“Now how would I have known that?” he demanded.
“When you talked to Raines, you must have told him to come here, not to your condo. You knew he?d
walk straight across the park. All you had to do was go down and wait for him.”
His eyes were beginning to bob like fishing corks on the sea. His white shirt front was stained dark
gray with sweat. He jumped
“Christ, I think you?re serious,” he said angrily.
“Deadly so,” I said.
“You?re out of your mind, Kilmer,” he snarled. “My God, talk about trying to prove a preconceived
notion! Barring the fact that I couldn?t have done it, what reason would I have had for killing by best
friend? A disagreement over an error in judgment? Don?t be ridiculous.”
I could have given him a lot of stereotyped reasons—greed, power, fear of Raines—-hut they would
have been simple answers. They didn?t cover the abstractions.
He sat back down, put his feet on his desk, and glared at me over the end of his cigar.
“Well?” he challenged.
“Let?s forget the obvious and deal with the abstractions,” I said.
“What the hell do you mean, abstractions?” he said.
“Look, I understand you, Donleavy,” I said. “There was a time when I could?ve been in the same boat,
doing things the way I was told to do them, or expected to do them, running the show in the same old
ways, with an occasional pat on the head. I also know that in the end I would have had to make a
name for myself, to prove I was worth the trust, that I wasn?t just somebody?s lover or best friend.
„The thing is, you were smarter than I was. You had it figured out from the beginning. You knew the
power was given and you knew it could be taken away. I learned that lesson the hard way. Hell, I
never did know the rules.
“You were given the power, the day-.to-day business of running Findley Enterprises. You got it from
Raines, who got it from Chief, and you ran it the way it was always run, the way the Findleys had run
things since Oglethorpe was governor. But sooner or later, Donleavy, you had to prove your value,
not only to everyone else, but to yourself. You had to prove you weren?t a sycophant, just another
jock with a rich friend. And not just any rich friend. Harry Raines lived by the rules. He managed the
Findley businesses brilliantly, got himself elected state senator, moved a mountain by swaying public
opinion in favour of the pari-mutuel laws, and looked like a shoo-in to be the next governor. A tough
act to follow. You had to show Dunetown that Sam Donleavy could move a mountain or two
himself.”
“Big deal,” Donleavy snapped. “Since when is ambition a crime?”
