“I dunno, man,” Slisko said. “Maybe it doesn’t. I dunno.”
“Look,” I said, “I think maybe I know what the problem is. You’ve been organizing the dock workers out of principle, and here I am asking you to goad them to strike right now because it’s expedient for me. Am I right?”
“Could be,” was all that Alexi said.
“OK, I guess I can’t give you a reason for liking it any better. I could make a lot of nice-sounding excuses, like Bogen’s distracted right now and now’s as good a time as any. But I won’t try and pretty it up. I’m gonna tell you men the truth. I need to get after Meche and I don’t care what it takes. You know how important she is to the cause, so the question I have for you is: are you willing to take a step you’ve been dreaming about even if my motives aren’t pure red?”
There was a long pause while the three looked at each other, then Alexi said, “You get Terry sprung, and we’ll take care of the rest.”
“OK. I’m depending on you cats. Viva la Revolución,” I added quietly. They echoed me as I got up and left.
When I finally got back to the club, I only made it as far as the steps leading up to my office before Lupe hollered my name. I went over to her counter and she said, “I have a note for you from Lola.”
“Lola?” I asked in surprise. I had forgotten all about her.
“Yes,” she said, “now where is it?” Lupe ducked under her counter to look. “Where, where, where?” I heard her muttering. “A-ha!” she cried out after a few moments. “Here it is!” She sprang up and handed me a rumpled envelope. I opened it and read the note. Lola said she thought she was being followed and that she wanted me to meet her at the lighthouse. The writing was a hurriedly-sloppy scrawl, but it was definitely Lola’s.
“Did you speak with her?” I asked Lupe. “Is she all right?” I knew I sounded panicky.
Lupe gave me a questioning look. “She was a little mussed, like she was in a big hurry. I guess she’s OK, but I didn’t have time to ask her. She just gave me that note and vaulted. What’s wrong, Manny? Is Lola in some kind of a jam?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, “but she could be. If Lola comes back while I’m out looking for her, get her up into my office and keep her there. If she makes fuss call…” I hesitated. My first instinct was to say Carla, but that was out. Olivia? She was too boxed or blasted right now to be any use. The cops were out of the question since Bogen was on the warpath, so I settled on, “…Glottis over and have him sit on her, if necessary.”
“Sure thing, Manny,” Lupe said as I rushed out.
I got to the lighthouse as fast as I could, which wasn’t very fast. It was out beyond the opposite end of town and I had to go against the night crowds to get there. When I finally got there, there was no sign of Lola outside. I looked up at the top of the lighthouse but couldn’t really make anything out. I could sort of hear the sound of the lantern turning and I thought that maybe I could hear something else, so I went inside and climbed the spiral stairs to the top. I came out in the little glass room that held the lantern. There was nothing there so I went out onto the catwalk than ran around outside. The lantern was unbearably bright and it was pitch black wherever it wasn’t pointing. The sound of the motor was much louder up there, but I heard something before I saw anything.
There was a vegetable rustle and a low, raspy voice said, “Manny…”
“Lola?” I called out. My foot bumped into something yielding.
“Careful, Manny,” Lola gasped. Then, after a short pause, she said, “You may not want to see me like this.”
Just then the lantern made a pass across the spot where I was standing. The light was nearly as blinding as the dark, but as it flashed by I could make out Lola crumpled by the railing, the outline of her body blurred by spreading green.
“Lola!” I exclaimed, kneeling down next to her. “Did Nick do this to you?”
“Yeah,” she answered in a near whisper. “He must’ve wanted that picture real bad, but he’s never gonna find it, that fink.” She gasped and curled into a ball. I held her tight while the pain took her, feeling the spreading vines brush against my bones, and buds burst open into bloom. After a while she relaxed, slightly.
“I’ll get him, Lola,” I promised, sounding dangerous even to myself. “I’ll show Max the picture for you and fix Nick for good.” I gave her a gentle shake when she seemed to relax too much. “Just tell me where you hid it.”
She stiffened again. I thought I must have hurt her, but then I saw feathery bluegrass growing between the joints in her skull. “Oh, Manny,” she said, “it’s all my fault,” she was beginning to slur her words, “always falling for the wrong guy. You know, I even had a thing for you once?” I went cold, almost numb. “But you were so hung up on that Meche woman, I…” she gagged on the green twigs coming through her jaws, “I figured I didn’t have a chance,” she got out finally.
“Oh, Lola…” I said in a near-whimper. Just then I fell hatefully in love with her off-center face.
She turned moss-rimmed eye sockets toward me. “Tell me, Manny,” she asked, almost clearly, “would I have had a chance?” I turned away. I couldn’t help it. The guilt was too strong. “Never mind,” she sighed. “Just warn Olivia for me. Tell her to improve her taste in men or she’ll end up just like me.” Her limbs began to twitch, but she didn’t seem to know it. “Tell her to find a nice guy, Manny… like you.” She went tetanus-stiff before suddenly going limp as daisies bloomed in her eye sockets.
“Lola!” I shook her hard, not caring if I hurt her. I wanted any kind of reaction. “Lola!?!” She didn’t respond. I fell back against the railing, letting her slip back onto the catwalk. “Oh, Lola…” Something clattered onto the metal catwalk, but I didn’t pay any attention to it. I just stared at the bush that had been Lola, feeling something I couldn’t define dying inside me.
I don’t know how long I sat hunched over up there in the lighthouse. I sat looking at what was left of Lola, thinking how I never knew what she thought of me. It had never occurred to me that I was anything more to her than just some guy she had met at a road stop one day and then went to work for. Just like I never noticed that Carla cared too much and was maybe a little unstable. Or that I was telling Meche… I don’t know what, exactly. And what effect did I have on Eva? I shied away from going back to when I was alive. I’d been at the DOD too long for that kind of introspection.
‘Is this what I am?’ I wondered. Was there something dark inside of me that made me destroy every woman I came across? I liked women, and not just for the obvious reasons. So why couldn’t I see what I was doing to them? Why didn’t I go after Lola right away? My business at the Blue Casket could have waited. What had I been thinking? Just of myself, apparently. I shifted position and my foot kicked the thing that had fallen when Lola had gone limp. I picked it up, grateful for the distraction. As the lighthouse lamp swung around, I saw it was a small plastic card, one that we had used at the Rub-a-Mat to label the food slots. It had the number 22 on it and a picture of a tongue sticking out between two slices of bread.
“Lengua,” I said to myself, momentarily puzzled. “¿Lengua?” Then it clicked. “Toto!!”
It didn’t take long to get to Toto’s scrimshaw parlor. He was working on someone I didn’t know on sight. The emotional crisis in the lighthouse had left me numb. I just walked in as if nothing had happened and started flipping through the binders of scrimshaw designs. “Hola, Toto,” I heard myself say. “¿Cómo estás?”