He heard me thinking again. Sweet young Eric—only now did his own welfare occur to him.
“What happens to me?”
“Nothing. Melvin set you up so I couldn’t touch anything. It’s all separate.”
“Oh. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it yet.”
“If you need a place, you can crash here.”
“Thanks.”
So there was some kind of safety net, even if it was sewn together by Melvin’s money. I hit the button for the forty-second floor and gathered myself for this next confrontation.
This would be different. Fred deserved no sympathy. Maybe everything I’d done was my own fault and my own decision, but this man was as bad as I was. Partway up I punched the button for thirty. I wanted to have the option of walking out of his office instead of getting a hernia trying to push him out of mine.
I called him and he let me in—he could unlock the doors from his desk. I knew he could get out of his chair, but just looking at him, a person would wonder. I started to look forward to this. I was not real stable at the moment.
“The impeachment bill is moving faster than I thought,” he said, as if the whole world hadn’t changed in the last twenty-four hours. “It will pass the House first thing tomorrow. I doubt there will be a single vote against it. The FBI has already requested a grand jury, and they should have a criminal indictment by the afternoon.” Fred had been building this house of cards for decades, but he was still fascinated by its fall.
There was still the issue of the King of Diamonds. “And Forrester.” He allowed himself a scowl. “After your performance last night, we can expect Malden to be a hostile governor.” The scowl was worth repeating, and he did. “Do you have any idea the damage you did? I thought we had agreed to overlook his arrogance and work with him. Was that merely a tantrum, or do you have another of your plans?”
“I have a plan, Fred. I came up with it this morning.”
“As well thought out as the previous one, no doubt.”
For a moment I contemplated the world inside his head and the laws that governed it. He would deserve every ounce of the stroke this would give him. “Even more so. Are you nice and comfortable there?”
“Get on with it.”
If I questioned whether I was doing the right thing, at that moment at least it felt good—it just felt a lot more like revenge than virtue. Fred was the serpent in the garden, even if that was not the first image that would come to mind looking at him. There was no regret here. I was going to be free of him.
“I quit.”
“Oh, you do?” He studied me and was hardly convinced. “I think not.”
This wasn’t worth anger. “I’ve tried the job and I don’t like it.”
He was already frustrated enough with a long day of wrestling with politicians. “When are you going to grow up? There is work to do. Save your childish antics for some other day. I’ve been on the phone for eight hours trying to restore some sanity to the statehouse, and now you’re losing yours.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. Actually I wasn’t even trying to be, but he did deserve an explanation. “I said at the beginning I didn’t want to do this. You almost persuaded me over this last month, but last night undid all that. I’m convinced now that I was right back at the beginning.”
“And I am convinced that you are an immature fool. But that can be remedied, possibly.”
“No. I’ll always be a fool. But I don’t have to be evil.”
“What?!” No stroke, but close. “Do you mean that petty comment last night vexed you? Of all the absurd ways to have your feelings hurt.”
I wasn’t angry yet, just annoyed. “You know it wasn’t one comment, Fred. It’s weeks of rolling in this pigsty. At least I can still see it for what it is, and I’ve decided I’m getting out.”
He had a huge repertoire of sounds of annoyance. “Then how do you propose ‘quitting’?”
“Everything’s going to the foundation, just like Melvin intended in the first place.”
His eyes narrowed; he saw this might be serious. “Nathan Kern is supposed to manage the Boyer assets?”
“He and his fellow do-gooder board members. If you want to cut a deal with Bob Forrester or Henry Malden, you can submit your request to the committee of philanthropists, and they’ll get back to you after they’ve discussed it thoroughly.”
“Foolishness. A committee can’t manage power. Someone will take control of it from them. They’ll be no match for one ruthless board member, or even an outsider who captivates them.”
“There won’t be anything to take control of. They’ll only have authority to divest and disassemble. It’ll take a year or two, but the whole cookie is going to end up a pile of crumbs,” I said.
