It was all a matter of circumstances. Him on the streets of Chi cago so there was no chance of ever being in college ball and getting a chance in the pros, and DeJesus being in the military during his prime years so he never got his chance. According to Flat Nose, DeJesus got into the rackets he was in because of an old army buddy. Yeah, an old army buddy who was out of the picture now, based on what Flat Nose had just told him. And if the old buddy was out of the picture, then maybe DeJesus would be out of the picture pretty soon. Maybe he’d just fade away like they all do eventually.
Maybe the whole damn world would fade away the way it had during those first few days in the hospital when he was drugged-up. In some ways being drugged-up was a whole hell of a lot better than all that rehab after the first surgery. Back then, he figured rehab was a way to convince a guy to keep his nose clean. Pure torture is all it was. In fact, now that he thought about it, the occupational guy was here helping him learn how to eat one of the first times Babe paid him a visit. Babe coming into his room with a violin case under his arm and telling him he’d finally graduated from his own therapy at Hell in the Woods. Then, apparently to prove he’d graduated, Babe pulls the violin out of its case and starts playing the damn thing. Sounded like alley cats thrown over the telephone wires with their tails duct-taped together.
Babe had visited quite a few times since then. Last time he left an article he said he’d gotten at the library. The article was about the hood, Max Lamberti, who got killed that night. Babe told him to read the article and let him know if anything in it rang a bell, if anything in the article sounded like something he’d heard before. So he read the article and the only thing that sounded familiar was that Lamberti served at Fort Bragg in the 82nd Airborne. Of course the article did say something about Lamberti and another guy being questioned in the investigation of a murder of an officer and his fiancee, but that was none of his business. And so he told Babe he’d heard of Fort Bragg, but what’s the big deal in that? Everyone’s heard of Fort Bragg.
Tyrone hated to admit he liked Babe. He realized it the first time Babe visited and told him that So-long Sue had died in the hospital from her gunshot wound. Tyrone remembered So-long Sue and liked her and felt sad along with Babe that Sue was dead. He didn’t even pull his hand away when Babe touched him after that damn tear ran down into the bandage over the latest jaw surgery and burned like hell.
During one of Babe’s visits, even though he’d already told it to about twenty detectives earlier, Tyrone told Babe about the chicken shit way the spaghetti heads killed the two cops in the van. When Babe asked how he happened to be grabbed by the spaghetti heads, Tyrone admitted he was in Babe’s room on the third floor when they showed up. He told Babe he was pissed about him grabbing him and trying to choke him earlier. He told Babe he was worried that Babe was trying to finger him for the old lady’s death. Of course he didn’t admit to anything, nothing about Flat Nose or DeJesus or lifting stuff from Hell in the Woods.
After pretty much leveling with Babe the way he did, Babe told him what else went down at Hell in the Woods that night. How he’d gotten Mrs. Babe away from the spaghetti heads. How they crashed into the building and came inside in his chair. How the bas tards chased them to the lobby. Killed McGrath and that new guard. Killed old Russell when he made the mistake of pushing his cleaning cart into the lobby. Killed that nurse who called 911. Almost killed Babe and Mrs. Babe. Shot So-long Sue.
As Tyrone lay with his eyes closed thinking about Latoya, he heard a rattling at the side of the bed, the IV clips hitting against the meter ing stand. Maybe it was the nurse again. Maybe she felt sorry for him and he’d get that Demerol he asked for.
Hands on this throat! Large hands pressing down! When he tried to reach out to push away the choker, one of the hands came off his throat and the choker pushed his arm down to the side, then twisted his arm up behind his back.
Even before he opened his eyes, Tyrone knew who it was. Al though he’d seen him only a few times, he knew it was DeJesus with his big hands and arms as thick as telephone poles.
DeJesus’ eyebrows were thick and dark, connected above his nose. And Tyrone thought, such a petite nose for such a big fucker. Think ing this despite the pain. Able to think this because after three months in the hospital and all the surgeries, he was used to pain.
