A Flash of Green

Nineteen

The morning papers for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were packed with ever more glowing accounts of the glorious future which Palmland Development was making possible for each and every resident of Palm County, present and future. At midmorning on Friday, Kat Hubble went across the street with Jimmy Wing for her coffee break.

“I am so damn mad!” she said.

“I’d say you look pretty mad too.”

“Wait till we sit down, Jimmy, and I’ll tell you and I wish I had an hour instead of ten minutes.”

After they had ordered, she leaned across the small table toward Jimmy and said, “You’ve got to do something about that horrible newspaper!”

“Like what?”

“Tom has phoned Mr. Borklund and Ben Killian and he can’t get any satisfaction at all. He has carbons of sixteen very good letters to the editor, all opposed to the bay fill, and they haven’t published a single one of them. Mr. Borklund says they’re getting so much mail they can only print a representative selection. Hah! Like this morning’s paper. Five in favor and one opposed, and the one that opposes the fill is from somebody I never heard of, who sounds totally insane. And another thing. Mr. Borklund won’t handle a perfectly legitimate news item. They did publish our names and addresses to make it easier for everybody. Do you know, we’re getting absolutely foul phone calls, all of us? Day and night. The phone company can’t do anything about it. The sheriff won’t do anything about it. Our telephone campaign has absolutely collapsed! The people we call up say hideous things. Most of our workers have quit. We can’t keep a sticker on a car five minutes before somebody rips it off. We can’t get anybody to put our posters up, and when we do, they get all ripped and scribbled. Darn it all, Jimmy, this is outright, horrible persecution, and everybody pretends it just isn’t happening.”

“Whoa now, Kat. Slow down a minute. Who phones you?”

“Women who yell. Sometimes men who whisper. That’s worse, I guess. If you want to phone me, Jimmy, let it ring once and then hang up and dial again immediately. That’s what I’m telling my friends. And that’s the way we get in touch with each other. Otherwise I don’t answer. And I don’t dare let the children answer any more.”

“What do these people say?”

“Filth, Jimmy. Absolute filth. They call me a dirty Communist slut and so forth. A lot of cars went by my house last night, blowing their horns. This morning there was garbage all over my lawn. Same thing at Jackie’s house and Doris Rowell’s, Tom’s, everybody’s. I’ll be damned if anybody is going to intimidate me, but they certainly are making life unpleasant. Yesterday and this morning it’s spread to the bank. This afternoon they’re moving me to the Trust Department until this is all over. What’s happening to people, Jimmy?”

“They’ve gotten worked up.”

“Somebody has organized all the nutty people in the county.”

“I’ll see if I can get the county road patrol to check your house at night, Kat.”

“I don’t want that. I want some publicity about what’s happening to us. Don’t you see, they’re overdoing it. And if all the decent people who are in favor of the fill could understand what’s happening, it might turn them against it. Another thing, Jimmy. Golly, I wish I had more time. Tom Jennings talked to old Mr. Hotchkiss. He has fifteen hundred acres on Grassy Bay, on the mainland, just north of Turk’s Pass.”

“I know where it is.”

“He’s got two thousand feet of bay front, and rather than see Grassy Bay ruined, he’ll sell the whole plot to Palmland for twelve hundred dollars an acre. That’s way under going prices. They could dig canals into it and make a big development out of it without taking over any public lands.”

“He’s offered it to Palmland?”

“Yes. And they’re not interested. They’d rather steal the land. But the important thing is to get it into the paper, and we can’t even do that, so the people will know there was an alternative. Can you try to get it in, Jimmy? Can you get some of this other stuff in? Honestly, every day I read all that guff in the paper with your name on it and it makes me sick.”

“You don’t get to see the things I’ve tried to slip in.”

“Of course not.”

“I have to face certain facts of life, Kat. I can refuse to keep writing up the big stream of flack stuff Costex keeps throwing at us. So somebody else writes it. And maybe they fire me. Then I’m in a position where I can do no good at all.”

“Which seems to be exactly where you are right now.”

“Not because I want to be.”

