Bandits

  Jack said, “I don’t think so.” Her dad’s driver, standing by the car, was watching him. Young black guy with shoulders in that tan double-breasted suit.

  “Way the oil business is causing heart attacks those people stay busy, I mean to tell you.”

  Sister Lucy said, “My dad lays pipe,” with her dry tone, “and builds those offshore platforms.”

  “Uh-unh, I got shuck of that, Sis, before I had to eat it.” He grinned, shaking his head, and looked at Jack. “There was a time—see, I started out I was selling oil leases, then I got into drilling and lost two, what you might consider, fortunes before I was thirty years old. Blowouts, both times, wiped me clean. But back starting out, man, I scraped, borrowed, signed notes on everything we owned to put two hundred fifty thousand in a lease block. Sis’s mom says, ‘But, honey,’ “—changing his tone to sound vague—” ‘if the deal goes bust how do we eat?’ I said, ‘We eat it, sweetheart. That’s the business.’ ”

  When Sister Lucy said, “How is mother?” Jack looked at her. She didn’t sound too interested.

  But then when her dad glanced at his driver and said, “Clovis put her on the plane to New York this morning, she’s just fine,” Sister Lucy seemed to perk up. Jack caught it.

  She said, “To buy clothes, I imagine.”

  Dick Nichols said, “She isn’t going all that way to buy toothpaste. You see the light on in my office late at night, that’s me turning out hundred-dollar bills. Hey, but it’s fun. I’m in the helicopter end of the business now.” He said to Jack, “Tell you what, I’ll lease you a 214 Super-Transport Bell for ninety-five grand a month. How’s that sound? Mullen could be the first funeral home in New Orleans to offer burial at sea. Take ’em out over the Gulf a few miles, the priest reads the prayer, sprinkles on some holy water, and out they go. Listen, I’d rather have that’n get taken to Saint Louis Number One and stuck in a vault. All those people crowded in there with their statues and monuments, uh-unh. I like the country, Sis, I always have.”

  She said to Jack, “My dad lives in Lafayette and my mother lives here in New Orleans.”

  “I have visiting privileges. If I call first and talk sweet.”

  She said to Jack, “My dad can get you into Galatoire’s without waiting in line.”

  Giving him that quiet look, something between them he could feel, as her dad checked his watch and said, Hey, he’d told them seven, and told Jack he and Sis were going over to Paul’s and have them some crabs and shrimp and good conversation; stay away from politics they might just find something they could agree on—her dad grinning—now that she had her head on straight again. What did that mean? Jack wanted to look at her, frown, make a face, but her dad had him locked in, shaking his hand, saying it was awful nice talking to him and hoped they could do it again real soon. There. When that was done and Jack was finally able to turn to her, she was still looking at him with that quiet look. She said, “My dad can even get into K-Paul’s without waiting in line,” touched Jack’s hand and said, “What do you think of that?”

  Buddy Jeannette’s rosary was going on in the small parlor, the mechanical drone of fifty Hail Marys recited by family and those who hadn’t got out in time. Jack, watching from the front hall, counted thirty-seven sitting and kneeling, the priest leading the rosary from the prie-dieu at the casket—a Batesville made of hand-rubbed walnut with the Cameo Crepe interior. Buddy had apparently left his widow in good shape. She was older than Jack had imagined her, a petite little thing, sitting on the edge of a wing-back chair saying her beads, somewhat apart from the others. What was she thinking about with that faraway look, lips barely moving? He wanted to hold her hand and say something to her. He had seen more than a thousand people in these visitation rooms and was never sure who was mourning and who wasn’t. He wanted to tell her what a nice guy Buddy was, that everybody liked him, a lot . . .

  Leo said, “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Jack turned from the doorway. “What’s wrong?”

  Leo said, “I go up to the bathroom, there’s a girl in there brushing her hair’s supposed to be dead. I’ve never had that happen before.”

  “If I remember correctly,” Jack said, “you’re the one sent me to get her. You said you’d talked to Sister Teresa Victor.”

  “I did, yesterday. I was prepping your friend in there.”

  “Well, you better talk to her again.” He took a step to walk off.

  “Jack, I’m busy, I’ve got people here.”

