But nothing else he could come up with struck him as one hundred percent safe. If he left it to be stolen, hed sever his own connection with it. But it would provoke official attention sooner or later, and when it did it would still be the vehicle Governor Longfords assassin had rented in Des Moines, and whoever ran the engine serial number would learn that much readily enough. And anyone with a strong interest in finding him would have a reason to start looking in New Orleans.
It was a good bet to stay in the river forever, he told Julia, and if it ever did get hauled out, nobody was going to bother looking for the serial number.
Back in the city, he took her for a ride in his truck.
28
The doctor came and hooked up an IV. Otherwise hell starve, he told Julia, and even so we cant monitor him the way we should. He cant change his mind now, you know, so its up to you to let us hospitalize him.
Later she said, I dont know what to do. Whatever I decide is going to be wrong. I just wish
You wish what?
Never mind, she said. I dont want to say it.
It was pretty clear how shed have finished the sentence. She wished the man would die and get it over with.
Keller went in and watched the old man sleep and wondered how anyone could wish otherwise. Left to his own devices, Roussard would likely turn his face to the wall, refuse food and drink, and be gone in a day or two. But through a miracle of medical science hed been hooked up to an IV, and Julia had been instructed how to replenish the liquids that dripped into his body, and so hed go on, until another of his failing systems found a way to shut down.
Keller stood by his bedside and thought of another old man, Giuseppe Ragone or Joey Rags or, God help us, Joe the Dragon. Keller had never thought of him as anything but the old man, and had never actually called him anything to his face. Or had he called him Sir early on? It was possible. He couldnt remember.
That old man was in decent shape physically until right up to the end, but it was always something, wasnt it, and in his case it was the mind that didnt hold up. He started making mistakes and losing track of details, and one time he sent Keller to St. Louis to take care of business, and the business was in a particular hotel room, the number of which the old man wrote down for Keller. Except he didnt write down the room number, he wrote down 3-1-4, which was nothing like the room number, and all Keller could figure out later was that it was the area code for St. Louis. Keller, sent to the wrong room, did what he was supposed to do, but not to the person he was supposed to do it to. There was a woman in the room, too, so two people died for no reason at all, and what kind of a way was that to run a business?
There were other incidents, enough of them to cut through Dots denial, and the capper was when the old man recruited some kid from the high school newspaper to help him write his memoirs. Dot managed to nip that in the bud, and told Keller to take a trip. He was collecting stamps by then, preparing for his retirement, and she urged him to go to a stamp show and register under his own name and use his own credit card for everything.
In other words, be someplace else when it happened.
Shed put a sedative in the old mans bedtime cup of cocoa, so hed be sound asleep when she held a pillow over his face. And that was that. Sweet dreams, and a gentler exit than the old man had provided for no end of people over the years.
I cant say its what hed have wanted, Dot told him later, because he never said, but Ill tell you this much. Its what Id want. So if I ever get like that, Keller, and youre around, I hope youll know what to do.
He agreed,
and shed rolled her eyes. Easy to say now, she said, but when the time comes, youll say to yourself, Lets see now, wasnt there something I was supposed to do for Dot? I cant seem to remember what the hell it was.
I was looking in on your father, he told Julia. You know, if theres anything you want to say to him while youve got the chance, this might be a good time.
You dont think
Its nothing I can put my finger on, he said, but for some reason I dont think its going to be more than another day or two.
She nodded, got to her feet, and went to the sickroom.
Later that night she went upstairs with him. They didnt make love, but lay together in the dark. She talked about when she was a girl, along with family history that went back before she was born. He didnt say much but mostly just listened, and thought his own thoughts.
When she went downstairs he got up and went out onto the upstairs porch. It was overcast, with no moon or stars. He thought about the faithful old Sentra, rusting away at the bottom of the Mississippi, and he thought about Dot and his stamps and his mother and the father hed never known. Funny how thered be things you wouldnt think of for ages, and then theyd just pop into your head.
He stayed on the porch for an hour or so, long enough for her to get to sleep, and he was careful on the stairs, avoiding the board that creaked.