“I know. I’m sorry. Please try to do something. I promised Tom I’d beg you.” She scowled at her watch. “Thirty seconds more.” She spooned ice into her coffee. “Oh, by the way, who was the gorgeous chick you were seen with in Tampa the other morning? Heavens, Jimmy! You don’t have to look that guilty!”

“Just one of those celebrities we newspaper types interview. Who reported me?”

“A girl coming back from vacation. She said it was a showbusiness type in a wrinkled orange dress and platinum hair, about six foot seven. Who was she?”

“I was just doing a favor for a friend, putting her on a plane.”

She gave him a puzzled look. “You act as if you think I’m being jealous. Good Lord, Jimmy! If it’s none of my business, you’ve gotten your point across.”

“But I was just...”

She jumped up. “I do have to run, dear. Try to help us, please.”

Jimmy watched through the drugstore window as she hurried back to the bank, a redheaded woman, slender, agile and intense, a woman with the marks of life and marriage and loss in her face, a woman who, in comparison with the vivid Miss Prindergast, would look subdued, understated. But he knew he could never want anyone as badly as he wanted her.

He knew that in order to get a story into the paper he would have to make some special preparations. He visited Sheriff Wade Illigan. Using Kat’s system, he phoned Jackie Halley, Tom Jennings and Major Lipe. Then he phoned Elmo Bliss at his office, told Elmo what he planned to do, and suggested that Elmo phone Burt Lesser, and then Ben Killian. Ben, he assumed, would speak to J. J. Borklund. After a fifteen-minute wait he phoned Burt Lesser, saying that he’d heard Burt had a statement to make. When Burt made it, Jimmy heard some of his own words repeated back to him. He wrote it up with great care:

“Mr. Burton Lesser, speaking as President of the Palmland Development Company and in behalf of the other partners in that enterprise, has expressed concern about the harassment being inflicted upon the officers and directors of Save Our Bays, Inc., a group actively opposing any change in the bulkhead line in the Grassy Bay area.

“Mr. Lesser stated to a Record-Journal reporter that support of the Palmland Isles Project is so overwhelming, the public hearing should result in a unanimously favorable vote. He said he and his associates are grateful for the support of every public-spirited citizen of Palm County, but deplore the activities of those who have been expressing their attitude by telephoning harassment of Save Our Bays members, and miscellaneous acts of vandalism committed on and around the private property of those members. He said that he has suggested to Sheriff Illigan that County Police protection be given the executive members of S.O.B., Inc., and the vandals be vigorously prosecuted if apprehended.

“Save Our Bays, Inc., is the only Palm County organization thus far to have taken a public stand in opposition to the bay-fill program.”

He made a suggested head — PALMLAND CONDEMNS VANDALS — and took the copy sheet to Borklund’s office. Borklund scanned it, initialed it, spindled it. He leaned back. His glasses caught the light and reflected the palm fronds outside his window.

“You puzzle me these days, Jim.”

“How so?”

“You seemed so much more clever two years ago. This time I’ve blue-penciled forty clumsy attempts to sneer at Palmland, so clumsy you might as well have underlined them to save me the trouble. Brian has been much more subtle. He’s even slid a couple of things past me that Ben chewed me out for.”

“I’m probably turning into a dull fellow.”

“Are you? This little item you just gave me is slick. Very, very slick. How did you get it?”

“On the phone, from Lesser.”

“And you knew it would be all cleared by the time you got it to me. Funny how it got arranged so nicely. When I suggested we print something, I got turned down. I couldn’t seem to get my point across. I said that if you miss a punch once in a while, it looks like a more honorable fight. You still win just as big, but it looks better. This will make the S.O.B.’s feel better, but it does them more harm than good. So I sit here wondering why you should do them more harm than good. Could you possibly have a piece of Palmland?”

“I think it will be tragic to fill Grassy Bay.”

“But I have the strange feeling they’re going to fill it.”

“You mean you have a sort of a hunch?”

“Get the hell out of here, Wing.”

Haas was in the newsroom. Wing went over and sat on the corner of his desk. “What is your opinion of a free and impartial press, Mr. Haas?”

Brian smiled at him. “It works on the valve theory, Mr. Wing.”

“Would you explain that, please, for the benefit of our viewers?”

