Envy the Night

driver’s door open. “Should get it done a lot faster now that the cops are taking the other one.”

“Thanks. Let me know what you hear from the police, too, okay?”

“Sure.”

She got in the truck then and started the engine, and Frank turned away so as not to be blinded by the headlights, reached in his pocket and closed his fingers around an old and well-remembered key chain, and went to the door.

10

__________

Looking back, Grady figured at least one reason he’d grown so attached to the Temple boy didn’t involve guilt. He understood something about family legacies. About becoming something you didn’t want to become simply because it was what you knew. What you’d seen, what you’d been taught, what ran through your veins.

Grady lived alone now, in an apartment that was about the same size of the kitchen in the house he’d shared with Adrian, and though it still felt relatively new and certainly nothing like home, it had been nine years since he moved in. Nine years.

His father had been a good-natured drunk who never lifted a hand to his son, not once in all those twelve- beer nights. Instead, he’d come through the door unsteady and mumbling, walk into Grady’s room, and apologize. Sometimes they were short speeches; sometimes they went on for an hour or more. Tearful, choked-voice monologues in which the old man would take blame for all the wrongs of the world, acknowledge they were all his fault. He was sorry for being a bad father, sorry for being a bad husband, sorry they didn’t have more money, sorry they never took a vacation, sorry Grady was an only child, sorry their landlord wouldn’t allow pets because every boy should have a dog.

There were nights when Grady would lie there and wish his dad would just come in swinging, the way drunks were supposed to. Hit me, damn it, he’d think, slap me around, do anything but this crying and apologizing, you pussy.

He never hit him, though. Just kept right on apologizing until the day he had a heart attack on the corner of Addison and Clark, walking into Wrigley for a baseball game. Grady, who’d been home from college and waiting at their seats inside the park, was sure his father would have apologized for that, too, if only he could.

He’d made up his mind, though, that he would not become his father. No chance in this world. He’d make some mistakes, sure, but he would not let remorse over them haunt his days, not spend his life apologizing for faults that he never attempted to correct. He’d be assertive, he’d be strong, and any character flaws acquaintances might whisper about during parties would be borne forth from those qualities. Too cocky, they’d say, too stubborn, too sure of himself. Never admits when he’s wrong.

He’d been wrong with Frank Temple. Hadn’t admitted it. Made his mistake, moved on. Except for those computer checks. Except for those. One of the reasons he kept monitoring the kid was that Grady knew a few things about legacies. But his had only been, well, pathetic. Not dangerous, not in the way Frank Temple’s could be. The kid wanted to beat it, wanted to leave that bloody coat of arms behind, but it wasn’t going to be an easy task. And Grady surely hadn’t helped him. If anything, he’d given him a firm push in the wrong direction. What he’d done in his time with seventeen-year-old Frank Temple III was his greatest professional and personal shame. With the exception of Jim Saul, an agent down in Miami, it was also a private shame. Nobody else knew the way Grady had manipulated that kid. Frank surely did not, and that, more than anything else, was what kept Grady checking the computers, always monitoring the young man he hadn’t seen in years and wondering what it meant that he’d show more devotion out of guilt than he ever had out of love.

The case against Frank’s father had been a huge story—nothing attracted attention like the story of a federal agent turned contract killer—and when it broke the accolades and praise were rolling in and the media was loving the Bureau, loving Grady. What they didn’t understand was that when Frank’s father killed himself he had effectively aborted the future of the investigation. He’d known so much, could have provided information that would have taken Manuel DeCaster down, destroyed one of the deadliest and most powerful crime entities in Florida, hell, in the country. It had been shaping up to be one of the most significant organized crime prosecutions in years, and then Frank Temple II lifted his gun to his lips, squeezed the trigger, and killed the case along with himself.

So even as the story was arriving it was dying, and while the media didn’t understand that at first, Grady and Jim Saul sure as hell did. All they had left was Frank Temple III. The boy was supposedly closer to his father than anyone else had been, and the stories of his unusual education, the molding process that had been going on, were legion. He’d even made a trip down to Miami with his father, and there had been at least a short visit with Devin Matteson.

It was for Devin that Jim Saul most hungered. Devin was a phantom, involved in every level of DeCaster’s operation, investigated by the DEA and FBI and Miami PD for years without a single conviction. Temple was supposed to be the first domino, Matteson the second, but Temple had managed to go down without touching any of the others. They could start the chain over with Matteson, Saul was sure. And there was a chance, maybe even a strong one, that Temple’s son knew far more than they dared imagine. It would take a little bit of a sales pitch, that was all. A few talks about betrayed legacies, a few reminders of just how much Devin deserved his share of the punishment, what a shame, no, what a crime it would be to see Frank’s father alone bear that load.

He’d walked into that kid’s house knowing the truth, but with a promise—a professional oath—not to share it. Nothing evil in that, right? Except he’d shared another story and passed it off as the truth, a story that filled a grieving child with white-hot hate and a vendetta.

Grady had spent some time on it. He and the boy had a good many conversations about those things before Frank’s mother grew concerned and a newspaper reporter learned of the unusual bond and began to ask for interviews and the whole thing fell apart, leaving Frank with his hate and Grady and Saul with nothing to show for the ploy.

It had been worth the effort, though. That’s what they’d told each other early on, that if it had paid off and the kid actually knew something and shared it, well, then it absolutely would have been worth it. You had to prioritize, after all. Without the boy, they had no case, and they needed a case.

Except they already had one. While Grady was down in the basement of that house in Kenilworth, showing Frank pictures of his father with Devin Matteson and talking of loyalty and betrayal, trying to build enough hatred to coax a reaction, a group of rookie agents in Miami were working the streets and chasing bank records, and a few years and two ugly trials later DeCaster was in prison. No help needed from Frank Temple III, no lies to a grieving son, a child, required.

It was the sort of thing that was hard to put out of your mind.

Grady kept his eye on the kid, though, and found a measure of relief in each year that passed without incident. Frank was making his own place in the world, and it looked like a peaceful one.

Had looked that way, at least, until the day after his arrest for public intoxication down in Indiana, when Jim Saul called Grady at home on a Friday night and asked if he’d heard about Devin Matteson.

Grady took his feet down off the ottoman and set his beer aside and leaned forward, his grip tight on the phone.

“Heard what about him, Jimmy?”

“He’s in the hospital down in Miami, with three gunshot wounds. Looked like he was going to die when they brought him in, but he’s been making a furious recovery ever since. You know the kind of shape that prick was in. Ironman, right? He’s conscious again, and it’s almost a sure bet he’ll make it.”

“They have the shooter?”

“Nope. And if Matteson knows, he’s not saying. But somebody plugged him three in the back, and you know how he will want to handle that.”

“Personally,” Grady said, and he felt cold. “What do you hear on suspects?”

“Could be anybody. If they’ve got good leads, I’m not aware of them.”

“Temple’s son was arrested in Indiana night before last. Public intoxication. When was Matteson shot?”

“The day before that,” Saul said slowly. “And how do you know the Temple kid was arrested for a PI?”