Bandits

He’d check the prep room first because that casket selection room-shit, it was too easy to hide in there. He never liked that room. All those crepe-lined empty caskets waiting for people.

He opened the prep room door and jumped and made a sucking-in strangled kind of sound and then said, “Oh, shit,” looking at Helene standing there with a put-on surprised expression on her face. Helene in jeans and a UNO sweatshirt, Helene’s hair catching the fluorescent light as she stepped out of the dark.

She said, “Hi, Jack. What’s wrong?”

“What’re you doing here?”

“I’m on this weekend, till Monday.”

“You’re on something, I know that. Jesus.”

“I don’t do drugs anymore, Jack. My body is clean.”

“Come on-what’re you doing here?”

“What do you think I’m doing here, you jerk? I work here. Monday you’ll have to have all your stuff out, ’cause I’m moving in.”

“Leo hired you?”

“You know he’s been looking, since you ran out on him. I did that man downstairs’s makeup and he loved it. I mean Leo. He drove me home to get a few things, we came back, he asked me if I’d consider working here, and I said sure, I’ll start right this minute.”

“Last night you didn’t even want to come in here.”

“Yeah, well, I got over it. You know, maybe I just thought I was afraid. But once you get used to it… I saw you drive up, I thought, let’s see if old Jack still has it together. You want a drink? Step down to my apartment. It isn’t much, but I’m go

“He’s a peach of a guy. How much is he paying you?”

“I’m afraid that’s none of your business. Actually he asked me how much I’d need.”

“Leo?”

“I told him I’d let him know. I’ll be doing the cosmetics and the hair, too, not just driving.”

“Helene, this is no place for a girl like you.”

“What kind of girl am I, Jack?”

“Wait’ll a bad one comes in, person that was in a horrible wreck. Or you have to go to the morgue, pick up a floater they pulled out of the river, all bloated, eaten by fish…”

She said, “Jack, you’re go

“I want to take a shower and change my clothes.”

“I hope it helps your disposition. God.”

Helene followed him to the apartment.

When she came into the bedroom she placed his drink on the dresser and leaned against it and watched him as he got out of his clothes.

“You have two and a half bottles of vodka on ice, but no beer.”

“That can happen.”

“You still have a nice body, Jack.”

“What do you mean, still?”

“You aren’t getting any younger, kid.”

“I’m sure glad I came.”

She said, “After you take your shower, you want to be friends?”

Asking him with a tone that was soft, familiar, the same mood in her eyes, watching him. He dropped his shirt on the bed and walked over to her.

“We’re friends now.”

“Are we good friends?”

“I think we’re better than good friends.”

“Do you know how long it’s been since we made love?”

“A long time.”

“Two thousand, two hundred, and fifteen days… give or take.”

“No wonder I’m ready.”

Close to him she said, “You sure are.” She said, “I’ve missed you, Jack. Boy, have I missed you.”

He shaved in a hot shower and washed his hair, turned the water off and came out to the sink, the steamy mirror. They’d have at least an hour. Taking the towel from the rack he opened the door half expecting to see Helene in bed or on it, waiting in some kind of put-on seductive pose, remembering her this morning-just this morning in her thin-strip panties doing her twist exercise, her breasts trying to keep up… She wasn’t in the room.

Rubbing his hair with the towel over his face he heard her voice and then heard it again. “Jack.” He brought the towel down and was held by her expression, her eyes, with no trace of flirty fu

“Someone’s downstairs.”

“You’re sure?”

“I heard glass break.”

23

FRANKLIN HAD MADE UP his mind on the way here: don’t walk into something the way you walked into that bathroom. Don’t a

But it didn’t work the way he wanted. He had thought the door would be open because people came in here to see the dead; a woman missing her husband after she’d gone to bed, sure, and would want to be with him again. But the door was locked. So he had to break one of the small panes with the grip of his pistol and then had to hurry, it made so much noise, get to the guy before he knew what was happening and had his own gun in his hand.

Franklin was on the stairs now.

He came to the landing where it turned, looked up, and there was the guy with his shirt hanging open at the top of the stairs, the light in the ceiling over him. The guy’s hair looked wet. Franklin raised his pistol and aimed it at the guy because the guy was holding something in front of him, shining in the light, that looked like a short metal spear. The guy lowered it slowly, seeing he couldn’t use it, and dropped it on the floor without being asked and stood with his hands at his side, not raising them.

Franklin said, “You suppose to put your fingers together behind your head.”

But the guy didn’t do it. The guy held his shirt open at the top of the stairs and said, “Look, I’m clean. I’m your prisoner, okay? But I’m not go

“They called it the di

“It means,” Jack said, “what the Indian told you. They’re giving you a bunch of shuck with the chicken à la king.”

“One rich man said to me he gave twenty-five thousand dollars and wished he could join me in fighting for freedom, but his wife wouldn’t let him go. I said to him to bring his woman. She can work with my woman in the camp.”