mouth. Sweat beads ringed his hairline.
When Safer's footsteps had faded completely, he said, 'They say he's the best.' Staring past me. 'This is our family room.'
'Beautiful house,' I said.
'So I've been told.'
'What happened?' I said. Any way he took that would be fine.
He didn't answer, kept his gaze above me-focused on the blank TV. As if waiting for the set to come on by itself and feed him some form of enlightenment.
'So,' he said, finally. 'Here we are.'
'What can I do for you, Richard?'
'Safer says anything I tell you is confidential, unless you think I'm a direct threat to someone else.'
'That's true.'
'I'm no threat to anyone.'
'Good.'
He jammed his fingers in his hair, tugged at the wiry strands. 'Still, let's keep it hypothetical. For the sake of all concerned.'
'Keep what hypothetical?' I said.
'The situation. Say a person-a man, by no means a stupid man but not infallible-say he falls prey to an impulse and does something stupid.'
'What impulse?'
'The drive to attain closure. Not a smart move, in fact it's the single stupidest, most insane thing he's ever done in his life, but he's not in his right mind because events have… changed him. In the past, he's lived a life full of expectations. That's not to say he's wedded to optimism. Of all people, he knows things don't always work out according to plan. He's earned a living understanding that. But still, after all these years of building, establishing, he's done very well, gotten sucked in by the trap of rising expectations. Feels he has a right to some degree of comfort. Then he learns differently.' He shrugged. 'What's done is done.'
'His acting on impulse,' I said.
He sucked in breath, gave a sick smile. 'He's not in his right mind, let's leave it at that.'
Crossing his legs, he sat back, as if giving me time to digest. I had a pretty good idea what he was up to. Working on a diminished-capacity defense. Safer's advice or his own idea?
'Temporary insanity,' I said.
'If it comes to that. The only problem is, because he's so screwed up, in the process he may have upset his kids. His own peccadilloes, he can deal with. But his kids, he needs help with that.'
Murder-for-hire as a peccadillo.
I said, 'Do the kids know what he's done?'
'He hasn't told them, but they're smart kids, they may have figured it out.'
'May have.'
He nodded.
I said, 'Does he intend to tell them?'
'He doesn't see the point of that.'
'So he wants someone else to tell them.'
'No,' he said, suddenly raising his voice. A splash of rose seeped from under his shirt collar and climbed to his earlobes, vivid as a port-wine stain. 'He definitely does not want that, that is not the issue. Helping them through the process is. I-he needs someone to tide them over until things settle down.'
'He expects things to settle down,' I said.
He smiled. 'Circumstances dictate optimism. So, do we have an understanding of the issues at hand?'
'No knowledge provided to the kids, holding their hands until their father is out of trouble. Sounds like high- priced baby-sitting.'
The flush darkened his entire face, his chest heaved and his eyes began to bulge. The surge of color made me draw back defensively. It's the kind of thing you see in people who have a serious problem with anger. I thought of Eric's outburst in the victims' room at the station.
New side of Richard. Before this, he'd been unfailingly contentious, sometimes irritable, but always cool.
He worked at cooling off now, placing one hand on the arm of the sofa, cupping a knee with the other, as if hastening self-restraint. Ticking off the seconds with his index finger. Ten ticks later, he said, 'All right,' in the tone you'd use with a slow learner. 'We'll call it babysitting. Well-trained, well-paid baby-sitting. The main thing is the kids get what they need.'
'Until things settle down.'
'Don't worry,' he said. 'They will. The funny thing is, despite his poor judgment, he didn't actually do anything.'
'Soliciting murder's not nothing-hypothetically speaking.'
His eyelids drooped. He got up, stepped closer to my chair. I smelled mint on his breath, cologne, putrid sweat. 'Nothing happened.'
'Okay,' I said.
'Nothing. This person learned from his mistake.'
'And didn't try again.'
He aimed a finger gun down at me. 'Bingo.' Easy tone, but the flush had lingered. He stood there, finally returned to the sofa. 'Okay then, we have a meeting of the minds.'
'What exactly do you want me to tell your kids, Richard?'
'That everything's going to be fine.' Making no attempt to steer it back to third-person theoretical. 'That I may be… indisposed for a while. But only temporarily. They need to know that. I'm the only parent they have left. They need me, and I need you to facilitate.'
'All right,' I said. 'But we should also be looking for other sources of support. Are there any family members who could-'
'No,' he said. 'No one. My mother's dead, and my father's ninety-two and living in a home in New Jersey.'
'What about Joanne's side-'
'Nothing,' he said. 'Both of her parents are gone and she was an only child. Besides, I don't need meddling laymen, I need a professional. Not a bad deal for you. I'll start paying you the way I pay Safer-driving time, thinking time, every billable second.'
I didn't answer.
He said, 'Why do we have this thing, you and I, everything turns into a push-and-pull?'
Lots of answers to that one, none good. I said, 'Richard, we have a meeting of the minds on one point: my role is helping Stacy and Eric. But I need to be honest with you: I have no magic to offer them. Information's my armament. I need to be equipped.'
'Oh for God's sake,' he said, 'what do you want from me, confession? Expiation?'
'Expiation,' I said. 'Eric used that word, too.'
His mouth opened. Shut. The flush drained from his face. Now he'd paled. 'Eric has a good vocabulary.'
'It's not a topic you and he have discussed?'
'Why the hell would it be?'
'I was just wondering if Eric had some reason to feel guilty.'
'What the hell about?'
'That's what I'm asking,' I said, feeling more like a lawyer cross-examining than a therapist easing pain. He was right, this was our script, and I was as much a player as he.
'No,' he said, 'Eric's fine. Eric's a great kid.' He slumped, rubbed his eyes, half disappeared into the couch, and I began to feel sorry for him. Then I thought of him passing cash to Quentin Goad. In the name of closure.
'So there's nothing particular on Eric's mind.'
'His mother destroyed herself, his father got hauled in by the gestapo. Now, what could be on his mind?'
He resumed staring at the TV screen. 'What's the problem here? Do you resent us because we've made it? Did you grow up poor? Do you resent rich kids? Does having to deal with them day in and day out because they're the