But DeJesus wasn’t letting up and Tyrone began to think the spic might kill him here and now. No knife, no gun, just one big hand squeezing his neck, another pressing down into his gut, the two hands threatening to undo everything the surgeons had done to put him back together.
When it was over and Tyrone could do nothing more than take one breath after another through the hole that was his mouth, DeJesus whispered harshly into his ear.
“You talk to Babe and you die, spook! With my business partner gone I ain’t got no one to answer to! It feels real good, like bein’ a gen eral in boot camp!”
Before leaving, DeJesus rubbed Tyrone’s head with his palm like he was rubbing a kid’s head. Then he smiled and said, “We had a spook general when I was at Bragg! Bastard fucked me over a couple times. Nothin’ against you personally, but it’d be my pleasure to be able to even the score.”
Tyrone had learned early in his health care career that all the shit started in Washington and was handed down. A congressman farts at the podium and the next thing you know there’s another new rule and another new form to be filled out. Trees cut down in the boon docks to make paper they ship to Chicago where printing presses two stories tall spit out ten-part forms. The forms sent to every hospital and doctor’s office and so-called rehab centers like Hell in the Woods to be filled out. The forms converted to computer data analyzed in Washington so the farting congressman will have the fuckin’ data be fore next election to spit into reporters’ eyes while he complains about government waste like he’s the first to discover it.
Yeah, he learned real fast that the health care system was a thing put there to make sure most of the money funneled on up to the docs, and to the drug company executives, and to the supply company ex ecutives, and to fucks like DeJesus. All that money to fucks who could care less about poor folks hollering and screaming for God to let them live a few minutes longer.
The day after DeJesus’ visit, when the doctors had finished re stitching his gut and the roof of his mouth, and when the cops called by the staff had finally gone away shaking their heads—but leaving a guard at the door—one of the prettier white nurses came in and asked Tyrone if there was anything he needed.
He stared at her a moment, suppressed one of the usual thoughts he had at moments like this—Yeah, one last blowjob—and pointed to the bedside table saying, “In dra’er.”
“Something in your drawer?”
He nodded.
After she held up about a hundred items—CD player, CDs, old love note from Latoya, copy of his living will, get well card from Hell in the Woods, gum he couldn’t chew, mints—she finally held up the business card.
He nodded.
She stared at the card and said, “Steve Babe, that’s a cute name.”
He tried to draw a circle in the air with his finger. “O’er. ‘Urn i’ o’er.”
When she turned the card over, she read the handwritten note on the reverse side, the note written by Steve Babe’s pretty wife the last time they had come to see him, the last time they asked if he didn’t want to unload on some of the big guns who ran scams at Hell in the Woods and who weren’t doing shit for him now.
“It says, ‘Give me a call when you change your mind, because after a while in this place on the other side of the fence, you just might.’”
The nurse looked up from the card with a puzzled look on her face. “You want me to call this guy for you?”
He nodded.
“You want me to say you changed your mind?”
He nodded again. But this time he struggled to speak as clearly as he could. “Tell ‘im I done foun’ Jesus. And I wan’ help ‘uture genera’ions.�
�
“Okay,” said the nurse, leaving the room. “I’ll call him right away.”
After the nurse was gone, Tyrone closed his eyes and tried to rest. But even though it hurt like hell, he had to laugh.
He laughed because he recalled Flat Nose telling him that DeJe sus’ boss was an old 82nd Airborne Division buddy, and that the big boss kept his nose out of the business but would be there in a min ute if DeJesus needed protection, like if he needed to put out a hit on someone. He laughed because, now that DeJesus had mentioned Fort Bragg, he recalled Flat Nose once let it slip that while DeJesus and the big boss were stationed at Fort Bragg they came down on an other soldier who crossed them, then went after the soldier’s girl. He laughed because he now knew, for the first time in his life, that what goes around really does come around. Yeah, he’d have the last laugh all right. He’d get DeJesus, get him good. And when he was finished getting DeJesus and Flat Nose, he’d be sure to tell Babe how funny it was, and what a stroke of luck that he worked at Hell in the Woods so he’d end up being the one to make it happen. Not only had Lamberti gotten his, but his Fort Bragg buddy DeJesus and an asshole named Flat Nose would also get theirs.
