Gilrein crosses his arms and stares at the old man.
“I think she meant you had all the best equipment for either job,” he says, “but none of the empathy they both require.”
“Empathy,” Lacazze repeats, as if only for the sound of the word. “From the Greek empatheai, meaning affection or passion.”
“If you say so.”
“What I say, once again, is that your knowledge of your late wife is lacking.”
Gilrein holds back another outburst. What he’d like to do is go over the desk and plant the decanter in the bastard’s skull. What he does instead is take a breath, lower his voice and say, “That’s why I’m here, right? That’s why I followed you inside.”
Lacazze seems to study him for a few seconds.
“Drink up, Mr. Gilrein,” the Inspector finally says. “Wine loosens the tongue. That’s what we need here tonight. Free discourse between rivals.”
“Are we rivals, Inspector?”
“We have always been rivals, Mr. Gilrein.”
“And what is it we’re competing for?”
Lacazze frowns at him as if the answer were beneath them both.
“What all men fight over,” he says. “Their own view of the world and the love of a good woman.”
Gilrein tenses up in spite of himself.
“The woman in question,” he says, “is dead.”
“Exactly,” Lacazze says. “And since the day she died, you and I have both been living a series of lies. And those lies have been consuming us slowly, haven’t they, Gilrein?”
“I don’t know, Inspector. I’m not the one with the sores all over my hands and my mouth.”
“But it’s early yet.”
The comment makes Gilrein decide to go on the offensive.
He sits forward on the interrogation stool, leans on his knees and says, “I was a bunko cop for a long time, Inspector. And I never understood why Ceil couldn’t see that underneath all your bullshit voodoo you were nothing but a lowlife fucking con man.”
This brings another unexpected laugh. Lacazze covers his face with his pus-swollen hands for a moment and leans back in his chair. When he takes his hands away all trace of amusement has disappeared, replaced by a disgusted and maybe pitying look.
“How did Ceil bear it?” he asks. “Taking her brilliance home every night to such an inferior partner. It must be regarded as an act of mercy. On top of everything else, the woman was a saint. Damien to the brain-addled. Mother Teresa to the feeble-minded—”
“Sorry, Inspector, but I find it hard to believe that you can’t think of a better way to spend your final hours than insulting a feeble-minded cabdriver.”
“—Not a saint, a martyr. Sacrificing herself on this lowbrow cross. Giving up her genius to this Golgotha of stupidity.”
“Lacazze.”
“Prostituting herself to a pathetic livery boy,” the Inspector yells, “who couldn’t even make it in bunko. Bunko! My God, what was she thinking?”
It’s not that Gilrein can no longer contain himself, it’s that he doesn’t want to. He kicks out at the desk, knocking over the chalice and spilling the sherry, then he’s up off the stool and around the desk, pulling Lacazze out of his chair and backhanding him across the face, hard enough to knock the Inspector to the floor, down onto a bed of ink-infested notepaper. The decanter flies to the back wall and shatters. And then it’s that one easy step over the line of the rational, and Gilrein is down on his knees, straddled across Lacazze’s stomach, the.38 out and the hammer cocked and the barrel pushed into the swollen left cheek of the old man.
They’re both breathing heavily. Gilrein wants to make the Inspector flinch, wants to make him cower under the threat of the gun. But Lacazze just stares up at him, face strained, swollen lips sucking around the mouth of the gun, skim-milk-colored pus oozing down over the chin.
Gilrein immediately withdraws his piece from the face, angles it toward the ceiling.
“Son of a bitch,” he says, following out a line of thought that’s too late in dawning. “You wanted me to do it.”
The Inspector’s head falls back and even though it’s cushioned by all the paper there’s a perceptible thump.
“Jesus Christ,” Gilrein says, rocking back on the old man’s torso. “You wanted me to pull the trigger. You were hoping you could goad me into doing it for you. You cowardly little asshole. Your own goddamn station house all these years. Such an untouchable hump. And you couldn’t even pull your own plug.”
He gets up, drags Lacazze back into his seat. It’s like lifting a corpse.
“I won’t do it for you, Inspector. But don’t let me stop you.”
And he lifts Lacazze’s limp hand and places the Colt in the palm. The hand falls into Lacazze’s lap. Gilrein picks it up by the wrist and brings it up to the head until the barrel is resting against the right temple.
“Go ahead,” Gilrein says. “You’re all set. Just squeeze.”
For a moment it seems as if he will. Focus comes into his eyes and the grip on the revolver tightens. But then he thumbs the hammer back gently and settles it into its cradle. He places the gun down on the desk and shoves it next to the toppled chalice.
“I guess,” Gilrein says, “intellect is no indication of courage.”
Lacazze sits with his head hung back and his eyes closed. Gilrein stares at him, waiting for a reply. When none comes, he picks his piece up from the desk and tucks it in his jacket pocket and walks to the door.
“It’s too bad,” he says, “you can’t use the Methodology on yourself.”
The Inspector’s eyes come open but don’t track to Gilrein, just stare up at the alphabet designs cut into the tin-plated ceiling. In a voice barely audible, he asks, “Why do you think Ceil loved you?”
Gilrein has no idea why he lingers, but he leans against the doorjamb and says, “She just did.”
“You’re sure of that?”
Gilrein nods, makes Lacazze move his head and look forward.
“From the time we are children,” the Inspector says, “we’re taught that faith is a gift.”
“You’re the theologian.”
“I am an unbeliever,” holding his hands up for Gilrein to look at like some parody of St. Thomas’s vision, “and this is proof of my transgression.”
“The Grippe?”
“The plague sent down as a response to my pride and my doubt.”
“Now that’s an enlightened position,” Gilrein says, shifting in the doorway, suddenly intrigued.
“The sick man tends to regress.”
Gilrein steps back into the room and leans his arms down on the desk.
“The more I know about you, the more I hate you, Inspector.”
“You know nothing about me, Mr. Gilrein. You should consider yourself lucky. Your ignorance has protected you.”
“From?”
“From doubt, of course,” Lacazze says, finally coming forward in his chair, folding his hands on top of the desk like a schoolboy, turning his head to the side and spitting a mouthful of green discharge onto the floor. “Do you know the old saying, Gilrein? ‘Act as if you have faith and faith will be given to you’? Are you familiar?”
“I know the saying.”
“Then act on it. Take the gun out and execute me. Do the honorable thing.”
Gilrein stares at him, not completely sure that he isn’t being mocked.
“Ceil would want it this way,” Lacazze says.
“You’re the second person tonight who’s tried to tell me what Ceil would have wanted.”
“Ceil understood the value of vengeance.”
“Vengeance?”
The Inspector’s expression changes to something between disgust and disbelief.
“Are you really this ignorant? Is it possible you haven’t suspected any part of the truth?”