“Get him a blanket.” Bradleigh sent the cop away. “You with us now, Fred?”
“I think so. Funny, it’s like Inchŏn. Artillery flashes — it’s lit up here and there but I can’t make the picture stand still. Give me another shot of that stuff.”
The cop brought a blanket and Bradleigh swapped the empty glass for it. “Refill.”
His teeth were chattering. He clutched the blanket around him like a Sioux. “Been a long time since I got shot at. But I wouldn’t have thought I’d have gone all to pieces like this.”
“You want a cigarette?” Bradleigh shook out his pack.
“I quit six years ago.”
“That was six years ago.”
“I’d only burn holes in this blanket.”
The cop gave him the refilled glass and he drank it straight down. It burned. Bourbon, he realized.
Bradleigh took the empty glass. “That’s probably enough. You don’t want to get schnockered.”
“All right, I’m mostly here. Tell me what the hell happened.”
Jan looked up at Bradleigh and caught his nod. She said, “We were all here in Roger and Amy’s house. We heard the blast. Then a lot of sirens, and somebody phoned Roger and told him our house had exploded. We all went up there.”
Bradleigh said, “A few people heard the car going away fast but only a couple of people saw it. There haven’t been any descriptions we could use. One of your neighbors had phoned the police and they got up there fast, if it matters. The way we’ve reconstructed it, the car came down from the top of the canyon, at least two men in it — a driver and the guy who threw the bomb. Are you all right?”
“I’m just peachy. For God’s sake.”
“Look, at least nobody got hurt.”
“Go on, then.”
“I don’t know what else to tell you. Frank Pastor was awarded parole today. He’ll be out in a day or two. How does that grab you, Goddamnit?”
Jan burst into abrupt laughter. Mathieson reached out and she sagged against him, burying her face against his chest, the laughter going into sobs.
“You’re alive,” Bradleigh said in his stern monotone.
“Are we supposed to be grateful about that?”
“You will be when you’ve had time to think about it.”
“What about right now? How are we supposed to feel right now?”
“They don’t make rules about it.”
“I just want this to be a bad dream.”
2
By midnight Amy Gilfillan was in bed, drugged to sleep, and the house had emptied out but there were still cops outside standing guard. The TV trucks and lights were gone. Ronny dozed on the couch; most of the lights were off; Roger had taken Billy back to put him to bed; Jan sat half drunk on the ottoman.
Mathieson went to the bar. Anger made his hands shake and Bradleigh shouldered him aside. “I’ll do it. What are you having?”
“Might as well stick with bourbon. Rocks.”
He waited without patience and finally took the glass from Bradleigh; he turned. “What now?”
“We’ll have to get you out of here. They’ll try again.” Bradleigh closed the refrigerator door. He was drinking orange juice. “It was my job to prevent this.”
“Don’t get maudlin, Glenn. You’re not responsible. You didn’t sling any bombs.”
The phone rang and Bradleigh took it; Mathieson couldn’t hear what he said but afterward Bradleigh came across the room and stood beside him. “Looks like they’ve slipped the net. If we were going to collar them locally we’d have had them by now. Either we’ll get a tip from a CI or we’ll have to go at it from another angle.”
“CI?”
“Sorry. Confidential informant. We’ve made some progress toward finding the leak in the office — narrowed it down to three or four people. As soon as we pin it on one of them we’ll go to work. We’ll find out who bought the information, I promise you.”
“We know who bought it.”
“Not to get a prosecution we don’t. We’ve got to have evidence.”
“When does Pastor go out in the street?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
Silence dragged along for a while. Jan had fallen asleep sitting up, one shoulder tipped against the wall, the hair falling across her eyes. Mathieson looked down at Ronny’s sleeping face.
Some time later he said, “I feel like a goldfish here. Suppose they throw a bomb into this house? We ought to clear out.”
“We may as well.” Bradleigh looked embarrassed; he was a poor dissembler.
“What’s the matter, Glenn?”
“Guess I’ve been playing dirty pool with you. Chalk it up to an excess of zeal. We should have moved you out of here six hours ago.”
“Hell, I know that. You’ve kept us here because you wanted them to make another try.”
“Believe me this place is covered inside out and upside down. They’d never get near you.” He put his glass down. “But you’re right, we’d better move out. Let’s start waking them up.”
Chapter Four
Long Island: 2–3 August
1
Frank’s daughters carried their strident rivalry onto the screened porch and Anna Pastor slumped with the fatigue of dealing with them. She retreated from the parlor, out onto the flagstones.
Beyond the statuary the lawn was neatly cut, two acres of grass sloping down to the beach. She could see Frank on the dock with Ezio: In silhouette against the silver water of the Sound they looked like cutouts of Mutt and Jeff. Ezio used his body expressively whenever he spoke; his arms rode up and down incessantly, his head rocked back and forth, he pivoted and stamped and took up defiant poses. Frank stood motionless, perhaps asking and answering, but there was no sign of it at this distance. Frank had outgrown the mannerisms of the streets long ago and prison had put a kind of rigidity into him.
This morning when he’d come outside the walls he’d stood on the curb with his head thrown back and his eyes half closed, presenting his face to the sun as if to draw strength from it. It had been ten minutes before he’d got into the car and then he’d just sat beside her holding her hand, letting Ezio’s rapid-fire talk roll off him.
They’d driven straight out to the Island and he’d gone upstairs with her and without a word made love to her without even bothering to draw the curtains; then he’d put on his whites and told her he needed to be alone because he hadn’t been alone in eight years and he’d taken the outboard onto the Sound.
He’d been gone until an hour ago; at midafternoon he’d tied the boat up to the dock and Ezio had gone down there to meet him and they were still talking.
In the meantime there’d been twenty phone calls and for a time the place had crawled with men but Ezio had sent nearly all of them away, some on errands and some simply away. Only two were left, somewhere around the place — George Ramiro down at his post in the gatehouse and C. K. Gillespie who had been on the phone in the dining room when she’d gone past a moment ago.
Every summer for eight years she’d brought the girls out here; every summer it had got harder as they’d got older. She had never lived out here with Frank: They had been married the year before he went to prison and they’d taken a honeymoon in Italy that summer and spent the rest of it in the Brooklyn house while Frank’s lawyers tried to delay the sentencing.
The two men came up across the garden. Frank took her in his arms. He held her close and tight, not moving; she slid her fingers up his spine and rubbed the back of his neck. She felt a shudder run through him. “Jesus Maria,” he whispered, “sometimes I thought it’d never be.” Then he turned past her and patted her rump. In the house a phone was ringing; Ezio hurried inside. Gillespie had come outside and was politely looking away, down toward the water. Frank moved to the marble table and pressed the buzzer under its lip; after a moment Gregory Cestone appeared at the French doors in black trousers and white shirt and black bow tie. “Yes, Mr. Pastor?”