Tyrone tried to picture Steve Babe and his wife at his bedside. He wondered if he’d been hearing things when they said they might need someone like him working for their detective agency because they’d gotten some big jobs recently working for insurance companies in the health care field. Then he recalled the theory he’d developed about white folks years earlier when he worked at the VA Hospital where it seemed most patients were white men suffering from one thing or an other having to do with smoking cigarettes since they were PFCs with Betty Grable pinups thumb-tacked to their bunks. While delivering clean spit-up cups and taking away the old spit-up cups, he’d noticed the stuff in those cups made it seem like the men were slowly turning black on the inside. His theory was that just before white folks die they turn black inside and finally feel how it is to be black, but they also realize it’s too late for the realization to do any good and they die screaming to the Almighty to let them live even if they have to suffer like black folks suffer. His theory was that part of the purpose of suf fering was to turn everyone black so that when they went to heaven— if they did go to heaven—there’d be no racial tension.
Tyrone fell asleep deciding that, ultimately, all he had left in the world was to trust someone. And Steve Babe and his wife were damn good people to trust. Good folks just like him.
And if it all went off real nice like in a dream, maybe he’d be able to tell all about it to Latoya some day. And after that, maybe he’d be able to tell it to his kids and even his nephews and nieces. Yeah, he could have nephews and nieces because Latoya—sweet Latoya—had enough brothers and sisters to make up for his lack of them. Some day down the line, little kids would cheer when old Uncle Tyrone came to visit in his classic Cadillac DeVille. They sure would.
CHAPTER
THIRTY
SIX
There had been no retirement party at the Miami office when Valdez retired at the first of the year. At Langley they some times had retirement parties, but not at outlying offices. In lieu of a party for his old friend, Skinner had arranged a visit later in the year to Valdez’s new home.
It was September, the height of the hurricane season. Although the entire city of Naples, Florida, had been ordered to evacuate for one of the hurricanes earlier in the season, and another hurricane was pre dicted to make landfall in a couple of days, Valdez always stayed put. He did this, not because he was especially fearless, but because his home was built to withstand even category five storms.
Though the house was on the Gulf Coast, it sat on a rise overlook ing a fishing pier. The house was built like a bunker with extensive foundation, backup power and pumps, built-in storm shutters, and walls surrounding the property that were as thick as the walls of the house. During a previous storm, Valdez had sheltered several emer gency workers who had been unable to move inland in time.
Skinner, having lost most of his hair, now kept it shaved. Valdez, on the other hand, had allowed his gray hair to grow, giving him the appearance of a beachcomber. The two old men sat on the porch of Valdez’s home staring out at the calm before the storm. High clouds hid the sun and there was only one lone fisherman out on the pier.
“It’s pretty ironic,” said Skinner.
“What is?” asked Valdez.
“Your being here in Hanley’s old house.”
“Because of what happened in Chicago?”
“Yes,” said Skinner. “And even more so because you retained the housekeeper Hanley was so obviously fond of.”
“The events in Chicago were independent of what followed,” said Valdez. “From my point of view I could say it’s ironic that our contact in Chicago be chosen to go to Arizona.”
“She was already on the case,” said Skinner. “I simply felt it best to limit the numbers.”
“Did she locate Christensen and his wife?”
“Yes.”
“Did she …?”
“Yes. Both. It was obvious what needed to be done when she found they had moved to another retirement community and were liv ing under yet another name. Christensen made the last move because he knew he had revealed too much to his wife.”
“It’s sad,” said Valdez.
