The Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix

8

AT NINE O’CLOCK the next morning, while I was having a third cup of coffee in the kitchen (my wife said nothing, but I could see disapproval writ large on her face when she brought it to me), the telephone rang. I went into the parlor to take it, and Central told someone that their party was holding the line. She then told me to have a birdlarky day and rang off… presumably. With Central, you could never quite tell for sure.

Hal Moores’s voice shocked me. Wavery and hoarse, it sounded like the voice of an octogenarian. It occurred to me that it was good that things had gone all right with Curtis Anderson in the tunnel last night, good that he felt about the same as we did about Percy, because this man I was talking to would very likely never work another day at Cold Mountain.

“Paul, I understand there was trouble last night. I also understand that our friend Mr. Wetmore was involved.”

“A spot of trouble,” I admitted, holding the receiver tight to my ear and leaning in toward the horn, “but the job got done. That’s the important thing.”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Can I ask who told you?” So I can tie a can to his tail? I didn’t add.

“You can ask, but since it’s really none of your beeswax, I think I’ll keep my mouth shut on that score. But when I called my office to see if there were any messages or urgent business, I was told an interesting thing.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Seems a transferral application landed in my basket. Percy Wetmore wants to go to Briar Ridge as soon as possible. Must have filled out the application even before last night’s shift was over, wouldn’t you think?”

“It sounds that way,” I agreed.

“Ordinarily I’d let Curtis handle it, but considering the… atmosphere on E Block just lately, I asked Hannah to run it over to me personally on her lunch hour. She has graciously agreed to do so. I’ll approve it and see it’s forwarded on to the state capital this afternoon. I expect you’ll get a look at Percy’s backside going out the door in no more than a month. Maybe less.”

He expected me to be pleased with this news, and had a right to expect it. He had taken time out from tending his wife to expedite a matter that might otherwise have taken upwards of half a year, even with Percy’s vaunted connections. Nevertheless, my heart sank. A month! But maybe it didn’t matter much, one way or the other. It removed a perfectly natural desire to wait and put off a risky endeavor, and what I was now thinking about would be very risky indeed. Sometimes, when that’s the case, it’s better to jump before you can lose your nerve. If we were going to have to deal with Percy in any case (always assuming I could get the others to go along with my insanity—always assuming there was a we, in other words), it might as well be tonight.

“Paul? Are you there?” His voice lowered a little, as if he thought he was now talking to himself. “Damn, I think I lost the connection.”

“No, I’m here, Hal. That’s great news.”

“Yes,” he agreed, and I was again struck by how old he sounded. How papery, somehow. “Oh, I know what you’re thinking.”

No, you don’t, Warden, I thought. Never in a million years could you know what I’m thinking.

“You’re thinking that our young friend will still be around for the Coffey execution. That’s probably true—Coffey will go well before Thanksgiving, I imagine—but you can put him back in the switch room. No one will object. Including him, I should think.”

“I’ll do that,” I said. “Hal, how’s Melinda?”

There was a long pause—so long I might have thought I’d lost him, except for the sound of his breathing. When he spoke this time, it was in a much lower tone of voice. “She’s sinking,” he said.

Sinking. That chilly word the old-timers used not to describe a person who was dying, exactly, but one who had begun to uncouple from living.

“The headaches seem a little better… for now, anyway… but she can’t walk without help, she can’t pick things up, she loses control of her water while she sleeps…” There was another pause, and then, in an even lower voice, Hal said something that sounded like “She wears.”

“Wears what, Hal?” I asked, frowning. My wife had come into the parlor doorway. She stood there wiping her hands on a dishtowel and looking at me.

“No,” he said in a voice that seemed to waver between anger and tears. “She swears.”

“Oh.” I still didn’t know what he meant, but had no intention of pursuing it. I didn’t have to; he did it for me.

“She’ll be all right, perfectly normal, talking about her flower-garden or a dress she saw in the catalogue, or maybe about how she heard Roosevelt on the radio and how wonderful he sounds, and then, all at once, she’ll start to say the most awful things, the most awful… words. She doesn’t raise her voice. It would almost be better if she did, I think, because then… you see, then…”

“She wouldn’t sound so much like herself.”

“That’s it,” he said gratefully. “But to hear her saying those awful gutter-language things in her sweet voice… pardon me, Paul.” His voice trailed away and I heard him noisily clearing his throat. Then he came back, sounding a little stronger but just as distressed. “She wants to have Pastor Donaldson over, and I know he’s a comfort to her, but how can I ask him? Suppose that he’s sitting there, reading Scripture with her, and she calls him a foul name? She could; she called me one last night. She said, ‘Hand me that Liberty magazine, you cocksucker, would you?’ Paul, where could she have ever heard such language? How could she know those words?”

“I don’t know. Hal, are you going to be home this evening?”

When he was well and in charge of himself, not distracted by worry or grief, Hal Moores had a cutting and sarcastic facet to his personality; his subordinates feared that side of him even more than his anger or his contempt, I think. His sarcasm, usually impatient and often harsh, could sting like acid. A little of that now splashed on me. It was unexpected, but on the whole I was glad to hear it. All the fight hadn’t gone out of him after all, it seemed.

“No,” he said, “I’m taking Melinda out square-dancing. We’re going to do-si-do, allemand left, and then tell the fiddler he’s a rooster-dick motherfucker.”

I clapped my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing. Mercifully, it was an urge that passed in a hurry.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I haven’t been getting much sleep lately. It’s made me grouchy. Of course we’re going to be home. Why do you ask?”

“It doesn’t matter, I guess,” I said.

“You weren’t thinking of coming by, were you? Because if you were on last night, you’ll be on tonight. Unless you’ve switched with somebody?”

“No, I haven’t switched,” I said. “I’m on tonight.”

“It wouldn’t be a good idea, anyway. Not the way she is right now.”

“Maybe not. Thanks for your news.”

“You’re welcome. Pray for my Melinda, Paul.”

I said I would, thinking that I might do quite a bit more than pray. God helps those who help themselves, as they say in The Church of Praise Jesus, The Lord Is Mighty. I hung up and looked at Janice.

“How’s Melly?” she asked.

“Not good.” I told her what Hal had told me, including the part about the swearing, although I left out cocksucker and rooster-dick motherfucker. I finished with Hal’s word, sinking, and Jan nodded sadly. Then she took a closer look at me.

“What are you thinking about? You’re thinking about something, probably no good. It’s in your face.”

Lying was out of the question; it wasn’t the way we were with each other. I just told her it was best she not know, at least for the time being.

“Is it… could it get you in trouble?” She didn’t sound particularly alarmed at the idea—more interested than anything—which is one of the things I have always loved about her.

“Maybe,” I said.

“Is it a good thing?”

“Maybe,” I repeated. I was standing there, still turning the phone’s crank idly with one finger, while I held down the connecting points with a finger of my other hand.

“Would you like me to leave you alone while you use the telephone?” she asked. “Be a good little woman and butt out? Do some dishes? Knit some booties?”

I nodded. “That’s not the way I’d put it, but—”

“Are we having extras for lunch, Paul?”

“I hope so,” I said.