Lou Berney - November Road

He was alive. He was all right.

At the filling station on La Porte, the pump jockey squinted at Guidry. “Where’s your car at, mister?”

“About a mile up the road, headed due west at forty miles an hour, my wife behind the wheel,” Guidry said. “I hope you’re not married, friend. It’s a carnival ride.”

“I ain’t married,” the pump jockey said. “Wouldn’t mind to be, though.”

“Stand up straight.”

“What?”

“If you want to have luck with the ladies,” Guidry said. He was in a generous mood. “Head up, shoulders back. Carry yourself with confidence. Give the lady your full attention. You have a phone I can use?”

A pay phone on the side of the building. Guidry used his first dime to call a cab. He used his second dime to call Seraphine.

“No problems,” he said.

“But of course not, mon cher. ”

“All right, then.”

“You’ll spend the night at the Rice?” she said.

“Uncle Carlos better cover my tab.”

“He will. Enjoy.”

Back inside, Guidry caught the pump jockey practicing his posture in the reflection off the front glass. Head up, shoulders back. Maybe he’d get the hang of it. Guidry asked about the men’s room, and the pump jockey sent him outside again, to the back of the building this time.

WHITES ONLY. Guidry entered the single stall and sat down and with great relief released the acid churn he’d been carrying around in his belly for the past twenty-four hours. On the cinder-block wall next to the toilet, someone had used the tip of a knife to scratch a few words.

HERE I SIT ALL BROKEN HEARTED

TRIED TO

That was it. Inspiration had flagged or the poet had finished his business.

When Guidry came out of the men’s room, his cab had arrived. It dropped him at the Rice, and he headed straight to the Capital Club. A few promising Texas bluebonnets were scattered about, but first things first. Guidry sat at the bar and ordered a double Macallan neat, another double Macallan neat, a rib eye with creamed spinach.

One of the bartenders, blond hair so pale it was almost white, sidled over and asked out of the corner of his mouth if Guidry wanted to buy some grass. Don’t mind if I do. Seraphine had instructed him to enjoy his evening, had she not? The bartender told Guidry to meet him in ten minutes, the alley behind the hotel.

Guidry had lifted the last sip of Macallan to his lips. You’ll spend the night at the Rice? That’s what Seraphine had asked him on the phone. Why would she need to ask that? She’d booked his hotel room and knew that his return flight departed tomorrow morning. Why would she need to ask that, and why had Guidry not wondered about it until now?

“I’m a dumb-ass,” he said.

The bartender watched him. “What?”

“I left my wallet upstairs.” Guidry gave him a wink. “See you in five minutes.”

He left the bar and crossed the hotel lobby, past the elevators and out through the revolving door. The bellhop in the porte cochere said he’d whistle up a cab for Guidry, it’d only take a minute. Guidry didn’t have a minute. He walked to the end of the block, turned the corner, and started running.

Saturday afternoon Barone caught his flight to Houston. On the plane he flipped through last month’s Life. NASA had picked fourteen new astronauts. Buzz cuts, bright eyes, square jaws. Barone couldn’t tell them apart. God and Mom and country. If they wanted to strap themselves to a bomb and go flying through space, Barone wasn’t going to stop them.

The guy sitting next to him was from Dallas. He told Barone that everyone in his office cheered when they heard the news about Kennedy. Good riddance. The guy said he didn’t know what was worse about Kennedy, that he was a Catholic or a liberal or loved the Negroes so much. Dollars to doughnuts, Kennedy probably had some Jew blood, too. The guy had it on good authority that the Oval Office had a special phone line direct to the Vatican. Jack and Bobby took their orders straight from the pope. The newspapers covered it up because they were owned by Jews. How did Barone like that?

“I’m Catholic,” Barone said. It wasn’t true, or not any longer, but he wanted to see the guy’s face.

“Well …” the guy said. “Well …”

“And I’m married to a colored girl. She’s meeting me at the airport if you want to say hello.”

The guy stiffened. His lips disappeared. “There’s no need to get smart with me, friend,” he said. “I’m not trying to start any trouble.”

“It’s all right with me,” Barone said. “I don’t mind trouble.”

The guy looked around for a stewardess to witness Barone’s poor manners. When one didn’t appear, he harrumphed and flapped open his newspaper. He ignored Barone the rest of the way to Houston.

A quarter to six, the plane landed at Municipal. Barone stepped out of the terminal in time to catch the last light of day burning on the horizon. Or maybe just a refinery flaring off gas. The air in Houston was even wetter and heavier than it was in New Orleans.

One of Carlos’s elves had left a car for him in the airport parking lot. Barone tossed the briefcase in back. Under the seat was a .22 Browning Challenger. Barone didn’t think he’d need a piece, but no one ever ended up in a morgue drawer by being too careful. He removed the screw-on can and checked the barrel for crud. He checked the magazine, the slide. The Browning was accurate up close and fairly quiet.

The guy from the plane walked across the lot. Barone put the front sight on him and followed along until the guy found his car, got in, drove off. Maybe some other time, friend.

Traffic. Barone inched along. It took him twenty minutes to get to Old Spanish Trail. The Bali Hai Motor Court was an L-shaped cinder-block building, two stories high, canted around a pool. Every few seconds the glow in the pool shifted from green to purple, from purple to yellow, from yellow to green again.

Barone parked across the street, in front of a bulldozed barbecue joint. Most of this side of Highway 90 was already a construction site, the roadhouses and filling stations and motor courts torn down to make room for a new stadium and parking lot. When it was finished, the stadium would have a roof, a giant dome you’d be able to see from miles away. Astronauts and an Astrodome, the future. So far only a few curved steel girders had been raised. They looked like the fingers of a hand trying to claw up through the crust of the earth.

The Bali Hai had two separate sets of stairs that led up to the breezeway on the second floor. Barone had been out last week to look the place over. One set of stairs at the far north end of the building. One set in the middle, crook of the L, in back. Only the maid used those stairs. You couldn’t see them from the pool or the highway or the office.

The mark had the room on the second floor that was closest to the middle stairs. Number 207. Seraphine said that the mark would check in around five. Barone couldn’t tell for sure if he was in the room yet or not. A light in the room was on, but the curtains were drawn.

Barone settled in. If he was lucky, the mark would step outside for a breath of fresh air. Some guys didn’t mind doing a hit on the cuff. Barone, no. He liked to be as prepared as possible. Seraphine said the mark was a big boy. Barone wanted to see how big, with his own two eyes.