“Of course. When gas chambers are used to get rid of excess population, they have to employ a man to turn a valve. Right? Now, this man may not be in favor of gas chambers, and he may get very low pay for valve-tending, but he has to face up to a personal dilemma. It’s such unskilled labor that if he refuses to turn it, somebody else will. This is known as facing reality, otherwise known as the facts of life. He can’t merely pretend to turn the gas on, because when the chamber doors are opened again, they would discover his defection. Right? So all he can do is just turn it on a little slowly, and not quite all the way. This is known as learning to live with reality.”

“God, Bri! Was that off the cuff?”

“Not exactly. It’s sort of a short summary of the lecture I gave Nan yesterday. I lecture her every day now. Free association. The doc recommended it. It’s supposed to be a form of therapy, to release the tensions which are supposed to build up and drive me to drink. I think it’s asinine, but I’m going along with it.”

“We never got to that chess session, you know.”

Haas’s smile was unchanged. “We’ll have to do that some time, Jimmy. I’m too busy lecturing these days.”

“When I popped off the other night, it was because I was...”

“I’m not sore at you, Jimmy.”

“Well... I’m glad you’re not.”

“But I owe you a straight answer, I guess. I’m still a little precarious. After I get my feet braced, we’ll get acquainted.”

“Acquainted?”

“Yes. There’s some things you’ll have to tell me about some day. I’ve detected some contradictions. You could turn out to be a very interesting fellow.”

Wing stared at him. He did not trust himself to say anything. The concealed anger made his knees feel weak as he walked away.

Late on Saturday afternoon, Kat phoned Wing at his cottage and said, “Are you terribly busy? Tom gave me a chore, and I sort of need moral support, Jimmy. If you could spare an hour or so?”

“I can take a break. What is it?”

“Something’s wrong with Doris Rowell. Tom went out there this morning and she wouldn’t talk to him. He wants me to try. I’ve always thought she’s sort of creepy. You know? Would you pick me up? I’m at the Sinnat house.”

“Half an hour?”

“Wonderful, Jimmy! Thanks a lot.”

She was out by the pool when he drove up and parked. The pool was full of children of assorted ages from the Estates. As Kat came smiling toward him he looked beyond her and saw Natalie teetering on the end of the diving board, yelping, as Jigger Lesser bounced high at the middle of the board, trying to jolt her off.

As he opened the door for Kat he said, nodding toward the pool, “How is young love progressing?”

She gave him an odd look. “It’s their business, Jimmy.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”

As he drove off, she said, “You sort of sneered when you said it, Jimmy. I didn’t like that.”

“It isn’t exactly Heloïse and Abelard, is it?”

“Are you cross today? To them it is, Jimmy. That’s exactly the point, isn’t it? I’m not going to classify it as a physical infatuation or love or whatever. And I’m not going to sneer at it or snicker at it. Love isn’t dirty unless the people involved believe it is. And they don’t. I don’t want to quarrel, Jimmy.”

“Neither do I. Not with you. Any trouble last night?”

“Rotten eggs against the front of the house. But I wasn’t there to enjoy them. I paid Gus Malta to hose them off this morning. The kids and I are staying at the Sinnats. It was Natalie’s idea. There’s a lot of room. I’m glad that thing got into the paper this morning. Did you get it in?”

“Yes.”

“But none of those letters have been printed yet.”

“I don’t think they will be, Kat. I’m sorry. They’re too sane and reasonable. Just like the Hotchkiss land story. They’d spoil the image of the group of crackpot bird lovers. You said Doris Rowell wouldn’t talk to Tom?”

“He wanted to know who’s coming to stand up for us at the public hearing, and she wouldn’t tell him a thing. He’s very upset.”

As they turned into Doris Rowell’s driveway, Kat made an exclamation of dismay. “Just look at it!” she said. The yard was littered with trash and garbage. There were splats and stains and drippings on the front of the house. The mailbox was broken, and a car had ripped up thirty feet of the hedge.

“Do you think she’s too scared?” Kat asked.

“Let’s find her, if she’s here.”

She did not answer the front door. They walked around the house. There had been a heavy rain early Friday evening. Her skiff was tied to the dock, full of water, the lines taut. Wing called and there was no answer. They went up onto the porch.

