Cullen and Jack Delaney were walking along a wide hallway, past open doors and the sound of television voices, that would take them to the nursing home’s lounge: Cullen wearing a velour bathrobe over his shirt and pants, running his hand along the rail fixed to the wall; Jack feeling awkward, holding back to stay with Cullen’s slow pace. The hall smelled to Jack like a Men’s room.
They came to an old woman tied in a wheelchair. Jack saw her reach for him, her hand a claw with veins and liver spots. He slipped past her with a hip move and saw another old woman in a wheelchair, waiting.
“What do you mean, people your age?”
“I’m sixty-five. Mary Jo thinks that’s old enough.”
Jack touched the sleeve of Cullen’s burgundy velour robe. “What’re you wearing this for?”
“I can’t take a chance. I wear the robe and move slow, so I’ll look sick. You were paroled. I got a medical release. They call it decarceration prior to sentence termination, make it sound official. But I don’t know if I look okay they can put me back in or not.”
“Cully, if they gave you a signed release, you’re out. Christ, you had a heart attack. . . .”
“Yeah, and they took me to Charity in leg irons and handcuffs, with a lock box over the cuffs in case I tried to pick ’em lying there with a oxygen mask on my face trying to fucking breathe. All the time I was in the hospital they had me shackled and chained to the bed, up until I had the bypass. That’s the way they do it. Doesn’t matter how sick you are.”
They came to the lounge that was like a church social hall with its tile floor, an array of worn furniture, hand-drawn announcement posters on the cement-block walls; a bunch of gray heads, some of them dozing, some watching television. “ ‘General Hospital.’ “ Cullen said. “That’s the favorite. Me, I like ‘The Young and the Restless,’ they get into some deals.” Jack steered Cullen to a sofa. A bare maple coffee table stood close, a small glass ashtray on it filled with butts. When Jack brought out his cigarettes Cullen said, “Lemme have one.” He said, “Kools, uh? I’m not particular; shit. I’m suppose to quit, but we all have to die of something. When I got sick up there I wrote to Tommy, I said, ‘Promise me if I die in this place you’ll bring me home to New Orleans, I won’t have to be buried at Point Lookout, Jesus, and never have any visitors.’ Next thing I know I’m in Charity.”
“Tommy come to see you?”
“Yeah, he comes. I’ve only been here, be a month tomorrow. Mary Jo never comes. I think she’s saying a rosary novena I don’t fuck up here and they have to take me back. With my cigarettes.”
“Can’t you leave if you want?”
Cullen thought about it, looking off. “I’m not sure. I guess I could. But where would I go?”
Jack hesitated before he said, “Maybe I’ve got something might interest you . . . the old pro, huh? You don’t look sick to me.”
“No, I’m feeling pretty good.” Cullen leaned toward Jack, lowering his voice as he said, “I’ll tell you something. Place like this, you wouldn’t believe it. There’s more pussy around here’n you can shake a stick at.”
Jack looked over the lounge, saw nothing but little bent-over ladies with gray hair, some of them tied into their wheelchairs.
“I think I’m about to get me some,” Cullen said. “See the one right across from us? The one reading the magazine? That’s Anna Marie; she’s in a private room. See how she sits with her legs apart and you can see London? That’s body language, Jack. I read a book on it. You can look at people and tell what’s on their mind. Like the body is speaking to you.”
Jack looked at little Anna Marie, who had to be at least seventy-five years old. “What’s her body telling you, Cully?”
“You kidding? Look. It’s saying, ‘Put it to me, kid, it’s been a long time.’ You know how long it’s been for me, since I got laid? . . . The last time was December the twenty-second, 1958. I went in my last bank January the third, 1959. Art Dolan, the fuck, breaks his leg going over the teller’s counter—I should’ve known he was too old—and I spend the next five months in Central Lockup, no bond. They knew I’d have left facing fifty to life, no chance of parole, and they were right. Oh, well, that’s what I get helping out a pal.” Cullen exhaled, sounding tired, his stomach filling his shirt in the robe hanging open.
Jack said, “I might have something to talk to you about. Depending if you’re up to it.”
Cullen, still watching Anna Marie, began to smile and leaned toward Jack again. “There was a woman, a new one that came in the other day. The story gets around how a young guy broke in her house, stole seventeen bucks she had in her purse, and raped her three times in three different places. I mean different rooms, on the floor, on the bed and somewhere else. The woman’s seventy-nine years old. I’m listening to these ladies talking about it. Anna Marie says, ‘Well, for seventeen bucks she sure got her money’s worth.’ You see what I mean? She’s got it on her mind.”
Jack said, “That’s interesting, Cully. I don’t doubt for a minute you’re gonna get Anna Marie to ring your bell. You have a nice way about you.”
