Текст книги "The Prodigal Spy"

Автор книги: Joseph Kanon

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Текущая страница: 28 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

“Let’s get out of here.”

“I can’t,” she said, indicating the unmanned register. “There’s no one here.”

“Now,” Nick said sharply. Then, seeing her surprised face, “What if she comes back?”

Molly grabbed her purse from underneath the counter. They walked down 14th Street toward the Mall, hearing the sound of loudspeakers in the distance, a chant. Molly listened to him without interrupting, her face worried. They turned up Pennsylvania Avenue. Nick could see the Justice building, Hoover’s balcony overlooking the street, where he watched the parades. A short elevator ride, a deal–that’s all it would take.

“So what are you going to do?” Molly said finally.

“Why did it have to be him?” he said, almost to himself.

“Because it is.”

“I don’t know,” he said, answering her question.

“Finish it. That’s what you came here to do. End it.”

“It won’t end. It’ll start all over again.”

“Nick,” she said softly, “if you don’t do this, it’ll never stop.”

“Just name a few names.”

“That’s their politics. I’m tired of being them. He’s selling us out now. Us. I can’t be that neutral. Is this how we’re going to live, like them? They made a mess of their lives.”

“But we won’t,” he said ironically.

“Well, we can do it our own way. At least then we won’t know how it comes out.” She took out the envelope and handed it to him. “Here. It’s yours. You decide.”

Nick looked down at the envelope. “I can’t be his executioner, Molly.”

“Somebody’d better be. He’ll do it to you too.”

“He’s not going to kill me.”

“Yes, he is. Every time you look at him.” She hesitated. “It’s a lousy deal, Nick.”

He watched her turn away.

“Where are you going?”

“Over to the rally. If you want to join the living, meet me by the monument.” She stopped. “Then I’m going back to New York. I hate this place.” She looked up at him. “Come with me?”

“I’m not finished here.”

“I am,” she said, and walked away.

He went toward the Justice Department and stared up at the balcony, the envelope like a weight in his pocket. A lousy deal. But would this one be any better? Could you really buy freedom in a pact with the devil?

The lobby was busy, full of men in suits and short-cropped hair, Bureau style. A bank of phones. Guards, armed. Where Hoover had started the phony war that had finally circled them on 2nd Street and now–beyond an irony, something grotesque–Nick would hand him, so many years later, the unexpected paper to win it. The pragmatic deal.

But as he walked toward the reception desk, surrounded by Hoover’s foot soldiers, he knew he couldn’t do it. Not here. The old enemy. He saw Hoover snatching the prize, vindicated, unassailable at last. Which was worse, Larry for a few months or Hoover tape-recording for the rest of his life? How did you measure the damage? Molly had to see that. He’d be one of them. He turned, pretending he’d forgotten something, and walked out past the indifferent guards.

The rally was noisy and crowded. He walked past the line of police and portable toilets and parked ambulances–were they expecting trouble?–and into the mass swarming over the Mall. He felt a million miles from the somber candle vigil for Jan Palach. Bubbles and painted faces and scraggly hair. Shirts off in the sun. The defiant smell of dope. In the distance was a concert stage with loudspeakers, a group at its base yelling “Out now!”, the chant rippling back through the crowd in a wave. Homemade posters and peace buttons.

Where was she? Everyone looked young. Nick realized with a start that no one in the huge eager crowd had ever heard of the hearings, that the old war was not even a distant memory to them. Like Welles, the survivors had moved on to the next thing. An embarrassing moment in the republic, not even worth teaching in school, so the children, absorbed in their own war, would not even know it had happened. And Larry would survive this one too, betraying them all. A lousy deal. Molly was right. They needed to breathe their own air.

He’d never find her in this. He scanned the broad slope by the monument. A scuffle had broken out near the transverse road, and policemen were wading in to contain it. A kid next to him was watching it through binoculars.

“Pigs,” he said. “There go the pigs again.”

“Could I borrow these for a sec?”

“Look at the pigs, man,” he said, handing the glasses to Nick.

