Murder Deja Vu

you?”
    Reece squelched his emotions, drew a breath, and moved to the bedroom. “That’s the Frank Vance I know and love.” He almost lost it when he saw his old friend lying in bed, pale skin covering his skeletal frame, looking like Death had already knocked on his door.
    “Get me out of this fucking bed. I won’t spend my last days in bed with you mooning over me like I’m some cadaver. Put me in the chair. Lana’s going to break her back lifting me. I need a strong body.”
    A wheelchair sat by the bedside. Reece lifted Frank into it. He couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds, but he was still as feisty as the big brute who’d saved Reece from an ignominious end. Still, to hold his emotions in check, Reece bit his lip so hard a metallic taste filled his mouth.
    “Don’t fall apart on me, son,” Frank whispered in his ear. “I need you.” He pulled Reece’s face to look at him. “Understand?”
    Reece nodded. Willing away the tears that threatened didn’t work, and they spilled like raindrops onto his cheeks.
    “Shit,” Frank said. “You are one hell of a pussy, you know that?”
    “Only when it concerns the people I love. There aren’t many of those left.”
    “Well, there’s going to be one less, and I don’t want you to feel sorry about it.” He caught his breath. “I’m a happy man. Now Lana’s made a good dinner. You two stay the night, then tomorrow I have plans.”
    “Whatever you say.”
    “Jesus, for once I get no arguments. So it’s settled.” They moved into the living room. “I want a glass of wine. Fuck the drugs. Why shouldn’t I have a buzz if I want one? What’s going to happen to me? I’m gonna die?”
    Reece laughed in spite of the sadness that consumed him. “Christ, Frank. What I love about you—you never change.”
    “Not yet. Did I ever tell you, Dana, how Reece taught me to read?”
    “No.”
    Reece shook his head. “Come on, Frank. No one wants to hear this.”
    “I do,” Dana said.
    Reece caught her subtle warning. Frank needed to take everyone’s mind off him and put it elsewhere. “Oh, go ahead. Tell them.”
    “After someone pours me another glass of wine.” Lana did, and Frank went on, measuring his sentences between rests. “Dr. Fucking Seuss. A Cat in the Hat. Can you believe it?” He sipped some wine and waited. “I knew some of it. After all, I went through the sixth grade, but I’d forgotten more than I ever learned.”
    “You weren’t that bad,” Reece said, giving Frank time to recover his voice.
    “Some of the other guys gathered ’round and made a big deal of it, but soon, there they were, reading right along with me.…Then, the Sendak books— In the Night Kitchen , and… Where the Wild Things Are . We liked those. Great scary drawings. Then crime books, with characters like us—Elmore, what’s his name?”
    “Leonard,” Reece said.
    “Yeah, right, and Westlake. I got hooked on those two. The bad guys sometimes came out ahead.”
    “Yeah, they do. You like that, don’t you, Frank?”
    “Damn right. After you spend time in stir…you realize that doesn’t happen too often in real life.”
    “I had good students,” Reece said, “especially when we started on the adult books. One of the guards ordered them for me.”
    “One of the good guards,” Frank said.
    “Come, everyone,” Lana said. “Dinner is ready.”
    Reece wheeled Frank into the kitchen where Lana had set the table with china and silver and candles. Frank ate little, mostly whipped potatoes and pudding, but he insisted on a glass of wine. Before long, his head started to droop. “Time for bed.”
    Reece nodded to Lana that he’d take care of Frank first and wheeled him to his room. He lifted him again and laid him down, then put the cannula in his nose and turned on the oxygen.
    Frank yanked at his arm. “Tomorrow, Reece. Okay?”
    Reece nodded, leaned down, and kissed his friend on the forehead. “Tomorrow, Frank.”
    * * * * *
    I n bed, Reece lay quietly with Dana wrapped in his arms. He wasn’t in a mood, exactly, but the weight of what was going to happen tomorrow weighed heavily. Dana knew and didn’t try to talk him out of it. After a fitful night’s sleep, he woke early, dreading the day. He’d made a promise he would keep. Dana must have sensed what he was going through, and they went about getting dressed without speaking. They exchanged a long look, then Reece went into Frank’s room.
    “Get me up, will