Ask for Me Tomorrow

“I’ll mention it,” Aragon said. Gilly would need all the laughs she could get after she heard his report: Your precious B. J. is a nut who kills people, but there’s this other guy waiting in the wings with an allowance from his mother and a very romantic nature. How’s that for a joke, Gilly?

“You look peculiar, Mr. Aragon. If you’re going to upchuck again, kindly open the window.”

He opened the window.

Twenty-two

“Well, this is it,” Violet Smith said. “It really is it, isn’t it?”

Reed yawned, stretched and opened the two top buttons of his uniform. “There’s not much point in standing around talking about it. Make yourself useful. Or scarce.”

“I’m afraid. I never saw anyone die before.”

“So don’t look.”

“It’s different with you, being a nurse. You’ve probably seen people die all over the place.”

“Usually in bed.”

“What’s it like, watching somebody die?”

“Great fun. Gives me the jollies. Ho ho ho.”

“Our minister says there’s a moment when the soul leaves the body. When it happens, can you feel it? I mean, is there kind of like a draft as the soul goes up?”

“Who says it goes up? Decker’s may be going down.”

“Oh no.”

“Some go up, some go down, some may even go sideways. Mine is definitely going down.”

“You can’t be sure.”

“Sure I’m sure.”

“Why? Are you a terrible sinner?”

“You bet your butt,” Reed said, yawning again. “I want to catch half an hour’s sleep out on the patio. Wake me if the old girl starts flinging herself around.”

He had been up since four o’clock when Gilly called him and told him her husband was dying. She’d done the same thing a dozen times in the past few months and Reed didn’t take it seriously until the doctor came and said it was true. There was talk of moving him into a hospital but Gilly refused. What could they do for him in a hospital — stick tubes up his nose and needles into his veins to prolong his suffering? So he stayed home and she stayed with him.

“He will die in my arms, where he belongs,” Gilly told Reed.

“It will be messy.”

“Surely you, of all people, should be able to put up with a little mess.”

“I’m able. Are you able?”

“Oh God, he’s trying to talk. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand his torture.”

“See what I mean?” Reed said. “Messy.”

Aragon picked up his car at the airport and drove directly to Gilly’s house. He wasn’t sure how much of the truth he was going to tell her or even how much of the truth he actually knew. With the death of Tula Lopez, B. J.’s last tracks had been obliterated.

He crossed the patio. Reed was lying on a chaise beside the pool, sleeping. In spite of the fatigue circles under his eyes he looked very young and innocent, like a cherub who’d been up all night doing good deeds. Aragon spoke his name and Reed was instantly awake, his voice alert: “What are you doing here?”

“I came to give Mrs. Decker my report.”

“Bad timing. The old boy’s about to meet his maker. If there’s anything she should know, tell me and I’ll pass it along to her between fits.”

“Tula Lopez is dead.”

“Yeah? Too bad.”

“She was beaten and strangled.”

“That’s one of the hazards of her profession.”

“I wonder why anyone would bother killing a down-and-out prostitute like Tula.”

“For kicks.”

“Or money. A nice secure future, let’s say.”

“You say. I’m going back to sleep.” Reed closed his eyes as if he intended to keep his word, but Aragon noticed that the muscles in his forearms were flexed and his jaw was set too tight. “Listen, Aragon, we’re all under a strain here right now. Why don’t you get lost for a few days?”

“I’ve been lost. I think I’m on the verge of finding myself.”

“Do it someplace else.”

“No. This is the place I was last seen.”

Reed opened his eyes and sat up. “You’re talking kind of weird, you know that?”

“I’m feeling kind of weird,” Aragon said. “Like a patsy, for instance.”

“Yeah? Well, life makes patsies of us all, as my old lady used to say before someone did her a favor and ran over her with a truck. Did I ever tell you about my old lady? She was a fight fan, used to put on the gloves with me when I was six, seven years old.”

“You learned early.”

“Everybody learns early when they get the hell knocked out of them if they don’t.”

Aragon watched the plumes of pampas grass bending toward the sun like gilded birds. “It’s funny how everyone I was hired to find turned up dead.”

“Yeah, that’s a real chuckle.”

“It would have been simpler and safer if she hadn’t hired me in the first place. Why did she?”