“This is madness! Look at what you’ve done. You’ve torn down an entire state government. You can’t just walk away from it.”
“The thing was rotten by itself. Don’t make it my responsibility.”
“Just days ago you quite proudly took responsibility. I strongly advised you against it. If you hadn’t meant to carry through, you should have left it alone. This would be the worst thing you could do.”
It was all true, and I’d feel remorse for it when I had a chance. But everything I was saying was true, as well. “Maybe I made a mistake.”
“A mistake! Maybe?”
“But probably not. Everyone’s better off with Harry Bright exposed.”
“There are many others to take his place, and they will be worse.”
“If Stan Morton doesn’t have his hands tied, he might keep the spotlight on. There doesn’t have to be a king.”
“Yes, there does. It is the nature of power. It is inescapable.”
“Well, I’m escaping.”
“Then do it quickly.” That was it. The apron string had been machine-gunned. “If you think you can break up your father’s holdings, you’re wrong. Someone will put them back together. But now it is imperative for you to be removed before you do any more damage.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“I don’t need to. You are more than enough threat to yourself.” He opened a desk drawer and jabbed his hand into it.
And then, for three seconds, I knew with certainty who the murderer was. I knew his motives and I knew who his next victim was going to be. I already had my hand balled and ready when his hand came out of the drawer with a handkerchief.
He applied it to his face, where I had been about to apply my own fist, rubbing off the perspiration of his passion. I was sweating from the adrenaline. I had to get out before either of us committed a crime.
“Good night, Fred.”
He already had his own anger controlled and was working through his next move. I left him there, a dinosaur plotting my extinction.
I couldn’t bring myself to drive home. Where was home going to be now? I finished my interrupted climb to the top of the building.
I called Rosita to say I would be out for the night, and laid my buffeted body onto the sofa. I’d had my nap at Eric’s. Now I was awake.
What would happen after one week, or whenever Jacob Rosen-berg finished earning his thirty pieces of silver? I just couldn’t picture it. Maybe I wouldn’t live that long anyway.
Katie. What should I do now? Even if I could talk her into a life with me instead of money, did I want to? She’d be better off without me. But I had to talk to her—to try one more time, with both of us calm. She needed to be rescued as much as I did, and she was much more worth saving. I had to talk to her.
Just not tonight. I’d had enough.
It was night and the office sofa was as good as a bed, but I wasn’t sleeping.
At eleven o’clock I might have been the only person in the building without a vacuum cleaner. Except perhaps Fred. I rode the elevator to the ground, to the empty lobby, and went out into the streets.
Three nights ago I’d been meeting Clinton Grainger in this same dark. I could just get myself shot—if not by an assassin, then just a regular mugger would do. That would end a lot of peoples’ problems. I even looked down a couple dark alleys, but no luck.
I drifted. It was like being lost at sea in the dark. I was no more able to get where I wanted to go, because I still didn’t know where that was.
There were few cars and no people. The hotels were four blocks away. I came to a corner and I could see the Hilton down the street, even the site of Grainger’s last stand.
It made me wonder who had stood there with him and how it was done. Just in the middle of a conversation? Had Grainger even seen the gun? Or maybe they had already parted and Grainger didn’t even know he was not alone.
Angela had known what was about to happen to her. What was that moment like, I wondered. It must seem like an eternity. And then, real eternity.
The night was cold enough to shiver in. There was no hope.
The sun through my office window woke me up, and I called Pamela and ordered a toothbrush. She arrived forty minutes later, at seven, with that and a razor, comb, bagels, and no questions.
But I had answers.
“Pamela. Sit here.” I put her in the Fred chair, facing me on the sofa. “I’m resigning.”
She looked at me over the top of her glasses. “That doesn’t sound like you’re running for the Senate.”
“I’m running the other way.”
“Tell me all about it, dear.”
I talked to myself, and she listened in. I retraced every step from the first funeral to walking the streets in the dark, and each decision I’d made, or whoever or whatever had made. And I repeated the questions that had chased me down the path and had finally caught me Saturday night. She nodded and shook her head at the right times, and when I’d finally run out of gas, she sighed.
