“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.
He followed the Mercedes for five miles. As the road became the main street, Twenty-fifth Avenue, four lanes wide and with a tall building down there against the sky, Franklin de Dios was wondering if he was certain about the sides. If there were more than two sides. If he was on the side he thought he was on or on a different side. He was getting a feeling, more and more, that he was alone.
THE SIGN OVER THE SIDEWALK said Cromwell’s, straight up and down. Across the lower part and much smaller it said Men’s Wear * Sporting Goods * Military Surplus New and Used.
Alvin Cromwell asked Jack and Cullen as they looked around, “You fellas want a suit of clothes? You need some resort wear? Tell me how I can fix you up.”
Jack kept looking around as they moved toward the back of the store. They seemed to be the only customers. For something to say he asked if they carried Hollandia Sportswear, the outfits with the little tulips on them.
Alvin Cromwell had to stop and think. “I have these shirts with different little animals on ’em. Let’s see…” He had a beard and looked like a weight lifter in his black T-shirt with white lettering that said Never mind the dog, Beware of owner. He seemed like a nice guy though. He told Jack, “No, I don’t think I have any with tulips.”
“You sure have guns. I’ll say that.”
“You know guns?”
Cullen said, “I bet I can still strip an M-1 in the dark and put it back together.”
It surprised Jack, but he was looking off toward the guns now, racks of them across the knotty-pine wall in the rear of the store: rifles, shotguns, and what appeared to be submachine guns, all with red tags attached to them.
To get there they walked past pipe racks of camouflage fatigues, jackets and trousers On Sale! Reduced from $29.95 to $24.95. There were new and used Genuine USAF flight jackets. Ranger vests, Good-looking and functional. Camouflage T-shirts for kids, stiff-brim drill instructor hats, Ranger boonie hats and combat caps, holsters, binoculars, canteens, knives, and bayonets with sawtooth blades…
As they approached the knotty-pine shelves and racks, Alvin Cromwell said, “If you men have been to war or know your assault weapons, this here ought to turn you on.”
“I was with the First Cav in the big one,” Cullen said, “WW Two. The first time in the history of the First was when we got off our horses and took an island in the Admiralty group, Los Negros.”