For a moment Pastor closed his eyes. Then they snapped open. “Suppose you get run over by a bus that has nothing to do with me?”
“That’s your hard luck.” Mathieson watched him warily—tried to see what was going on behind the eyes.
“Merle, everybody’s got to die.”
“I’m not offering you a way out. I’m offering you time. You can have your family as long as the four of us and our families stay alive. That’s all I’m promising. With some luck it might be twenty or thirty years. It’s more than you ever offered us.”
Pastor’s face gleamed unhealthily. He rubbed his thumb across the pads of his fingers. “When do I get her back?”
“When you see my point.”
“Hell, I see your point, Merle.”
Pastor’s face gave away nothing—not anger, not even contempt. It was too easy. Mathieson felt the need to provoke a reaction: He needed to know he’d struck bedrock. He said, “You might like to know I was the one who put Gillespie and George Ramiro out of the way.”
“Did you.”
“Don’t you care?”
“You’ll never know what I care about. What is it, Merle, you want to see me grovel? That what you want, the satisfaction? Look, you played the game and you won it. I haven’t got any surprises up my sleeve, I’m not a magician. I don’t like the way this turned out but all right, Anna’s hooked on smack, there’s worse things, I’ll just get her unhooked. All right, the game’s over, you won it, now you want to stand around here and gloat over it, is that what you want?”
“I want to know I’m free of you. Now and forever. Wherever I go, whatever I choose to do. That’s what I want.”
“Merle, I’d kill you in half a second. I’ll hate you to my last breath and my grandchildren will grow up hating you and yours. And someday they’ll come for their revenge. But then you knew that before. You said it yourself—all you’re trying to buy is some time. All right, you’ve bought the time. I’ll see you around, maybe, in twenty or thirty years. In the meantime you got what you want—you’re free of me.”
Mathieson stared at him. Slowly he took it out of his pocket: the .357 Magnum. “I should have killed you after all.”
“You want to do it, do it now, get it over with.”
“George Ramiro’s gun. I could leave it here next to your corpse and they’d pin it on Ramiro.”
“You won’t use it.”
“What makes you think I won’t?”
“Because you had too much fun setting this up,” Pastor said. “Because I’m going to spend the next twenty years eating my guts out hating you and that’s why you set this whole fucking stinking thing up and you don’t figure to throw it all over for one lousy quick shot at me.”
Mathieson put the gun back in his pocket. Dismally he turned to the door. “Wait here. In a few minutes you’ll get a phone call telling you where to pick her up.”
“Sure,” Pastor said. “Good-bye, Merle.”
Mathieson walked out.
4
He got into the car and drove out of the motel. He drove two blocks and stopped in a shopping center and used the sidewalk phone. He dipped into his pocket for the number Vasquez had given him.
“Me.”
Vasquez said, “Roger and Homer are just getting into their car. They’re backing out now.”
“Pastor still inside the other room?”
“Yes. Here comes the car. I’ll go now. Give us three minutes or so. You’re in the shopping center?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t call him until you see us drive into sight.”
He broke the connection and waited patiently.
When the car rolled into the parking area he looked at it long enough to make sure all three men were in it. Then he dialed the number of the motel and said, “Mr. Johnson, please, Room Ten.”
Pastor answered the phone. “Yeah.”
“It’s Merle.”
“Go ahead.”
“One thing first. I lied about the heroin.”
“Come again?”
“We didn’t hook her on anything. The tracks on her arms are from a harmless glucose solution. She’s in perfectly good health. No addiction.”
“What the fuck are you trying to prove, Merle?”
“That we can do it to you if we have to. Any time at all. Remember it, Pastor. Write it high in letters of fire and never forget it.”
“Where is she?”
“Upstairs above you. Room Twenty-two. The door’s unlocked. You’ll find her inside, tied to a chair.”
He hung up and left the booth.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Southern California: 17 November
1
THEY GATHERED AROUND THE LONG TABLE AT SEVEN: VASQUEZ remarked that there was an irresistible human proclivity to solemnize transitional events with rites of food and drink. He expounded on the biological reasons for such traditions. His thesis followed its nose inevitably into movieography. Roger sighed when Vasquez resolutely began to catalog film scenes that supported his point.
Mrs. Meuth tramped noisily in and out. Billy Gilfillan and Ronny fell to giggling. Vasquez had picked something heroic to play on the stereo; the volume was low but it sounded like a movie sound-track score—something by Steiner or Tiomkin. The steaks were blood rare and Mathieson found himself eating with unexpected gusto. He looked up once and caught Homer leering at him in amusement.
Amy kept glancing slyly toward Roger beside her; his face was a study in attempted gravity but now and then a corner of his mouth would twitch—she was teasing him under the table with ribald glee while she kept her innocent attention on Vasquez and his monologue.
It wasn’t pomposity. Vasquez was setting them at ease. It was an evening for which they had prepared through the hard uncertain months; now it had come and Vasquez, sensitive to their awkwardness, was guiding them through it with gentle distraction. Mathieson found it a remarkable performance.
Jan sat beside him pecking at her food. When he caught her eye she would smile tentatively. She’d had very little to say in the hours since they’d met at the airport. He had not known what to expect and therefore he had been prepared for anything. She had put warmth into the first greeting; the rest of the day had passed gingerly as if they were agreed un-spokenly to suspend everything and rediscover each other like acquaintances meeting for the first time after a long separation.
He had shaved off the moustache and tried to wash the dye from his hair; it was the best he could do until it grew out but he wanted as much as possible to resume his identity—Fred Mathieson’s identity: Edward Merle had achieved the justification that had completed his being; now it was up to Fred Mathieson to complete his own.
But the estrangement was still with them. A day’s celebratory truce meant nothing. In Jan’s hesitant smiles he saw possibility but not conclusion. It depends, he thought, it depends. Listening to the drone of Vasquez’s voice he reached for the wine, caught Homer’s eye and contrived a smile.
After dinner they drifted into the big front room. The two boys stuck close, aching for reports of adventure; Homer entertained them with an edited account that made heroes of Roger and Mathieson. Roger chose his customary place on the Queen Anne chair with Amy on the carpet beside him. Jan was listening to Homer’s recital; she glanced quizzically at Mathieson; he managed to laugh, deprecating Homer’s version. She lifted her face to him and he tasted her kiss; her eyes were open. He couldn’t determine what was in them—whether it was simply relief or something more.