It wasn’t yet an incident. People stood watching without getting involved, like a highway accident. The police were leading two men away, but no one was protesting. Probably a fight someone had to break up, not a bust. People stepped back to clear a path, then started up the road again. Nick moved the binoculars across the young faces, then stopped, jarred by something out of place.

The woman was looking away, a little farther up the hill, annoyed she’d had to stop, anxious. In the carnival of the rally her determined face stood out like a warning. Not just any face. Ruth Silberstein. Nick followed her, hypnotized. What was she doing here? And when she turned to speak to the man with her, Nick felt the fear begin. Ponytail and acne: the guy from the adult store. Then Ruth pointed and Nick followed her finger to Molly, standing on the curb, looking around. Waiting for him.

“Hey, man,” said the kid, reaching for the binoculars.

“Just a minute. Please.”

It hadn’t been Hoover’s tail. He’d been telling the truth. Rrown, or someone, had been following her. Or had Barbara called in an alarm? And now they were here, just a few feet from her. He wanted to shout out. Hopeless. But she’d know them, run for it. Except she’d never seen Ruth Silberstein, never been in the store. Nick watched through the binoculars as they approached her. What story would they have? At first she smiled. Then a moment of panic on her face, a quick glance around for help. She stepped away, but Ruth pulled her in and the ponytail moved behind her, close to her back, and then they were moving off together toward Constitution Avenue in a huddle. Run.

Nick dropped the binoculars and started racing through the crowd, bumping into people, dodging section leaders with bullhorns. The chant came back from the stage again, and those who had been sitting, picnic style, jumped up. “Out now!” Nick tried to push through a wall of people, not even able to see the road anymore. Flailing through vines in a jungle, shoving them aside. “Hey, where’s the fire, man?” Someone said “Peace,” as if the word itself had power. Had they known all along, been aware of their amateur shadows? Brown’s elaborate route, a lure. Not just a dirty bookstore. Nick’s mind raced through the crowd, faster than his blocked feet. But why here, in public? What would have drawn them out? The envelope. They knew she’d taken the envelope. And then, as he edged around a group of girls, stalled, the other thought occurred to him. Larry. Of course he’d lie. There had never been any deal. You don’t wait. The oldest instinct in the book. She really had become Rosemary.

By the time he reached the road, calling out her name now, they had disappeared. He ran faster, trying to catch up. Police glared at him. Then he saw a car across the avenue, the ponytail bundling her in. He screamed her name. As she got into the car, she turned her head as if, impossibly, she’d heard him, and he thought, a final panic, that it could be the last time he’d ever see her. He ran across the avenue, halting traffic, but the car was pulling away, too far for him even to make out the license plate, and then sped around the corner.

He stopped and stood still, heaving. They’d question her first. But for how long? It was the lawn at Holečkova again, feeling utterly helpless. He glanced toward the line of police. But what would he say? And then, another jolt, what if they were following him too? Or was she just bait, Larry’s new bargaining chip? Bastard, he thought, and began running toward Pennsylvania Avenue. Somewhere they wouldn’t follow, if he could make it.

He tried to calm his breathing as he walked into the Justice Department. Don’t look out of place. He went to the row of phone booths and pulled out some change. If it had been Larry, they might not even question her. He already knew. Nick tried the Hay-Adams–not there. But you couldn’t call the White House. Unless your life depended on it. He dialed. The switchboard believed the emergency–the operator could hear it in his ragged breathing.

“Nick, are you crazy?” Larry said when he came on. “Pulling me out of a meeting. What—”

“Be quiet. I’m at the Justice Department. I’m going up to Hoover’s office unless you let her go. Do you understand?”

“No. Nick, these phones.” Hedging. “They’re not secure.”

“I don’t give a fuck. Let her go.”

“Calm down. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You kidnapped her. Molly. I fucking saw them. Ruth and the freak from the porno store. They probably had Brown in the car. Where’d they take her, Larry? Christ.”

“Stop it. You’re babbling. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Was it possible? “Look, come over here. I’ll meet you outside. Not the phones.”

