John made his cottage in five minutes. He tried to walk with a casual, up-with-the-sun contentedness, but he could feel his deceit in every step. What he wanted to do was sprint, to outrun the feeling somehow.
He let out the dogs, brewed some coffee, poured a cup, and got his walking stick from the deck outside. With the penlight full of film in his pants pocket and the plastic bag inside his shirt, he set out with his dogs along the lake again. He headed for his box of toys, his tunnel, his reason for being.
As soon as the trail led off into the brush, John broke into a run. A few minutes later he stopped to listen and look, but the morning was quiet-just the songbirds in the bushes, the shuffling of Boomer, Bonnie and Belle out ahead of him and the cadence of Rebecca's name in his head.
Re-bec-ca-pause. Re-bec-ca-pause. Re-bec-ca.
Near the halfway point he stopped again. The sun was creeping over the eastern hilltops, round and bright as a ripe orange. He waited, watched and listened. Just me and the last half to go, he thought. I've got the goods. Everything is going to be all right.
He shot up the narrow trail, gravel loosening under his shoes. He pictured Valerie. But he thought of Rebecca.
Re-bec-ca-pause. Re-bec-ca-pause.
But thoughts of Valerie and Rebecca dissipated as he neared the fence, and all John could think about was what he had found in the trophy room. Joshua would be pleased. They were getting closer.
Re-bec-ca-pause.
He stumbled, then regained his balance. His head felt crowded and his legs heavy. Rebecca in the rain.
A few hundred yards short of the fence, John stopped again and tried to still his pounding heart. He looked down the trail and saw nothing but dense brush. He could feel the warm plastic of the bag against his stomach.
Then he was off again, chased by the images of Rebecca. He sped up, jumping across a deep rut in the trail, pushing harder as he climbed. Outrun the pictures, he thought. Just outrun them all.
Re-bec-ca-pause.
But the pictures stayed with him as he neared the fence. Other sensations entered his memory. He remembered the smell of his mother's jacket on the day of her maiden voyage in the yellow airplane. He remembered the smell of Rebecca the first time they'd made love. He remembered the overwhelming presence of Valerie the night before, the way she looked and felt and the way her skin gave way under the touch of his fingers.
A small smile crossed John's face as an odd feeling began to spill into him. It was a humble feeling, not a loud nor demanding one. He could hear it over the pounding of his shoes on the earth and the thumping of his heart. It said to him: you could love this woman and let her love you back, and have everything a man could want.
Impossible, he thought. Never.
Not after I do what I'm going to do.
He almost laughed at himself.
Was Valerie a way back to Rebecca? Was Rebecca a way toward Valerie?
Who cared?
You have a purpose here, he thought. Fulfill it.
Then he was in the clearing, with the fence nearby and the stump, and the young oak tree pruned away from the electric chain links. He circled the area, breathing hard, dodging the wooden cover of the tunnel. Calm, he thought: be calm now.
When his breathing and heart had slowed, he sat on the stump and lit a smoke. The dogs had sprawled around him, tongues in the dirt, panting rapidly. All three suddenly perked up and looked back down the path as Boomer rose lazily and snapped at a fly. The others lay back down, sides heaving. John listened. Nothing. The cigarette tasted bad so he stamped it out and put the butt in his pocket.
He stood and went to the spot, two yards from the fence, toward the oak tree, and uncovered his box from its leafy grave.
He slipped a fresh penlight into his pocket and set the used one in the box. He unbuttoned his shirt and took out the bag, setting it into the box too.
Then he removed the telephone, stood and was just about to hail Joshua when he heard the dogs scramble upright in the dirt and start to growl.
Snakey stepped from the path, tossed some biscuits toward the dogs, but stared at John. His clothes were covered with thorns and brambles, and sweat dripped from his sharp triangle of a face. He had a little machine pistol in his right hand, with the short black barrel pointed at John's chest. The dogs ate the biscuits and lined up in front of Snakey, tails wagging.
