The Hanged Man's Song

pointing at the TV. “He’s done it again. Bobby. Carp. There’s a story out there, coming out now, about how some Homeland Security department might have sprayed a virus into San Francisco to see how it would spread. It was supposed to be a test in case of a smallpox attack, they wanted to see what would happen, and they used a virus called, uh, Newport? That’s not right, but something like that. Anyway, a lot of people got sick and four people may have died . . . the shit is hitting the fan, and CNN says the leak involves a lot of classified government computer files and the sourcing resembles the Bobby releases of the past couple of days.”
    “Norwalk? Norwalk virus?” LuEllen asked.
    He snapped his fingers. “That’s it.”
    “Weren’t there a whole bunch of cruise ships a while back, where they had epidemics?”
    “Exactly!” John said. “That’s the one. They’re saying—they say it’s only speculation—that those could have been a more controlled test, before they dumped it into San Francisco.”
    “Ah, man. That means there must be a bunch of stuff that’s not encrypted—or he found a key.”
    “We’ve gotta find the fucker,” John said.
    LuEllen said, “He’s probably not twenty miles from here.”
    “Might as well be in Chicago,” I said. “I got his credit card numbers, if he uses them . . .”
    “Everybody’s gonna be looking for him,” John said.
    “Everybody’s gonna be looking for Bobby, unless we tell them he’s dead. Or for one of Bobby’s friends, if we decide to tell them,” I said. “We’re the only ones looking for Jimmy James Carp.”
    >>> WE TALKED about it as we watched CNN, and then LuEllen said, “Hey, we found out about Melissa. Melissa Carp.”
    “Yeah?” John said.
    “She was his mother. She’s dead. She was killed in an automobile accident a month ago.”
    “Maybe flipped him out,” John said.
    And we talked about other trips we’d been on together, we talked about Longstreet, we talked a little more about Rachel Willowby, and what would happen to her. “If she thought Jimmy James Carp wanted to talk to her because he wanted to fuck her . . . then there are people who are talking to her because they want to fuck her,” John said. “She’s about ten-to-one for winding up on the corner.”
    Something to mull over. Even later, after watching more about the Norwalk virus story, and more talk, we decided to tell the NSA that Bobby had been murdered.
    >>> LATE that night, I went back out—way back out—up I-10 into Baton Rouge. I found a pay phone in a bar parking lot and, using LuEllen’s anonymous calling card, called long distance to Glen Burnie, Maryland. The phone rang seven times before Rosalind Welsh picked it up. She sounded as though she’d been asleep, and I realized that it was after two in the morning, Eastern time. “Hello?”
    “Rosalind. Bill Clinton here. Remember me? Hope I didn’t wake you up, but I guess I must have.” At that moment, honest toGod, a rat walked past the pay phone on its way to the bar, as confident and casual as a cat heading home. “Jesus,” I said.
    “Who?” Welsh was struggling up out of the sleep. “Jesus?” I heard a man’s voice say, “Who is it?”
    “Did you get remarried?” I asked cheerfully.
    “What do you want?” she snapped. “This is the man with the mask?”
    “Who is it?” the man asked, and I heard her say, “Never mind; it’s for me.”
    “You remember me, now,” I said. “You’re awake.”
    “I’m awake.” But not happy.
    “You remember that guy Bobby who caused you all the trouble? And you went looking for and got your ass kicked? And is causing all this trouble with these pictures and the Norwalk virus thing, and all of that?”
    Long pause. “Yes. Where is he?”
    “He’s dead,” I said. “He’s been dead for a couple of days.”
    “What?”
    “Did you see the news stories about the black man killed in Jackson, Mississippi, and the Fiery Cross that was burned on his front porch?”
    “Yes. Of course.”
    “That was Bobby. He was murdered. Somebody killed him for his laptop, which has all that stuff on it that you’re seeing on TV. We think maybe—maybe—it was you, that you’re running some kind of an operation against the government. Was it you guys, Rosalind?”
    “You’re crazy,” she shrilled. “We don’t do that.”
    “What is it?” the man shouted in the background. “Let me talk to him.”
    “You’re talking to