lowered and a full minute passed without a word from him.
Then, still not looking at me, he said, 'Maybe I wrote the letters.'
'And?'
'What harm could it do? Keep a good story alive and throw the fear of God into three sons of bitches while you're at it. Don't tell me there's laws against it.' He sighed. 'I don't mind breaking a law when I've got a good reason. And I don't mind upsetting the emotional equilibrium of three assholes who never gave a rat's ass how many emotional equilibriums they knocked to hell and gone. Or do I mean equilibria? You a Latin scholar, Mattie?'
'Not since high school.'
'The kids don't take Latin anymore. Or maybe it's back in again, for all I know. Amo, amas, amat.
Amamus, amatis, amant. You remember?'
'Vaguely.'
'Vox populi, vox dei. The voice of the people is the voice of God.
And I suppose the will of the people is the will of God, wouldn't you say?'
'I'm no expert.'
'On Latin?'
'Or on the will of God.'
'Yeah. I'll tell you something, Mr. Expert. That first column I wrote? When I more or less told Richie Vollmer to kill himself and do the world a favor?'
'What about it?'
'I meant what I wrote in that column. I never thought it would inspire anyone to homicide, but if the thought had crossed my mind I might have gone ahead and written it anyhow.' He leaned forward, looked into my eyes. 'But if I ever had the slightest notion that writing more letters from Will would lead to the murder of anyone, Tully or Rome or Kilbourne, I never would have done it.'
'And that's what happened? You put the idea in someone's head?'
He nodded. 'Unintentionally, I swear it. I gave Adrian the idea and I gave it to this idiot as well.'
'You know,' I said, 'the cops'll break you. You won't have an alibi for the night of Kilbourne's death, or if you do it won't hold up. And they'll find witnesses who can place you on the scene, and they'll find carpet fibers or blood traces or some goddamn thing or other, and they won't even need that because
before all the evidence is in hand you'll cave in and confess.'
'You think so, huh?'
'I'm sure of it.'
'So what do you want me to do?'
'Give it up now,' I said.
'Why? So you can have the hat trick, is that it?'
'I've already had more publicity than I want. I'd just as soon stay out of it.'
'Then what's the point?'
'I'm representing a client,' I said.
'Who? You can't mean Whitfield.'
'I think he'd want me to see this through.'
'And what's in it for me, Mattie? Mind telling me that?'
'You'll feel better.'
'I'll feel better?'
'Havemeyer did. He thought he could commit murder and then go right back to his life. But he found out he couldn't. It was eating him up and he didn't know what to do with it. He was ready to give it up the minute I walked in the door, and he told me he felt relieved.'
'You know, he handled the killing part neatly enough,' he said.
'Havemeyer, I mean. Shot him, ran down the street, got away clean.'
'Nobody ever gets away clean.'
He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them he said he could certainly use another drink.
He caught the waitress's eye, held up two fingers, and made a circular motion. Neither of us said anything until she came to the table with another double round, two double shots with beer chasers for Marty, two more glasses of club soda for me. I still had a glass and a half of soda from the round before, but she took them away, along with Marty's empty glasses.
'Oh fuck it,' he said, when she was out of hearing range. 'You're right about one thing, you know.
Nobody ever gets away with anything. What do you want me to say? I wrote the letters and I killed the son of a bitch. You happy now?
What the hell's that?'
