’em to call the prison ’cause she won’t have me back in the house.”
“What’d you do?”
“I didn’t do nothing. I don’t know what’s going on here.”
“What’d they say?”
“Guy, one of the help, comes to my room this morning and tells me to pack up, I’m leaving. I said, ‘What’re you talking about I’m leaving?’ He says Miz Hollenbeck sent him to tell me. That’s the broad runs the place. I go to her office, I’m gonna find out what’s going on. She jumps up, says, ‘Don’t you come in here. Stay where you are,’ and says to her secretary, ‘Evelyn, call Cedric.’ That’s the guy told me I had to pack. One of the colored guys that does the shit work there. I said, ‘What is this? You didn’t get the Medicaid check or what?’ Miz Hollenbeck looks like she’s afraid I’m gonna come over the desk at her, telling me stay right there, don’t move.”
Jack said, “Has this got anything to do with Anna Marie?”
“Well, sort of, yeah. But, see, at this point all she’s telling me is that Tommy Junior signed the contract that says if there’s any kind of improper conduct I have to leave, and they’re trying to locate Tommy Junior. You know he’s a house painter. Only he’s had, well, kind of a drinking problem lately and he isn’t always where he says he’s gonna be. I think it’s between the paint fumes and being married to Mary Jo causing it.”
Jack said, “What’d you do to Anna Marie?”
There was a pause. “What do you mean, what’d I do to her? I never did nothing she didn’t want me to.”
“When was this, last night?” He heard the buzzer sound in the hall; it meant someone had entered downstairs.
“I had the colored guy, Cedric,pick me up a bottle of port wine; nice stuff, cost four dollars and I give Cedric a buck. I had a couple glasses and then later on I stopped by Anna Marie’s room, see if she cared for a glass.”
Jack lighted a cigarette with his hotel matches, listening, staring at a framed print on the wall over the refrigerator: two young ladies in a primeval forest playing on a swing in a time Jack could not imagine. There was nothing in the room that belonged to him; he could pack one bag and be out of Mullen & Sons in five minutes.
“I mentioned she’s got a very nice room of her own here. Anna Marie says well, if I think it’s all right, looks up and down the hall, and I go in. Soon as I pour us a couple of glasses she gets the album out. Here’s Robbie and here’s Rusty and Laurie and Timmy, shows me her kids, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren, and names every one of them. I said to her. ‘Anna Marie, you can’t be old enough to have grandchildren, huh, come on?’ ”
Jack said, “Cully, I don’t know if I want to hear this.”
“I meant it. She doesn’t look her age. She only looks about seventy… seventy-two, maybe. The hell, I’m sixty-five. What’s the difference? I said, ‘Anna Marie, that’s a swell-looking family and you are a good-looking woman.’ We’re sitting next to each other on these two chairs pushed together. I can see she liked that, what I said. So I lean over, give her a little kiss in the ear. She jumps, scared the shit out of me, and let out a yell. What happened, I kissed her hearing aid. I said, ‘Anna Marie, you don’t need that thing, take it off.’ So she does. I give her another kiss and tell her, my, you’re a good-looking woman and all this shit, you know, and I say, ‘Why don’t we go over and sit on the bed, be more comfortable.’ Everything I say she says, ‘What? What?’ I put my arm around her, get her up, take her over to the bed. We’re sitting there, you know, on the edge of the bed, she doesn’t move or say a word. I mean she did not object once to anything I did.”
Jack didn’t want to ask, but something made him. “Like what?”
“Like kissing her. You know. Put my arm around her… I undid her robe, she’s got a flannel nightgown on underneath. I kiss her some more. She just sits there. I’m thinking, Jesus, it’s been so long she doesn’t remember what to do. But I’m in no hurry. You go twenty-seven years, Jack, without any quiff what’s a few more minutes when it’s right there? Right? But, I don’t know, I’m thinking either it’s been too long for her or she’s frigid. I put my hand inside the robe…”
Jack felt himself tense.
“I touch one of her tits. No, first I had to find it. It wasn’t where they usually are. I put my hand on it and Anna Marie became it was like she turned to stone, her eyes wide open, staring straight ahead. So I said the hell with it, this is not gonna be my night.”
Jack felt himself relax.
“You didn’t do anything.”
“That’s what I been telling you.”
“Then why’re they making you leave?” He saw Leo standing in the doorway, Leo with the same expression Jack pictured on Anna Marie’s face when she turned to stone, and said, “Cully, hang on a second.”
Leo said, “There’s a man downstairs asking about the pickup you made Sunday at Carville.”
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know who he is, I said I was off Sunday but I’d see about it. I didn’t know what to say.”
“What’s he look like?”
“He looks like-I don’t know what he looks like. A normal, everyday person.”
“Take it easy, Leo. Is the guy American or Latin?”
“He’s American.” Leo sounded surprised.
“Did he show you identification?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“All right, I’ll take care of it.”
“He’s in the lounge… You gonna talk to him?”
“Yeah, soon as I’m through here.” Jack waited, his hand over the phone. He watched Leo shake his head before he walked away. Jack raised the phone to his face. “Cully, where were we? Yeah, why’re they making you leave?”
“Remember I said she took off her hearing aid?”
“Yeah?”
“I put it in my robe while we’re sitting there. When I left, I forgot to give it back, and this morning she tells Miz Hollenbeck I stole the fucking thing.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s what I said to Miz Hollenbeck. You serious? The fuck do I want with a hearing aid? I can hear better’n you can and I’m twice your age. She didn’t like that.”
“You packed?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, get ready, I’ll pick you up.”
“Jack? I don’t think you can get laid here.”
“No, I guess not.”
“Jack? I don’t want to stay in a funeral home.”
Jack said, “Who does?”
The man waiting in the Mullen & Sons smoking lounge was the same man who had left the hotel with Dagoberto Godoy. Jack realized it coming along the hall, seeing the man from about the same distance as he did last night, the same heavy-framed glasses, the same dark suit, but now with a necktie. Up close the man was as Leo said, a normal, everyday person; not quite eye to eye with Jack, an inch or two shorter, but twenty-five pounds heavier in the buttoned suit coat.
Jack said, “Can I help you?”
The man cocked his head to one side, appraising him with a nice grin but a very steady look in those glasses. He said, “Are you asking if you’re able to? I think you are, Jack. I might add, it would be in your best interest if you do.”
Jack cocked his head at the same angle and stared back with his own faint grin, believing Roy was right, the guy was the law but not local, some government agency with initials; New Orleans cops might bullshit you, but would never act cute doing it. Jack also believed he could outwait and outstare this guy, and he was right.
The guy put out his hand and said, “Wally Scales, I’m with the Immigration service.”
Jack gave him a dead-fish handshake, a question in his eyes. “I never immigrated from anyplace. I’ve lived here all my life.”
“Except for three years in there.” Wally Scales had straightened his head but continued to grin. “Am I right, Jack?”
“You’re referring, I believe,” Jack said, “to when I was upstate that time?”