The Next Time You Die

by Harry Hunsicker

  The neighborhood was located in the extreme southeast quadrant of the city of Dallas and was neither pleasant nor a grove, though there had reportedly been a stand of cottonwoods 150 years ago that had provided the name.

  The trees and any charm the area might have had were long since gone.

  Pleasant Grove at the dawn of the twenty-first century was thirty-five-year-old grandmothers living in trailer parks and red-tagged shotgun houses. Pleasant Grove was Laundromats and pawnshops, abandoned Dairy Queens and tiny grocery stores run by Iranians that advertised their acceptance of food stamps and WIC cards. Pleasant Grove was Jerry Springer country.

  I headed south on Buckner, past the orphanage and Section-8 apartments. At Lake June Road I turned right and came to the Church of the Harvest a few blocks later.

  The church sat at the end of a gravel driveway beneath two old cedar trees. The structure was white clapboard, paint peeling here and there, one side of the porch sagging. About ten cars were parked haphazardly underneath the shade of the big cedars.

  I parked next to a beat-up Pontiac Grand Prix. We got out. I smelled the turpentine odor of pitch from the trees and the leaking oil and bad exhaust of automobiles driven too long past their day of reckoning with the salvage yard. The sounds of singing came from several open windows.

  Tess stood beside me, raised her eyebrows in a question.

  I walked up the rickety wooden steps leading to the entrance and pushed open the front door. I stepped inside and stopped. Tess bumped into me and looked around my shoulder. She gasped.

  Lucas Linville sat in a wheelchair next to the pulpit. The right side of his face looked normal; the other was like soft plastic left near the fire too long, gooey and slack. His cheek sagged, and drool trickled from the corner of his mouth. His left hand lay in his lap, curled into a claw.

  His good arm stretched outward at a forty-five-degree angle. The rattlesnake he held just behind its head writhed and wrapped its body around Linville’s forearm. It seemed to move in rhythm with the singing of the worshippers. The angry shake of its rattle was plainly audible over the noise in the small auditorium.

  A young man, maybe thirty years old, stood on the other side of the lectern. He wore a burgundy three-piece suit. He held his hands up, palms toward the pitched ceiling. His eyes were closed, and tears ran down his cheeks.

  The audience was small, about two dozen people. Most were white and elderly. They too held their arms outstretched. They sang without musical accompaniment.

  “They’re Pentecostals,” Tess said.

  “What?”

  “They believe handling poisonous snakes shows their faith.”

  I turned and looked at her without saying anything.

  “There’s a church like this,” she said, “not far from where I grew up.”

  I turned back to the pulpit. Lucas Linville’s good eye was staring at me. Half his face twisted into a grimace or a smile; it was hard to tell. He dropped the snake into a wooden box and swung a hinged door over the top.

  An old man with a thick shock of white hair stood. He wore a threadbare suit that hung on his bony frame. He raised one hand toward the ceiling and began talking to the sky, words that had no meaning, a lyrical stream of vowels and consonants, gibberish but for the soothing tone in which he uttered them. Across the aisle, a woman in her midthirties rose and did the same, the words different but the feeling and tone similar.

  After a few moments, the preacher in the burgundy suit raised his arms and the two parishioners sat down. The old man looked drained, breathing ragged, his face damp and pale. The preacher said a prayer, followed with a reminder about the evening service and a benediction.

  We moved to one side as the congregation left. After a few minutes no one was in the sanctuary but us, Linville, and Burgundy Suit.

  Linville’s good eye followed me as I walked to the front of the church. The snakes hissed and rattled in the wooden crate resting beside his wheelchair.

  “You must be the one they call Lee Oswald,” Burgundy Suit said.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “I am Pastor Bob.” The man grabbed the wide lapels of the wine-colored suit and puffed his chest out. His voice had the mellifluous cadence of a televangelist.

  “Hi, Pastor Bob.” I smiled. “You ever hear the joke about Oral Roberts?”

  The man looked perplexed but didn’t say anything.