"Drop the phone," he said.
What will the abort button get me, thought John. Answer: an FBI escort to the morgue.
He dropped the phone.
"Open your hands, and lift them."
John put up his hands, fingers out.
"Walk to the tree and stand in front of it. If you run, or if you move quick, or maybe even think about it, I'll kill you. Slow now… to the tree. And when you get there, you put your hands way up on that branch and you don't move."
John took an uncertain, leg-heavy step toward the tree. "Mind telling me what in hell you're doing"
"Shut up. Lean against that tree. You keep your hands on that branch or you get this clip. I mean it, Bubba. I'd like to do that. It'd make my whole year."
Think.
He felt Snakey up close behind him now, then cool hard steel between his neck and his skull. A hand crossed his chest, jammed under his arms, moved around his belt and crotch, slapped down each leg.
Think.
"Mr. Holt won't appreciate this," said John.
He heard Snakey retreat through the leaves.
"I don't work for Mr. Holt, cuntlips. I don't want to be a boy scout suckass Holt Man. I work for Lane Fargo and he works for Holt. Press up against that tree now, like you're fuckin' it. Like you wanted to do to Val last night out on the island, and in her room. Yeah, I saw it all. Didn't really get any, did you?"
"Lane didn't tell you?"
"Shut up. You squeak again I might shoot you in the leg just for the fun of it."
John clamped his hands over the big oak branch. Snakey was behind him, maybe twenty feet back. John heard him pick up the box, rummage through the penlights and video tape.
"These little lights got mikes in 'em?"
"To record whoever's been cheating Mr. Holt."
"You're the one's been cheating Mr. Holt."
"You ought to listen to me, Snakey."
"Shut up, Bubba."
John heard footsteps as Snakey headed toward the phone. "Hey little doggies," he said. "How about some more snacks? You dogs are gonna like hangin' with Snakey. This fag you got for a keeper now, he won't be around anymore. There, good dogs… there you go. Maybe I'll get you some of them spiked collars, make you look badass. Kinda fuckin' dogs are these, anyway?"
"Labrador retrievers."
"Where's Labrador at?"
"Up north."
John heard the telltale crunch of teeth on biscuits. He turned his head slightly, and could just make out the blurred shape of Snakey kneeling in front of the cellular phone.
"Two buttons," said Snakey. "Who for?"
Think.
"The red one's for Mr. Holt. The black one goes to Lane."
"That's a lie."
"Push one and find out."
Snakey laughed. It was the laugh of someone not quite sure if the joke is for him or on him. "This thing reach all the way to Grand Cayman?"
"Easily."
"Oh, yeah, Bubba. This little piece of shit's gonna reach 'em way out in that ocean?"
"It's linked up by satellite. I could call Mars, if that's where Mr. Holt was going to be."
"Shut up."
"Call him. Ask him if I'm working for him or not."
"We wouldn't have slapped you around if you were working for us. Kinda idiot you think I am?"
Think.
"Lane did it for you two. He and Mr. Holt both know someone's smuggling out docs."
"Docks?"
"Documents. The deal with Titisi. Titisi's lowballing Mr. Holt, but Titisi's desperate, too. It's not adding up."
"Holt thinks someone's spying for that boogie?"
"That's why Lane and I went through that little routine yesterday. So you guys would think I'm under the gun. So if you need another ear, you might try me. Lane thinks one of you might be the leak. You or Partch."
"Me? Me? It ain't me, Bubba. You're talking shit again. It's that old fart Messinger if it's anyone."
"Tell that to Mr. Holt and get this thing straightened out. If you don't, he'll blow his stack when he finds out you messed up my job."
"Shut up," said Snakey, quietly.
"Ask Fargo what you should-"
"-Shut up, Bubba."
There was a long silence behind John. Snakey was still in the far periphery of his vision, just an unclear figure now standing where he'd found the phone. John moved his right hand onto the Colt. 45 in the crook of the branch.