“Well, I try not to give anybody any shit. You know. What’s the percentage?” Cullen’s gaze moved off and stopped. “You know who that is? Jack, look. The guy in the wool shirt hanging out? That’s Maurice Dumas. You’ve heard of him, Mo Dumas, one of the great trombonists of all time. He played with Papa Celestin, he played with Alphonse Picou, with Armand Hug. . . . You’d see all those guys at the Caledonia Bar on Saint Philip. Go in there after a funeral you’d see every one of ’em there. You know what he does now? He goes in people’s rooms and steals clothes, puts ’em on. Go on over and look at him, he’ll have about three shirts on and a couple pairs of pants. He doesn’t think anybody notices.”
Jack said, “I’m looking for a guy that’s a little more professional, Cully. How many banks was it you’ve done in your life, about fifty? You know, it’s amazing, if I hadn’t stopped there in front and saw you in the window . . .”
“I think it’s sixty something. You get around these people you start to forget things. Old guy’s son comes in to see him, the old man looks at him, says, ‘Who the fuck are you?’ This simp says, ‘It’s me, dad, Roger. Don’t you know me?’ I think this particular old man is faking. That’s one way. Or you make excuses for your kids. Tommy Junior’s sold out, he’s scared to death of Mary Jo, a broad that goes through life sewing on buttons for something to do. But I don’t say nothing. What’s the percentage? She thinks I’m dying to live there, blow smoke all over her fucking house.”
“You know how to read people, Cully.”
“I knew when to get my ass out of a bank if it didn’t feel right. And I always looked like a customer, too. None of this going in with a shotgun and a ski mask. That’s the wild-ass amateurs. They go in and start screaming and everybody in the place turns around, they take a good look at the guys and then make ’em in a show-up.”
“There you are, what I’m getting at,” Jack said, “you’re a pro.”
“Yeah, but I’m not doing any more banks. They got tricks now, they hand you a stack of taped bills that’s hollow inside, with a dye in there that’s set off by some kind of a timer. I don’t know how it works, this fish was telling me about it. Not here, Christ, Angola. The teller picks the stack up off a battery plate in the drawer and the guy says ‘it starts to think.’ You put the take in your clothes or in a bag and as soon as you get outside, like in twenty or thirty seconds, the thing pops and you got red dye all over you. And tear gas, all this shit going off. It’s like you come out of there with a sign, I just robbed the fucking bank.”
Jack said, “Cully, I’m not talking about a bank. This is much bigger than a bank.”
“I thought you were an undertaker.”
“I’m taking a leave of absence or I’m quitting. I don’t know yet.”
“I’m not doing any armored cars, either. Christ, I’m sixty-five years old.”
Jack said, “Cully, I’m
looking at a score where if you plan it out carefully, as you know how to do, not miss anything that could blow up in your face, we walk off with five million. Cash.”
“Jack, what’s money? I got enough to last me the rest of my life, if I die Tuesday.” Cullen paused. “I can’t do another twenty-seven. I come out I’d be . . . Christ, ninety-two. Broads’d be saying, ‘Look out for Cullen, he hasn’t been laid in fifty-four years.’ ”
“I’m gonna get some more information and then . . . I could make you a proposition. If it looks right. But I think you have the head for this kind of a deal.”
“Speaking of which,” Cullen said, and gave Jack a nudge.
“What?”
“Head. I’ll see if Anna Marie wants to give me some. I hear it’s becoming the thing even outside, girls getting to like it. I mean nice girls.”
“You’re feeling pretty frisky, aren’t you?”
Cullen turned to look at him. He said, “Jack get me out of here, will you?”
At Mullen & Sons, backing the hearse toward the rear door, it opened and there was Leo waiting for him. Jack saw him in the outside rearview mirror, Leo motioning to him now to come on, hurry. By the time Jack had the hearse positioned, Leo’s face was right next to him in the side window, Leo tense, all eyes.
“Will you get out of there?”
“I would, Leo, if I could open the door without breaking your nose.” Leo stepped back and Jack slipped out from behind the wheel. “What’s the matter?”
“There two guys just came in. They want to see Amelita Sosa.”
“She isn’t here.”
“I know she isn’t here, for Christ sake.”
“Leo, calm down. What’d you tell them?”
“I said she wasn’t here.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“They don’t believe me. They want to look around.”
“Couple of Latin dudes?”
“I don’t know what they are.”
“Little black-haired fellas . . .”
“Jesus Christ, will you go in and talk to them?”
“Wait. First, what’d you say? She’s not here and never was? I hope that’s what you said.”
“I told them I don’t know anything about it, I wasn’t here yesterday. I was across the lake. I drove over there Saturday evening and didn’t get back till last night.”
“Did you sweat when you were telling ’em all that?”
“You think it’s funny. We could get in a lot of trouble doing this.”
“Doing what? We’ve never even heard of Amelita. Amelita what? No, sorry, nobody here by that name.”
“You don’t care—that’s the trouble, how we get involved in something crazy like this. You don’t care or have any feeling about this business.”
“Leo, I’ve been trying to tell you that for three years.”