  “Then call her later. If I tell you why I picked up somebody who isn’t dead you’ll say it was my idea. Talk to the sister and I’ll see you after while.” Jack walked across the hall and up the stairway.

  He found Amelita in the casket selection room, browsing, running her fingers over the parquet finish of a Batesville done in solid oak. Jack said, “That’s the Homestead model, with your Tawny Beige interior. We can give you fiberboard, plastic, metal, or hardwood, from sixty to sixteen thousand dollars, depending on your budget and how sorry you are to see the loved one go. I’m glad we’re not putting you in one, you look too healthy.” She did, the overhead light shining in her dark hair, long, down to the middle of her back in the flowery shirt, reflecting in her dark eyes as she looked at him.

  “They so nice inside”—touching the tawny crepe now—“so soft.”

  “Like you could sleep forever in there, huh? Do you know where you’re gonna be staying?”

  “I’m going to L.A. sometime, but I don’t know when. I hope soon, I always want to go there.”

  “To Los Angeles?”

  “Yes, I have two of my aunts and a grandmother live in L.A. I hear is pretty nice there. When you put people in this, do they have all their clothes on?”

  “Yeah, they’re completely dressed. Did Sister Lucy say where you’ll be staying in New Orleans?”

  “She said she find a place. I like this pink color inside, very nice.”

  “Well, Sister Lucy seems to know what she’s doing. You’ve known her a few years . . .”

  “Yes, a long time.”

  “She told me what happened to you. That was awful, the guy taking you away from your home. Twice, in fact, huh? The first time you must’ve been just a kid.”

  “You mean Bertie?”

  “What’s his name, the colonel.”

  “Yes, Bertie. Colonel Dagoberto Godoy Diaz. He was very important in the government. I mean before, the real government. He could buy one of these, even the one you said, sixty thousand.”

  “Sixteen, not sixty. He killed a guy. The doctor.”

  “I know. He had so much anger, it was terrible.”

  “And you saw him do it.”

  “Tha’s what I mean, to see him like that.” She hugged her arms and seemed to shudder. “Not the same man I knew in Managua.” She reached into the casket to feel the pillow, once again relaxed. “He was going to enter me in the Señorita Universo, but the war became worse and he had to leave, so I went home.” She seemed fascinated by the pleated material covering the pillow.

  Jack took his time. “But now, the way I understand it, Amelita, he wants to kill you.”

  “She tole you that, uh? Yes, he was so angry he thought he would get leprosy, but he won’t. You don’t give it to a person that way, you know, like that disease now is popular, or the old one they call the clop. Someone has to tell Bertie he won’t get it. Though I heard the Commandante Edén Pastora, also with the contras, has mountain leprosy, but I don’t know what kind that is. Perhaps only from insect bites.”

  Jack said, “Wait. Okay? This guy kidnapped you. I mean before. He disappeared you, came at night and grabbed you and took you up in the mountains. Is that right?”

  “Yes, of course,” turning to him with a look of surprise. “He want me to be with him.” Her gaze softened then as she said, “When you like a girl very much, don’t you want her to be with you? You have girl friends, I bet all kinds of them.” She smiled, moving closer. “Good-looking guy
with expensive clothes,” taking his seven-dollar striped tie between her fingers, feeling it. “I saw your nice rooms you have, with a big refrigerator has beer and a bottle of vodka in it. Sure, I bet you bring girls here for the evening. Maybe stay all night. . . . Oh, you look surprise. I know American guys in Managua when I was there would do that, open their eyes. Who, me? Like a little boy. I think only American guys do that, but I’m not certain. Want you to believe they always so good. But you bring girls here, don’t you? Tell me the truth.”

  “Once or twice I have.”

  “Tell me something else, okay? You ever get in one of these with the girl?”

  Jack said, “Are you serious?”

  “I jus’ wonder. It so nice and soft,” touching the Tawny Beige crepe again.

  He said, “Amelita, that’s a casket.”

  “Yes, I know what it is. But I never look inside one or feel it. Like a little bed, uh?”

  He said, “Why don’t we go sit down, take it easy.”

  She gave him a sly look over her shoulder. “In your room? Yes, I think that would be nice.”

  He thought a moment and said, “If I was the one pulled you out of the situation you were in . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I’d seriously consider throwing you back.”

