I nod, sip the shitty coffee, while she barrels on: he’s early, he’s off schedule, he’s got these missing days, and then, meanwhile, we have the judge conducting an affair with a captain of the police, a big no-no for both of them. Aysa gives all of this to me, ramrod straight and rattling it all off, her whole chain of speculation.
And then the punch line: “I am speculating that Crane was up there on the roof to collect evidence of the affair, in order to blackmail the judge.”
“Or the captain,” I add quietly, and Aysa blinks. She was waiting for me to tell her she is wrong or crazy, but she is neither wrong nor crazy. She’s on to something. Of course she is.
“Yes, right,” she says, surprised. “Or the captain.”
“Okay,” I say. “Good.”
Since the Tarjins left, the room has returned to its usual bustle. Alvaro has taken up his position by the big board, a cigar stub jammed into the corner of his mouth, furiously updating the chart of ongoing investigations. Specs are coming off the elevator and getting on it, slamming drawers, slinging on their shoulder bags to head out into the field, files clutched under their arms. Arlo is a still point in the chaotic universe, hunched at his small desk, making his small notations. “So, Ms. Paige? What do we do now?”
“Are you—asking me?”
“I am indeed.”
I wait. I am trying to hitch her tremendous powers of discernment to operational effectiveness. If she is going to be Charlie, that’s what she needs to do.
“We need to get the reality. The stretches showing his death. That’s key. That’s—right?”
Just at the last moment does her confidence waver; only the little word “right?” comes out uncertain, high-pitched, girlish. I stare back at her evenly, playing the heavy. As if I am one step ahead of her, guiding her along; when in reality I am standing back, letting her go, hustling to stay alongside her.
“Why is it so important? We know how the man died, Ms. Paige.”
“Yes, but—” Her eyes narrow. She won’t be thrown. “We don’t need to see how he died, Mr. Ratesic. We need to see what he was doing when it happened. Was he trying to get in? Was he trying to see in?”
“Yes. Correct,” I say. “Anything else?”
“We need to reconstruct those missing days. Find out when or if Mose Crane crossed paths with the judge.”
“Or the captain,” I say again, and she nods, pleased, at the end of her presentation.
“Right. Yeah. Or the captain. Thank you, sir—thank you, Laszlo.”
I move to put my coat on and realize I never got a chance to take it off. One of these days, I think, I will have a day with hot coffee, a day that’s quiet and peaceful. And I will float through that day, carrying no worries in my pockets. Someday soon, perhaps. Some good day. But not today.
“Go back down to nine, tell Woody that we need to see the stretch of Mose Crane falling off that roof. Whatever you did to hustle him out of the stakeout stretch from Crane’s front door, do it again. And tell him no shortcuts. I want thirty second margins on either end. Make it clear. And tell him we need to see it today. He’s going to yell at you. Let him. I’m going to work on getting a Contingent Reassembly of those missing days.”
“Don’t we just file a request for that?”
“We could,” I say. “But it’ll be a lot quicker if I go over. I know someone over there.” I sigh. “Unfortunately.”
“Oh. Wait—why unfortunately?”
I knew this was coming. Somehow from the minute this case started I knew it would happen.
“It’s my wife,” I say, and then I catch it. Correct it. “My ex-wife.”
12.
Whenever I want to, I can hear the bells ringing for Charlie. Shit—there are plenty of times I don’t want to hear them, and I hear them anyway. Hear the bells, and feel the unseasonable chill the air bore that day, and feel the uneven ground of the cemetery, how it was to stand among the throngs of mourners at Forest Lawn, the crowd spread out in all directions. The clouds spitting drizzle, the sky as flat and toneless as a coffin lid.
My father, hatless, is staring at the ground. Arlo slips among the mourners, holding himself together and everyone else besides. Taking all hands, murmuring condolence into all ears. A kind word for every devastated member of our service.
I stand alone. Apart from the crowd. A woman is beside me, a substantial woman wearing a black dress and red shoes. She asks me if I have an umbrella, which I don’t.
“You’re a Speculator,” she says, and I nod. “Did you work with Mr. Ratesic?”
“He was my brother.”
Her face changes. The hero of the day. The extraordinary Charlie. All of the exploits were related in Trusted Authority. He was already famous for what he did.
“Your brother. Oh, wow. I’m so sorry—so sorry for you. For all of us.”
It takes no great speculation to tell what is happening: abstract adoration for a public hero transmogrified by grief into concrete interest in the bulky sad sack standing in the rain at the hero’s grave, the hero’s only surviving relation. She tugs at the sleeve of her dress, shows me her face, and smiles sadly. Her lips are red. A member of the regular populace discovering herself in the company of the man of the hour, or the next best thing.
That’s me: the next best thing. Truer words never spoken.
Me and Silvie stuck it out for ten years, ten years moving together through time and ten years standing together at that open pit, watching the box lowered into the ground, the bells ringing out his years. He was with us the whole time—he was never in the box. For ten years Charlie was at my shoulder, pointing out the ways I was never good enough. Reminding me I was never her first choice.
“If you could put your hands in the air, sir.”
“Yes.”
“If you could turn around for me, sir.”
“Yes.”
“A little slower, if you wouldn’t mind.”
I follow all the instructions. I am being patted down, up along the thick lines of my legs, the torso and the arms.
Here in the Grand Entrance Hall of the Permanent Record, during the long, careful examination required for entry, there is no exchange of asseverations, no small talk. The attendants remove every item from my bag—my Day Book, tattered copy of yesterday’s Authority, the limp remains of a three-day-old sandwich—and lay it all out on a table and document the contents in a series of photographs. There are four of them doing the work, efficiently checking me in: four matching, neatly creased brown uniforms; four perfectly inexpressive faces. I’ve seen all of these faces before. The Librarians work in teams that rotate in and out in undisclosed schedules, and they surely remember me too. I’ve been in and out of here enough, and part of their job is to remember. But they don’t smile in recognition, they don’t ask me how I’m doing. They are unfailingly polite, but they’re on duty. They’re efficient and rigorous. They’re doing their thing.
“If you could open your mouth, sir.”
“Okay.”
I open my mouth and they shine in a light. Then they shine the beam into my eyes, one at a time, one of them making notes in her Day Book while the other works the light. Another member of the team acts as an in-house capture team, circling us with a handheld, getting it all down. Reality being forged, the Record being made, even here at the threshold of the Record itself.
“Each of your fingers, sir. Thumbs first.”
I do as they say, pressing my fingers one by one—thumbs first—into the ink, rolling them onto the pad, affirming my presence in this place and at this time, ten times over. I am here. I am going to be here. I will have been here.