“About what?”
“About Anmael, or whoever thinks he’s Anmael.”
“He’s waiting.”
“For?”
“For his other half to join him. He must believe that she is close, otherwise he wouldn’t have revealed himself. She, in turn, is leaving traces fo Z qng tracesr him, perhaps even without realizing it. When she comes, they’ll make their move. It won’t be long, not if Anmael was prepared to kill Wallace and mark the wall with his name. He senses her approach, and it will not be long before they are drawn together. We could hide you away, I suppose, but that would be merely to delay the inevitable. To amuse themselves, and to draw you out, they might hurt those close to you.”
“So what would you do in my shoes?”
“I would choose the ground upon which to fight. You have your allies: Angel and the one who is, presumably, still lurking outside. I can spare a couple of young men who will maintain a discreet distance from you yet keep you in sight. Tether yourself lightly in the place of your choosing, and we will trap them when they come.”
Epstein stood. Our meeting was over.
“I have one more question,” I said.
What might have been irritation flitted across Epstein’s face, but he crushed it and assumed once more his habitual expression of benign amusement.
“Ask it.”
“Elaine Parker’s child, the one who died: was it a boy or a girl?”
“It was a girl. I believe she named it Sarah. It was taken from her and buried secretly. I do not know where. It was best that nobody knew.”
Sarah: my half sister, buried anonymously in an infants’ cemetery in order to protect me.
“But I may have a final problem for you to consider in turn,” said Epstein. “How did they find Caroline Carr? On two occasions, your father and Jimmy Gallagher hid her welclass="underline" once uptown, before Ackerman died beneath the wheels of a truck, and then during her pregnancy. Still, the man and the woman managed to track her down. Then someone found out that Will Parker had lied about the circumstances of his son’s birth, and they came back to try again.”
“It could have been one of your people,” I said. “Jimmy told me about the meeting at the clinic. One of them could have let it slip, either deliberately or inadvertently.”
“No, they did not,” said Epstein, and he spoke with such conviction that I did not contradict him. “And even were I to doubt them, which I do not, none of them was made aware of the nature of the threat to Caroline Carr until she died. All they knew was that she was a young woman in trouble, and in need of protection. It is possible that the secret of your parentage might have leaked out. We excised the details of Elaine Parker’s dead child from her medical records, and she severed all contact with the hospital and the obstetrician concerned with monitoring the early stages of her pregnancy. Their files were subsequently purged. Your blood group was a problem, but that should have been a confidential matter between your family and their doctor, and he appears to have been above reproach in all respects. And then we warned your father to always be vigilant, and he rarely failed to heed our warnings.”
“Right up to the night that he fired his gun at Pearl River,” I said.
“Yes, until then.”
“You shouldn’t have let him go back there alone.”
“I didn’t Z qidn &rsquoknow what he was going to do,” said Epstein. “I wanted them taken alive. That way, we could have contained them, and ended this thing.”
He put on his hat and coat and prepared to slip by me.
“Remember what I said. I believe that someone who knew your father betrayed him. It may be that you are at risk of betrayal too. I commit you to the care of your colleague.”
And he and his bodyguards departed, leaving me with the dark-haired mute who smiled sadly at me before she began to extinguish the lights.
A bell rang somewhere in the back of the diner, causing a red bulb to flash above the counter for the woman to see. She put a finger to her lips, telling me that I should remain quiet, then disappeared behind a curtain. Seconds later, she gestured with a finger, asking me to join her.
A small video screen revealed a figure standing in the bay behind the store. It was Louis. I indicated to her that I knew him, and it was okay to let him in. She opened the door.
“There’s a car out front,” said Louis. “Looks like it followed Epstein here. Two men inside wearing suits. Figure feds more than cops.”
“They could have taken me while I was talking to Epstein.”
“Maybe they don’t want to take you. Maybe they just want to find out where you’re staying.”
“My landlord wouldn’t like that.”
“Which is why your landlord is standing here, freezing his ass off.”
I thanked the woman and joined Louis. She closed the door behind us.
“Doesn’t say much,” said Louis.
“She’s a deaf mute.”
“That would explain it. Good-looking woman, though, if you like the quiet type.”
“You ever think of taking sensitivity training?” I said.
“You think it would help?”
“Probably not.”
“Well, there you go.”
At the end of the street, Louis paused and glanced back at the next corner. A cab appeared. He hailed it, and we pulled away with no signs of pursuit. The cabdriver seemed more concerned with his Bluetooth conversation than with us, but to be certain, we switched cabs before we returned to the safety of the apartment.
CHAPTER THIRTY
WRONGLY, JIMMY GALLAGHER HAD never believed himself to be good at keeping secrets. He was garrulous. He liked to drink, to tell stories. When he drank, his tongue ran away with itself and his filters disintegrated. He would say things and wonder where they came from, as though he were standing outside himself and watching a stranger speak. But he knew the importance of keeping quiet about the origins of Will Parker &rsq [illô[1]‡uo;s son, and even in his cups parts of his own life had remained concealed. Still, he had kept his distance from the boy and his mother after Will killed himself. Better to stay away from them, he felt, than risk saying something in front of the boy that might cause him to suspect, or offend his mother by speaking of things that were better left hidden in cluttered, careworn hearts. And despite his many flaws, in all the years since Elaine Parker had left for Maine with her son he had never once spoken of what he knew.
But he had always suspected that Charlie Parker would come looking for him. It was in his nature to question, to seek out truths. He was a hunter, and there was a tenacity to him that would ultimately, Jimmy believed, cost him his life. Sometime in the future, he would overstep the mark and look into matters that were best left unexamined, and something would reach out and destroy him. Jimmy was certain of it. Perhaps the nature of his own identity, and the secret of his parentage, might well prove to be that mistake.