I stared at him. It was a strange moment, almost bizarre-almost unreal, somehow. There I was, telling the truth-forcing myself to tell the truth no matter how embarrassing-and it meant nothing to him. He didn't believe me. He was practically accusing me of murder. And I was so shocked, so confused, my thoughts all tumbling and jumbled, that I could hardly take the whole thing in. It was as if someone had pressed the MUTE button on the remote control and I could see the detective's mouth moving and I had the sense of what he was talking about but I couldn't actually hear him. Instead, a million other ideas and images were crowding into my brain, jarring and disjointed, like arguing voices. There were the men in white overalls over there carrying out the coffins of the unknown dead, one after another after another of them as if this place were some kind of factory producing corpses of the dispossessed. unbidden, the lives of the bodies in the boxes came to me, too, their hopes and miseries swirling in my mind. They had been children once, learning the names of things, and now they were nameless and unclaimed, and there were so many, swirling around me like phantoms. I don't know why I thought of that then, but I did. And I don't know why, but then I thought of the fractals again-the designs on my computer screen. Equations like thoughts in the mind of God endlessly repeated to make the patterns of the world. The million nameless dead and the million-times-repeated equations and the raveling fractals and-God knows why-God knows the chain of thought-but it all brought me back to Patrick Piersall, to that old sorry has-been slumped over his drinks, the forthright features of the Universal admiral still pathetically visible beneath his fat, flushed face. Something he said to me about Casey Diggs, about Rashid…
"It's not about sex," I heard myself say softly then. The idea was coming to me as I spoke, all the swirling notions and images in my head coming together into one idea as I spoke. "This whole thing-you've got it wrong-it's not about sex. It's about God."
"Excuse me?" said Curtis.
"It's not about money, either. The Wall Street bombing. That's what Casey Diggs was trying to tell everyone."
"You lost me now. This is the Smith girl we're talking about."
"Don't you see? Diggs predicted this. He said Rashid was going to create a diversion. That's what Piersall told me in the Ale House. Rashid was going to get the authorities to put their resources into protecting military bases or economic centers or political institutions. Wall Street, for example. Then he was going to pull off the real attack somewhere else. On some cultural center or something. Because he wanted to attack-what did Piersall say? The American imagination. That's his target. It's always been his target. Because that's where we live. That's where God lives."
"Look, I told you, the Rashid angle isn't gonna work…"
"Right," I said. "It doesn't work because he's your informer. He turned in the conspirators who were planning to blow up Wall Street, so you think he's working for you. That's the diversion. Rashid never cared about Wall Street. He just knew that if he was your agent, it would explain away all the evidence against him. The guys you arrested today? They were never meant to succeed. They were just there to throw you off the track, to make you think you stopped the conspiracy with Rashid's help. They were martyrs, sacrificing themselves for the cause: their god. I mean, why not? They're willing to blow themselves up to destroy us-you think they won't go to jail to accomplish the same thing?"
Curtis squinted. "I must be dense because I don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about now."
It sounded like babbling nonsense even to me. But the idea was still forming in my mind as I was speaking. And as the idea formed, the fear began to form, too, the fear that it was all real, all true, all happening-and that only I could see it. I babbled on: "It was Diggs-crazy little Diggs-who had it right all along. That's why Rashid's people killed him. And they killed Anne because she could link them to Diggs on the night of the murder. She knew Jamal. She probably knew a lot more than she realized. And once they saw her talking to me, they knew she and I might start to put the whole thing together. Maybe they were following me yesterday-who knows? Maybe they saw me going to talk to her again. So they killed her to shut her up. You see? Because they don't want anyone to stumble onto the other attack they're planning. Not the Wall Street attack-the real one."
"All right" was all Curtis said when I'd finished. He took a step toward me. He put his hand on my elbow. "All right, Mr. Harrow. We're not getting anywhere here. I think you better come back uptown with me."
I heard a clunking thud. Startled, I glanced over my shoulder. The coffins were all loaded. The men in overalls had shut the truck door.
At the same moment, with his free hand, Curtis opened the passenger door to the car. He began to guide me into it.
Panic hollowed my stomach, closed my throat. He kept his grip on my elbow. He kept tugging me toward the car. He was going to take me back to the precinct, back to the interrogation room. More hours of waiting, more questioning, more accusations. Hours and hours and meanwhile… Serena… Rashid's men… The plan going forward. The attack on the city. It was all real, all true, all happening somewhere, sometime today, the design of it unfolding like the fractals on the computer screen, moving down the assembly line in the factory of life and of the dead.
And I realized-it struck me like a blow: There was only me now… It was ridiculous. It was insane. But it was true-there was only me who knew, only me who saw, only me who could stop it, who might be able to hurl myself into the machinery and bring it to a halt before it churned out more coffins, more and more.
I was almost at the car. There seemed no way to stop the detective from putting me inside. For a moment, I had the fantasy of punching him, knocking him down, running for it like some innocent fugitive trying to clear his name in a television show.
But in the end, it wasn't like that, not big and dynamic like that at all. It was the smallest thing, in fact; the smallest flutter. A little decision-yes or no-moving through me almost imperceptibly like the wind from a butterfly's wings.
I drew back just slightly in the detective's grip, resisted him just slightly. "Are you arresting me?" I asked.
He put more pressure on my elbow, drew me toward the car more firmly. "I think we need to talk some more uptown."
I pulled back, pressing the heels of my sneakers into the asphalt. "But are you arresting me? Am I under arrest?"
"I'm taking you in for questioning."
"No," I said.
"What do you mean, no?"
"I mean I won't come. I won't come with you."
He stopped pulling at me. For the last time, our eyes met and he looked right into me, searching, searching. He had his decision to make, too.
"Mr. Harrow," he said slowly, carefully enunciating every word. "That would be the biggest mistake of your life."
I started to speak, but I didn't speak. Maybe he was right. Maybe I was just making more trouble for myself. He seized on my hesitation. He started to move me to the car again. I took a half step toward it. Then I pulled back.
"I didn't kill that girl."
He kept up the pressure on my arm. "Well, we can clear that all up at the precinct."
I wouldn't move. All his soothing phrases. All his lies, not even meant to be believed, just meant to tranquilize me so he could take me away, take me back to the interrogation room.
"No," I said. "I won't go."
I thought I heard the faintest tone of anger in his level voice. "Mr. Harrow. I'm telling you: For your own sake, do not do this."