Fair?
Thats what I was going to say. But who ever said life was fair?
Somebody must have, he said. At one time or another. But it wasnt me.
A little later she said, Suppose no, its silly.
What?
Oh, its straight out of TV. A mans framed and the only way out is to solve the crime.
Like O.J., he said, searching all the golf courses
in Florida for the real killer.
I told you it was silly. Would you even know where to start?
Maybe a graveyard.
You think hes dead?
I think Als a believer in playing it safe, and that would be the safest way to play it. He used me as the fall guy, because he knew there was no trail that could lead back from me to him. But the actual shooter would know somebody, Al or somebody who worked for Al, so thered be some linkage there.
But no one would be looking for it because everybody would think you were the real shooter.
Right. And meanwhile, just to guard against the possibility of anybody finding out what really happened, or the chance the shooter would brag about what hed done, because he was drunk or to increase his chances of getting laid
Would that work?
I suppose it might, with a certain sort of woman. The point is, once the governor was dead, the shooter made the jump from asset to liability. If I had to guess, Id say he took his last breath within forty-eight hours of the assassination.
So hes not playing golf with O.J.
Not a chance. But he might be sharing peanut butter and banana sandwiches with Elvis.
That Thursday they ran into a plumbing problem at work. It demanded a higher level of expertise than Donnys, so they knocked off early and left the field to a master plumber from Metairie. Keller came straight home so he could tell Lucille to take the rest of the day off, but found Julia on the front porch. He could tell shed been crying.
The first thing she said was that there was coffee in the kitchen, and he went there and filled two cups to give her a minute to compose herself. He brought them to the porch, and by then shed freshened up a little.
He almost died this morning, she said. Lucilles not an RN but shes had some training. His heart stopped, and either it started up again on its own or she got it going. She called the school where I was working and I came home, and by then shed called the doctor, and he was here when I got here.
You said almost died. Hes all right?
Hes alive. Is that what you meant?
I guess so.
He had a small stroke. It affected his speech, but its not too bad. Hes just a little harder to understand, but he made himself very clear when the doctor wanted to take him to a hospital.
He didnt want that?
He said hed rather die first, and the doctors a crusty old bastard himself, and said thats what it would probably come to. Daddy shot back that he was going to die anyway, and so was the damn doctor, and what was so bad about dying? Then the doctor gave him a shot so he could get some rest, but I think maybe it was just to shut him up, and then he told me that the thing to do now was get him to the hospital.
What did you say?
That my father was a grown man who had the right to decide what bed he was going to die in. Oh, he didnt want to hear that from me, and he laid such a good guilt trip on me that he could teach a course on the subject, if they were to add it to the med school curriculum. Assuming its not already there.
You held your ground?
I did, she said, and it may have been the hardest thing Ive ever done, and do you know what was the hardest part?
Questioning your own judgment?
Yes! Standing firm and arguing, and all the while a little voice in my own head is yammering away. Where do I come off thinking I know more than the doctors, and am I just doing this because I want him to die, and am I being brave with the doctor because I havent got the courage to stand up to my own father? There was a whole committee holding a meeting in my head, all of them pounding the table and hollering.
Hes resting now?
Asleep, last I looked. Are you going in there? If hes awake, he may not know you. The doctor told me to expect some gaps in his memory.
I wont take it personally.
And therell be more strokes, he told me that, too. Theyd have him on blood thinners if it wasnt for the cancer. Of course, if he was in the damn hospital they could monitor the blood thinners, balancing the level every hour so he wouldnt bleed out or stroke out, and Nicholas, did I do the right thing?
You honored the mans wishes, he said. Whats more important than that?
He went into the sitting room, and the sickroom smell was worse than usual, or maybe it was his imagination. At first he couldnt detect the old mans breathing, and thought the end had come, but then the breathing resumed. He stood there, wondering how to feel, what to think.
The old mans eyes opened, fixed on Keller. Oh, its you, he said, his voice thickened but otherwise clear as a bell. Then his eyes closed and he was gone again.
When Keller
got to work the next morning, he took Donny aside and handed him a ten-dollar bill. You gave me too much yesterday, he said. Sixty dollars, and we only worked five hours.