Light floods out of the room, early evening light, a bit muted, but that’s good. It’s enough.
It’s all he needs.
He looks around. This is the same room he was in the last time, the bare plastered walls, the damp, acrid smell… the sliding glass door to the balcony still open, the way he left it.
As he crosses the room, a current of cool air ripples past him. He swallows, almost gags, that knot in his stomach tighter now than he can bear. It’s big, and growing, like a tumour.
He steps out onto the balcony.
He did feel relief, getting all of that stuff off his chest, it was good, but it was fleeting. It’s not what he’s feeling now.
You don’t want to know what he’s feeling now.
He steps forward, and turns. He leans back against the rail, facing into the empty hotel room. He takes out his phone and looks at it. For a second he considers sending a text to Ruth… but that would be too much, too appalling.
He wants to say something, though, to someone.
He taps out a message, fumbling over the keys. He presses Send, waits, drops the phone.
He leans back a little further, balancing there for a second. Then loses his balance.
Surrenders it.
Falls.
10
ON THE RETURN FLIGHT TO NEW YORK, Rundle sits alone in the cabin of his G650, staring out the window.
He’s picturing the moment – tomorrow or the next day – when he walks into Vaughan’s office, or his library, or the Modern, and nods, yes, yes, everything’s fine.
A small gesture of triumph.
Then – unable to help himself – he pictures another moment, maybe ten minutes later, in front of a bathroom mirror, or the mirror of an elevator car, but a fucking mirror nonetheless.
The inevitable come-down.
Elation, followed by self-loathing.
How do you get them in balance, he wonders.
Then – perhaps not coincidentally – he thinks for a minute or two about Nora, and in cinematic detail, with credit-card production values, but… no joy.
No lead.
He reaches for his laptop.
J.J. will have to do.
Since the other day Rundle has been obsessively tracking his brother online. He never used to. Not like this. He was always aware of what was going on, always somehow kept up to date, but not like this.
First he checks his web page, then Facebook and Twitter, but he doesn’t get very far with those. Then he does what he usually does which is look him up on Google News, where he finds there are two hundred and forty stories speculating that Senator John Rundle is about to file papers to form a presidential exploratory committee.
The fact that it’s speculation must mean it’s a leak – because J.J. wouldn’t do something like this without telling Rundle first, without discussing it with him at least.
Which doubtless means it’ll be the first order of business when they next speak.
Rundle closes the laptop.
In his opinion it’s too soon. He can see what J.J. is doing, cashing in on the publicity from last week, but it’s a risky strategy all the same. The extra attention can only increase the chances that someone will blow a massive hole in the Paris story. It seems incredible to Rundle that the non-appearance so far of the ‘motorcyclist’ hasn’t raised more – or, indeed, any – media suspicion.
And it’s not J.J.’s exclusion from the presidential race that Rundle is worried about – although, admittedly, he has been getting comfortable with the idea of his brother in the Oval Office – no, it’s the corollary, it’s people asking, well then, what the fuck did happen to his hand?
And where?
Rundle turns away from the window, in need of distraction. He glances around the cabin.
Empty.
In theory, there could be eighteen people up here, getting served drinks, and… what? Cuttlefish, with kimchee, and black radish? Some shit like that.
The mile-high boardroom.
But he actually prefers it this way.
With that thought in his head he drifts off to sleep.
A few hours later, not long after they land in New York, J.J. calls.
Rundle wants to tell him about Kimbela, rub his nose in it, but he doesn’t. They talk about the speculation, the exploratory committee.
Though it’s clearly more than speculation now.
‘So,’ J.J. says, ‘next Wednesday morning. Are you up for it? The Blackwood Hotel. It’s a business thing, an address I’m giving, but I thought I’d take the opportunity to make the announcement official.’
Rundle approaches his waiting car. The driver is holding the door open. Once he gets off the phone with J.J. he’s going to call Vaughan. ‘Yeah, of course,’ he says, rubbing his stomach. ‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’
Jimmy sits at the window of his apartment, holding his third cup of coffee since he got up.
Staring out at the bay.
Seagulls squawking and the faint sound of the tide lapping up onto Sandymount strand.
Early morning traffic streaming past.
What you might call a semblance of normality.
Fuck.
But since he got up? Strictly speaking it’s not as if he was ever asleep. He’s been like this the whole time – awake, alert, bug-eyed, like someone on crystal meth – his brain running what happened last night on a continuous loop.
He didn’t corner him, did he? Didn’t put him in an impossible position? Didn’t push him?
No.
Conway more or less volunteered all of that information, and it even seemed as if he needed to. But having volunteered it, he clearly then was in an impossible position.
At which point Maria Monaghan called.
In a bit of a state.
Apparently after Larry Bolger’s sudden death, she felt remorse for the way she’d behaved. What right did she have to expect anything of Jimmy? He’d been offered something better, something more important, and naturally -
But he had to cut her off there, switch frequencies again, because Conway was walking away, disappearing into the dim shadows.
Was he leaving?
Jimmy took a step forward.
Something wasn’t right. The rushed tone at the end there, packing everything in.
It was all too -
Jimmy took another step forward, but he couldn’t see properly, couldn’t see where Conway had gone. It was too dark. So he just stood there, not moving.
It took him a while to realise what he was doing.
He was waiting.
He didn’t know what for exactly and when it came – the dense, resonant thud – he was glad to be facing the wrong way.
He immediately turned and went outside. The sight of the body splayed on the concrete was both shocking and horribly compelling – the unnatural configuration of limbs, the blood seeping out from the fractured skull – but already a couple of youths on the far side of the square were on their way over. Some instinct kicked in and he ran.
When he got back to his motorbike on Tara Boulevard he was glad he hadn’t locked it and within a matter of seconds was out on the main road again, heading in towards town.
After he got back to the apartment, Jimmy didn’t know what else to do except sit around in shock and periodically check for news updates. When the story eventually broke – a few hours ago – he was almost relieved.
On one site it was:
Property developer jumps to his death.
On another:
Embattled tycoon Dave Conway takes his own life.
Then, a little after seven o’clock, one of the presenters on Newstalk referred to 1929 and the pinstriped bankers queuing up to leap from the window ledges of Wall Street office buildings.
Which meant that a clear narrative was already emerging, and not one with much chance of being influenced or shaped in any way by what Jimmy heard last night.