“Forget it. I’m not leaving here. It’s safe. Even you wouldn’t try to get me here. I’ll go upstairs, Larry, I mean it. I’ll tell him everything.”

“What do you mean, safe? Are you all right?”

“No, I’m not all right. They’ve got her. They’ll kill her unless you stop it.”

“Nick, I’ll say it one more time. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“She was following Brown. He must have spotted her. Or your girlfriend.”

“Nick—”

“I don’t give a fuck!” he yelled. “You have to get her. Fix this. That’s what you do, isn’t it? They’re your people–talk to your boss. You must have one. He’ll know. Tell him I’m already at the Bureau. If they touch one hair, one hair, I’ll blow the whole fucking operation. I can do it. I have the names, Larry. You want to hear them? You’re not supposed to know. Nobody’s supposed to know. But they will. Tell him I have the envelope too.”

“What envelope?”

“Your envelope. Your last fucking report.”

“Nick—” A beat. “Stay where you are. I’ll be right there. Where in Justice?”

“In the lobby. Right next to an armed guard.”

He took ten minutes. Nick sat in the booth, sweating, the receiver cradled at his ear, the constant dial tone drowning out the buzzing in his head. All that mattered–not any of the rest of it, all the complicated loyalties. He saw her walking past the guards on the Prague station platform. In the room at the Alcron. His. The only thing he hadn’t lost yet. By the time he saw Larry walking into the lobby, the fear had set into something harder, without margins. The oldest instinct in the book.

“It wasn’t me, Nick,” Larry said, his voice brisk, setting things straight.

“I don’t care. Just get her. John Brown works upstairs somewhere. He’s the one who’d know her. He’s probably had her watched. What about Barbara–she take packages from anybody else?”

Larry nodded.

“Then she must have tipped one of them.”

“Let me see what I can do,” Larry said, getting into the booth. “I can’t promise anything. I don’t know the others. It may be out of my hands.”

“But you’re in mine. Do it.”

Larry picked up the receiver and began closing the booth door. Nick put his hand on it. “Secrets, Larry? Still?”

“Theirs.”

He closed the door and dialed. Nick stood outside the booth, watching the Bureau pass by, unaware. Larry was right, there was an excitement in knowing the only secret at the table. He heard him make another call, brusque, a man used to getting his way. Nick looked at his watch. They’d question her first.

“All right,” Larry said as he came out. “They’ve got her somewhere. They want to know what’s going on.”

“They tell you where?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go.”

“One thing.”

Nick stopped and turned.

“I’d like the envelope,” Larry said, holding out a hand. Even now.

“And if I don’t?”

Larry just looked at him.

Nick reached into his pocket. “Here.” He tossed it at him. “You’re a lousy deal anyway.”

“Nick—”

“Let’s go.”

Outside, they walked to the waiting black car. Larry opened the driver’s door.

“Personal errand,” he said. “Take an hour and I’ll meet you back at the White House.”

The driver, surprised, handed him the keys. “They don’t like that.”

Larry winked. “Wouldn’t want to do anything personal on Government time, huh?”

“No, sir.”

When they pulled away, Larry said, “In my briefcase. Left compartment.”

Nick took the case from the back seat, opened it, and pulled out a gun, staring at it.

“Just put it in my pocket.”

“Why?”

“The man holding her doesn’t know me. If my person doesn’t reach him, we may need a little help. Just in case.”

“God, Larry.”

“Still enjoying yourself?”

They drove up 13th Street toward New York Avenue and stopped–why hadn’t he thought of it?–at the adult store.

“That’s why you didn’t want the driver.”

“They talk,” Larry said simply.

There was a CLOSED sign on the door, nothing visible inside. Larry knocked.

“We’re fucking closed.” The ponytail.

“Joseph sent me,” Larry said.

“Who?”

“John Brown,” Nick said. The one man he’d have to know.

The door opened a crack. “What the fuck do you want?”

“We came for the girl,” Larry said. “Come on, open. Quick. Before someone sees.” He pushed the door.

