'Decent of him to kill himself,' Durkin said. 'Since nobody seemed capable of doing it for him. He saved us a lot of aggravation.'
'You had a good case against him.'
'Oh, we would have put him away,' he said. 'I've got no doubts of that. Still, this makes it simpler all around. Did I tell you there was a note?'
'On the wall, you said. In lipstick.'
'Right. I'm surprised he didn't use the mirror. I bet the landlord wishes he had. It's a lot easier scraping it off a mirror than covering it with paint. There's a mirror on the wall next to the door, too. You must have noticed it.'
'I was never in the apartment, Joe.'
'Oh, of course. I forgot.' He gave me a knowing look. 'Anyway,'
he said, 'offing himself was the first decent thing the bastard ever did.
You wouldn't figure a guy like him to do it, would you?'
'Oh, I don't know,' I said. 'Sometimes a man will have that one moment of clarity, when all the illusions fall away and he sees clearly for the first time.'
'That moment of clarity, huh?'
'It happens.'
'Well,' he said, picking up his drink, 'I don't know about you, but whenever I feel a moment of clarity coming on, I just reach out for one of these and let the clouds roll in.'
'That's probably wise,' I said.
Of course he was hoping I'd tell him what happened on Twenty-fifth Street. He had his suspicions and he wanted me to confirm them. If that's what he wants, he's going to have a long wait.
I've told two people. I told Elaine. In a sense I'd already told her in Intensive Care, but if a part of your mind really does hear what's said at such times, it doesn't tell the rest of your mind later on. I let her think Motley had killed himself until she was home from the hospital. Then, the same day I brought her her Christmas present, I told her what really happened.
'Good,' she said. 'Thank God. And thank you. And thank you for telling me.'
'I don't see how I could not tell you. I don't know if I'm glad I did it, though.'
'Why not?'
I told her how my framing him had set it all in motion in the first place, and how I'd done the same thing all over, playing God again.
'Honey,' she said, 'that's crap. He would have come back at us anyway. This way it took him twelve years instead of a couple of months. And killing the son of a bitch pretty much guarantees he won't cause any more trouble. Not in this world, anyway, and that's the only world I'm going to worry about right now.'
Around the middle of January Mick and I had a long night together, but after we closed the bar we didn't go to the butchers' mass. It had snowed a few days earlier, and he wanted to show me how pretty his place upstate looked with snow covering the hills. We drove up there and I stayed over and rode back with him the following afternoon. It was peaceful up there, and as beautiful as he'd said it was.
On the way up I told him how Motley's life had ended. It didn't come as a surprise to him. After all, he knew I had the address, and he knew too that I'd had to handle my business with Motley on my own.
I called Tom Havlicek after Motley's body was discovered, but I didn't give him anything beyond the official version. At that point, of course, they reopened the case in Massillon— now that it didn't make any difference. It did clear Sturdevant's name, however, which I suppose was of value to his friends and relatives. At the same time it sullied Connie's, because the local paper came up with the fact that she'd been a hooker years back and shared this tidbit with their readers.
Tom said I ought to come out and he'd take me hunting, and I said that really sounded nice, but I think we both knew how unlikely I was to take him up on it. He called the other day when the Bengals got beaten in the Super Bowl and said he might be getting down to New York one of these days. I told him to make damn sure he gets in touch with me when he does, and he said I could count on it, that he'd make a point of it. And perhaps he will.
I haven't told Jim Faber yet.
We have dinner at least once a week, and I've come close to telling him a couple of times. I suppose I'll get around to it one of these days.
I'm not sure what's stopped me so far. Maybe I'm afraid of his disapproval, or that he'll do what he so often does and put me face-to-face with my own conscience, a sleeping dog I let lie as much as I possibly can.
Oh, I'll get it off my chest sooner or later. After a particularly meaningful meeting, say, when I'm just overflowing with enough spirituality to drown a saint in.
But in the meantime the only people I've told are a career criminal and a call girl, and they seem to be the two people in the world to whom I'm closest. I don't doubt that says something about them, and I should think it would say even more about me.
It's been a cold winter, and they say we've got a lot more of the same coming. It's hard on the street people, and a couple of them died last week when it went down below zero. But for most of us it's not that bad. You just dress warm and walk through it, that's all.
The End
