lead, I wanted to follow it.
As we gathered some notebooks and coats, Havlicek asked, 'You ever think about what you'd do if you suddenly came into a couple of million dollars? Would you stay in the business? Would you work late at night like this, go through all the deadline stress that we have, all the thankless bullshit? Or would you just kick back and live a life of leisure?'
'What, you just find out you're an heir to the throne of Poland, and they want you to come home and live in the castle?' I asked.
He gave me a look out of the corner of his eye, otherwise ignoring my question. He said, 'I get two million bucks, I wouldn't change anything. This whole thing is too much fun.' They were the most introspective words I had ever heard him say. Then he added, 'Let's go.'
'I'll drive,' I said.
On the sidewalk, he said, 'De Niro.'
'What?' I asked.
'De Niro. I bet they get De Niro to play me.'
I said, 'What, you on heroin? Try Leslie Nielsen.'
He smiled and shook his head, this man unlike any other I had ever known.
eighteen
Sunday, November 5
My car was parked at the curb out front. When I started it up, the engine turned bravely in the cold, dry air of an early-winter's night.
Havlicek closed his coat around him in an exaggerated plea for heat.
'Hey, I talked to your FBI friend Stevens today,' he said.
'Oh, yeah? You trying to steal my sources?' I asked, jokingly.
He patted the pockets of his coat, looked at me more urgently, and said, 'I forgot a tape recorder. You have one?'
'Damn, it's inside.' I had started to pull the keys out of the ignition so I could get into my house when politeness once again got the better of me. Knowing I had a spare door key ingeniously stashed under a loose brick in my front garden, I let the engine run so the heat would crank up. 'Hold on,' I said. 'I'll be right back.'
I'll never forget his words: 'Hurry the hell up. I'm fricking freezing.'
Inside, I had hit the third step on my way up to my study, where the microcassette recorder sat on the shelf of an antique bookcase, when I heard the sound. At first, it was like a truck had backfired on the street outside. That was followed by what could have been a plane hitting my house, or an enormous clap of thunder, so strong that the resulting vibrations flung me to the ground, slamming my head against the railing, leaving me in a momentary daze tumbling down the stairs.
In that daze, I recall windows smashing in, the spray of glass, the blast of cold air. For reasons I can't explain, I recall seeing my front door, which I must have left ajar, heave open, and I half expected to see some masked man in a Ninja suit and a machine gun race inside my house. I recall seeing a wave of destruction, as if the whole thing were happening in slow motion-lamps falling off tables, pictures plummeting from walls and cracking on the floor, a chandelier that my wife's family gave us crashing down from above.
Within what must have been seconds, as the noise gave way to a grotesque silence, I understood that something had exploded, probably right out front. I picked myself up without realizing that blood was flowing from a gash in my head and raced out the front door. On the sidewalk and street, in the cold night, the various parts of my car were strewn asunder. A small fire burned in the engine, exposed by the open hood.
I scanned the area furiously, looking for Havlicek. I spotted the door of my car on the sidewalk. The hood was sitting in the middle of the street. There was singed, broken glass everywhere I looked, sparkling softly in the streetlights. Finally, my eyes were drawn to the still form of Havlicek, or at least his tattered body, slumped against my house, his legs splayed open, his head concealed by one of his arms.
I did what anyone would do: I raced over to him, rolled him over so he was facing me, and saw that his skull was cracked open. Blood and God only knows what else poured out of the hole. Half his left ear had been ripped off. He was no longer wearing any shoes, and soot or burn marks covered most of his clothing.
His eyes were closed. My first impulse was to shake him, to yell in his face, to tell him he'd be all right. I knew, though, that if he was alive, shaking him would only cause more blood to flow out of his head. I felt his throat, knowing nothing about where a pulse might be, but in hopes I would suddenly learn. I moved my hand around a couple of different ways, trying to maintain some calm. To my absolute amazement, I found a slow pulse.
'Steve, you're going to be all right,' I said, softly. I yanked my coat off and laid it over his form, remembering some first aid guide I must have read somewhere that said you always keep a trauma victim warm. 'Stay with me, Steve,' I said, speaking gently into his whole ear. 'Stay with me. Just stay with me. Hang on. Help is on the way.
Everything's going to be all right.'
I glanced around the neighborhood and saw several people emerge onto their front stoops, a collective look of panic on their faces. I shattered the odd silence by yelling, 'Is there a doctor around?' I got no response. You would think in the heart of Georgetown there would be at least one doctor on my block, but this being Washington, you made your money in television and in the lobbies of Congress, pushing various legislation, not helping those who needed to be nursed back to health. Someone finally opened a door and hollered back, 'I've called for help.' Nice of you to get involved, I thought.
I turned back to Havlicek. His neck was resting in one of my hands.
His garnet-colored blood was dripping onto my wrist and coagulating on the cold ground.
'Everything's all right,' I said over and over again, talking, probably, as much to myself as to him. 'We're not going to let those bastards beat us,' I said. 'They're not going to beat us. You're going to be all right.'
All of time seemed to screech to a halt out here on the sidewalk of Twenty-eighth Street, amid the morbid ruins that were once my house and car. The silence was still deafening. At this hour, late on a Saturday night, or rather early on Sunday morning, there wasn't even any traffic. I felt myself start to panic, felt myself want to scream at someone, to assess blame, to seek revenge. Eventually, in the distance, I heard the vague sound of a siren, and over my shoulder, a voice said to me, 'Here, I have a blanket and some towels.'
A neighbor who I hazily recognized spread the blanket across Havlicek's form. I took the towel and pressed it gently to Havlicek's head, trying to stem the flow of blood. 'He's alive,' I said. 'He's alive, and he's going to be all right.'
And just like that, Havlicek opened one eye and looked at me. My heart was pumping so hard it almost exploded through my chest. I hadn't actually believed anything I had said about him being all right.
I looked at him in unabashed amazement and said excitedly, 'You're fine, Steve. You're going to be fine. Hear that ambulance. It's about a minute away. Everything's going to be all right. Hang in there with me.'
Havlicek tried to mumble something in return, but it was incoherent, the talk of someone weak and in shock. I said, 'Don't speak. Save yourself. Stay with me. Stay with me. Help is on the way.'
Havlicek being Havlicek, he didn't bother to listen. He continued to mumble. His one eye was open, looking at me. His second eye popped open as well. I told him again to stay quiet. When he still didn't listen, I said, 'Steve, do yourself a favor and shut up.'
Then, summoning what appeared to be an inordinate amount of energy, Havlicek blurted out, 'My pocket.'
'Your pocket?' I asked him, still speaking softly, not raising my voice, not acting panicked, although all around us were the parts of what a few minutes ago was my Honda Accord, and before me, my friend was on the doorstep of death, about to ring the bell.
He nodded his head. I fished through his pants pocket, and he looked at me with some exasperation, saying,
