"I know," she said-not unkindly, just straight out. "I know you're not. Carter was a great person, an amazing person. But…" She gave him one of her comic mugs, lifting up one eyebrow, screwing up one corner of her mouth. She gestured at the sculpture. "He never could have done that. He never could've made that angel's face."
Well, hearing that-that was almost more than he could handle. He was already full with wanting her and that was just one thing too many. He didn't move toward her or anything like that, but he realized that his expression had changed, that everything that was in his heart was right there for her to see now, right there for anyone to see on his face. Then, the next thing he knew, she was looking at him differently, too. All the comical mugging was gone and her lips were parted and the black centers of her brown eyes were so large they almost filled them. He thought, Holy shit! because he realized she was looking at him exactly like that woman in the movie about the casino, exactly the way she had looked at the hero in the end when he sent her away even though they loved one another. He knew deep down she wasn't really looking at him. He just happened to be standing there where her husband should have been. She was looking at her husband through him, really. But just then, he didn't care. Her husband was dead, after all. He, Shannon, was the one standing there.
So then he did start to move toward her. He wasn't an idiot: he could see she was his for the taking. Her eyes were practically begging him to take her. To hell with his fear and shame and whatever. He wanted his hands on her. He wanted his lips on her and his body against her and inside her. Really, he wanted to break over her like a wave-as if he were a wave and she were brown sugar and he could break over her and wash her away so that they were one thing together. That was the crazy idea of it that came into his mind.
He started to move toward her-just started. But suddenly Teresa blinked as if she was waking up. She let out a little noise, a little breath. And before Shannon could do anything, she had turned away from him, she was hurrying away from him, back toward the house, back into the house, leaving him there alone with nothing but his goddamned wooden angel.
PART IV
LIEUTENANT RAMSEY SAT in the coffee shop, waiting for Gutterson. His oval face with its thin moustache was deadpan in its imperturbable dignity. His thoughts were likewise cool, as cool as his expression. His anguish was no longer operational.
His rage at Augie's betrayal, for instance: it had passed. By force of will, he had transformed it into an icy determination. Much the same was true of his hatred of what had happened to Peter Patterson, his hatred of what he had done and how it had come to be done and the way it hung over him and threatened him with exposure and arrest. Sometimes at night, in his dreams, he relived the event: felt the dying man's pulse through the handle of the knife or saw the corpse staring up at him through the flame-lit, rain-riddled water. But in the daylight-here, now-the incident lived in him only as a kind of chill, motive force. His dead mother could haunt him all she wanted, and he loved her. But for now, at least, he could not afford to pretend that he still lived in her innocent Bible-waving world of moral absolutes. If there was a God, he was not here in this city. Just look around. God was gone and even worse, Augie was gone with him. God and Augie Lancaster had withdrawn their attention and protection from this place and they who were left were left alone to fend for themselves. If Lieutenant Ramsey was going to get clear, not Augie or God or Mama was going to make it happen. It would be he, and he alone.
Ramsey had thought it through. Ironically, it was Augie who had inspired him, who had shown him the way forward. Augie on TV all the time these days, with the crowds of young people singing, swaying, cheering, chanting for him: the hero of the flood and fire, the savior of the city. The news media, too-the reporters were in ecstasy over him, not even reporters anymore but simply heralds of his rise, trailing in his clouds of glory like mandolin-bearing cherubs on a church ceiling. The New Breed, they called him. The Man of the Moment. America's Future. Or once, from their seemingly inexhaustible inkwell of gibberish: New Emblem of the Transfigured African-American Narrative. So swept up were they in that narrative that the truth of the matter seemed only to incense them. If anyone spoke up against Augie-i f anyone mentioned what Augie had really done in his life or whom he'd really known in this city of his-if anyone simply pointed to what the city had become under his hands, saying Look at it, look at it!-the media rounded on the wild-eyed prophet, fanged, and tore at him, drowning out his dying cries with more, almost hysterical, accolades.
Ramsey, in simple envy and ill will at the success of a man who had hurt him, couldn't bear to watch much of this. He had to turn the TV off or turn the channel or turn away, walk away, whenever Augie was on. Ignoring Augie on television, radio, the Internet, and in newspapers and magazines had become part of his discipline, a necessary measure to keep his temper even, his emotions under control. But news of the man was everywhere. Words filtered into his consciousness, images entered his peripheral vision, as these things always will in a city. And they made him think.
Augie Lancaster was a celebrity now, a national name, almost certainly headed for greater success and high office. And it was amazing to Ramsey, amazing how free Augie was of the things he had done here. It was amazing how little his past adhered to him or weighed him down. It made Ramsey wonder, in simple bitterness and envy and ill wilclass="underline" What was his secret? How had he pulled that off? How did a man-a man steeped in such corruption and failure-how did he wreak the sort of havoc he had wreaked here in this city and then just walk away, untarnished, scot-free? Where was the famous burden of history? Where were the consequences of a man's misdeeds? Where was his responsibility? Did these things have no power over Augie Lancaster? Was he uniquely free of them and if so, why?
Ramsey considered these questions a long time. Finally, the obvious answer came to him. Augie was free because he had touched nothing. He had put his hands on nothing. Not for years anyway. He had worked his will throughout the city, throughout the entire state, by a kind of remote control, and he had done that for so long that he had become, in a sense, almost immaterial, an atmosphere of intent, a direction of desire built into the nature of the municipal machine. Things just worked the way he wanted them to. He hardly had to give the command. He had transformed himself from a human being of guilt and responsibility into an intangible force.
Had Augie ever said to Ramsey, for instance: Kill Peter Patterson? Had he ever said anything even vaguely like that, anything at all that couldn't be denied completely in a court of law or a TV interview? Ramsey hardly knew himself anymore whether he had or not. Somehow he had simply known that that was what had to be done.
Or take the case of the Reverend Jesse Skyles. A perfect case, that one. Was it Lieutenant Ramsey himself who had formulated the final plan, as he sometimes believed? Was it he who had come up with the idea as a way to calm Augie down, a way to keep Augie from doing something even more radical or violent? Or was it the other way around? Had Augie planted the notion in Ramsey's head, coaxed it out of him in the midst of one of his anti-Skyles ravings? Even now, even sitting here, thinking back, Ramsey didn't know how or where the whole thing originated.
Much the same was probably true of the girl-the girl they had used to bring Skyles down. She probably didn't even know herself what had happened or what she'd done. She was only fourteen years old, after all, one of Ramsey's prostitute informers, already beaten half-crazy by her pimp and poisoned half to death with crystal. She probably didn't know herself where the truth ended and her lies began. That's what made her such a convincing actress. Oh, Reverend, save me from my life of sin. She probably didn't even know herself whether she was begging Skyles for salvation or just diddling around for some extra cash.