I sat in the car and listened to the wind. A cold fear was blowing across the Platte.
At a gas station about half a mile from Val Ballard’s, I called Hennessey at home.
“Me, sweetheart,” I said when he answered.
“Oh, lucky day.”
“What’d you find out on that McKinley tape?”
“I don’t want to talk about this on the phone.”
“What’s Lester doing, running a tap on you now?”
“You’re puttin‘ my ass in one big crack, Cliffie.”
“Hey, one big crack deserves another. Come on, Neal, give.”
I let the line hiss for a moment.
“What do you expect me to say?” he said.
“I expect you to say yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. I imagine you’ll break into song, with the chorus of ‘Over the River and Through the Woods.’ I’m hoping somewhere along the line you’ll tell me something about the McKinley tape.”
He sighed. “Why don’t you come on over here?”
“ ‘Cause I’m two thousand miles away and heading in the opposite direction.”
“Then I guess I can’t help you. I can’t talk about it on the phone.”
“They separated the voices, didn’t they?”
“I don’t want to talk about this…”
“They separated the voices.”
“I told you before, they can do wonders with modern equipment. You want to talk about that, fine, I can talk all night. I’ve become a regular scientist since I saw you at lunch, a real electronics wizard. Did you know they can take fifteen people and put ‘em to talking all at once, then take machines and separate every voice? Did you know that, Cliffie? Got something to do with timber and pitch. And all I always thought timber was was something loggers yell when they’re chopping trees down.”
“What did Peter say?”
“I think he yelled timber. Maybe he was an old logger up in Oregon.”
“You’re a pain in the ass, Hennessey,” I said, and meant it.
“Oh yeah? Fine. Someday I’ll sit down with you and compare notes and we’ll see who the real pain in the ass is.”
“It’s you, Neal. You’re becoming one of them.”
“I got news for you. I always was.”
“Hang up, then, if that’s how it is.”
We listened to each other’s silence for ten seconds. Then, with an anger in his voice that I’d never heard, he said, “Cliff, you’re abusing our friendship. It’s bad enough when you put your own neck in a noose, but you want me to stick mine in too and call it for old time’s sake. Dammit, you’re gonna cost me my badge before this is over.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” I said, but I hung in there, knowing that my silence was working on him.
“God damn it,” he said. “This isn’t right, Cliff.”
I didn’t say anything.
“The bastard said nothing, all right? Not one damn thing you or anybody else can use. You want his exact words? 1 ought to know ‘em, I been sitting here listening to the damn thing all afternoon. He said, ’Get away, get away.‘ He said that twice. Then he said, ’There’s nothing you can do to me, people already know.‘ ”
“What people?” I said—aloud, but to myself.
“I should’ve asked him that,” Hennessey said.
“What people?” I said again.
The line was quiet for a moment.
“What about Miss Pride? Did she say anything?”
“She said, ‘Oh, hi, everything’s fine.’ ”
I blinked. “She said what?”
“She said, ‘Everything’s fine, I’ll call you back.’ ”
The silence stretched.