Kat grasped Jimmy’s arm suddenly, startling him. He saw the direction of her startled glance and turned and saw Doris Rowell. She was in the dingy kitchen, visible through a narrow doorway, sitting at a kitchen table, doing something with her hands, then lifting a hand to her mouth.

Jimmy rapped on the screen door and said, “Mrs. Rowell? May we come in and talk to you? I’ve got Katherine Hubble with me. Mrs. Rowell?”

He turned to Kat, shrugged, pushed the door open and went in. Kat followed him back to the gloomy kitchen. Doris Rowell’s face was shiny with sweat. She wore a torn shirt and khaki trousers, damp with sweat. There was a heaviness of body odor in the still air of the kitchen. She sat at a table covered with oilcloth in a faded flower pattern. In front of her was half a loaf of bread, the paper peeled away from it. There was a dish of butter, softened by the heat, a big jar half full of red jam, a knife on the butter plate, a tablespoon in the jam. The area in front of her was littered with crumbs and splatters of jam, as was the front of her white shirt. A ring of jam bloodied her mouth, and there were crumbs on her chin.

Jimmy felt Kat move closer to him as he faced Doris Rowell. Her motions were slow, but steady and unending. She would spread a slice of bread with butter, drop a puddle of jam onto it, fold it once and lift it to her mouth. She consumed each slice in three spaced bites, shoving the last one in with her thumb. The sounds of breathing and mastication were audible. She seemed to look at them, but her eyes were so dull, her glance so devoid of any impact of awareness, he could not be certain she knew they were there.

“Mrs. Rowell, Tom wants to know about the people you’ve lined up. Mrs. Rowell!”

He asked twice. She did not answer. Suddenly Kat went swiftly to the woman’s side and grasped the heavy wrist, kept the sticky hand from lifting to the mouth. “Please, Doris!” she said.

“Numuny ummun.”

“What did you say?”

Doris Rowell swallowed. “Nobody is coming,” she said distinctly. “No one at all. You can tell the colonel that.” Her voice was without regret, without emotion of any kind. The hand tried to lift but Kat restrained it.

“Didn’t you ask them?”

“They expressed regrets. They are too busy. It will make no difference who asks them. The answer will be the same.”

“But why?”

“Let go, please. I am very hungry.”

“You have to tell me why, Doris!”

“They don’t care to associate themselves with me in any way. Maybe they’ll tell you why. I doubt it. It is easier to say they are too busy.”

“Come on, Kat,” Wing said. Kat released Doris Rowell’s arm and stepped away. The hand lifted and then stopped. Doris Rowell was looking at Jimmy with placid speculation.

“You could have done it,” she said, a flat statement rather than an accusation.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

She smiled to herself and nodded her head and poked the bread into her waiting mouth. Jimmy took Kat’s arm and led her out onto the porch and down the steps. Just as he released her, he felt her shudder.

“That’s horrible, Jimmy. We have to do something.”

“I’ll get Doctor Sloan out here. He’ll know what’s best.”

“It’s some kind of a breakdown.”

“He’ll know what to do about it.”

As they walked through the side yard the wind shifted and a vile smell came from the direction of the long shed. He told Kat to go to the car. He went inside. He walked to the rear of the shed. The light was burning. The small pumps had stopped. All the striped fish floated, decaying, on top of the murky water in the two tanks.

He suddenly realized he had been standing there for a long time. His fists were clenched so tightly his shoulders and arms had begun to ache. His jaw was clamped so strongly there was a ringing in his ears.

He turned and walked swiftly back toward the rectangle of daylight. Kat was standing by the station wagon. “What were you doing?”

“She’s let a lot of fish die in there. It’ll have to be cleaned up. There’s a billion flies in there.”

“Damn them!” Kat whispered. “Damn all of them. Should I stay here with her until Doctor Sloan gets here?”

“I see no need of that.”

“We can phone from my house. And phone Tom too.”

Sloan said he would see Mrs. Rowell within the hour, and arrange hospitalization if he felt she needed it. Jimmy said he would phone Sloan again and check. As he hung up, Kat handed him a cold beer, and said, “I wonder what she meant by saying you could have done it. Done what?”

“I told her I didn’t know what she meant.”

