“All three times they phoned the times before,” Leo said, “I seem to recall you came down with some kind of twenty-four-hour bug. That’s all I’m saying. Am I right or wrong?”

Jack said, “I’ve been to Carville. When I worked for the Rivés we’d go up there once or twice a year, tune the organ. One of ’em, usually Uncle Brother, would be on the console hitting notes, I’m up in the loft by the pipes, way up on a shaky ladder making the adjustments on the sleeve. I was the one with the ear.”

Leo looked like he was tuning the organ of the guy on the prep table, lifting his private parts to spray down in there good, Jack watching, thinking the guy might’ve been proud of that set at one time. A little guy, but hung.

Jack said, “Have I mentioned I’m sick or not feeling too good?”

Leo said, “Not yet you haven’t. They just called.” He picked up a plastic hose attached to the sink and turned on the water. “Hold this for me, will you?”

“I can’t,” Jack said, “I’m not licensed.”

“I won’t tell on you. Come on, just keep the table rinsed. Run it off from by the incision.”

Jack edged in to take the hose without looking directly at the body. “There’re things I’d rather do than handle a person that died of leprosy.”

“Hansen’s disease,” Leo said. “You don’t die from it, you die of something else.”

Jack said, “If I remember correctly, the last time Carville had a body for us you had a removal service get it.”

“On account of I had three bodies in the house already, two of ’em up here, and you telling me how punk you felt.”

Jack said, “Hey, Leo? Bullshit. You don’t want to touch a dead leper anymore’n I do.”

Jack Delaney could talk this way to his boss because they were pretty good friends and because Leo was his brother-in-law, married to Jack’s sister, Raejeanne, and because Jack’s mother lived with Leo and Raejeanne part of the year, the four or five months they spent across the lake, at Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.