Talking God

somewhere else.

He found an ad that sounded promising. It offered an Apple computer complete with twelve video games for sale by owner. Fleck knew almost nothing about computers, and cared less. But this sounded like a family where the kids had grown up and the item for sale was expensive enough so the owner wouldn’t mind talking for a while. Fleck dialed the number, listened to a busy signal, and picked up the paper again. This time he selected a gasoline-powered trash shredder. A man answered on the second ring.

“I’m calling about the shredder,” Fleck said. “What are you asking for it?”

“Well, we paid three hundred and eighty dollars for it, and it’s just like new.” The man had a soft, Virginia Tidewater voice. “But we ain’t got no use for it anymore. And I think we’d come down to maybe two hundred.”

“No use for it?” Fleck said. “Sounds like you’re moving or something. Got anything else you’re selling? Several things I need.”

“Not moving,” the man said. “We’re just getting out of gardening. My wife’s developed arthritis.” He laughed. “And she’s the one that did all the work.”

From there, Leroy Fleck led the conversation into personal affairs—first the affairs of the owner of the item offered, and then Fleck’s own. It was something he had done for years and had become very good at doing. It was his substitute for hanging out in a bar. Keeping Mama in a rest home had made bars too expensive and the people you talked to there tended not to be normal anyway. Fleck had discovered more or less by accident that it was pleasant and relaxing to talk to regular people. It happened when he decided that it would be nice for Mama to have one of those little refrigerators in her room. He’d noticed one in the want ads, and called, and got into a good- natured conversation with the lady selling it. Mama had thrown the little refrigerator on the floor and broke it, but Fleck had remembered the chat. And it had become a habit. At first he did it only when he needed to relieve his mind. But for the last few years he’d done it almost every night. Except Saturday. People didn’t like to be called on Saturday night. With practice he had learned which ads to call, and how to keep the conversation going. After three or four such calls Fleck found he could usually sleep. Talking to somebody normal relieved the mind.

Usually, that is. Tonight, it didn’t work. After a while the man selling the trash shredder just wanted to talk about that—what Fleck would pay for it and so forth. Fleck had then called about a pop-up-top vacation trailer which would sleep four. But this time he found himself getting impatient even before the woman who was selling it did.

After that call he just sat there on the lawn chair. To keep from worrying about Mama, he worried about those two Indians—and especially about the one who had come to his door here. Both of those men had really smelled like cops to him. Fleck didn’t like having cops know where to find him. Normally in a situation like that he would have moved right out of here and got lost. But now he couldn’t move. This job Eddy Elkins had got him into this time kept him tied here. He was stuck. He had to have the money. Absolutely had to have it. Absolutely had to wait two more days until the month was up. Then he’d get the ten thousand the bastards were making him wait for.

He went into the kitchen and checked the refrigerator. He had a little bit of beef liver left and two hamburger buns, but no ground beef and only two potatoes. That would handle his needs tonight. But he’d need food tomorrow. He didn’t even have enough grease to fry the potatoes for breakfast. Fleck put on his hat and his coat and went out into the misty rain.

He returned with a plastic grocery sack and an early edition of the Washington Post. Fleck knew how to stretch his dollars. The bag contained two loaves of day-old bread, a dozen grade B eggs, a half -gallon of milk, a carton of Velveeta, and a pound of margarine. He put the frying pan on the gas burner, dumped in a spoonful of margarine and the liver. Fleck’s furniture consisted of stuff he could fold into the trunk of his old Chevy, which meant nothing in the kitchen except what was built in. He leaned against the wall and watched the liver fry. As it fried he unfolded the Post and read.

There was nothing he needed to know on the front page. On page two, the word Chile caught his eyes.

TOP CHILEAN POLICE BRASS VISITS; ASKS MUSEUM TO RETURN GOLDEN MASK

He scanned the story, mildly interested in the affairs of his client. It told him that General Ramon Huerta Cardona, identified as “commander of Chilean internal security forces,” was in Washington on government business and planned to deliver a personal appeal tomorrow to the Smithsonian Institution for the return of an Inca mask. According to the story, the mask was “golden and encrusted with emeralds,” and the general described it as “a Chilean national treasure which should be returned to the people of Chile.” Fleck didn’t finish the story. He turned the page.

The picture caught his eye instantly. The old man. It was on page four, a single-column photograph halfway down the page with a story under it. Old man Santillanes.

“Oh, shit!” Fleck said it aloud, in something close to a shout.

The headline read:

KNIFE VICTIM PROVES TO BE CHILEAN REBEL

Fleck slammed the paper to the floor and stood against the wall. He was shaking. “Ah, shit,” he repeated, in something like a whisper now. He bent, retrieved the paper, and read:

“The body of a man found beside a railroad track in New Mexico last month has been identified as Elogio Santillanes y Jimenez, an exiled leader of the opposition to the Chilean government, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced today.

“The FBI spokesman said Santillanes had been killed by a single stab wound in the back of the neck and his body removed from an Am-trak train.

“ ‘All identification had been removed from his body—even his false teeth,’ the spokesman said. He noted that this made identification difficult for the agency.

“The FBI declined comment on whether any suspects were being investigated. Two years ago, another opposition leader to the Pinochet regime was assassinated in Washington by the detonation of a bomb in his car. Following that incident, the Department of State issued a sharply worded protest to the Chilean embassy and two members of the embassy staff were deported as personae non gratae in the United States.”

The story continued, but Fleck dropped the paper again. He felt sick but he had to think. He had guessed right about the embassy, and about why they had wanted him to kill Santillanes a long way from Washington, and why all that emphasis had been placed on preventing identification. How the hell had the FBI managed to make the