case I harbored ideas in spite of my denial. She had a smile for me, but it didn’t have much candlepower.
“Kerry,” I said, “I’m worried about you.”
She was plumping up her pillows. The statement made her pause; then she finished with the pillows and got in on her side of the bed and lay back, her eyes on the ceiling. “What do you mean?”
“Just what I said. Something’s troubling you.”
“Such as what?”
“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking.”
“You don’t want to make any guesses, then.”
“Why not just tell me?”
“Good question. Why not?”
I let that pass. “Let’s not fence, okay? Is everything all right with you?”
“Why shouldn’t everything be all right?”
“You look tired and you haven’t been sleeping well. And you’ve been distracted, moody-”
“You’re no barrel of fun, either, when you’ve been working long hours.”
Another pass. “Today, for instance. You didn’t let me know you weren’t able to pick up Emily. You let her take the bus home by herself, you didn’t call to make sure she was okay here alone-”
“Emily’s a big girl now. She doesn’t need constant monitoring.”
“Big girl, right. Pretty, mature for her age. This damn city.. ”
“You worry too much. You’re a worrywart.”
“Probably. And you didn’t answer my question.”
“What question?”
“Come on, don’t play dumb.”
“Yes, I’m all right,” she said, “I’m just on overload. The Hailey account, office politics.”
“Nothing else?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“You want to talk about the office stuff?”
“Not really. Not right now. It’ll all work out, don’t worry.”
There was a little silence before I said, “This seems to be my night for being told not to worry.”
“Who else told you that?”
“Emily.” I gave her a synopsis of our little chat. “Took me by surprise, finding out all that stuff so long after the fact.”
“A girl’s first period isn’t a general topic of discussion.”
“I know that-”
“And I didn’t give her a sex lecture,” Kerry said, “we had a commonsense, mother-daughter talk. Women’s issues.”
“I understand why you didn’t include me. Just as well you didn’t. But why not tell me about it afterward?”
“For what reason? It would only have upset you.”
“No, it wouldn’t have.”
“Yes, it would. You’re upset now.”
“I’m not upset. I’m just saying-”
“Have it your way.”
“I’m just saying that I think I have a right to know what’s going on with people I care about-”
“Do you tell me everything?”
“What? Of course I do, if it’s important.”
“Of course you do. If it’s important.”
“Why do you say it like that?”
“Like what?”
“Implying that I don’t.”
“What’s the matter?” she said. “Guilty conscience?”
Uh-oh, I thought. “Why would I have a guilty conscience?”
“Yes, why would you?”
“I don’t.”
“All right, then. Can we go to sleep now?”
“Kerry…”
She reached up and switched off the lamp and rolled onto her side. In the dark silence she muttered something into her pillow. It sounded like, “Secrets.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Go to sleep.”
I didn’t go to sleep. Neither did she. I lay there in the dark, listening to her thrash around on her side of the bed. Guilty conscience. Secrets. One big secret, more than half a century old and three thousand miles removed.
New York City at the end of World War II. A group of pulp writers, one of the best of them Kerry’s mother, who called themselves the Fictioneers and kept the home fires burning with words and booze and pranks. Russ Dancer, hack writer, alcoholic, lecher, and worse, carrying a huge torch for Cybil. And a drunken party to celebrate D-day. One night out of thousands of nights, the wrong set of circumstances-a secret shame buried for fifty-plus years that should have stayed buried and died with the two people who had lived it. Except that Dancer hadn’t let it die with him, when he’d finally given up the ghost three months ago. So bitter and corrupt at the end of his life that he’d found it necessary to spew his own brand of venom from the grave.
Kerry must suspect what was behind Dancer’s legacy to Cybil, or at least that there was something her mother was withholding from her and that I’d found out about and was also withholding. A small relief, but odd that she hadn’t come right out and asked me about it; she’d never been one to avoid an issue, particularly one as large as this one. Sooner or later, she would ask me. And then what was I going to do? Her mother might be able to flat-out lie to her, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell her the truth, either; I’d given Cybil my solemn promise, and I still agreed with her that Kerry was better off not knowing.
Rock and a hard place, for all three of us.
Damn Dancer’s miserable soul.
5
JAKE RUNYON
He’d been in place, parked in the shadow of a eucalpytus just down the block from the Troxell home, for twenty-five minutes when the subject appeared in the driveway. Right on schedule; the Ford’s dashboard clock and Runyon’s Timex both read 6:45. He felt a faint stirring, a kind of awakening. When he wasn’t working, just waiting, he had the ability to shut himself down-no wasted motion, no intrusive thoughts. Like a machine on idle, waiting to be put to its purpose. He’d learned that little trick during the long months of Colleen’s illness, the only way he’d been able to get through the bitter hopelessness of her deathwatch. And he’d continued doing it since, spending a substantial part of his off-time in that twilight mode. It helped keep him sane and allowed him to function; it made his empty life more tolerable.
He watched Troxell walk around to the driver’s side of one of the silver BMWs parked over there. Easy man to spot, even from a distance and even without the agency file photo his wife had supplied: tall, lean, long-jawed, wavy black hair streaked with gray at the temples. Still wearing a business suit and tie. He had one of those erect, pulled-back postures, eyes fixed straight ahead, stride long and stiff, completely focused. Not so much different, outwardly, than Runyon himself.
The BMW turned east out of the driveway. Runyon gave him most of a block before U-turning and establishing pursuit. Almost immediately he began to feel energized. On the move like this, with a set purpose, always had that effect on him. Even when he wasn’t working, in the evenings and on weekends, he spent much of
