ORDINARY COMPANIONS
Johnnie’s first meal, whenever he was in New Orleans, was always at The Acme. He got right in the lunch line and ordered rice and beans with sausages and an oyster sandwich. After he paid for the food, he set his tray down on a table by the window and went over to the bar, where he asked for a Dixie, got it, refused a glass, paid for the beer and walked back with it to his table.
Johnnie ate half of the oyster sandwich before he took a man-sized pull off the Dixie. Still the sweetest beer in the South, he thought, as he swallowed. The polluted river water gave it that special taste, and no doubt if a body drank enough of it he would begin to glow in the dark. That stretch of the Mississippi from Baton Rouge to New Orleans isn’t called the Cancer Corridor for no good reason. But it sure tasted good on a ninety-eight-degree day in the Big Easy.
As he ate, Johnnie thought about where, other than New Orleans, Lula and Sailor might have gone. N.O. seemed the most likely place, since they could find work for which they could get paid under the table and fit in more easily than in Atlanta or Houston. Besides, Lula always liked New Orleans. She’d stayed there many times with Marietta, mostly at the Royal Sonesta, whenever Marietta needed to get away on an antiques-shopping trip. Of course, they could be most anywhere by now: New York, Miami, even on their way to California. But N.O. was a good enough guess for now.
“Do you mind if I share this table?”
Johnnie looked up and saw a large, chocolate-colored man in his late forties or early fifties, wearing a powder blue porkpie hat and holding a tray filled with plates of food, smiling at him.
“The others,” said the man, “they are ocupado.”
“By all means,” said Johnnie. “Make yourself to home.”
“Muchas gracias,” the man said, sitting down. He extended his well-developed right forearm and offered Johnnie a big hand to shake. “My name is Reginald San Pedro Sula. But please do call me Reggie.”
Johnnie wiped off his right hand on his napkin and shook.
“Johnnie Farragut,” he said. “Pleased to meet ya.”
Reggie did not remove his porkpie hat and began eating ferociously, finishing half of his meal before saying anything more.
“You are from New Orleans, Señor Farragut?”
“Johnnie, please. Nope. Charlotte, North Carolina. Here on business.”
Reggie smiled broadly, revealing numerous tall, gold teeth. “I am from Honduras. Originally from the Cayman Islands, but now for many years in Honduras. Do you know Honduras, Johnnie?”
“Only that it’s supposed to be a pretty poor sight since the hurricane come through last year.”
“Yes, that’s so. But there is not much to destroy. No big buildings like in New Orleans. Not where I live in the Bay Islands.”
“Where is that?”
“North of the mainland. On the island of Utila. We have a certain sovereignty in the islands, you know, since the United States forced the British to give them up over a century ago.”
“What do you do there?”
“Oh, many things.” Reggie laughed. “I have an appliance shop. But I am also with the government.”
Johnnie took a bite of the oyster sandwich.
“In what capacity?” he asked.
“In many capacities. Mostly with the secret service.”
Reggie reached into his back pocket and took out his wallet. He handed a card to Johnnie.
“ ‘General Osvaldo Tamarindo y Ramirez,’ ” Johnnie read aloud. “ ‘Teléfono 666.’ ”
“He is my sponsor,” said Reggie. “The general is the head of the secret police of Honduras. I am one of his operatives.”
Johnnie handed the card back to Reggie and Reggie gave him a small piece of paper, folded once. Johnnie unfolded it. The printing was in Spanish.
“That is my permiso,” Reggie said. “My permit to kill. Only if necessary, of course, and only in my own country.” He laughed.
“Of course,” said Johnnie, refolding the piece of paper and handing it over to Reggie.
“I am authorized to carry a forty-five, also,” said Reggie. “United States Marine issue, before they made the unfortunate switch to the less dependable nine millimeters. I have it here, in my briefcase.”
Reggie held up his stainless-steel briefcase and then replaced it on the floor beneath his chair.
“Why are you in New Orleans?” asked Johnnie. “If you don’t mind my askin’.”
Reggie laughed. He took off his hat and scratched furiously at his completely bald head for a few seconds, wiped the sweat off his scalp with his napkin and put his hat back on.
“Certainly not,” Reggie said. “I am here only briefly, in fact, until this evening, when I fly to Austin, Texas, to visit a friend of mine who is an agent for the CIA. He wants to take me bass fishing. He comes to Utila and goes fishing with me. We are in the same businesses and also we are fishermen.”
Johnnie swallowed the last of his beer. He’d eaten all he could and stood up to leave. This fellow Reginald San Pedro Sula, Johnnie thought, was undoubtedly telling the truth, but Johnnie had no desire to get into it any deeper.
“It’s been a real pleasure, Reggie,” he said, extending his hand. “I wish you buena suerte wherever you go.”
Reggie stood up. He was at least six feet six. He shook Johnnie’s hand.
“The same to you,” he said. “If you are in Honduras, come to the Bay Islands and visit me. The Hondurans are great friends of the American people. But I have a joke for you before you go. If a liberal, a socialist and a communist all jumped off the roof of the Empire State Building at the same time, which one of them would hit the ground first?”
“I couldn’t say,” said Johnnie. “Which one?”
“Who cares?” said Reggie, grinning.
Johnnie walked down Iberville Street toward the river. He was eager to get back to his hotel room and read more of Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy. Burton’s book, the first treatise on the subject written by a layman, had been published originally in 1621 and was still relevant today. As Johnnie turned the corner and headed north on Decatur, he repeated to himself Burton’s definition of melancholy: “A kind of dotage without a fever, having for his ordinary companions fear and sadness, without any apparent occasion.”
He’d read for a little while, Johnnie thought, then take a nap. It was more likely he’d run onto Sailor and Lula, if they were here, at night, anyway.