  “How did you know my name?” I said.

  “Arthur called, seeking after Pastor Linville.” Bob rocked on his feet, thumbs still tucked behind his lapels. “What can I do for you?”

  I stepped up onto the platform and pointed to the half-paralyzed man in the wheelchair. “How bad is he?”

  “He’s had a stroke.”

  I knelt beside the chair, on the side opposite the box with the pissedoff rattlesnake. “Can you hear me, Linville?”

  The old man nodded once.

  “You lied to me.”

  No response. Pastor Bob said, “He can’t talk.”

  “But he can play with rattlesnakes?” Tess spoke for the first time.

  “People are dying.” I continued to speak to Linville. “That file. I need to know what was in it.”

  The old man gritted his teeth. His good eye seemed to look into my soul, trying to communicate something.

  “You could have told me at the beginning, when you hired me, what was going on.” I stood up. “It would have saved a lot of problems.”

  Pastor Bob placed one hand on my arm. “He can’t help you. Even before his stroke, you couldn’t have gotten what you seek.”

  “Why?” Tess said.

  “Let’s take a walk.” The younger man motioned us toward the door where we had entered only a few minutes before. We followed him outside. The temperature had risen. A hot breeze skipped across my face; I smelled sewage from a long way off.

  “Pastor Linville has been like a father to me.” Bob pulled a yellow silk handkerchief out of his coat pocket and mopped his face.

  “People are dying because of something he had,” I said, “and I need to know what.”

  “In the end times, the forces of evil shall multiply.” He stuck the yellow cloth back in his breast pocket. “I watch as the harlots and fornicators roam these streets. They grow stronger while the faithful become weaker.”

  “Save it for the flock.”

  “Is that your car?” Bob pointed to the Bentley. “I’ve always admired the fine styling of classic British automobiles.”

  “We’re getting nowhere fast,” Tess said.

  “I truly am sorry he can’t help you.” Pastor Bob actually sounded sincere. “Since his son disappeared, only the angels have been able to speak to him.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I pulled out of the driveway leading from the Church of the Harvest and headed west on Lake June Road with no particular destination in mind. Tess was silent beside me. In a logical fashion, I lined up the activities and participants in my mind.

  I had tried to unravel the ties among Linville, the stolen file, and Rundell. For the moment, a dead end had presented itself.

  There were two areas of inquiry left: the Barringer connection to Tess’s family, and the Barringer connection to Rundell. Both required a trip out of Dallas, back into areas of Texas and of my life that I would have preferred not to visit again.

  I made a decision, pointed the car north, and headed toward Parkland Hospital and a certain fifth-floor room where a retired wise guy spent a fair amount of time these days.

  Victor Lemieux and I were muy simpático after helping each other out of a sticky situation one sultry evening in a French Quarter alley. Depending on whom you talked to, at the time Victor was either the number-two or -three guy in the family that controlled most of the illegal activities in south Louisiana.

  A few years later an unsanctioned assassination attempt by a rogue Jamaican drug dealer left Victor in poor health and in a melancholy state of mind unsuited for his chosen line of
work. So he moved to Dallas to be near his only daughter and her children. We reconnected and helped each other out here and there. Life was good for Victor Lemieux until forty years of Marlboro Reds turned the soft tissue in his lungs to the consistency and color of shoe leather.

  Emphysema, the doctors said. Oxygen masks, steroid shots, breathing machines—none of which added up to a particularly pleasant way to live.

  I explained all this to Tess as we drove to the county medical facility, a mammoth building located a few minutes north of downtown in the middle of a row of other hospitals. I parked the Bentley in a pay lot across Harry Hines Boulevard from the main entrance.

  Tess and I got out and threaded our way through the other cars to the street. At the curb, we stopped by the crosswalk, where we waited for the light to change. Two Hispanic streetwalkers stood next to us. One of them had her arm bandaged in what looked like a dirty T-shirt. She used her good hand to hold a cell phone to her ear.

