Lights Out

The smile vanished. “Two years ago. Maybe three. The sickness already have me in its coils then, but not so strong.” He opened his eyes, looked at the Marley poster, then at Eddie. “You be in Switzerland at the time.”

“Switzerland?”

“Doing finance.”

“Who told you that?” said Eddie, rising.

JFK shrank back on the mattress. “Your brother. I aks about you. Feeling bad about how you lose your trial in the distant past. And that what he say. Switzerland.”

Eddie reached down and took JFK’s head in his hands; not hard-at least, he didn’t think it was hard. “Are you listening to me?” he said. “I want you to listen carefully.”

JFK licked his lips. “I be listening,” he said, almost too softly to hear.

“Then get this straight. I just got out. I did fifteen years for a crime I knew nothing about. Your crime.”

“Fifteen years?”

Eddie took his hands off JFK, rose, walked to the tarpapered window, peered through one of the coin-sized holes. He saw a goat straining its tether to get to the leaves of a dusty bush just out of reach.

There was a noise behind him. Eddie turned, saw JFK crawling desperately off the mattress. He got hold of the chair, pulled himself up, his movements weak and agitated at the same time; trying to reach eye level with Eddie. He gasped for breath: “But I tries to warn you, man. On the boat radio.”

“Warn me about what?”

“Mr. Packer he call ahead to the harbor police in Lauderdale, man. For reporting a stolen boat. No problem, except I know what be on this stolen boat, man. I get on the radio in the bar, to be warning you don’ go to no Lauderdale. But Mr. Packer he come in the bar, see me, shut off the radio.”

“Did he know what was on board?”

“No, man. It be just the three of us know.”

“The three of you?”

JFK held up three fingers, long and delicate, counted them off one at a time.

“Me.”

Eddie nodded.

“Mandy.”

Eddie nodded again.

JFK touched his third finger. “And Jack.”

“Jack?”

“Jack your brother.”

“Jack was in on it?” An image came to him, lit by a beach fire: Jack’s hands and forearms, scratched as if by heavy gardening.

“Equal partners,” said JFK. “I the owner of the ganja, Mandy she have the buyer in Miami, Jack have the boat. I be aksing you first, but you was saying no to me.” JFK’s body, supported by his grip on the card-table chair, began to tremble. The feet of the chair rattled on the floor.

Jack had been in on it. That explained why the search for JFK had been a sham-a real investigation would have implicated him too-but it didn’t explain everything. “Did Jack know Packer called the harbor cops?”

“Sure he know. We all right there in the bar-me, Packer, Jack.”

“And Jack didn’t try to stop him?”

“He try. He say why be making it police matters? Packer he say to teach you respect for property. Not just the boat-the girl too, that be his system of thinking. They argue back and forth.”

“But Jack didn’t tell him about the dope?”

“How he do that without he incriminating hisself? Instead he tell Mr. Packer come out on the beach, for talking private. That give me the chance to call you. But Mr. Packer he smart. He come running back in, rip the plug out of the wall.”

“That was all?” Eddie said.

“All?”

“All it took to stop my brother?”

JFK thought for a moment. “Like he could hit Mr. Packer on the head or thing like that?”

“If he had to.”

JFK shook his head. “No way,” he said. “Mr. Packer he use his hold on your brother.”

“What hold?”

“He say one more trick and you don’ be gettin’ the seven and a half percent.”

“That stopped him?”

“Seven and a half percent of everyt’ing, man. The hotel, the time share, the golf, the marina. Could have been millions, maybe. Millions. You understand the forces of the situation?”

Eddie understood. Understanding had a physical component; at first it was all physical: a light-headedness, as though he were much too tall, and fragile, like some strange bird. Then came the mental part, the fact of what Jack had done to him and the way it had happened. But not how Jack could have done it to him. He wanted one thing: to ask Jack that question.

Eddie stood motionless in JFK’s hot room, unconscious of passing time. His mind was far away, in a cold northern place of pirate games, of hockey, of falling through the ice. He thought of all that, and more, but failed to find the reason why. Just the MacGuffin, the bookstore boy had said, a device. There was no explanation. Would he have to accept that, in the poem and in his own life? Silence thickened, tangible, immobilizing. JFK broke it by saying, “Hey! You all right?”

Eddie grew aware of JFK leaning on the card-table chair across the room, separated from him by golden bars of light. The light burnished all his bony parts, as though they were already exposed.

“You better lie down,” Eddie said.

JFK nodded, made his way to the mattress, sat, used his hands to pull up his legs, lay down. Eddie could hear him breathing, fast and shallow. After a few minutes he groaned, then breathed more slowly. He looked at Eddie.

“Too weak, man. But I be wanting you to know.”

“Know what?”