Ask for Me Tomorrow

“She had to. You speak Spanish, you see, and I don’t, except for a couple of words like ‘amigo.’ Now, I couldn’t have gone around looking for Harry Jenkins just saying ‘amigo,’ could I, amigo?” Reed lay down again, shielding his eyes with his right arm. “Don’t worry about anything. I’m not. The Mexican police aren’t likely to sweat over the murders of a hustler and a broken-down con man and a crooked judge. They certainly aren’t going to bother extraditing anybody. So cheer up. You did a job, earned your money and came out cleaner than Snow White.”

“Is that all you have to say?”

“Maybe I’ll think of something else later on. Right now I’m tired and need a little rest. It’s a strain waiting for someone to die, even when you don’t give a damn about him.”

“Do you give a damn about anyone, Reed?”

“Sure I do, amigo. Me.”

The drapes were closed, but enough sunlight filtered through so Aragon could see that the oxygen tank beside the bed had been disconnected. Gilly was bending over her husband, her cheek against his. Tears had turned her eyes red and left the lids like transparent blisters.

Violet Smith stood beside the door in her black uniform looking smaller and more subdued than he remembered her. She said, “This is no place for strangers.”

“I’ll leave if Mrs. Lockwood wants me to.”

“This is a sacred moment when the soul—”

“Be quiet,” Gilly whispered. “He’s trying to talk again. He’s saying something... What is it, darling? Please, what is it?”

The dying man’s mouth was moving and little noises were coming out, wordless croaks and whimpers, and finally, an identifiable sound: “Gee — gee — gee—”

Violet Smith clapped her hands. “Praise the Lord, he’s been saved. He’s trying to say ‘Jesus.’ ”

“No,” Gilly said. “Not Jesus. G. G. He always called me G. G.”

“I distinctly heard ‘Jesus.’ ”

“All right.”

“I’ll go and pray for his soul. O praise the Lord!”

“Yes.”

Gilly had not yet given any indication that she was conscious of Aragon’s presence.

“Mrs. Lockwood?”

She turned her head slightly in his direction. “They’re all dead, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“Do you hear that, B. J.? They’re all dead, just like I promised you, like I planned it.” There was a long silence, then, “He came back across the border a year ago in a vanload of wetbacks. He was destitute and sick and on drugs. He didn’t even have a wallet, but I found an old clipping in his pocket about Jenlock Haciendas, how it was going to be a great step forward for Baja. On the other side of the clipping there was a story about a Marco Decker winning the National Lottery. It seemed a lucky name. He couldn’t use his own name, he’d done too many things against the law. So I set up a new identity for him, Marco Decker, and a new marriage for myself, complete with honeymoon in France. I let the word go out, through Smedler and others, that I’d met an eligible man in Europe and intended to marry him. I even arranged for Smedler to send me trousseau money in care of American Express. They sent it back to me in Los Angeles, where I was staying with B. J. in a private hospital. I arranged everything except the stroke. That was real, that was fate.”

“Mrs. Lockwood, you don’t have to tell me all this.”

“You’re my lawyer. I’m supposed to be able to tell you everything. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re supposed to be able to keep it to yourself. I figured on that from the beginning when I chose you... One of the nurses in the private hospital was Reed. I hired him to help me bring B. J. home and take care of him. The three of us became not friends exactly, more like allies, allies against fate, against injustice. Reed had had a bum deal, too. He fitted in.”

She got up and opened one of the drapes slightly. A shaft of sun struck the dying man across his chest.

“There was nothing I could do for B. J. except watch him die, moment by moment, inch by inch. I had such a terrible feeling of helplessness until it occurred to me one day, I don’t even remember when, that there was something I could do, after all. I could find the people who corrupted him, who destroyed him, and make sure that they died, too. Tula, Jenkins, the judge, they had to die, and they had to die before he did, so I could tell him about it and he would know he was avenged. I told him. He knew.”

“Maybe he didn’t want to know. Maybe he didn’t even like the idea of vengeance. It was your idea, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And Reed’s work.”

“Yes.”

“You fed Reed the information I passed on to you. You alibied him by pretending he was here with you when I called from Rio Seco.”

There was a sudden movement on the bed, a small final spasm as if the shaft of sun had hit its target.

“He’s dead.” She sounded a little surprised. “My husband has just died.”

He knew she was wrong. B. J. had died a long time ago, in the years between Dreamboat and the Quarry.