  She frowned. “You mad at me? Why?”

  No, he wasn’t, really; but all he said was, “Come on,” and turned out the lights in the casket selection room. They walked down the hall past his apartment and the prep room to Leo’s office.

  “Sister Lucy’ll get in touch as soon as she’s free. If she doesn’t, you’ll have to sleep on that.” He nodded toward a cracked and creased leather sofa that was old as Mullen & Sons.

  Amelita sat down in it, saying, “Why do you call her that?”

  Jack said, “What?” looking at the mess on Leo’s desk, letters and invoices, blank First Call Records lying by the phone. No new business.

  “I say why do you call her Sister Lucy? She’s not a sister no more. She jus’ Lucy. Or Lucy Nichols, if you want to say all her name.”

  Jack looked up, stared at the girl sitting in the middle of Leo’s worn-out sofa. He took a moment.

  “What’re you talking about, she’s not a sister? That’s what I called her . . .” He took another moment to think about it. “I’m sure I did, and she didn’t say she wasn’t.”

  “Maybe she so use to it.”

  “All the guys at the mission when I picked her up, they called her sister. I can hear ’em. And Leo, the guy I work for . . .” Jack paused, not sure if he could count Leo. Leo might’ve assumed she was a nun, because she’d been at a mission in Nicaragua.

  Amelita said, “I don’t know who you talking about, but I know she isn’t a sister. She quit being one. You think if she was a sister you see her dress like that, with those Calvin Kleins? I’m going to buy a pair when I go to L.A.”

  “I wondered about that.”

  “Sure, soon as I go there.”

  “How do you know? Did she tell you?”

  “When we lef’ Nicaragua in the car. She say to me, I’m not going to be a sister no more. I can’t do it.”

  “She said that?”

  “I jus’ tole you she say it.”

  “I mean, are you sure?”

  Amelita shrugged. “Ask her, you don’t believe me.” Her gaze roamed over the office, to Leo’s mortuary science license framed on the wall, before returning to Jack, standing by the desk. “She was nice when she was a sister. She was the nicest one at Sagrada Familia.”

  “Don’t you think she’s nice now?”

  “Yes, but she’s different. I think something is happening to her.”

  When she called she said, “Jack? It’s Lucy.” He waited and she said, “Jack?”

  “How was dinner?”

  “I’d like to tell you about it.”

  “Boiled shrimp and beer?”

  “I may never see my dad again. How’s Amelita?”

  “She’s okay. What happened?”

  “I really would like to talk to you.” It was her voice, but it was different, strained; she was keeping it in control. “If you could bring Amelita here. . . . I’m at home, my mother’s house, 101 Audubon, on the uptown side of the park.”

  “I know where it is. Are you alone?”

  “The housekeeper’s here, Dolores. . . . If you could come as soon as you can. . . . But not in the hearse. Just in case . . .”

  He said, “No, I have a car.” He waited a moment and said, for the first time, “Lucy?”

  “What?”

  “We’ll be right over.”

  6

  * * *

  SHE BROUGHT HIM THROUGH a hall of dim portraits and framed pictures of Carnival balls, past sitting and dining rooms that were dark, formal, to a sun parlor that was startling, the atmosphere suddenly tropical as he looked at walls papered in a blaze of green-and-gold banana trees. Lamplight reflected on giant green fronds, on green-cushioned wicker, a ceiling fan, baskets of fern, a bar with bottles displayed against tinted glass. On the wicker coffee table was a glass of sherry. She was quiet, polite, wearing a white shirt now with tan slacks and sandals. She asked him if he’d help himself to a drink, then asked if he was sure he wasn’t hungry—as he poured vodka over ice—Dolores was fixing something for Amelita and it would be no trouble. He shook his head. She said Dolores had been to church. She said Dolores had been attending the African Baptist Church on Esplanade as long as she could remember. She said Dolores used to teach her hymns and it disturbed her mother to hear Protestant songs in the house. Jack took a sip of the drink and looked at her and said, “You’re not a sister anymore.”

  She said, “No, I’m not.”

  “I called you Sister.”

  “Once or twice.”

  “You sound different.”

  She seemed to smile.

  “I mean since this afternoon.”

