He picked up the telephone now. He had been the first one Jason called in September of 1961, and he was the first one to be called today, and the knowledge that he was so respected, so trusted, so necessary to the plan, filled him with a pleasure that was almost a religious glow. Quickly he dialed the number of the Magnolia Motel on Simonton Street and asked to talk to Mr. Fortunato. They rang the room and Fatboy said, “Sal?”
“This is Sal,” Fortunato answered.
“Fatboy. We roll.”
“Check,” Fortunato said, and hung up.
Andy came out of the bathroom with two small overnight bags. He waited until Fatboy hung up, and then said, “You leave a toothbrush or anything in the medicine chest?”
“No.”
“Nothing?”
“No.”
“Okay,” Andy said, and went out.
Fatboy dialed the number of the Waterview Motel on Pearl Street. When Rodiz came onto the line, he said, “Rafe?”
“Yes?” Rodiz answered.
“Fatboy.”
“Yes?”
“We roll.”
“Comprendo,” Rodiz said, and hung up. He sat looking at the telephone for just a moment, and then he grinned and rose and walked swiftly to the dresser on the other side of the room, tapped his zippered overnight bag with the palm of his hand, and then called to the bathroom, “Eugene, hurry up. That was Fatboy. We roll.”
There were mornings when everything just went wrong, and it was on those mornings that Amos Carter figured it was a pretty goddamn sorry mess when a Negro found himself living in Monroe County, Florida, just a stone’s throw from Dade County, with a name like Amos to boot, so that every comedian who walked into the diner could say, “Hey there, Amos, where’s Andy?” Very funny, and usually he would reply, “Out back with the Kingfish,” but that was only on days when he was feeling some sort of self-respect as a human being, and could take jokes from white men. On the mornings when everything went wrong, he did not choose to take either jokes or crap from any white man walking the face of the earth, and this Sunday morning was one of those mornings.
It had started with Abby bugging him again about how come he didn’t go to church any more. He had tried to explain to Abby that he had to be at the diner at eight o’clock on Sunday mornings to get the stoves going before Mr. Parch came in at eight-thirty. Abby told him there was a seven o’clock Mass over to the church on Big Pine, and Amos told her that was a white man’s church, and he didn’t want to start his Sunday by having trouble with white men. You afraid of white men? Abby had asked, which had started him off just fine because he wasn’t afraid of no damn white man walking the face of the earth, and yet he was scared to death of every damn white man he’d ever met. But he didn’t like no skinny little girl with her hair all wrapped up in rags to go reminding him about it. She had told him to fetch his own breakfast after he’d given her a clout on the ear, and then he’d burned his damn hand lighting the wood stove, and had left the house without having no breakfast at all, figuring he’d get to the diner just a little early and mix himself a batch of eggs.
Now here he was on Ocho Puertos Key at five minutes to eight o’clock, and there was a goddamn roadblock telling him the road to the diner was closed for repairs. Now, when the hell had they put that damn thing up? He sat looking at the barricade for several moments in silent disbelief, knowing it had not been there last night when he left the diner at six o’clock, and knowing today was Sunday when road gangs didn’t ordinarily work, so how had the barricade got there and what purpose did it serve? Amos scratched his head and got out of the car and walked over to the barricade and studied the sign solemnly, as though suspecting Allen Funt was lurking in the mangroves with his crew and his cameras, ready to pop out and tell Amos this was all a joke. But Allen Funt didn’t pop out, so Amos figured the roadblock was real enough. He looked down the road past the barricade and saw no work gang in sight, but that didn’t necessarily mean they couldn’t be working just out of sight around the bend. Then, because this was only another nuisance on a morning when everything seemed to be going wrong, Amos did a very brave thing for a Negro living in the state of Florida. He moved the barricade to the side of the road, got back into his 1952 Plymouth, drove onto S-811, stopped the car, got out again, and then moved the barricade back where he had found it. You go to hell, he thought, you and your goddamn roadblock; and he got back into the car and drove directly to the diner.
He parked the car behind the diner, facing the beach, and then he walked to the back door, and the first thing he noticed was that one of the garbage cans was not where it was supposed to be. Somebody had moved it closer to the door. He picked up the can and moved it back with the others and was reaching into his pocket for his key when he noticed the scraps of wire lying on the ground near the door. Some of the wires were red and some were yellow, and he could not figure what the hell they were from, unless the telephone company had been here to make some repairs. Seemed like everybody in the world was out making repairs this Sunday, or leastwise putting up signs saying they was making repairs, though he sure as hell hadn’t seen nobody making any, that was for sure.
He was inserting his key in the lock when the door opened.
“Come on in,” the white man said, and Amos took one look at the .45 in his hand and decided three things in as many seconds. He decided to punch the white man right in the mouth because nobody walking the face of the earth was going to push him around this morning when everything else was going wrong; he decided to turn and run like hell before this sonofabitch white man put a bullet in his head; he decided to be sensible and go into the diner, just like the white man with the .45 had suggested.
“Come on, nigger,” the white man said. “I got a itchy finger here.”
Amos, his heart pounding furiously inside his chest, squeezed his eyes shut for just an instant, and then went into the diner.
Ginny woke up at eight-fifteen and, as seemed to be the case more and more often these days, did not know at first where she was. Boston, Norfolk, Baltimore, where? And then she remembered that this was Big Pine, and she rubbed her eyes and wondered why she hadn’t heard the alarm, and then looked at the clock and saw what time it was. Oh my God, she thought, eight-fifteen! Why hadn’t the alarm gone off, or had she even bothered to set it last night? Oh brother, Mr. Parch would take a fit when she walked in. She was supposed to be there at eight o’clock. What was wrong with that darned clock, anyway? She picked it up in both hands and held it close to her face, like a jeweler giving it a checkup, and saw that she had indeed set the alarm for ten minutes after seven, and that she had pulled out the little button on the back of the clock just the way you were supposed to. Oh, brother. She wanted a cigarette.
She got out of bed and walked to the dresser where she had put her bag and her earrings and the nice pin with the turtle on it last night when she’d come in with the fellow from Sugarloaf who started to get fresh the minute he was in the room. Some men were that way; they saw a woman thirty, thirty-five years old and on her own, right away they figured, well, what the hell. Where were the cigarettes?
She found the package — only one left in it, she’d have to get some more at the diner — and she lighted the cigarette and then crumpled the package in her hand and threw it at the wastebasket near the easy chair, missing, and then walked barefoot to the bathroom and looked at her face in the mirror and went “Blaaaah” to herself, and then sat down to smoke the cigarette. She was wearing a shorty nightgown, and she still had good legs at forty-two years old which was what she was, and her breasts were still full, though somewhat pendulous or, to be downright honest with herself, sagging, okay? She took a last drag on the cigarette, rose, and threw it into the toilet bowl. Sagging breasts, she repeated to herself, as if repetition would remove the curse. But good legs, so drop dead, mister.