“She’s worked with those people for so long, I don’t see why they should turn her down now.”

“Tom has the list, doesn’t he?”

“Of the ones she thought would come here? Yes.”

“Then he better make the calls and see how he can do.”

She took her drink over to a chair and sat and studied him. “Is there something you don’t want to tell me, Jimmy?”

“Nothing very special. Just that you can’t win, I guess.”

“We know that. We know that all we can do at the public hearing is get our point of view on the record. People can’t stay this hopped up, you know. We’re working on the next step now, to force the trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund to hold another public hearing before they actually sell the bay bottom to Palmland. The things we can get into the record in both public hearings will serve as the basis for the lawsuits we’re going to bring against Palmland and Palm County and the State of Florida. Two years from now, when Palmland finally gets out from under the last injunction and gets slapped with a whole batch of new ones, let’s see how many people are going to be left around here throwing eggs and saying dirty words over the phone and giving women nervous breakdowns.”

He looked down at her. “Kat, Kat, it’s a brave point of view. But they’ll just keep getting rougher.”

“Good! Let ’em get real rough and real careless, and do something we can prove. Then they’ll have some fat damage suits to defend too.”

“That’s Tom Jennings talking, not you.”

“I’ve never been so angry, Jimmy. I’m too angry to be scared.” She stood up. “Tom will be wondering.” As she walked toward the phone it began to ring. She hesitated. When it had rung three times, she picked it up. She did not speak. She listened, making a wry face at Jimmy. “Thank you, dear,” she said into the phone. “You’re such a perfect lady.” She hung up and said, “There isn’t as much of that since I stopped answering. It spoils the fun when you don’t answer.” She picked the phone up, listened, dialed, waited a moment and hung up, and then dialed again. He heard her explain the Rowell situation to Tom, and could guess from her end of the conversation that Tom was agreeing to get in touch with the people Doris Rowell had thought would come to the hearing. Then he saw her face change as Tom kept talking. Her lips were compressed and her frown lines deepened. “I see,” she said. “I know you predicted it last night, but I’d hoped you were wrong. Sure, Tom. I know. As I keep telling myself, you can’t win ’em all. Yes, I’ll let you know. Goodbye.”

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

She looked at him with a slightly startled expression, as though she had forgotten he was there. “We seem to be down to five little Indians.”

“What happened?”

“Wallace Lime quit. He turned over his stickers and posters and so-called contact files and scuttled away. We thought he would. He’s been getting awful jumpy the last two days. He tried to be fearless, I guess, but it was just like that mustache. It didn’t quite suit him. And we aren’t the same elegant civilized little group we were last time. We’re not worth enduring slashed tires, garbage, dirty phone calls. His wife was getting hysterical. I think it was the paint bomb that broke his heart, Jimmy.”

“Paint bomb?”

“They’ve got a little garden house. There’s a record player in there. There’s no way to lock it. Thursday night somebody sneaked in and plugged the record player in and put a record on as loud as it would go. Wally went charging out, and ran in the dark to turn it off. They’d put one of those spray cans of enamel in the middle of the record, so it was going around and around, with a big rubber band around it to keep the spray part going. If you look close, you can still see little flecks of bright green paint in Wally’s mustache.”

“Dear Lord,” Jimmy said softly.

“It would be very very funny if it wasn’t so very very sad. He wasn’t doing much good. He was losing every other client he had. None of his ideas were working. Public relations! Hah! The poor little man. He’d have an easier job convincing the public that Jimmy Hoffa teaches ballet. Tom says he was so apologetic he was practically in tears. The group is getting very cozy, Jimmy. Tom can’t get anybody to fill one vacancy on the committee, and now we have three. And he estimates we’re losing an average of twenty regular members a day. By the time of the public hearing, at that rate we’ll be past zero. We’ll be minus twenty-seven or something. There are so many people we thought we could depend on, who’ve had pressure put on them in some unexpected way.”

“I guess you have to expect...”

“Pressure through jobs, neighborhoods, clubs, even churches, Jimmy. It makes you feel so darn helpless...” Her face twisted and she took one faltering step toward him. She stopped and straightened. “Whoa, girl,” she said. She shook her head and turned away, her eyes shiny.

