Right to Die

hairdo. “No. No, sir. My people, they are strong and they are tough, but they are good. They vote against what she says and march against what she says, but...” She waved her hand at my pocket. “Not anything like that. Not ever.”
    “Nobody comes to mind?”
    “None of my own.”
    “Meaning somebody else?”
    “You already got to be counting those skinhead fools you tussled with.”
    “I am.”
    “And the police, they must have some kind of files on this like they do on everything else.”
    “Not much help there.”
    Givens looked around the room, as if reminding herself of her own jeopardy. “All right. There’s this right-to-lifer. White dude in Providence , name of Steven O’Brien.”
    Mr. O’Brien, one of the repeaters from the threat folders.
    “I believe he is just plain around the bend, but... maybe.” ’
    I waited. She looked up at me.
    “That’s all I know.”
    I stood. “Thanks. By the way, why’d you leave?”
    “Leave what?”
    “ Oklahoma .”
    A laugh and the gentler shake of the head. “Had me a husband, thought his thing was a battering ram and mine was a door. Knew I had to get out or I’d like to kill him.”
    Givens became determined, the sermon tone creeping back into her voice. “Before I turned to the Lord, I was turned on to the demon drug too. That’s why I know we’re going to beat cocaine and crack and what they’re doing to our kids. Beat it without Professor Andrus and her just-go-to-sleep-now ideas that pretty soon catch on and seem like a perfect solution to all our ills. And we can’t waste an entire generation of Arthurs and Lionels while we’re doing it.”
    “Good luck.”
    “Luck, as the Lord would say, don’t got nothing to do with it.”
    On the way out I retrieved my gun, asking Arthur and Lionel if they knew anyplace nearby that sold Gatorade by the case.

= 14 =

    Louis Doleman lived in West Roxbury, the southwest corner of Boston ’s Suffolk County . Predominantly white, West Rox is a mixture of magnificent homes on wide parkways and smallish ranches on narrow streets. From Reverend Givens’s church. I took Washington Street to Belgrade Ave , then fiddled around for eight or ten blocks until I found Doleman’s address just off Centre Street .
    It was a dwarf red-brick ranch among many stunted cousins. From the curb it appeared oddly kept. The lawn, despite the season, was maintained, but the hedges, huddled against latent snow the sun never touched, were untrimmed. The brickwork looked recently repointed, but the concrete stoop was crumbling.
    All the window shades were drawn. I pushed the bell next to the front door, heard no chimes, and was about to knock when I heard what sounded like an inner door open and close. Then the front door opened, and LouiS Doleman peered out at me.
    Standing in front of a closed inner door, he wore heavy glasses and the same cardigan sweater. Liver-spotted skin hung loosely from the neck cords. His short gray hair seemed curiously soft, like the acrylic fur on a stuffed animal. In his right hand, a book, the index finger keeping his place in Our Right to Die by Maisy Andrus.
    “Mr. Doleman, my name’s John Cuddy.” I showed him my identification. “I wonder if I could talk with you.”
    “Sure.” He turned his head to look at the inner door. The soft hair radiated from a whorl on the top of his skull.
    Doleman turned again to me. “Just step inside here so my spacelock’ll work.”
    Spacelock. I thought, Scotty, beam me up.

    “Got to have the spacelock, otherwise Marpessa here would be on her way back to Brazil .”
    Doleman was sitting in an old print chair, a faded towel protecting the upholstery a bit late in its life. He placed the book on a TV tray to his right, next to some cello-phaned cupcakes that should have been labeled less by expiration date and more by half-life.
    However, they weren’t the main attraction. A bird like a giant parrot perched on his left shoulder. Most of its feathers were shocking blue or canary yellow, but the curved beak was black and the face was white, with long, squiggly lines under the eyes, like a child practicing with makeup.
    I said, “Marpessa.”
    “Marpessa, right. Named her after this Brazilian actress I heard of. Only Brazilian actress I ever heard of, tell you the truth. Marpessa is a macaw. To keep them from flying off, most folks clip the primary feathers on the wing there. All but the last one, cosmetic purposes, you see. You do that,