Libra - Don Delillo [164]
Mackey stood by the refrigerator drinking water from a pitcher. He wore-a sweatsuit and baseball cap. He’d taken to running at night to keep his weight down.
He took off the cap and blew into it. Then he sat at the kitchen table and peeled an orange. The house was at the end of an unfinished street about half a mile from the heart of Little Havana.
Raymo walked in. He said, “When did you get back?”
“This afternoon.”
“Did you hear there’s word going around? Somebody in Chicago’s planning the same thing.”
“Banister called. He got a look at an FBI teletype. An attempt on the life.”
“Four-man team. At least one of them might be Cuban. JFK’s supposed to be in Chicago like November second.”
“We have to wait our turn.”
“If word leaks out there, same thing could happen to us.”
“I’m counting on it,” T-Jay said. “In fact I’m taking steps to make it happen. It’s the only way we’ll succeed. We’re going in quick and tight. You keep it quiet. You don’t tell Frank or Wayne.”
“Forget Miami.”
“That’s right. ”
“Then we don’t bring Leon here.”
“That’s right.”
“Where is he?”
“He took a Transportes del Norte bus to Laredo. I’m betting he took a Greyhound from there to Dallas. Main thing is the Cubans didn’t take him. No visa for Leon. It’s beginning to take shape. Small, spur-of-the-moment, that’s what we want. An everyday Texas homicide.”
“JFK.”
“Goes to Dallas next month. The man’s a serious traveler. And wherever he goes, somebody wants a piece of him. Deep sweats of desire and rage. I don’t know what it is. Maybe he’s just too pretty to live.”
He detached a couple of wedges from the orange and handed them to Raymo.
“Somebody keeps an eye on Leon.”
“I think Leon will be hiding from us,” T-Jay said. “He knows what we’re up to and he doesn’t necessarily approve. For the time being, we have our own model Oswald. Alpha is running people up and down the state. Eventually we’ll have to pinpoint the original.”
“When we took him to Houston he doesn’t say ten words to me. He only talked to Frank.”
“What did he say to Frank?”
“He got after Frank right away. He wanted some Spanish les- sons.
Suzanne sat up in bed in the dark. She knew they were asleep. Once the radio hum withdrew from the wall by her ear, all she had to do was count to a hundred. Both sound asleep. If she was going to move the Little Figures, now was the time. She needed a safer hiding place. The closet had so much junk they would clean it any day and the Little Figures were hidden in one of the pockets on the shoe bag that hung inside the door. Once they found the Little Figures, that was the end of Suzanne. She would have no protection left in the world.
Lucky she had a good new place to keep them safe.
She got out of bed and raised the shade halfway, letting in light from the streetlamp. Then she moved softly in her nightgown that touched the floor. She took the Little Figures out of the shoe bag and sat them down on the narrow ledge behind the old bureau that used to belong to Grandma. The ledge stuck out about an inch near the bottom of the bureau. Hers was the only hand that could fit between the bureau and the wall. That was the perfect place because the Figures were already seated so they balanced just right. They were a clay man and a clay woman that her best friend, Missy, had given her as, a birthday present. They were Indians who dwelt in pueblos and their hair and their clothes were painted black, with little black dots for the eyes and mouth.
She got back into bed and pulled the covers up.
The Little Figures were not toys. She never played with them. The whole reason for the Figures was to hide them until the time when she might need them. She had to keep them near and safe in case the people who called themselves her mother and father