“The timing is important,” I said. Katie and I were in her car, in the garage. The garage door was open, but no one could see us from the end of the street.
“Do you think they’ll fall for it?” Eric asked. He was standing just outside my window. He was even in the khakis and blue shirt I’d just had on.
“Sure. And if they don’t, it’s not a big deal.”
“How do I pretend I’m you?”
“Act intelligent.”
“Then they’ll know it’s me,” he said.
“Then act stupid.”
“Okay. I can try.”
“Rule Number 91-don’t do anything that I won’t want to see on the news tonight.”
I was having second thoughts, but Eric had already sauntered away. I got out of the car to watch.
He wandered slowly toward the left barricade, and there was an immediate reaction. Car doors opened, cameras stood, all centered on the ersatz Jason, the sheep among the wolves. Now I was really having doubts.
One of the two trucks at the barricade at the other end of the street roared to life and shot away, to come around the block. The other scooted after it. I jumped back into the car.
“Five, four, three,” I said. He would have almost reached the mob. “Two, one, go.”
I didn’t squeal the tires. I just pulled out very quickly, made a speedy turn to the right, toward the weak side of the defensive line, and accelerated. The police knew we were coming and swept the barricade aside for our car.
Then we were clear.
Left at the corner. “Lean with it,” I said to Katie.
“Lean with what?”
“The turns!”
Right after that, then left. No one was behind us.
“You did it!” she said.
That made everything, the danger, the risks, all worth it. I was her hero.
“I would do anything for you,” I said. We were out on the main road.
“Poor Eric.”
“It is a far better thing he does than he has ever done before.” I slowed down to a regular speed. “I hope none of those reporters are blondes.”
“Well, they all are, of course. At least, the women.”
“He might be in their clutches, even as we speak.”
“You told him to get away from them as soon as we were gone.”
“He’s easily distracted. And they know we got away, so he’s all they have. It might even become a hostage situation.”
“Mother can rescue him. He’ll be fine.”
We were fine. We were away from the old house, and that would help. I was feeling new, renewed, maybe hopeful. Life would be different.
The city retreated and we advanced. Everything was going to work. Evil was defeated! The governor was history, and I was free from him and from the whole iniquitous business. I was really appreciating Melvin. He took the blame when he died, and left the riches for me. Now I had the wad, and I hadn’t had to stoop to his level to get it.
It’s nice to have someone else die in your place.
We arrived at the front gate alone and soared through, just the two of us. I pulled up to the front door.
We didn’t even speak. I opened the car door for her, led her by the hand up the steps, and unlocked the front door. And then it was natural to lift her and carry her over the threshold.
And I wouldn’t put her down until she kissed me.
Then we walked through the halls and galleries, exquisitely furnished, cleaned and shining. It was somewhat spare, but what was still lacking the trucks would soon provide. I banished the doubts and disputes from my mind. I would enjoy this completely.
“If I had never met you,” I said, “and I had only seen what you had made of this house, I would still know you were beautiful.”
“Thank you,” she said. “This is what I’ve always wanted.”
From the second-floor landing we had an expansive view of the front grounds. Soon the procession appeared on the horizon-first, a lone white-and-blue figure on a swift two-wheeled steed; then three yellow-and-orange trucks, imperious gliding swans; and in their wake the bevy of white news trucks and cars herded by two black- and-white police cars.
The nobler vehicles entered the grounds and we descended to greet them.
Eric doffed his helmet and grinned. “We made it.”
“Well done,” I answered.
“Francine’s in the police car.”
“We’ll post bail if we have to.” Katie said it before I could. She was energized from our moment together, and she was ready for the next frenzy. The trucks came to a halt, and quickly, many men were following her commands.
My part was done. Eric and I found a place on the third floor where we could sit.
“This is so cool,” he said. We were on a balcony looking down on the fireplace.
“It’s just money,” I said.
“It said in the paper you have a billion dollars.”
“Tell me what else the papers say.”
In surprisingly cogent sentences, Eric caught me up on the outside world. Most of the sixty pages I’d given to Stan Morton were out now, with times and places of meetings, details of which contracts were rigged, the amounts of the bribes.
The governor had spoken no more public words, but it was getting vicious inside his cabinet as everyone tried to shift blame. “Sources high in the administration” were leaking like a spaghetti strainer, and the cabinet secretaries sounded like ten hungry dogs in a room with one meatball. My former employees were given their share of ink, but they weren’t talking.
“They had an article about Henry Malden, the lieutenant governor, since he might end up as governor. It said he doesn’t even show up at the capitol very often.”
I’d have to ask Fred who Mr. Malden was owned by. “What do they say about Angela?”
The public version was that someone had come to her estate Saturday evening. Angela must have been expecting the person, because she apparently answered the door herself. None of the servants saw anything; none of them saw her through the rest of the evening, until she was found Sunday morning.
“That doesn’t sound like Angela,” I said. “She must have wanted to keep her meeting secret.”
The note was a problem. The first reports were that it was a forgery, but it wasn’t. It was in her own handwriting. The wording was strange, though.
“‘I don’t want this to go on,”’ Eric recited. “‘It all has to stop. I’ll do anything to make it stop.”’
“That does sound like Angela.”
“The police think it was part of a note she had written to someone else. The paper was torn.”
The gun was in her right hand, but the shot was through her left temple. The police had other evidence, but they weren’t talking about it.
“Anything about Melvin?”
A lot about his life and how he had made his fortune. Some about his accident, and the possible brake failure. The main evidence was drops of brake fluid in Fred’s driveway.
“That still doesn’t seem right to me,” Eric said. “You’d have to look real hard, right away.”
“Do they have any clue who killed them?”
No. Sources said the police were clueless.
“And you’re mysterious and reclusive,” Eric said. “Maybe you’re an idealist and you want to clean up the