The man was holding the baseball bat, his eyes widening as he recognized Nick. “Who the fuck are you? Nobody said anything about the girl.”

“Where is she?” Larry said. “Now.”

The man nodded toward the film cubicles in the back. “Nobody said nothing about this.”

“Nobody had to. Put the bat down. You look like an idiot.”

“Yeah, well, who the fuck are you? I gotta make a call.” He went toward the register counter.

“Just put it down,” Larry said, holding the gun. “And the bat.”

“Fuck,” the ponytail said, amazed. He dropped the bat, which clattered on the floor.

“I thought you said just in case,” Nick said.

“Just get her. Where?” he said to the man.

“In the back on the right.”

Nick stared at Larry, suddenly frightened, then moved quickly into the back. Dim, after the garish front room. Doors with light bulbs over them.

“Molly?”

He heard a pounding inside one of the cubicles. His eyes adjusted to the dark. At the end, a chair was propped against a door.

“Molly.” He threw the chair aside and pulled the door open. She was standing there cowering, holding her forearm. “You all right?”

She nodded, still stunned. Her face was blotchy, and she moaned when he took her in his arms, hugging her.

“It’s my wrist. I think it’s broken. He grabbed–Oh God, Nick. What’s happening?”

“Come on.”

He held her by the side and walked her out of the dark room.

“They’re coming back,” she said. “Who are they?”

“Later. Come on.”

She blinked when the light hit her eyes, dazzled by the slick covers full of flesh. “Where are we?” Then she saw Larry holding the gun and drew closer to Nick, clutching him.

“Get her to the car,” Larry said.

“Nobody told me about this,” the ponytail said.

“Shut up.”

“Fuck you.” He moved toward Molly.

Larry raised the gun. “Don’t. I mean it.”

The man stopped, glowering.

“Get in the car,” Larry said to her. “Quick.”

She looked at Nick, who nodded and opened the door.

“You don’t know what fucking trouble you’re buying,” the ponytail said.

“I always know what I’m buying,” Larry said. “Now you can use the phone.”

The man snorted and turned toward the counter. The blast caught Nick by surprise, making him jump, so loud it was still ringing in his ears as he watched the man fall onto the counter, then slump and slide off, with magazines slipping around him. When he hit the floor Nick heard his head crack. He stared at the blood. Like the war –blood coming out, quietly. He looked up at Larry, for a second expecting the other shot. But Larry was taking a handkerchief from his pocket, wiping the gun, then tossing it next to the man.

“He saw me,” he said simply.

Nick said nothing, lost in the stillness that follows a violent death. It had been that easy. No witnesses. A girl falling out the window. Barbara next, whoever else might be a threat. His father jerking under the pillows. No end to it, ever.

“Now get out of here,” Larry said. “You’ve got her. We’re quits.”

“I saw you too,” Nick said quietly.

“Then I’m in your hands again,” Larry said, matter-of-fact. “But we have a deal.” He wiped his hands. “Come on, Nick, we have to get out of here. You’ll see. It’ll be fine.” He moved toward the door.

“You’re going to get away with it.”

“Yes, I am. Come on.”

He lifted his hand to the door, his back to Nick, the familiar shoulders. No end to it. I won’t be his executioner. Not to Hoover, giving comfort to the enemy. But no end to it. He reached down and picked up the gun. Larry turned. Nick looked down at his hand, outstretched, the way it had been at the White House gate, unable to pull the trigger. Locked together in the tangle Larry had made.

“Nick. Leave it. They’ll—”

Nick fired, the sound splitting the room again. He saw Larry’s shocked face, his graceless stumble and fall to the floor.

“Nick.” A gasp, like a plea.

Nick wiped the gun, just as Larry had, and threw it toward the clerk. Then he went over, leaned down, and took the envelope out of Larry’s pocket. No scandal. Just a crime. Larry’s eyes were still open. “Don’t worry,” Nick said to the ground. “Your secret’s safe with me. That was the deal.”

A pounding on the door. “Nick!”

He slid out, not opening it wide enough for her to see, and he took her good arm, leading her away from the corner.