He found Colonel Dagoberto Godoy in Buddy Jeannette’s visitation parlor, saw him from behind and then in profile and knew it was the man without ever having seen him before. It was in the way he moved, with a lazy, confident stride, like he was inspecting the premises and should have a swagger stick under his arm. There was even a military look to his tan, mod-cut suit, his black tie and aviator glasses.
Standing still the guy didn’t look very mean or nasty. If anything he looked like Harby Soulé, the husband of his old girl friend, Maureen; and Harby had always seemed to Jack to look more like a headwaiter than a urologist—whatever urologists looked like—with his thin slicked hair and little pencil mustache. The colonel was maybe five seven and would go about a hundred and a half. One thing that could be said in favor of this deal, all the bad guys so far were little fuckers.
Now the colonel was inspecting Buddy Jeannette, looking closely into the open casket. Concentrating as he was, he jumped as Jack said, “Pretty nice work, uh? You should’ve seen him when he came in.” Jack, gazing down at Buddy’s waxen face, stood next to the colonel. “I think we took ten years off him, not to mention how we had to, you know, fix him up.”
Close by, the colonel’s voice said, “Are you the one I should talk to?”
“His funeral’s tomorrow morning. Going out to Metarie Cemetery for his final resting place.”
“I ask you a question.”
Jack turned, looked at a glistening cap of hair before lowering his gaze to the man’s rosy-tinted glasses.
“I heard you. I’m the one you should talk to if that’s what you have in mind. What do you want to talk about? A deceased member of your family?”
“A deceased friend,” the colonel said. “You brought her here yesterday from Carville, the leprosy hospital.”
“I did? Or somebody else?”
“You or somebody—what difference does it make? I want to see her. Amelita Sosa.”
“We don’t have anybody here by that name. We have this gentleman here and that’s it. No, I take that back; we also have Mr. Louis Morrisseau. But no Amelita Sosa. I’m sorry.”
The colonel stared, giving him a haughty look, and said, “If you aren’ sorry, you going to be.” He walked off across the parlor. As he reached the open doorway he called out a name that sounded like Frank something. Frank Lynn? Jack, following him, wasn’t sure.
As he reached the opening he saw the Creole-looking guy from the Exxon station coming out of another visitation room. Shit, it was the guy, all right. The one with the nappy hair who stood directly in front of the hearse and didn’t say one word.
The colonel said the guy’s name again. It was “Franklin.” And then began speaking in rapid Spanish, ending it with a question. The guy frowned without changing his expression much and said, “Como?” The colonel began again in Spanish, then broke off and said in English, “Is this the one who brought Amelita from Carville or not? . . . Amelita, the girl yesterday.”
Jack watched the guy’s eyes come over to look right at him and hold without much of an expression—the same expression as yesterday, when he got out of the hearse and walked past the guy, that deadpan look that told nothing.
The guy, Franklin, said, “Yes, it’s the same one that drove the coach. But I don’t know if the girl was in it.”
There was something strange here. The guy had a distinct accent. There was no doubt in Jack’s mind the guy was some kind of Nicaraguan. But why would he have trouble understanding the colonel’s Spanish, if they were both from down there?
“He wouldn’t let us look in the coach to see if she was inside.”
“That’s enough.” The colonel snapped it at him and turned to Jack. “You drove to Carville. You pick up a body. All right, where is it?”
“Who said I went to Carville?”
“He did, Franklin. You heard him.”
“I think Franklin’s mistaken. Where’s he from?”
“Where is he from—he’s from Nicaragua. Where you think he’s from?”
“I don’t know,” Jack said, “that’s why I asked. How long’s he been here?”
Franklin was looking from one to the other.
“What are you talking about? What difference does it make?”
“Maybe, you know, we all look alike to him. Maybe the guy he saw resembled me.”
Jack believed the colonel would like to hit him with something.
“You going to say there was another guy look just like you, but in another coach went to Carville yesterday?”
“Well, you know the coaches, as you call them, all look alike. Am I right? Why couldn’t it have been another guy that looked just like me?”
“Because it wasn’.”
“You’re not positive though.”
“This is Mullen and Son.”
“That’s right.”
“Then it was you, no one else.”
“I’ll tell you, chief, I’d remember going to Carville. You say it was yesterday? No, I’m afraid I was right here the whole day.”
“You lying to me.”
Jack gave him the Big Yard stare, cold and hard, set his tone l
ow, and asked, “What did you say?”
The colonel hung in, didn’t budge, stared back at him through tinted glass and Jack began to think he might’ve made the wrong move with that Big Yard bullshit; it worked right away or it didn’t. When the colonel said, “Franklin, show him your gun,” Jack was sure he had made the wrong move. He looked over to see the bluesteel pistol in Franklin’s extended hand.
Jack said, “Well, I think I’d better call the police.” Something he had never said before in his life.
The colonel said, “How you going to do that?” Jack didn’t have an answer, but it didn’t matter; the colonel was anxious to tell him what he had said earlier. “In case you didn’ hear me, I said you a fucking liar. What do you think of that?”
This was not Big Yard stuff; this was different. There was no manhood to prove here. What he had to do was . . . handle it, that’s all.