"When I came back from L.A.," I said, "I had just failed more completely than I ever have. I betrayed you by making love to Candy Sloan. . . ."
"You had the right," Susan said. "That wasn't betrayal."
"Yeah, I told Candy that, too, but it was. I disapproved of me for it. And then I let them kill her."
"She got herself killed," Susan said.
"And I started getting scared that I wasn't everything. And I started needing you to make me complete, and that was when things started going to hell."
"I can't complete you," Susan said. "More important, you can't complete me. I have to do that myself."
"I know."
"Everything you've achieved you've achieved through strength, through force, through will. This you can't force. This you have to permit."
"It's your line of work," I said.
"Yes," Susan said. "Physician heal thyself, huh?"
I nodded.
Susan said, "Are you still there?"
"Yes."
"It will take a while," Susan said, "but we will resolve this."
"Yes."
Susan said, "I don't know how it will resolve, but I know this. I know in my bones that I love you, and that I cannot conceive of a life without you."
"Me too," I said.
"I will call you again soon," Susan said. Her voice was barely there.
"Yes," I said. "Good-bye."
"Good-bye."
I hung up.
Paul came into the living room and said, "Are you all right?"
"No, I'm not all right," I said. "But I won't die."
Paul's face was hard. "You've got to get off of this," he said. "If not for yourself, for me. You're losing Susan, I'm losing Susan and you."
"Goddamn it," I said, "you get as much as I have left. This is all there is of me now, there isn't any more. You won't lose me, but this is all you can fucking well have of me right now."
Paul's face was hurt and angry. "It's not selfishness," he said, "you've got to get off of Susan. There is a life ahead for you. Even if you don't lose her, you've got to get off of her. You are, for crissake, obsessive."
I felt my anger flare. And I looked at Paul's determined face and saw that there were tears in his eyes.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm doing what I can. There will be more of me in a while. This thing will resolve."
Paul nodded.
"Now I have to go to work," I said.
"Don't be careless," Paul said.
"I won't be," I said. "I want to be around to see how this turns out."
CHAPTER 37
"It's like early congregationalism," Sherry said. We were sitting in the dining hall at the Middleton headquarters drinking coffee at a table where the morning yellow sun made a pleasing yellow splash on the space between us. "We meet once a week on Tuesday evenings right here and decide on church business. I'm council chairman."
There were two or three kitchen workers gearing up for lunch, but otherwise there was no one else in the room. My new approach to cutting back on coffee was to drink it with a lot of milk and sugar. After a while it would be easy to wean myself altogether, more milk and less coffee each time, and eventually I'd have it done. The coffee mugs were the old thick white china ones they used to use in diners. I got up and went to a coffee urn and refilled mine, added a lot of milk and some sugar, and went back to the table. The smell of stew and coffee enriched the room.
"And the money?"
"The money is being handled by the trust department at Mr. Hallers's bank and they issue us a check for the interest every month. They said it would be about two thousand a month."
"That be enough?"
"I think so. We are quite self-sufficient and we are going to work on that. This compound is paid for. We raise most of our vegetables and eggs. We're going to preserve fruits and vegetables this year. We can't give people a stipend really, anymore, but they can supplement by working outside and we're considering how to make money."
Sherry had filled out a little. She had a lot of color from working outdoors, and she seemed firmer to me.
"What about Reverend Winston?" she said.
"He's agreed to supply evidence against Paultz," I said. "When the warrants are all in place they will bust Mickey and indict him and Winston will testify and they'll put Paultz away."
"What will happen to him?" Sherry said.
"Winston? I suspect he'll get a suspended sentence, and then maybe they'll give him a new identity and he'll disappear in some witness protection program."
"Because Mickey Paultz will try to have him killed?"
"Yes. We've got Winston covered now so Paultz can't get at him. And Paultz thinks he's bought silence with the church donation. But when Winston testifies . . ."
Sherry nodded. She was resting her chin on her clenched right fist and I was struck by the bizarre conjunction of Mickey Paultz and this religious little kid.
"I hope he'll be all right," Sherry said. "Where is he?"
"He's covered," I said.
"Do you know anything about Tommy?" she said.
I shook my head. "Paul says he's canceled rehearsals and they are a week and a half away from a performance."
"My God," she said.
"Not his style?"
"Oh, Lord, no. Nothing came before performance. Nothing."
The sunlight had moved slightly and now touched her hands where they lay motionless beside her coffee cup on the table. The brightness made her skin seem faintly translucent. And her unadorned hands seemed very vulnerable.
"I hope he hasn't done anything to himself," she said. She was studying the sunlight on her hands.
"Most people don't," I said.
"Would you find out if he's all right?" she said.
She had pulled her hair back from her face and caught it with some kind of pin at the nape of her neck. She wore no makeup. Her face as she looked at me seemed almost devoid of experience, as if it had begun just this morning. Her eyes were very pale blue.
"Sure," I said. "I'll take a look."
"We . . . I can't pay you."
"What are friends for," I said.
She reached one of her hands toward me through the splash of sun and took my hand. And held it.
"You are a friend," she said. "I didn't know there were people like you. I've never met anyone like you."
"I am a dandy," I said.
She reached her other hand across and patted the top of my hand.
"Yes," she said. "You are. You do what you say you'll do. You care about people. You aren't mean. You're strong. You're a very wonderful man."
"And I have a winsome smile," I said. "Don't forget that."
She kept patting my hand. "I pray for you each day," she said.
"It can't hurt," I said.
CHAPTER 38
Looking for Tommy Banks didn't seem too complicated. I'd check his apartment and if he wasn't there I'd check the dance studio, and if he wasn't there I'd think about it. My heart wasn't in it. But if the rigid little bastard had in fact killed himself, Sherry was going to pull the guilt of it right up over her ears.
The phone rang. I answered. It was Devane, the statie.
"Somebody blew Mickey Paultz away," he said.
"Who?"
"Don't know."
"Why?"
"Same answer. He was sitting in his car on the third floor of the parking garage at Quincy Market. Somebody put two bullets in his head from the passenger side, probably sitting next to him. Twenty-two-automatic shell casings were on the ear floor. And that's all there is."
"A nice guy like that," I said. "Doesn't seem fair, does it?"
"Seems like you went to a lot of trouble to rig something that isn't going to happen."
Alone in my office I shrugged. "I got Winston out of the church," I said.
"And Broz has the heroin trade now, either way," Devane said.
"So who would scrag poor old Mickey?"
"Hell," Devane said. "Who wouldn't?"
"Anyway, it takes the heat off Winston," I said. "They still going to prosecute him?"
"I don't know," Devane said. "My guess is no. All they've got him for is laundering some money and I figure Rita's got better things to do than spend a week in court getting some guy two years suspended and a thousand-dollar fine."