“Leave the car. If anyone asks–when they ask–just say he dropped us at the hotel. We didn’t see him after that.”

“The shots—”

“They’re both dead.”

“We can’t just leave.”

He turned to her. “We were never here, understand? Nobody will ever know.”

She nodded, frightened.

“Come on, we’ll pack and get you to a hospital.”

“Pack?”

“For New York. But first we’ll see about the wrist.”

“I’m all right.”

“No, you’re not. Besides, I have one more thing to do. Stay at the hospital until I get back. Don’t leave. You’ll be safe there.”

She looked at him. “One more thing,” she said dully.

“I have to see Hoover.”

She glanced at the envelope.

“No,” he said. “Only the others. They still know about us. Now I have to.”

“But not him.”

“No.” He tore the envelope into small pieces, then bent over and tossed them into a storm drain, where they would float, like a shirt, to the Potomac. “He’s not a spy anymore.”

“They’ll find out. What would he be doing there?”

“What does any man do in a store like that? They’ll cover that up. Out of respect,” he said, an edge in his voice. “He’s a crime victim, Molly. Mugged. It happens in Washington all the time.”

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

He looked at her. “Yes, I’m sure. It’s over.”

“Except for one more thing.”

“Yes.”

They took a taxi to the hotel and he made the phone call while Molly packed. No one was outside, watching. He drove her to a hospital out in Georgetown, the late sun still glowing on the buildings.

“Why Georgetown?”

“It’s on the way to Hoover’s. He said he’d see me at home.”

“God, his home,” she said, sounding better, as if movement itself had begun to rub away the shock. “I never thought of him living anywhere.”

“Remember, don’t leave,” he said as they pulled up to the hospital. “For any reason. They’re still out there.”

Thirtieth Place was a quiet cul-de-sac near Rock Creek Park, large brick houses with Georgian windows set back on narrow lawns. For a second Nick stopped, disbelieving. Hoover’s grass, a hardy even green, was Astroturf.

A Negro houseman opened the door and led him into the living room. At first Nick thought he had walked into a gift shop–there were hundreds of antiques, vases and statues, silver teapots and curios, oriental carpets laid on top of each other so that every space was filled. An oil portrait of a young Hoover on the stair landing. Hoover himself, in an open-necked shirt and slacks, came into the room followed by two Cairn terriers, who sniffed at Nick’s ankles, then padded away. The voice, still quick, had lost its machine gun effect, as if it too had been softened by domesticity.

“Drink?”

A drink with Hoover.

“No. I can’t stay.”

Hoover indicated the overstuffed couch. He took the chair next to it, sinking into the cushion so that his body became foreshortened, the round head bobbing on it like Humpty Dumpty’s. He made the first move, extending his hand and opening it. The lighter.

Nick took it, staring at the initials. No longer shiny, a dull gold, from the days when they used to go dancing. “Thank you,” he said.

“Now what have you got for me?”

“I want to make a deal.”

“The Bureau doesn’t make deals.”

“That’s no way to do business. You haven’t heard what I’ve got.”

A flash of irritation, then a slow smile. “The father’s son. Larry never comes empty-handed. What have you got?”

“Names. I want to trade you some names.”

Hoover looked surprised, then distracted as a thin, once good-looking man shuffled vaguely into the room.

“Speed?”

“I’ll be with you in a minute, Clyde.”

“Oh, I thought it was time for drinks.” He was illness thin.

“Why don’t you start? I’ll be down as soon as I’m finished with my young friend here.”

The man nodded, still vague, and headed for the basement stairs, the rec room, where Larry had told him Hoover had an obscene cartoon of Eleanor Roosevelt. A joke from the past.

“Clyde’s staying here for a few days,” Hoover said, as if he needed to explain him. The rumored companion. But it was impossible to think of Hoover being intimate with anybody. Nick wondered what they talked about over, dinner. The Dillinger days, maybe, filled with public enemies.

“Speed?” Nick said.

“A nickname,” Hoover said, annoyed. “What kind of trade?”