“I agree,” said Skinner. “In the old days of ham radio we’d refer to him as a silent key.”
“That was a long time ago,” said Valdez. “Three brand new recruits pounding out Morse Code that anyone could have been listening to.”
“Except we never discussed agency business over the airwaves. And as far as Christensen is concerned, he knew that if a husband or a wife loves their partner, they should keep things to themselves.”
“Is our contact back at Langley?”
“Yes.”
“I assume that means she’ll carry on after we’re out of the picture.”
Skinner smiled. “You assume correctly. She’ll be in charge.”
“Besides what’s left of the mob family in Chicago, will she be keeping tabs on the detective and his wife?”
“Yes. However, with the money having been located, perhaps things will begin to fade.”
Valdez turned and stared at Skinner. “Do you still trust my judg ment in the matter?”
“I still trust your judgment,” said Skinner. “If you say the stroke distracted him adequately, I can only acquiesce.”
“I hope I’m right,” said Valdez, looking back out at the fishing pier. “But even if I’m not, with conspiracy theories launched at the blink of an eye these days, it would probably be a simple matter to shut it down on short notice. I assume you felt much more strongly about the danger from Christensen than you ever did from the detective.”
“I did,” said Skinner.
“Will the detective and his wife be under long term observation?” asked Valdez.
“They will,” said Skinner. “Speaking of long term observation, what do you tell your Maria when she asks questions?”
Valdez thought for a moment, then said, “I tell her she is younger than me and, therefore, still has many years ahead of her. I tell her it would be foolish for her to know what I know. She says that everything she knew of Hanley’s affairs came from vague references to visitors and phone calls he made and received. All she knows is that he called the Washington area a lot. I’ve told her my work revolves around concern for future generations.”
“And this satisfies her?” asked Skinner.
“It does,” said Valdez.
“Funny, isn’t it?” said Skinner. “Your housekeeper having the same name as our young colleague?”
“Yes,” said Valdez. “However, besides the age difference, there is another thing that distinguishes them.”
“What’s that?” asked Skinner.
“As I’ve said, my Maria knows nothing about our work, and will never know.”
Skinner turned and stared at Valdez. �
�Can you guarantee that?”
“I can,” said Valdez. “If it ever comes down to it, I’ve prepared myself …”
Skinner waved his hand. “No need to go into detail. I trust you. Who better to trust than an old ham buddy from simpler times?”
“I remember the old days,” said Valdez. “I remember the ham radio operators in Miami serving as the communications link before, during, and after storms. I remember taking my rig into the Miami office and setting up a communications post there.”
“The good old days before cell phones,” said Skinner.
“You can say that again,” said Valdez, just as Skinner’s cell phone chirped and they both laughed.
After answering, Skinner simply said, “Okay. I’ll be there,” before closing the phone.
“Time to leave already?” asked Valdez.
“They want to take off a little earlier because of the approaching storm,” said Skinner. “They want me at the airport in two hours.”
“That will give us time for dinner,” said Valdez. “You will stay, won’t you? I’ve asked Maria to join us.”
Skinner smiled. “In that case, I will stay.”
Both stood slowly, stretching their aching muscles. When they went inside through the sliding door, Maria was already busy setting the table.
Two days later, as the slow-moving storm began coming ashore, Valdez and Maria sat together on the sofa facing the only sliding door not yet covered by a storm shutter. Despite the fact Valdez had already started the backup generator and the pumps, they sat in near darkness.
The approaching storm was named Tanya. A few weeks back, when hurricane names were coming from earlier in the alphabet, Maria had said she wished they would name one for her. Valdez had explained to her there had been a storm named Maria in 2005 and that perhaps her name would again be used some time in the future. He did not tell her his dead wife’s name had been used for a hurricane in 1974. He did not tell her Hurricane Carmen had caused extensive damage to Mexico and to Louisiana and the name Carmen had been retired. No, he did not tell Maria about his wife whose name had been used for a hurricane years earlier before the cancer.
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