“That it might be nothing at all,” he said. “That what they all thought he knew did not exist; that they had the secrets and we would be left in the dark.”
“He knew you were all after him. All of you,” she said with sudden rage.
“I didn’t kill him.”
“But he died. He had to die. You all knew that he had to die.”
They reached the row of lights. Bluffs on the shore tumbled down to the level of the lake. The vast body of water roiled and bubbled; freezing waves smashed at the wooden pier that jutted bravely into the icy wetness. A white boat bobbed in the water, restrained fore and aft by lines lashed to its pilings.
“Didn’t think you were coming down,” the middle-aged man called out as Devereaux stopped the car. He had a red beard and wore a watch cap over his ears. His eyes were blue and good-natured and his nose and cheeks were red. When he opened the car door for Rita, she could smell brandy on his breath.
Devereaux got out on the other side. Rita followed him in the darkness. It was very cold and the wind went through her like a knife. It was at least twenty degrees colder here than it had been on the street in downtown Green Bay, an hour before.
“You ain’t overdressed, are you?” the man with the red beard said, giving her arm a squeeze. She pulled away from him and he laughed.
“Got blankets down in the hold,” he continued. “You still game for this?”
“Can we make it?” Devereaux finally spoke.
“That’s up to God and the Susy but I suppose. What the hell. It’ll be coasting, which can be more dangerous. But I’d rather hug the coast on a night like this than try to cross the lake.” The high-pitched nasal voice was typical of Wisconsin folk with mixed German and Scandinavian heritage. “All depends on the storm. I was in the shack, listening to the weather radar up at Neenah. She’s fierce but Marseilles radar says the storm is north of the border.”
“All right,” Devereaux said. He removed a roll of bills.
“Are we going to get on that boat?” Rita said.
“Only one here, honey, lest you want to wait for another.” The bearded man chuckled. He was already heading for the boat.
They followed him down the narrow white-planked dock.
“Grab hold on the ropes or you’ll blow right off and then you’re done,” the man called cheerfully. “Damned if I know why I’d go out on a night like this except for the money.”
They climbed down into the cabin and closed the hatch, cutting the wind. The little boat was damp and cramped; heat came from a catalytic heater. The man with the red beard turned up the gas jets on the stove; the burners flared.
“This is for you,” he said, slinging two Army blankets at Rita. “And this.” He reached up on a shelf and brought down a bottle of Christian Brothers brandy and opened it. He took a long swallow. “All right, people. Last chance to chicken out.”
In a few minutes, the little ship was under way. From the first, it bucked and plunged into the waves; it shook from side to side and the engine drove on, rolling in a steady thump-thump-thump.
“Who is he?” Rita asked at last. The blanket was around her, the bag on her lap. She folded her hands around the mug of coffee Devereaux had just prepared.
“Put some of this in.” He poured a little brandy in the coffee. Both of them sipped at it and their faces began to glow. She felt the brandy warm her.
They faced each other across the table.
“Who is he?” Rita repeated.
“One of ours. One who got out of the game.” He stared at her as though remembering something. “We hold on to all the names. I needed him when we found out you had come here. He was happy to do the favor. The money helped, of course.”
“My God,” Rita said. A wave had slammed the side of the boat; now the two of them went sprawling toward the far bulkhead. “Are we going to sink?” she asked anxiously, righting herself.
“I don’t know. It’s possible. I don’t know anything about boats. Red worked the lakes for a long time, before he entered our operation. He knows what he’s doing.”
“This is madness.”
“If I had tried to use a plane, we would have to land somewhere. Too risky. A car would have been the most obvious of all. I took a chance on the boat; I hope they won’t expect it.”
“Where are we going?”
“What was in the journal?”
They stared at each other across the table. Rita looked away. “How can I trust you?” she whispered.
“Rita.” He spoke quietly, with gentle patience. “I won’t tell you any lies to get the journal. This is beyond trust now. If I have to take it, I will. This is my life now and yours and that is the game. It was the game from the minute those two men chased you on the beach in Florida.”
“Were they going to kill me?”
“Yes.”
“Who were they?”
“They were from InterComBank. Fraser had sent them.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. One tried to grab you now in Green Bay. The other is dead.”
She didn’t speak. Slowly, she released her white-knuckled grip on the tote bag in her lap. She took out her sweater and put it on the table. And then she removed the red-bound journal from the bottom of the bag.
“I’ve been afraid,” she said. “From the beginning, when those men broke into my apartment. This has been like a bad dream. It seems to go on and on. They never give up, do they? Like those men following me into the lobby of your hotel. They would have killed me there. Even if I had given them the journal, even if I had surrendered, it wouldn’t have been enough. But why am I telling you this? You know it, don’t you? You play that game, too, don’t you?”
Devereaux waited.
In the blackness of the huge lake surging around them, they could hear a ship’s foghorn stabbing at the dark.
She held the book in her hand and looked at him. “Do you think this book was worth all those deaths?”
He didn’t speak.
“Fraser,” she said. “Someone named Henry Fraser who is willing to kill me and blackmail men and drive them to kill themselves. I would kill him now if I could. You see, I’m like you now. Everything is dirty and confused. I can talk about killing someone because I hate him so much.”
Devereaux sipped from his cup of coffee and brandy but did not make a sound.
Rita opened the journal.
“ ‘I had intended to speak about none of these things,’ ” she read.
“ ‘What is it to me or to my soul? Or to the memory of my beloved, Phuong, whom I will not repent loving? Or to my son, Ky, who is now dead? No, I will not repent loving any of these people who became my flesh and my blood, even to save my soul. I had lost my soul before I met them, long before; it was they, in their love for me, who returned it to me. My trust belongs to them; and so does my love.’ ”
Rita paused and glanced at Devereaux but he sat silent and brooding, his cold gray eyes fixed on her face.
She sipped gratefully from the mug. Then she began to read again. “ ‘But those who want this journal do not want my soul; the worth of a man’s soul has no meaning to them, not even to Martin Foley, who is a priest; nor Rice nor Maurice nor the Agency men who kept me hidden and who, I think, conspired among themselves to decide if they should kill me. Is it because I seem such a fool that poor old McGillicuddy thinks I don’t know he spies on me for the Agency? None of them wants to know of my torment, though, nor of the death of children, nor of the death of Phuong, whom I held in my arms at the very end. They do not want to know of wars past, nor be reminded of the village destroyed, nor the children murdered, nor men reduced to the state of animals. Do they want to know that we drowned a newborn child in the river because we were dying ourselves?’ ”