“Five for one. Five Russian spies. Here, in Washington.” Hoover looked at him, impressed. “You were right about my father. He knew he’d have to buy his way out. This is what he had. It’ll be a coup for the Bureau. Headlines. You can pick them up now.”

“On your say-so.”

“The names are good. He knew.”

“Proof?”

“You’ll find it once you’ve got them. The Bureau’s good at that, isn’t it?”

Hoover’s face was wary and eager at the same time. “Why so helpful all of a sudden?”

“My father wanted you to have them. You were wrong about him. He wasn’t disloyal, he was trapped.” Hoover looked confused. “This was his way of giving something back.”

“A friend of the Bureau,” Hoover said, almost sneering. “Why didn’t you tell me this at the office?”

“I’ve been checking them out. But I’m not as good as you are–they caught me doing it. They know about me. Now I want you to pick them up.”

A slow smile. “That’s more like it. So you want me to save your behind. For two cents I’d let them take care of you. Not ‘disloyal’–your father was a traitor. You just want me to save your behind.”

“And yours,” Nick said easily. “You could use a little press. Nixon wants you out. You made him, but now you make him nervous. You could use this.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No? One of them’s in Justice.”

Hoover raised his head, as if he’d heard a bell.

“If you don’t want them, maybe Nixon will. He could make you look awfully pathetic. Director’s so past it he doesn’t even know he has a spy in his own department. He’d do it. With a speech about your long record of service.” A twitch in Hoover’s jowls; anxious now. “But I’d rather give them to you.”

“Why?”

“Well, for one thing, I don’t trust him to get them off the street in time. You could do it in an hour. Keep my behind safe for walking around.” He paused. “And I want something from you.”

Hoover peered at him, waiting.

“I want to know who told you about Rosemary Cochrane. One name.”

“For five.”

“Well, four, to be precise. One of them’s at the Russian embassy. I only have the code name. But you probably know all the players there anyway. Maybe on tape. I’d like that destroyed too, by the way, the tape you played the other day. I always sound funny on tape.”

“A real wise guy, aren’t you?”

Nick shrugged. “I grew up in Washington. You get to know how a place works.”

“No, you don’t. A trade. What makes you think I wouldn’t get them out of you anyway?”

“What, with a rubber hose? Like the Commies? You don’t do business that way. You do business this way.”

Hoover said nothing.

“One name.”

“What do you want it for?”

“I just want to know. It’s worth it to me. But not as much as my names are worth to you. It’s a good deal.”

Hoover watched him, thinking, then leaned over and picked up a silver pen from an antique set on the coffee table. He scribbled on a notepad, then tore off the page and held it up.

“There’s not much you can do now anyway,” he said with a sly smile, making the better bargain.

Nick reached over, but Hoover raised his eyebrows. Nick nodded and took the sheet of names and addresses from his pocket. He handed it to Hoover with a formal gesture, like a diplomatic exchange, then looked at the small piece of paper.

It took a second to sink in–a name, just a squiggle on a piece of paper. Rosemary’s letter. The overlooked clue. One confession is enough. The start of everything that had happened to them.

“You’re surprised,” Hoover said, enjoying it.

Nick stood up. “Thank you for the lighter.”

“I knew you’d be a friend to the Bureau.”

Nick looked at him. That’s one thing I’ll never be.“ He pointed to the list in Hoover’s hand. If you start now, you can probably get them before you go down for drinks.”

“You’re a cold bastard,” Hoover said, a kind of admiring salute.

“I didn’t start that way,” Nick said.

He found her in the emergency room, her wrist taped but not in a sling.

“It’s just a sprain. They don’t know why I’m still hanging around.”

“Just sit tight for a few more minutes. I have to pay a visit.”

“Your face,” she said, studying him.

“I’ve just been with Hoover.”

She nodded at the TV monitor in the waiting room. “There’s been nothing on the news, by the way.”

“There won’t be. Store’s closed, remember? I doubt if any of our friends are running to report it. I’ll be right back.”

“A visit here?”