  She was looking at his drink and said, “Let me try that.” He handed her the glass. She took a sip of the vodka and looked at him with that round lower lip pouting as she swallowed, then shook her head. “I still don’t like it.”

  “You’re trying different things again?”

  She said, “The day I got back to New Orleans I called my mother for the name of a hairdresser. I’d made up my mind, after thinking about it for at least a year, I was going to get a perm. Curl my hair and change my image. I felt I needed to pick myself up. So I made the appointment. . . . It wasn’t until I was in the chair, looking at myself in the mirror, I realized that a perm wasn’t going to do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “I mean it wasn’t necessary. I’d already changed. You said I sound different. I am, I’m not the same person I was a year ago or this afternoon, or the same person right now that I’m going to be.”

  She was close enough to touch; not as tall as earlier today, in the heels. He said, “I think you made the right decision. That’s the way your hair should be, natural.” He thought a moment and said, “The day I got home from Angola, the first thing I was gonna do was get dressed up and head for the bar at the Roosevelt, like I’d never been away. But I didn’t. My parole came up the same time as a friend of mine, guy named Roy Hicks.” Jack felt himself start to smile. “Roy had a way of looking at you, with this cold stare, not putting much into it at all, but it was like he was asking if you wanted to die. He wasn’t that big, either.”

  Lucy had started to smile because he did, but now the smile left her eyes. “I thought you said you were friends.”

  “We were. Roy taught me how to jail. No, he didn’t give me the look, it was for guys who came onto him or got out of line. . . . You know what I’m talking about?”

  “I think so.”

  He started to smile again, knowing what he was going to tell, and saw Lucy ready to smile, he was pretty sure. It encouraged him, made it all right to show off a little, slip into a role with her that was comfortable, natural; the feeling he could tell
her anything he wanted.

  “We get to New Orleans, Roy says he has some business to tend to and wants me to come along. We take a cab over to the projects, you know, off Rampart? We go up to a door, Roy bangs on it with his fist. . . . I forgot to mention, Roy Hicks was a New Orleans cop at one time, but that’s another story.”

  “What was he doing in prison?”

  “That’s what I mean it’s another story; but a good one. We’re in the projects, this black guy opens the door I think I recognize. He doesn’t invite us in, but he knows us and we go in, and I see three more black guys sitting there. The place, I find out later, is a dope house. I’m thinking, what am I doing here, as Roy says to the black guy that runs it, ‘Shake hands, dude.’ But the guy doesn’t want to. By then I realize I know the guy; he was at Angola and got his release about six months before us. He ran a still while he was inside, made home brew out of fruit cocktail, rice, raisins, whatever he could find. It was terrible stuff. He’d sell it and give Roy a cut, something like half, ’cause Roy had given him permission to make it.” He saw Lucy frown and said, “Roy ran the dormitory we were in, Big Stripe, medium security.” He didn’t know what else to tell her. “It’s the way it is, part of the convict social structure. . . . Anyway, Roy goes, ‘Shake hands, dude.’ Says it a couple more times and finally the guy sticks his hand out. Roy grabs it, gets an armlock on him, pulls a gun out of the guy’s pants, a P.38, with the three guys sitting there watching. Roy tells the guy he’s got in the armlock he left owing Roy money, and with accumulated interest the amount was now two thousand dollars. The guy told Roy he was crazy, couldn’t he see they were outside now? That kind a deal was over with. Roy goes, ‘It ain’t over till I say it is. Pay up, dude,’ never raising his voice or threatening the guy, and the guy finally gave him the money.”

  Lucy was staring at him. “Amazing.”

  “You understand, the guy might’ve owed him a few bucks, but this was a shakedown. Or with the gun you could even say it was a thinly disguised stickup. We get in the cab I ask Roy if he’s flipped out. He goes, ‘It’s like you fall off a bike you have to get right back on it again.’ I said to him, ‘Yeah, we took a fall, but I don’t see ripping off a dope house the same as getting back into what we were doing.’ Meaning neither of us, strictly speaking, had ever been into armed robbery. Roy goes, ‘What difference is it what statute you break, B and E or going in with a gun? You think you’re ever gonna live like a civilian?’ I told him I had every intention of trying. He goes, ‘Well, here’s a start.’ Counts out half the money, a thousand bucks, and hands it to me.”