If you ever need it, you will probably die with it in your hand.
Snakey was moving now. He disappeared from John's field of vision, but his footsteps still registered. He was moving toward the fence, toward the tunnel. John put his finger through the trigger guard of the Colt just as he heard Snakey's shoe hit the tunnel cover. With a gentle prying of his wrist, John unmoored the automatic from its clip.
"The fuck's this?"
"The tunnel he dug."
"The what?"
John's neck was straining as he tried for a sight of Snakey.
"Don't move, man! I'm close to shootin' you. I'm real close.
Just keep screwin' that pine tree with your hands up. Shit, man- look at this hole."
John heard the cover sliding over dry earth, heard the hollow thudding of the wood as Snakey pushed it away from the opening.
"Where's it go?"
"Under the fence, to the other side."
"What for?"
"So he can get in and out if he has to. We're pretty sure it's where he drops the docs, then someone on the other side picks them up."
"You're more jive than a boogie, Bubba."
"It's the truth."
"We'll ask Fargo and Mr. Holt if it's the truth. See, I gotta job to do, and it's keep an eye on you. I got lots to report. You slobber all over his daughter 'til late at night, you pick into the trophy room, you got a bag of paper you took from somewhere and you got a bunch of spy gadgets and a phone hidden in a box in the fuckin' dirt. You're history, man. You're iced."
He's right, thinks John.
Snakey and him went somewhere. Snakey came back.
"You did your job well, Snakey. But you got the wrong guy."
"No. You're you all right. It's pretty simple. I'm gonna collect all this stuff and I'm gonna give it to Lane. Lane the Brain. I'm telling him what you did to Val. I'm telling him the way you snuck out here and tried to use the phone. I'm giving him this picture and drawing here. If it turns out you're working for him then there's no harm in it, right? We all just laugh and you go back to doing whatever you're supposed to be doing. I ain't heard nothin' about no docks and leaks. What I heard from Lane was that you aren't trustworthy. Think I've just about proved it."
John's mind was roiling now, a chaos of fear, confusion and doubt. This was not in any of Joshua's scripts. This was a contingency not covered.
The Colt's safety was already off. There was no round chambered. He would have to cock it. And in the time it would take for him to turn, jack the live round in, find his target and fire, all Snakey had to do was pull a trigger and watch ten bullets go through John's back.
If you're blown, run. If you can't run, deny. When you can't deny, confess. It will either get you out, get you turned or get you killed.
"I'm working for the FBI, Snakey."
"Cool. I'm John Gotti."
"You'll end up in prison like Gotti, if you don't put that gun away."
"You got me shakin' now, Mr. Fart, Burp and Indigestion."
"Listen. Six months ago, Holt tried to kill a writer who'd been after him. She'd bad-mouthed Patrick after he got it up in Santa Ana. She bad-mouthed Holt himself. She made fun of everything he stands for, everything he is, everything he does. She ridiculed his politics. She ridiculed Liberty Ridge. She made it seem like what happened to his son and wife had sent him over the top. She tried to say he was a victim of violence, that it had twisted him out of shape-turned him into a vicious old fool and that he was a sign of the times. She patronized him. She ragged on him, then patted him on the head. But she was more right than she knew. He went crazy over what happened to Patrick and Carolyn and he tried to take it out on someone he hated. They've matched up shells to one of his guns. They've got fingerprints."
Snakey was quiet for a long moment.
"I'd a shot the cunt, too, for writing that."
"Jesus Christ, Snakey, he shot the wrong one! He killed a twenty-four year old woman who'd never written a thing about him. Left her in a parking lot with her heart blown to pieces. She could have been your girl."
"She wasn't."
"I know. She was mine."
Again, Snakey was quiet for a moment.
"Mr. Holt isn't that stupid. And neither am I. You're just piling on the bullshit now, thinking I'm dumb enough to buy it. Nice try, faggot."
"I'm telling the truth now, Snakey. I swear to God, I am. Work with me. Help us take down Holt."