  The light changed. We crossed the street, entered the hospital, and got on the elevator. On the fifth floor, I asked a skinny red-haired guy standing behind the nurse’s station where Victor Lemieux was.

  He looked at me blankly for a moment before pointing to the room directly across from where we stood. The door was open. I told Tess to wait outside.

  My friend had aged considerably in the two months since I had seen him. His features were shrunken, the alabaster flesh withered and waxy. An oxygen tube looped under his nose, the regulator bubbling on the back wall. The room smelled like hospital disinfectant and decay.

  He opened his eyes. “This is the shits, ain’t it, Hank?”

  “How’re you doing, Victor?” I shook his gnarled hand.

  He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, chest rising with a visible effort. Then, “Whatchoo need, boy? You didn’t come all this way to see an old man wheeze.”

  I sat down in the high-back chair by his bed. “Tell me what’s going on.” I pointed a finger toward the window. “Out there.”

  He frowned.

  “The street reads like somebody new is taking over.”

  “Dallas is open.” He shifted in his bed and sighed as if the new position felt better. “That’s why I could retire here.”

  “Hookers are getting the squeeze. Other stuff, too.” I leaned back in the chair and looked around the tiny hospital room. A spray of flowers sat by the window. Several crude crayon drawings dotted the far wall. At the bottom of each, the caption read, “We love you, Grandpa. Get well soon.”

  “Ah, that’s nothing.” He waved his hand as if to dismiss a fly. “Smalltime bullshit.”

  “Maybe not.” I related the two incidents that had happened to Olson.

  We were both quiet for a few moments. The oxygen dispenser hissed and bubbled. Victor wheezed. “Take a lot of juice to get to that crazy sonuvabitch, Olson. There’s some important people in Houston that like him.”

  I didn’t say anything, filing away that previously unknown tidbit about my friend.

  “What else is—” Victor stopped talking as a dry cough ripped from his lungs. After a few minutes he regained control of his breathing. “Anything more?”

  “You know Vernon Black, the state senator?”

  “Rich old boy from East Texas,” he said.

  “Right.” I related the bizarre blackmail story, leaving out the name Jesus Rundell for now.

  “What are you not telling me?” he said.

  “Remember the Barringers?” The question was a formality. Asking Victor if he recollected the Barringers was like asking the retired president of General Motors if he knew anything about Buicks.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “People keep mentioning them.”

  “They run a great operation.” He smiled and stared at a spot on the ceiling. “Gambling and gash, they owned it in that part of the world.”

  “Uhh . . . right.” I reminded myself that even though we were friends, we came from different sides of the fence. “What if they are trying to move into Dallas?”

  “They wouldn’t,” he said. “They know where they belong.”

  “Maybe not with Billy dead.”

  “It wouldn’t be allowed.”

  Neither of us wanted to mention the circumstances of Billy’s fall from power. Victor disagreed with my actions but respected my choice. I sometimes wondered if the fact that I was still alive was due to his intervention.

  The door opened and a woman in baby blue scrubs came in, carrying a tray of food. She placed it on the rolling table by Victor’s bed. He pulled off the plate warmer and stared at his lunch.

  “Look at this shit.” He stuck a fork into a piece of what looked like meat. “Used to be, every Sunday I’d eat at Galatoire’s.”

  “Maybe we can hop a Southwest flight one of these days, grab some lunch in the Quarter and get back by dark.” I stood up.

  “Sit down.” He poured salad dressing on a bowl of wilted iceberg lettuce. “I ain’t finished talking to you.”

  I sat.

  “This thing I was involved in,” he said, “it breeds a certain type of man. But sometimes you get a bad apple, even by our standards. You hear what I’m saying?”

  I didn’t understand but nodded anyway.

  “His name is Jesus Rundell.” Victor turned and stared out the window. “But I bet you figured that out already.”

