Pleading Guilty

of those moments. Up to now I'd been beset by great emotional constipation. Pour me a couple of drinks and I could bawl my eyes out, but in the present I'd felt smug and stuck on myself. Only with the actual instant of departure at hand was the pain beginning to mount.

'God, Mack,' said Brushy, 'please, please don't do this. Think about what you're doing to yourself. I'll help you. You know I will. You know how hard I've tried. I mean, at least, Mack, think about me.'

Oh, what about her? She imagined, no doubt, I was running from her. And I'd succored myself with disarming comparisons to the devotion of others — Bert to Orleans,

Martin to Glyndora. But who was I kidding? My heart was suddenly sore and afflicted, full of a hurt that seemed to double its weight.

'Brush, there's no choice.'

'You keep saying that.'

'Because it's the truth. This is life, Brushy, not heaven. I'm out of alternatives.'

'You're only saying that. You're doing what you want.'

'Fine,' I said, though I knew in a way she was right. Standing with her now, I was abruptly some kind of suffering blob, ectoplasm without boundaries in which the only point of form was a hurting heart. But even in that condition there was a sense of direction. It wasn't hope, I saw now, that drove me. Perhaps I was at one of those passes again, doing what I most fear, because otherwise I'm paralyzed, worse off than some slave in chains. But the compulsion was strong. I was like that figure of myth, flying with his wings of wax toward the sun.

'Mack, you talk about my life? What am I going to say? How am I going to explain why I let you run, why I didn't just call the police?'

'You'll think of something. Look.' I took one step back into the room. 'Here. Go to your pal Krzysinski. Right now. Today. Tell him the whole thing. Everything. Tell him how you couldn't stand by and let me ax Jake. Tell him how noble you are. And smart. You were going to sucker-punch me. Get me to give the money back. Then turn me over to the police.'

She was sitting on the bed, holding on to herself, contracted with pain, and she recoiled a bit. The words seemed to strike her with the reverberating force of an arrow. I thought at first she was again overwhelmed by shuddering wonder at my facility when it came time to lie. Then, at once, I saw something else.

I held absolutely still.

'Or did I just get it right?' I asked her softly. 'Was I finally reading your mind?' 'Oh, Mack.' She closed her eyes.

'Grab me and love me and let them haul me away? The Brushy-first plan?'

'You're lost,' she said. 'Do you even know the truth? When you're seeing it? When you're telling it?'

She thought she had me with that one, but you could nail most folks like that from time to time. I refused to back off anyway. Brushy, as I well knew, was a four-wall player. She had all the angles in her head, and I'd found something, some notion, some line of reflection she couldn't keep herself from seeing, any more than I could help being myself at that moment, full of a liberating spite, an anger so generalized but intense I didn't really know what was making me mad — her or me or some unnameable it.

'Was that the idea?' I put on my coat. I picked up my bag. 'Well, you haven't been listening.' I said it again and I suspected by now she believed it.

'You've got the wrong guy.'

B. Pigeyes Isn't

The little light-rail system that ties Center City and the airport was one of those genius planning notions for which Martin Gold occasionally takes some credit. He was counsel to the Plan Commission and our bond folks worked out the financing. The thing doesn't always run on time, but in rush hour it beats the traffic, which you can see stalled on either side as the train rambles down the divider strip. The LR, as it is known around town, terminates in an underground station, a big cantilevered space with the rising ceiling of a cathedral and various- colored block-glass windows lit from the rear to simulate daylight.

I arrived there lugging my case and still yelling at Brush in my head, purging my guilt and explaining again how she ought to be blaming herself, there are no victims. I was a few steps from the train when I saw Pigeyes at the end of the platform. I'd had a few intense and unsettling visions of Gino nabbing Jake, booking him, printing him, putting him in the police station cell where the gangbangers would grab Jake's Rolex right off him without even saying thanks, and I briefly hoped I was seeing things. But it was Gino. He was leaning on a pillar in his scruffy sport coat and cowboy boots, picking his teeth with a fingernail and eyeballing the passengers as they alighted from the cars. No doubt about who he was looking for, but I didn't have too many places to go. He'd caught sight of me already and the return trip to the city wouldn't begin for another five minutes. So I kept walking. It was daytime, but I was dead in my dreams, headed for that mean dangerous stranger. He had me now and my blood was suddenly pumping at 30 degrees.

As he watched me approach, Gino's little black eyes were still and the rest of his big face harsh with purpose. He was ready to chase me, maybe to shoot. I took a quick peek for Dewey but it looked like Pigeyes was flying solo tonight.

'What a delightful coincidence,' I told him.

'Yeah,' he said, 'what. Your girlfriend gimme a call. Said I ought to track you down.' Pigeyes faked a smile without showing his teeth. ‘I think she likes me.'

'That so?'

'Yeah.' He was not near my height. But he got good and close. His face was in mine, all his heavy breath and body odors. He was chewing gum. I was taking in a lot at that moment. I'd been soft about Brushy. I thought she believed all that stuff, attorney and client, my secret to keep and hers not to tell. She could give me one hundred reasons the privilege didn't apply; I could probably give you fifty of them on my own. But I hadn't thought she'd sell me out. She was always tougher and quicker than I figured. 'What'd she say?' I asked.

'Nothing much. I told you. We talked about you.' 'How good I am in bed?'

'I don't recall that being mentioned.' Pigeyes smiled the same way. 'Where you off to?' 'Miami.' 'For?' 'Business.'

'Oh yeah? Okay I look in your little case there?' ‘I don't think so.' He had one hand on it and I tightened my hold.

‘I think maybe there's a bankbook in there. I think you got a connecting plane for Pico-whatever. I think maybe you're about to take flight.'

He took a step closer, which didn't seem physically possible.

'Careful, Pigeyes. You may catch something.'

'You,' he said. He opened his mouth and tried to belch. He was standing on my toes now, so that if I moved I'd fall over. If I pushed him, God knows what he'd do. 'I knew I'd catch a piece of you. Guy asked me to do this thing, this whole caper, and I said to myself, Maybe you'll meet up with your old pal Mack.'

I believed that. Pigeyes was always looking for me, and I was always watching for him. Immovable object. Irresistible force. In that moment that is worse than dying, the flaming terror that wrests me from sleep, Pigeyes will always be there. How do we explain that? I turned this over in my mind, that same old thought, that there are not accidents, there are no victims. And then, God only knows why, I had one last revelation. I was okay now. I knew it at once.

'I think,' said Pigeyes, noting the intensity of my expression, 'you just wet your socks. I think when you walk, your shoes'll go squish.'

'I don't think so.'

'I do.'

'No, I've got this too well figured.' 'That's what you thought.'