“Just eleven days to go,” he said.

“I’ll make it,” she said. “I may never be the same, but I’ll make it.” The phone began to ring again. It rang fourteen times and stopped. “My public,” she said.

He phoned her at the Sinnat house at eight that evening to tell her that Doctor Sloan had seen no reason to take Doris Rowell in for treatment. She seemed rational, even though her responses were sluggish. He had arranged for a woman to move in with her for a few days and clean the place up. He would stop again and see how she was coming along. He guessed that she would continue to follow the same pattern for a while, eating a great deal and sleeping a great deal. Some people responded to emotional shocks in that manner. She was, of course, overweight, but otherwise in reasonably good physical condition. She was dulling her mental responses by overworking her belly. In her own time she would begin to eat more moderately. Then she might be willing to talk about what was bothering her. But by then, of course, it would be of merely academic interest.

Kat seemed relieved. She told Jimmy that when Tom had phoned her at seven, he had been able to reach but four of the people on Doris’ list. They had all been polite and evasive. They all pleaded other obligations, said it had really been very short notice, and had wished him the best of luck.

He told her that Wallace Lime had stopped at the newspaper office with a statement, and Borklund was going to publish it. It announced that Wallace Lime Associates had severed its connections with Save Our Bays, Inc., due to previous professional commitments.

“The louse!” Kat said.

“If it wasn’t going in as a news item, he’d have put it in as an ad. Don’t be surprised if Borklund has somebody fatten it to the point where he can run it under a three-column head.”

“It would be very difficult to surprise me with anything lately. Almost impossible, Jimmy.”

“Just for the hell of it, please don’t go anywhere alone after dark, Kat. Don’t open a door for anybody you don’t know. Okay?”

“Where am I living, Jimmy? South Palm City, or East Berlin?”

“Take care.”

“Sure. Sure, Jimmy. Thanks.”

That night he bought a bottle on the way home. He sat in his sling chair on his dark back porch with the bottle and a bowl of ice until the world was tilted at a sickening angle. But he still saw the red jam and the dead fish. It was raining hard when he blundered off the porch into the yard in his underwear shorts and clung to the rough trunk of a cabbage palm and threw up. He stayed out in the rain until his head began to ache, and then he dried himself off and went to bed, remembering how Charity had stood out on his porch in the rain, crying. There was something wrong with the memory. As he slowly took it apart to see what was wrong with it, he remembered that it had been Mitchie McClure who had made squeaking sounds in the rain, not Miss Charity Holmes of Las Vegas, and not one of the sisters-in-law of Commissioner Bliss, and not the white silent thing in the bed up at Oklawaha, with the tubes in it.

The phone awakened him at seven. He had the feeling it had been ringing for a long time. He could not comprehend who was speaking to him for several moments, and then he realized it was Dr. Freese phoning from Oklawaha to tell him that Mrs. Wing had passed away at 5:25 A.M.

“Are you there, Mr. Wing?”

“Yes. I’m here.”

“We have an autopsy permission in the file. We’d like to release the body to whomever you designate no sooner than tomorrow afternoon, say by four o’clock.”

“What’s today?”

“Sunday the sixteenth, Mr. Wing.”

“Tomorrow, eh. Well. Okay. There’s stuff of hers there.”

“It will be packed and ready, of course.”

“I... I just can’t think of anything to ask you or tell you, Doctor.”

“There isn’t much to say, actually.”

“I should say thanks for all you’ve done for her.”

“There wasn’t much anybody could do, Mr. Wing.”

He sat by the phone in the early-morning living room for several minutes. He rolled a sheet of paper into the typewriter and wrote: “Gloria Maria Mendez Wing — Born May 1, 1931—Married to James Warren Wing June 20, 1950. Died July 15, 1961, at Oklawaha State Hospital after a long illness. Mrs. Wing was born in Tampa and educated in the public schools of that city. She is survived by her husband, employed by the Palm City Record-Journal, and by her sister, Mrs. Andrew McGavern of Toronto, Canada. She was O God such a beauty at nineteen she could spin your heart with a glance...”

He went back and x’ed out the last sentence, left the paper in the machine and took a long cool shower, shaved, dressed, put coffee on and started making phone calls. To his sister, to the newsroom, to Toronto.

