“I’m going to deliver Faeber’s ass.”
In the euphoria about Neuman’s discovery and then the immediate strain of confronting Ginette Burtell, Graver had forgotten about Colin Faeber, the only living direct link to Kalatis. Now here was Victor Last offering to “deliver Faeber’s ass.”
“What do you mean by that, Victor? Are you speaking physically or judicially?”
“Both, for Christ’s sake! What does it matter?”
“When do you want to meet?”
“Ten o’clock. I can’t get there before then.”
“Get where?”
“Oh, that Italian place of yours. Good coffee.”
The line went dead.
Shit! Graver buried his face in his hands, his elbows on the top of his desk. He seriously needed time to think. It was moving too fast, all of it, and he didn’t like the feeling of… hurtling.
“Graver.”
He turned around and saw Lara standing in the door.
“She’s sleeping. Why don’t you take time for a glass of wine?”
Chapter 60
They sat side by side on the sofa, their heads resting on the cushioned back, their shoes off, their feet propped on the ottoman with its tapestry picture of a Tuscan hillside.
“I needed this,” he said. “I appreciate your thinking of it.”
“To tell you the truth,” she said, “I probably did this as much for me as for you. I’m drained. This has been hard, the whole ordeal, but these last few hours with Ginny have been… so painful. It’s… You just naturally put yourself in her place. I feel so terrible for her, but there’s nothing, really, that I can do.” Lara sipped from her glass. “This is really torment for her.”
“You were good with her,” Graver said. “I’m grateful to you for how you’ve handled it She needed the attention, the consolation.”
“Well, anyway, how are you holding up?” she asked.
“I’m doing okay,” he said evasively. “Much better right this minute than… in a long time.”
She moved a bare foot over to his crossed feet and rubbed the top of it against the arch of his socked foot The gesture was the kind of small thing that can mean so much at just the right moment Neither of them said anything for a while. Graver could have kissed her just for these few moments, even if they proved not to last very long. He was thankful for this brief shared tranquility, for the companionship in silence, for the shared Merlot, and, even if their thoughts were miles apart, for her willingness to sit quietly with him and not feel that she had to keep up a conversation. He liked seeing her out of her dress clothes, jean-clad legs and shoeless feet beside his on the ottoman. He felt the uniquely human comfort of being with another person who cared whether or not you were tired or worried or simply wanted some company.
“What do you think about all this?” he asked, turning to look at her.
She did not answer immediately, and he watched her profile framed in her abundance of chestnut hair casually pulled back, her eyes fixed on something across the room as she thought.
“I think… that this is a pretty cruel business,” she said. She looked at him. “I think it’s complicated, and it’s addictive, and it’s cruel.”
“Addictive?”
“Yes,” she said. “I didn’t really realize it myself until all this happened. There’s this race to uncover layers and layers of secrets. You don’t know where it’s taking you, but you like the ride. It’s challenging. There’s risk. Like gambling. You have to put up something, a stake, to be able to play the game. And it’s voyeuristic. You get to look at people from the back of a mirror. Or through cracks in the walls.”
“You don’t like that part of it The spying.”
“Well, that’s refreshing,” she said.
“What?”
“Calling it what it is instead of ‘a collection effort’ or ‘strategic intelligence’ or any of those other doublespeak terms.”
She took a sip of her Merlot, and he watched her, concentrating on the shape of her lips on the rim of the glass, the way the dark wine entered her mouth.
“There’s something… maybe there’s something a little hypocritical about it Or something like that I don’t quite know how to talk about it,” she said.
She seemed suddenly embarrassed. The first time Graver had ever seen that in her face. She looked down at her glass.
“It’s not a simple business,” he said, not wanting her to feel awkward. That hadn’t been his intention in asking her.
“I didn’t like it that you lied to Ginny Burtell,” she said suddenly. “That was… I don’t know… very hard to watch.”
“It was hard to do,” he said.
She turned and looked at him. “Was it?”
He felt himself flush.
“I just didn’t like seeing it,” she went on. “I didn’t like… seeing how easily it came to you.”
For a moment he couldn’t swallow. What she had just said, softly, almost kindly, was an indictment, and he was all the more embarrassed because, perhaps, it had come easily-or at least maybe it hadn’t been as difficult as it should have been.
“Aren’t you going to tell her at all?” she asked.
“Lara, I can’t.”
She took a deep breath and looked into her wine again.
“God, it’s a terrible thing to see this at work,” she said. “I guess… it’s always been just paperwork to me before. I should have known better, that this kind of… messiness lay behind it all. It was stupid of me not to have thought about it.”
He didn’t know what it was that he felt, but he did know that she had seen something that he himself had not seen before. It was not that she had seen him deliberately lie. Surely she knew, too, that there was a larger purpose to his lying, maybe even that there were lives to be saved by it. It was, rather, that she had seen that it had come to him so easily. It was an appalling idea, and one that cut even deeper than having to admit-as he did more often lately-that all the reasons he gave himself for doing what he did were actually sounding more and more like rationalizations.
He could feel her sitting beside him in anticipation, waiting for him to say something, waiting for him to explain things he didn’t understand himself.
The awkward silence was interrupted by the telephone ringing again. Graver got up and walked to his desk and answered it.
“Graver, I’ve got a suggestion.” It was Arnette. “Paula’s just come in here. We’re going to put this thing on the computers and see what we come up with, but whatever it is we’re not going to want to waste any more time than is necessary once the information starts pouring out here. I just got through talking to Mona, and your people have agreed, so we’re going to put them up over here tonight I’ve got people working in shifts here, but your two are going around the clock, and they’re going to need some sleep or they’re going to conk out on me. So, we’ll work as late as we can, get three or four hours sleep, and then hit the ground running early in the morning. Okay?’’
“That’s your call, Arnette. I appreciate it I’ll cover for them at the office in the morning. I’m going to have to go in, probably early, so let me know what you can as soon as you can. And tell Mona I owe her.”
“Good night, baby.”
Graver put down the telephone and rubbed his temples with the thumb and middle finger of one hand. He sipped the wine, thinking.
“Okay,” he said. “Paula and Neuman are staying at Arnette’s tonight, and they won’t be going in to the office in the morning. I’d like you to be here when Ginette wakes up because we’ve got a bit of a problem with her. I’ll have to talk to her and get her to understand we’ve got to keep this quiet I don’t know anything about her family. We’ll need to find out who’s closest and get someone here to be with her when they confirm that Dean’s boat was the site of the explosion.”
He walked back to the sofa and sat down on the edge of it, turned a little to Lara.
“I’ll be able to cover for Paula and Neuman,” he added, “but I guess you’d better call in sick in the morning.”
Lara nodded. Graver sat back on the sofa again. There was a little bit of wine left in her glass. His thoughts immediately turned to Last. For a while Lara had made him forget the brief but tantalizing exchange of a few minutes before. Could Last really have come up with something significant? Last was going to “deliver Faeber’s ass”? How could Graver possibly believe that?