“What do you think?” I said.
“I think you have a hard road in front of you.”
“Do you ever ask big questions, Pamela?”
“That’s why I go to church, dear. Will you be sleeping here for a while?”
“I don’t know. I hope not.”
“I’ll get a few more things so you’ll be more comfortable.”
“What will you do when I can’t afford a secretary?”
She smiled. “My husband and I have saved some over the years.”
“Melvin left you some money, too.”
“He was very generous. And there are two hundred little children in an orphanage in Honduras who are a lot better off now.”
Was that her own mini-foundation? “You knew about Melvin’s deals and everything he was doing?”
“Oh, yes.”
“But you kept working for him?”
She knew where I was going. “I did. He never asked me to do anything he knew I wouldn’t.”
“He just asked other people to do it. Didn’t it bother you to be part of his organization?”
She paused, and for the first time I was seeing into the secrets behind the secretary. “Every day. I try to live my life the right way, Jason, and it would be very hard sometimes.”
Even Pamela was compromised. For the money? “Why did you stay?”
A dear, sweet smile. “I promised your mother I’d look after him.”
That was the answer I would never have guessed. She waited for me.
“I don’t even know what to say about that,” I said. “Uh . . . you were friends with her?”
“Yes. When she married your father, I helped her get settled into her new house. And we stayed close.”
“And how were you supposed to look after Melvin?”
“Just be there. We both knew he wasn’t the type to take advice, especially from his secretary.”
I was taking deep breaths. “Did she say anything about me?”
“She asked me to look after you, too, and Eric.”
“Have you been?”
My cell phone started ringing.
“Every day.”
I didn’t understand, but I couldn’t ask. I had to answer the phone. The caller ID said it was Katie.
It was seven thirty. “You found me,” I said to my wife.
“What did you do, sleep on a sofa in your office?”
“Yes, actually.”
“And you’re still wearing the same clothes from yesterday.”
“I had a spare suit here in the office.”
“You don’t need to sleep there. We have beds here.”
“Would you want me in the same house?”
“Of course I do, Jason. We’re still married.”
“Still?”
“We’re married, and this is your home. Come home.”
“Katie.” We were both calm now. “Come with me instead.”
“What do you mean?”
“I want you with me. I’m escaping. Will you come?”
“You don’t need to escape, Jason.”
“I do! You know me. You see what I’m becoming.”
“But we can handle it, together,” she said. “Don’t do this.”
“I have to.”
“You don’t have to! Don’t you care about me?”
“I care about you more than anything,” I said. “Please come with me.”
There was a deep sigh, almost a sob. “Don’t leave me.”
“I’ll be home this evening. We’ll figure it out, Katie. We’ll be together.”
But there was something cold in her voice when she replied. “But you won’t change your mind.”
“I won’t.”
Eric called at eight.
“Are you okay?” he said.
“I’m okay. I checked Melvin’s will to make sure—you’re set for life.”
“Oh. That’s not why I called.”
“I know. I just wanted to tell you.”
“Thanks. I was just calling because . . . I think maybe you’re making a mistake.”
“I’m not changing my mind.”
“Come on, Jason.” It just didn’t sound like him. “If you think you were wrong before, couldn’t you be wrong now instead?”
“No!” I wasn’t used to him pushing me. “I said I’m not changing my mind.”
“I think you should.” And there was something cold in his voice, as well.
Fred called at eight twenty.
“Is Jacob Rosenberg working for you?”
“Good morning to you, too. Yes, he is. He’s on the board of the foundation.”
“I know who he is. He’s filed SEC papers concerning the change of ownership of your stocks.”
“That’s what I told him to do. He works fast.”
“And news travels fast. I am not the only one who will hear about this. You
must
reconsider!”
At that moment I felt sorry for him. “I won’t. You’ll be better off without me.”
“Everyone will be better off without you. But your divestment plans are disastrous. They must be stopped.”