"Can you beat two grand a week?"
"I can't pay you a dime."
"I'm supposed to sell out Mr. Holt for not even a dime?"
"He killed her. If that isn't enough for you, then you better look after yourself. Because when we take him, you're going down with him. And Fargo. And Partch. Remember that supervisor who took a trip with you and didn't come back? They'll nail you on that, too, unless you help. You've got a chance to save our own ass here, and to nail a sick old bastard who killed a girl he didn't even know. You're getting a good deal, man. Think about it for about five seconds if you got brains enough."
"Okay."
Snakey was silent for about five seconds.
"I'm done thinking. You're lying. If you weren't lying, I wouldn't help you anyway. I'm takin' you and all your shit back to show Mr. Holt and Lane. They can figure out what to do with you."
"Listen, Snakey. I'm going to tell you something now. If you help us, you live. If you don't, you die young. It's that simple."
"Pretty funny statement from a guy fuckin' a tree with a Mac pointed at him."
"I'm telling you, Snakey. Let me go. It's the right thing to do. And it's the only chance you've got. I'm begging you, man. I'm begging you."
"Shut up. I hate beggars. Beat one dead back in Jersey one night, just because he smelled so bad. Used gloves on him. Hate those fuckin' stinky homeless bums. Felt his face bones breaking. I was drunk."
John could hear Snakey moving the wooden cover back over the tunnel. He would be kneeling, with one hand on the cover and the other on his gun. John inched his left hand toward his right.
God help me, he thinks.
God forgive me.
"Help me, Snakey."
"Help your fuckin' self, man."
John closed his hand around the automatic then turned and jacked in the shell. He was falling to a crouch while he lined up the front sight with the chest of the still kneeling Snakey.
Snakey had set the Mac beside him to slide back the cover.
He looked at John, then at the gun, then at John again.
John saw a look of determination cross Snakey's face, a look of pure arrogance.
"Don't do it," he said. But Snakey already was going for his gun.
The two shots from the Colt were through him before his hand touched the gun. John saw the little puffs of dirt kick up on the other side of the fence. Snakey hit the ground like a dropped bag of sand, like a bird shot from the sky, like Rebecca after the second shot, a once-living thing now wholly, immediately and forever emptied of life.
John was on his knees, too, his burning eyes still locked on Snakey, whose funny flat-top waved stiffly in the warm morning breeze.
When John reached him, Josh was on his way to the airport to catch a flight to Washington, so the reception was spotty. He and Dumars had been summoned by Evan, post haste. John imagined them in the Bureau Ford, Dumars driving and Joshua fretting, as usual. He longed to be with them. He told him what had happened, and for a long moment, Joshua was silent. Then:
"Talk to me, John. Please talk to me now."
"I've just murdered an innocent man. I got pictures and drawings and notes. I'm coming out, Josh. I've had enough."
"You did what you had to, John. It was not your decision to make. It was Snakey's. He made it."
"I want out. I'm done."
"John, listen to me. I told you this would happen. I told you there would come a time when you would want nothing but out. And I told you where you would be when you felt this way. Tell me now what I said. Tell me where I said you would be."
Dizziness.
Sickness.
Swirling images of blood and bones, teeth and hair. The death waltz. The killing ball.
He puked.
"John," Weinstein commanded, "respond to me now. Where did I say that you would be?"
"In the the darkest hour."
"Was I right?"
"You were right."
Joshua's voice faded, then came back strong.
"But what did I tell you next-when is the darkest hour?"
"Some shit about right before the dawn." He was blubbering now.
"Correct. It was not shit and that is why you are not coming out. You are staying in. If you come out now, you'll always be in that dark hour, John. It will follow you the rest of your life. Right now, you belong to it. But for it to ever go away, it must belong to you."
"I can't do any more."
"Quiet, John. Listen. I'll bring you out the second you're finished. But I can't do it before you're finished, can I? Reason with me now. I need time to analyze the documents you found in your cottage. I need time to get a search warrant, if we can get one at all. We will need more."