Teresa, Gloria’s elder sister, understood at once. Grief thickened her voice. “Ah, the poor thing. The poor damn lost thing.”

“Are you going to want to come down? I haven’t made any arrangements yet.”

“Down? How could I get down there? Are you out of your mind?”

“I had to ask you. I had to know.”

“I said goodbye to my sister two years ago. She looked at me just once, and called me mama. I can’t come way down there.”

“Teresa, there’s people in Ybor City who should know, aren’t there? I don’t know who they are. Can you let them know?”

“I can do that, yes. But when I let them know, I should tell them about the burial. What do you plan?”

“Should it be in Ybor City?”

“For what? She can’t be buried from the church. You know that. She gave up the church for you. She gave up a lot of things for you, Jeemy.”

“Look. Let’s not get into that kind of stuff.”

“It doesn’t bother you. No. Nothing bothers you. The way you treated her when she was sick.”

“Nobody knew she was sick then, damn it!”

“Poor little thing. She didn’t know what was happening.”

“Cut it out, Teresa!”

“So bury her down there. Why not? What difference does it make? You have a place in a cemetery?”

“Yes. Look, Teresa. I’ll phone you again about time and place and so on when I get things arranged.”

“Yes, you do that, Jeemy. And you make me one promise. When you call me again, it’s the last time forever. Okay? I want to forget you’re alive on the same earth. Now she’s gone, you’re nothing to me. Claro?”

“Si, seguro. Muchissima’ gracia’.”

The good connection faded suddenly. Her voice was frail and remote. “But I want the pin. You hear me? I want the pin with the pearls. It was never yours. You hear me?”

He hung up. It was eight-thirty. The coffee was tepid. He poured it back into the pot. He looked up the number for the Shackley Funeral Home and asked for Vern, Junior. The man said young Vern was at home, but he might not be up yet. Wing decided there was no special rush. He could phone later. He drank more coffee. He began to pace the length of the cottage, from the front door to the back. He tried to think of all the tender touching things he could remember of his marriage, feeling an obligation for tears, but he could not find anything to bring them on. He went out and got the Sunday paper and tried to look at it. He dropped it and began pacing again. He had the curious feeling his skin might split. He could feel exactly where it would split, down the insides of his arms, down the backs of his legs, and from the crown of his head all the way down the crease of his back, coming open with a gritty noise and peeling back, dry, ready to step out of. As he paced he kept thinking he could hear music and voices, but when he stopped, all he could hear was a slap and suck of water around the pilings of the old dock. He checked the radio to make sure it was turned off. He found he was carrying his head a little bit to the side, and realized he was tensed for some very loud and unexpected noise. He had no idea what it would be. The faint hallucinations of a hangover seemed mingled with the jittery results of too much strong coffee.

Or, he thought, I’m losing my mind. He had an impulse to turn that thought into a solitary joke. He made bulging, grotesque faces and went into a wild prancing dance, stamping his feet hard, and on the final whirl, hit his forehead against the front door jamb. He leaned against it, his eyes closed, saying in a small random voice, “Yippee-i-ay, yippee-i-ay.” Then he could not remember or decide whether the faces and the dance were something he had willed himself to do, or something he could not help. A complete terror stopped his breath and soaked his body. He went feebly to a chair and sat down. He looked out the window and saw a dark red dog trot diagonally across his small yard, an exceptional length of wet pink tongue dangling. He felt an almost tearful gratitude toward the dog. The dog was like a hand on his shoulder, stirring him awake from a dream.

He called Vern at his home. Vern was having breakfast. His voice deepened slightly and slowed to a careful professional cadence as soon as he realized what Jimmy was calling him about.

A time was decided. Two o’clock Wednesday at the funeral home. Form to be filled out. Freese would have certificate. Sister Laura had suggested Reverend Kennan Blue, said she was sure he would do it. Notice in paper. Arrange to select casket. Calling hours? No, and best to have closed casket. Pickup Monday between four and five, Oklawaha, right. Bearers? No, it isn’t required. Committal service at grave. Limousines? Decide later.

He sent Teresa a wire containing the information she had requested.