“An errand of mercy. Five minutes.”

The night-duty nurse was sympathetic. “It’s after hours. Just a few minutes, okay? He gets tired. It’s difficult for him to talk. He still slurs.”

Nick went into the private room and closed the door. There was a small reading lamp, but no books. Father Tim’s head was raised on an inclined pillow, his body motionless. Only the eyes moved in recognition.

“Nick,” he said, the word muffled by the twisted face. A string of drool hung out of one side of his mouth. His hands still had some movement. He was clutching a rosary, a nurse’s call button nearby. “Nick,” he said again, that awful forced sound. “Livia– ?”

“You hateful bastard,” Nick said.

Tim’s eyes blinked in astonishment.

“You told me to think of him as dead.”

A gargled sound came from the bed.

“Shut up. He is dead now. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“No—”

“It was you. Hoover told me. One confession. That poor, stupid girl. She’d never imagine, would she? It’s supposed to be sacred. Did you run right over from church to tell him? You interfering sonofabitch. One of Hoover’s little helpers. Root out the Communists, protect the Church. Christ.”

“Godless,” Tim mumbled, struggling to explain.

“She didn’t know you were just like the party. Means to an end. She trusted you. You were a fucking priest. But you’re the real party. No doubts.”

Tim’s eyes darted about the room in frustration.

“Just one bad moment, when you thought you caused her death. But you forgave yourself, didn’t you? God always forgives if you ask him in time, isn’t that the way it goes? And for such a cause. But I don’t forgive you. I want you to die knowing that. Never. You ruined our lives. For what? So you could have dinner with Clyde and Edgar? Do God a favor? Rosemary Cochrane was murdered. My father was murdered. Does God forgive that? Maybe yours does, but it’s a chance, isn’t it? What if you’re wrong? Maybe they’re just beads.” He brushed the rosary in Tim’s hand.

“Communists—”

“Yes, they were Communists. So what? Anyway, they died for it. I want you to see their faces when you go. Do you know how my father died? Somebody took a pillow, just like this one, and held him down till he couldn’t breathe. Till his legs stopped kicking. Yours wouldn’t even move.”

Tim, his eyes wide with fright, moved his hand toward the call button, but Nick snatched it and put it on the table, out of reach.

“Don’t worry. I’d like to, but I won’t. You’re not worth it. Let God do it.” Nick leaned over. “I just wanted you to know what you did. So you can live with it too.” And then suddenly, the fury broken, Nick felt his eyes fill with tears. “You started everything. You unholy bastard. Just so you could be somebody–with your lousy piece of gossip.”

He looked down at the figure, the still, wasted frame, the twisted face, already punished. What was the point? Tim’s eyes leaping.

“You thought I’d never know,” Nick said calmly. “All that time, watching it happen. My mother. Nobody blaming you. Not even blaming yourself–not after putting yourself in God’s hands. I’ll bet you made a private confession. Only a fool would trust the box.”

“Nick—” Another gurgle, his breathing ragged.

“But I do know. So die knowing that. I do know. No absolution.”

Nick turned to go. A frantic sound. He looked back. The breathing was a gasp now, Tim’s hands motioning toward the call button. Nick started toward the table to get it, then stopped.

“No,” he said. “Let God do it. He owes you.”

The old man’s eyes wild now, afraid. A grunt.

“Pray, Tim,” Nick said, backing away. “Maybe he’ll hear you.”

Molly, seeing his face, said nothing in the car, fiddling with her bandage instead.

“Who were you seeing?” she said finally.

“An old friend of my mother’s. He’s dying.”

“What a good little boy you are.”

“The best.”

She looked at him. “You all right?”

He nodded. “It’s over. We’re going to New York.”

“They’ll call. About your father.” For a moment she was quiet. “You killed him, didn’t you? Not the other man.”

He looked straight ahead. “Yes.”

She bit her lower lip. “Was it–self-defense?” Wanting it to be true.

Nick saw Larry’s surprised face, finally betrayed. “Yes,” he said. She was about to speak again when he turned to her. “It’s over.”