"I don't want more."
"Oh, yes you do. You want Holt. That's the agreement, John. Holt. Not Snakey. Holt"
John tried to gather himself, choke back the ugly sobs that kept breaking into his throat. "That poor dumb Snakey. Jesus. Bring me out."
"I need you now, John."
"I don't know what to do."
"You will stay in, John. You will wait until I can vet the documents. If it's good stuff, we'll be close to Wayfarer. Remember, Wayfarer is the only one left on earth who can reassemble your soul. He is the missing part of you. You own him when we take him."
John heard himself breathing, then a blast of static.
Josh's voice again:
"Let me ask you something, John. When your parents were recovered from the airplane, you were asked to identify them, right? You told me so. I've thought about that since then. It's a very tragic thing for a nine-year old to be asked to do, and I am impressed that you could do it. But John, what if you hadn't entered that building? What if you had stayed out, never gone into that cool, disinfected room and had the courage to confront what life had so cruelly dealt to you? I can answer that. If you hadn't, John, you would still be there, still a boy, still terrified and confused and angry. If you had never opened that door, you could never have closed it. But you did, didn't you? And that's why you are the man you are."
John said nothing. His thoughts were underwater. Black, deep water. No up. No down.
"Listen to me, John. Months ago, when Rebecca was alive, I went to her house late one night, after work. She was in the pool. It was cold and there was steam coming off the water. She had been swimming for a long time because her breathing was fast and deep and her strokes were slow, and she wasn't staying in the lane. She was a strong swimmer. I sat down in the dark and watched. Back and forth. Back and forth. Ten more minutes. Twenty. Finally she stopped. She flipped up her goggles and stood in the shallow end a while. Then she climbed out and wrapped herself up in her towel-the red one, you remember, the one with the tropical fish on it. She still didn't know I was there. She hadn't looked my way. She sat on the deck and dangled her feet into the water. She was hunched inside that big towel, just the top of her head showing. And she said something to herself. She said, You've got to do something. You've got to do something. You've got to do something, and you don't know what it is."
John waited through Joshua's silence.
Then:
"She couldn't see a way out, John. She was paralyzed by you. Paralyzed by me. It's the worst feeling on earth, needing to act but not understanding how to act. She never knew what to do, until she wrote those letters. But by then it was too late. She didn't live long enough to send them. You, John, have the path. You are halfway down it. You know what to do. Now, you must wait. Learn from what Rebecca didn't do. Let her teach you."
John looked again at Snakey's inert form, the two bloody holes in the back of his shirt.
"For Rebecca," said Joshua.
"For Rebecca," said John.
He could feel his heart begin to steady, and exhaustion settling over him. "Think Snakey left the computer message and the bag in my freezer?"
"No. I don't believe it was Snakey. I believe it was Holt, and that is why I had you bring me the photograph and the sketch, and the notes. We'll have them analyzed in twenty-four hours, God and the Crime Lab willing. They will prove to be a counterfeit of his handwriting and an altered photo. You will present them to him as a token of your trust and loyalty."
John said nothing. He felt like lying down in the dirt and sleeping for a week.
"Leave the bag in the box with your tools. Leave Snakey where he is, God rest him. Get a fresh camera and go back. Repair. Wayfarer is due back day after tomorrow. Let yourself come together again. You are scattered. You are losing focus. Show me that you're the man Rebecca thought you were. Show me she did the right thing by leaving me for you."
The risen sun was a disc of orange now, throwing heat and light into John's face. He imagined floating through the sky with the winds, like he'd tried to do at age ten from his uncle's roof.
"I can't bring her back to you, Joshua. I would if I could."
"I told you to never apologize for that. Never."
"It's not an apology. It's the truth."
A deep, icy chuckle issued from Joshua Weinstein. "I know you wouldn't bring her back to me even if you could, John. You would bring her back and keep her for yourself, now, wouldn't you?"