The Devil's Code

elevators, across the doctors’ parking lot, and into the car.
    “How’d it go?” LuEllen asked.
    “Fine. Green’s cool, and we’re good.”
    “Why do you look so bummed out?” She swung the car in a U-turn and we headed back toward the Interstate.
    I told her about Morris Kendall, next door to Green. “There wasn’t a single personal belonging in the room, that I could see. He’s up there dying with nothing to keep him company but a cheap bouquet of yellow flowers from a stranger.”
    “Country song,” she said.
    T hat was the easy part of the day. We checked with Bobby, to see if he had anything new. He had a time and a place in Little Rock: three-thirty the next day, at a restaurant by Little Rock National Airport.
    With that all fixed, I jumped LuEllen. Nothing slowand playful, the way her taste runs in sex, but straight ahead, pinning her on the bed, taking her down. When we were done, she said, “All right, Kidd. What was that all about?”
    “I’m shipping your ass out,” I said. “I figured you’d be pissed for a while, and I wanted some sex to remember you by.”
    She sat up: “You fucker.”
    “LuEllen . . . you’re always reserving the right to take off when life gets too cranky, right? Well, it’s going to get crankier, and there’s no reason for you to be around. I’d just have to think about taking care of you, and I don’t want to do that. I’m gonna have enough to do taking care of myself.”
    “You’ve never had to take care of me,” she said. She said it in her dangerous voice.
    “I don’t mean take care of you, like a baby; I mean, watch out for you, too.”
    “What’re you going to do?”
    “I have an idea. I don’t want to tell you about it, because it wouldn’t be good for you to know yet. Maybe later. But what you’ve got to do is get somewhere public. You have your passport, right?”
    “Kidd, what the fuck . . .”
    “You’ve got your passport?”
    “Yeah, I’ve got . . .”
    “Tomorrow morning, early, I put your ass on a plane to somewhere—New York would be good, with the San Francisco ID. Then you shuttle back to Minneapolis, with the first ID you had—that’s still good?—and then fly out to the British Virgins or the Bahamas underyour own name. It’s a lot of flying, but I want you checked through customs somewhere, and I want you in public for the next few days. Where people will remember you.”
    Now she was curious. Still pissed, but curious: “What are you going to blow up?”
    “I’m not going to blow up anything. But this is all coming to a head, and you can never tell what these alphabet security agencies are capable of. If they put us together, you could be in trouble, and Bobby says they’re peeling back the names.”
    “I’ll never get all the flights . . .”
    “I booked you this morning,” I said. “You’re all confirmed.”
    “This morning,” she said. She turned that over for a second, then said, “Asshole. This morning? You . . .”
    W e argued about it, off and on, for the rest of the evening. Tried to get some sleep; she was throwing clothes around the next morning, but at eight o’clock, her little round butt was in line at DFW, for the New York flight. She’s absolutely capable of turning her back on me and walking away, I think. But this time, she didn’t. After several hours of chill, she gave me a serious kiss good-bye, whispered, “Take care,” and got on the plane.
    I was on my own, and on my way to Little Rock.

 24 
    T he drive to Little Rock took six hours, with time out for a cheeseburger and a couple of bathroom breaks. I was in the part of the country where, instead of getting french fries, you get home fries. Home fries are actually pure grease, soaked into grasslike strips of potato so you can get it to your mouth. A waitress in a uniform the exact color of two-day-old pumpkin pie dropped off the burger and fries, did a searching scan of my tabletop and said, “My goodness; somebody forgot to put out your catsup.” She was back in a minute with a bottle of Heinz, and said, “Home fries just ain’t right without catsup.”
    She was, and is, correct. They just ain’t right.
    I ’d only been to Little Rock once before in my life. If you live in St. Paul, Little Rock isn’t on the way to anywhere except itself. I didn’t get to see much of the place, either. The guy I was meeting was waiting at a Shoney’s. I picked him out as soon as I walked in.
    “How are you,