LITMIR.BIZ

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In five minutes.”

      “Is Daddy coming?” Joan said.

      “No. It’s just us girls.”

      “What about Lucky?” Rosemary said.

      The dog. Oh, good Lord. But Charlotte couldn’t just leave the poor thing here. Dooley might forget to feed him or to give him his medicine. He might forget that the dog even existed.

      “Lucky can come with us,” Charlotte said. “Now, hurry, go pack your suitcases.”

      “Can I bring one doll or two dolls?” Rosemary said.

      “One.”

      “Are two small dolls the same as one big doll?”

      “No.”

      “But Joan can bring one doll, too. And we can each bring one book.”

      “Yes. Now, go.”

      Rosemary bounded away. Joan considered Charlotte solemnly.

      “Where are we going, Mommy?” Joan said.

      Charlotte reached out to smooth the golden hair that never needed it. “Let’s find out.”

       6

      Guidry’s Friday-night dinner with Al LaBruzzo dragged on. Guidry was his usual sparkling self, thank you very much, but it took some effort. He couldn’t chase the idea from his head that maybe, just maybe, Seraphine and Carlos planned to kill him.

      No, don’t be ridiculous.

      Yes, the math made sense. Guidry knew about the getaway Eldorado and its connection to the assassination. That made him a risk.

      But he was one of Carlos’s most trusted associates, Seraphine’s friend and confidant. He’d proved his loyalty time and time again. Just count the times! Al LaBruzzo didn’t have enough fingers.

      And look at it, too, from a more practical perspective. Guidry did important work for the organization. He opened doors through which flowed cash and influence. Carlos—a penny-pincher, so tight he squeaked when he walked—wouldn’t throw away as valuable an asset as Guidry. Waste not, want not, Carlos always said.

      After dinner Guidry took a cab up Canal to the Orpheum and slipped into the middle of the picture, a comedy western with John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara horsing around on a ranch. The theater was almost empty.

      Get rid of the Eldorado.

      And then get rid of the man who got rid of the Eldorado. Get rid of the man who knows about Dallas.

      The projector clattered. Cigarette smoke rose and bloomed in the beam of light from the booth. Three scattered couples in the theater, plus two other solo acts like Guidry. No one had come in since he’d plopped down. He was pretty sure no one had followed his cab up Canal.

      Guidry was letting his imagination get the best of him. Could be. He’d seen it happen to guys who’d been around too long. The stress of the life worked away at them like salt spray on soft wood, and they started to fall apart.

      Maybe I’m crazy. That was what Mackey Pagano had said to Guidry when he begged Guidry to find out if Carlos wanted him dead. Maybe I’m crazy.

      But Mackey hadn’t been crazy, had he? Carlos had wanted Mackey dead, and now, almost certainly, dead Mackey was.

      What else had Mackey said Wednesday night at the Monteleone? Guidry tried to remember. Something about a guy from San Francisco, the hit on the judge a year ago that Carlos had eventually decided against.

      That was the kind of work Mackey had been doing the last few years, arranging for out-of-town specialists when Carlos didn’t have someone at hand, local, to do the work he needed.

      Specialists, independent contractors. Such as, perhaps, a sniper who could pick off the president of the United States and then afterward drive away in a sky-blue Eldorado.

      Guidry could no longer stomach the high jinks on the screen. He left the theater before the movie ended and walked back to his apartment building. Nobody following him, he was ninety-nine percent sure.

      The canceled hit on the judge last year. Maybe it had been one of Seraphine’s elaborate smoke screens. Guidry knew how she operated. She’d used the cover of darkness to line up the sniper that Carlos had sent to Dealey Plaza today.

      Mackey must have figured out some corner of the puzzle a few days ago. He must have recognized that he possessed dangerous information.

      And now Guidry had figured out the same corner of the puzzle. Now he possessed that same dangerous information. Throw another log on the fire, shall we? Ye gods. Guidry’s day was just getting shittier and shittier.

      But there was still hope. It was still possible that what had happened to Mackey was a coincidence, that Carlos had bumped him for reasons entirely unrelated to the assassination.

      Guidry knew a source who might be able to shed light. When he reached his apartment building, he bypassed the lobby and went straight to the garage. Chick was sitting crumpled in the booth and staring at the radio like it was his own sweet mother who’d been shot in Dallas. The Negroes thought that Jack Kennedy loved them. Hate to break the news, Chick, but Jack Kennedy was like every smart cat: He loved himself and himself only.

      “Bring my car around for me, Chick, will you?” Guidry said.

      “Yes, sir, Mr. Guidry,” Chick said. “You been listening to the news? Good Lord, Good Lord.”

      “You know what the Good Book says, Chick. ‘When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned.’”

      “Yeah you right.” Chick blew his nose into a handkerchief. “Yeah you right.”

      Guidry drove over the bridge to the west bank. He tried the scrapyard first. Armand wasn’t in his little shack of an office, a surprise. Guidry knocked and knocked till his knuckles were numb. It was fine. He knew where Armand lived. Not too far up the road, a tidy little neighborhood of shotguns in Algiers Point.

      Armand’s wife answered the door. Esmeralda, faded Cajun beauty, the crumbling ruins of a once-glorious civilization. Guidry wished he’d known her when. How a tubby motormouth gun peddler like Armand had landed such a prize, it was an enigma to unravel.

      But another enigma had priority right now. Guidry crossed his fingers that Armand could help with the unraveling. Armand had known Mackey for almost half a century. The two of them had grown up together. Armand would know what Mackey had been up to.

      “Sorry to trouble you, Esme, I know it’s late,” Guidry said. Late, but the lights in the house blazed and the smell of fresh-brewed coffee drifted out from the kitchen. Strange.

      “Hello, Frank,” Esme said.

      “I’m looking for Armand. He’s not at the office.”

      “He’s not home.”

      “I wish I could steal you away from him, Esme,” Guidry said. “I know you’ve been married a while, but give me the blueprints and I’ll do what it takes.”

      “He’s not home,” she said again.

      “No? Do you know where he is?”

      Strange, too, that Esme hadn’t invited Guidry in yet, hadn’t offered him a cup of coffee. Every other time that Guidry had come round, now and then over the years, she’d dragged him through the door and pinned him to the sofa and flirted like she was seventeen years old. Usually Guidry had to make like Houdini just to wriggle free.

      And why, if she was still up this late, wasn’t the television or the radio playing? Esme would throw herself in front of the St. Charles streetcar for Jackie Kennedy.

      “He’s gone fishing,” Esme said. “Out

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