  I didn’t say anything. A certain protocol existed for the communication between two friends operating in different positions on the turnpike of the outlaw life. Names were rarely mentioned in an enclosed area. Listening devices could be anywhere, even in the hospital room of a breathless and dying retired chieftain.

  “It’s not good to upset the order of things,” Victor said. “Stability is the key to business.”

  “What are you telling me?” I stood again.

  “I’ve said too much already.” Victor poked at his food with the fork. “Leave an old man in peace, whaddya say?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Tess was in the waiting area by the elevators, standing next to two men. One was in his late forties, the other appeared just out of college. She looked at me, her face blank.

  The men wore dark gray suits and narrow striped ties. They turned my way when I approached. I could tell by their movements that they were toned underneath the conservative business attire.

  The older of the two had short sandy blond hair, like a military cut that had started to grow out. He held a black wallet in front of my face and let it drop open, exposing the shield and ID of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  “Special Agent Lance Hitchcock.” He held the card in front of my face for a long five seconds. “We’d like to talk to you and your friend for a moment, if we could.”

  “About what?” I pushed the DOWN button.

  “Let’s not get into that here.”

  The door dinged open. I stepped inside, motioning for Tess to follow. Hitchcock and his partner stepped inside the narrow compartment after us.

  “What if we don’t want to?” I crossed my arms.

  The older agent shrugged.

  “You need to do better than that,” I said.

  “I’ve been chasing wise guys for going on twenty years.” Hitchcock leaned against the wall. “I can spot a person in the life from across the room.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “You’re not one. Which means you might just be legit,” he said. “And if that’s the case, then why wouldn’t you want to have a friendly visit with me?”

  “Maybe because I’ve got a lot to do today?”

  “A few minutes is all I ask.” The federal agent smiled and turned to his partner. “Lenny, do it.”

  The other man pulled a small but complicated-looking apparatus out of his pocket, like a PDA/cell phone amped up on growth hormones. He held the thing in front of his face and tapped a few keys. The machine beeped a couple of times.

  The elevator stopped on the ground floor. The doors opened.
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br />   “There’s a diner across the street,” I said. “My friend and I are gonna get a cup of coffee, maybe have some lunch.”

  Hitchcock nodded once. His partner put away the PDA. The four of us walked out of Parkland Hospital and into the midday Sunday heat, past the patients in robes and wheelchairs sitting quietly in the shade, smoking. Another pair of hookers stood at the crosswalk, heading away from the hospital this time.

  We crossed when the light changed. A diner named Burl’s Home Cooking was on the corner. The place was worn Formica and patched Naugahyde, filled with people in hospital scrubs, work clothes, and the occasional business suit.

  I asked Burl, a skinny guy with shifty eyes at the front counter, for a booth in the back. He led us that way. Tess slid in first. I sat next to her, the Feds across from us. Everybody ordered coffee from a waitress in her teens with a safety pin through one nostril and dyed black hair styled into a Mohawk. She wore a cross around her neck and tattoos on her arms that said, “Jesus Saves.” Kids today.

  Special Agent Lance Hitchcock pulled out his own PDA/cell phone geek gadget and punched a couple of buttons. “Victor Lemieux is a capo in the Marcello crime family,” he said. “Why were you talking to him?”

  “Does the FBI really use the term ‘capo’?” I said.

  The waitress brought our coffee. Nobody spoke as she set the mugs down.

  “Mr. Lemieux is not a nice person.” Hitchcock picked up a container from the middle of the table and dribbled sugar into his cup.

  “Victor is a retired businessman from New Orleans.” I poured cream into my mug.

  Lenny, the younger agent, laughed and tapped some more on his PDA. After a few seconds he looked up. “Your name is Lee H. Oswald.” He pushed another series of buttons and recited my date of birth and the address on my driver’s license.

  I wondered how he got that information. I hadn’t told them my name. I waited for the punch line, the inevitable joke about assassinations and dead Kennedys. When none was forthcoming, I said, “Go on. Get it out of your system.”

  “Huh?” The younger agent frowned.

  “You know, the Kennedy thing.”