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I waved good-bye to them and walked away. When I glanced back over my shoulder, one of the boys was working open the can of tuna while the other boy filled three plastic glasses with Kool-Aid.
I DROVE BACK into New Iberia and visited Monarch Little at Iberia General. He was sitting up in bed, watching a Chicago White Sox game on the television mounted high up on the wall, the sheet drawn up over his sloping girth. I sat down on the side of his bed and picked up each of his hands and examined his skin from his wrists to his upper arms.
“What you doin’?” he said.
“Lean forward,” I said.
“What for?”
“So you don’t end up charged with murder. For once in your life, try cooperating with someone who’s on your side.”
He sat motionless while I looked closely at his face and hair and throat and the back of his neck.
“Take off your shirt,” I said.
“Mr. Dee—”
“Just do it.”
He pulled off his pajama top, held his massive arms straight out, and let me examine his chest and back.
“That’s it,” I said.
“That’s what?”
“You didn’t kill Bello Lujan.”
“That’s a big breakt’rew for you? I ain’t never kil
led nobody.”
“Why’d you put all that skag in your arm, Monarch?”
“Felt like it.”
“You almost caught the bus, partner.”
“Maybe I’d be better off.”
“What about all those soldiers in Iraq? What kind of day do you think they’re having?”
“I tried to join the army. They didn’t want me.”
My question to him had been a cheap shot and I deserved his reply. I sat in a chair next to his bed for a long time and didn’t say anything. He tried to concentrate on the televised baseball game, but it was obvious he was becoming more and more uncomfortable with both my presence and silence.
“You got some wiring loose in you, Mr. Dee,” he said.
“I want you to call me as soon as you get out of here,” I said.
“What for?”
“My wife wants you to come over for dinner.”
There was a broken smile at the corner of his mouth. “Who you kidd—” he began.
“Don’t mock her invitation. She used to be a Catholic nun. She’ll rip your arms off and beat you to death with them,” I said.
He made a show of crushing the pillow down on his own face, but I could hear him laughing under it.
