19
Dahlman seemed affable, almost manic tonight, talking as though he had done nothing but wait for her to come back so he could have someone listen. And Jane listened politely while she prepared dinner, making a sound only when he paused. As Jane and Dahlman finished their dinner in the little apartment’s kitchen, he said, “It’s been an interesting exercise, living here for twelve days. It’s been nearly half a century since I’ve lived in a big apartment building with people at close quarters like this, but things never change at all. The games the children play are the same. Has anyone ever found out how they all learn that awful chant—nyah-nyah nyah-nyah-nyah? They seem to be born knowing it.”
Jane said quietly, “You’ve had a hard time, haven’t you?”
He made a face. “I can’t complain. I’ve been safe, and I’m healing nicely. And I’ve done a lot of thinking.”
Jane said, “What about?”
Dahlman said, “Have you ever been in prison?”
“Yes,” said Jane. “A couple of times, but not much longer than you were.”
Dahlman nodded. “It’s not entirely different from this. You can’t talk to anyone, really, or open the door.” He said, “I would like to apologize for getting you involved. When I heard of you, I wasn’t sure you even existed, but there seemed to be no reason not to look. There was no other direction that led to any destination at all.”
Jane sensed that something big was coming. “It doesn’t really make much difference how this happened.”
“It does,” he said. “You see, I was sure you weren’t going to come back, and I’d be rid of you. But here you are. I think it’s time for you to go back to your husband. I’ll go in the opposite direction for some distance before I’m caught, so there won’t be any obvious connection with you.”
“Sorry,” said Jane. “It’s a lousy idea.”
He waggled his head in frustration. “I’m sixty-seven years old. I’ve had a satisfying life, and a useful one. But it’s mostly over. If I’m caught, the people I care about—my children, a few colleagues, my patients—will never believe I’m a murderer. All of that matters. But the rest of this doesn’t. If I go to jail, my productive life is over. If I stay in hiding, my productive life is over. Even if I’m cleared, it could take five years of jails and lawyers. I won’t be able to return to operating on patients at the age of seventy-two.”
“I don’t know what will happen, and neither do you,” said Jane. “It could be that you’ll think of something that cures cancer.”
“And it could be that you’ll go home and save the world from hunger, or bear the child who rids the world of ignorance.”
She laughed and shook her head. “This isn’t the heart-transplant business. You don’t look down at two people on stretchers and say, ‘This one is young and that one is old, so I have to save the young one because she has more potential for the future.’ The truth is, there isn’t much chance for either of us. There’s none at all if you give up.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“They’re already convinced that Carey helped you, and by now they’ve got their suspicions about me,” she said. “If you get caught and convicted, it won’t exonerate us. It will just change our crime from obstructing justice to accessory to murder. And if you get killed it’s worse, because if there’s a trial our side at least gets to say something.”
Jane moved into the living room. Dahlman looked at her in disappointment. “I see.”
Jane stopped at the door of the bedroom. “I’m tired. I’ve been driving for a night and a day. Wake me if you smell tear gas.”
Jane lay on the bed and closed her eyes, consciously letting the muscles at each of her joints relax—first the toes and fingers, then the ankles and wrists, knees and elbows, shoulders and hips, then slowly, each vertebra along her back to her neck. For a time her mind struggled with bright impressions of headlights and the reflective signs along the superhighways, and white dashes between lanes shooting toward her out of the darkness like tracer rounds. Then darkness came, and Jane began to dream.
In her dream she was lying in the darkened apartment. She heard a sound, like something scratching against the door. She tried to ignore it for a time, but then she realized that she would have to get up and see what it was. She walked to the window beside the front door, stood on the chair, and looked out over the top of the blinds. On the little concrete slab outside sat a big black dog. With its keen senses it was aware of her instantly, and it turned its broad head upward to look in the window at her.
Jane stepped to the door and opened it. “Go home, boy,” she whispered. “Home.”
The dog turned and began to walk down the sidewalk into the dark, and Jane had an overwhelming feeling that she had to follow. She stepped onto the little slab and quietly closed the door behind her, then walked off after it. The dog reached the small circle of light from the street lamp at the intersection, then stopped and looked back at her. Jane stopped too. The dog came to her, then started across the street, and Jane went with it.
She followed it until she came to a small city park with big trees and a tiny old-fashioned bandstand with a roof on it. As she approached the bandstand, she saw that one of the pillars was out of symmetrical alignment. Then the pillar moved. It was a man. Jane called up to the man, “Is this your dog?” She turned to look down at it, but the dog was gone. Part of Jane’s mind knew that she was dreaming: when she’d stopped looking at the dog, it had ceased to exist.
The man’s soft, gentle voice made Jane’s eyes water and her throat tighten. “What the hell am I going to do with a dog?” It was Harry’s voice, and Harry was dead.
Harry the gambler stepped forward into the moonlight. He was as she remembered him, a bit on the short side and balding, with clothes that had once cost more than they should have but had been worn too long. She even remembered the expression that appeared on his face now—apologetic and regretful. “I’m sorry to make you come out here, honey. But I find it hard to go into a little furnished apartment like that. You understand.”
It was true. The first step into the apartment had triggered Jane’s memory of the place where Harry had died—the color of the carpet, the arrangement of the windows—but while she was awake she had forced the thought out of her mind. Harry shrugged his shoulders and the suit coat rode up on his arms, so he tugged the cuffs, then lifted his chin to straighten his tie. Even in the moonlight she could see the big, crude stitches the undertaker had used to close the place where John Felker had cut his throat. They were like the ones she had taken in Dahlman’s back.
Jane climbed the steps and put her arms around him. His body was cold and thin. Jane said, “I’m sorry, Harry. I’m so sorry. You got killed in an apartment like that. And it was my fault that he found you.”
Harry stepped back and lowered his head, but his sad eyes were still on her. He snapped his fingers. “Must have slipped my mind.”
“I’ve wanted to tell you something for a long time, but I couldn’t,” she said. “It wasn’t that I didn’t think you were important enough, and didn’t try to protect you. It was a mistake.”
He looked away for a second, then tried to smile. “Will you please stop nagging me about that? I’m just dead, not immortal and all-forgiving.” He reached out and tried to pat her shoulder, but his hand was cold and stiff. “I’m sorry I had to come now.”
“Why did you?”
“I’m an expert on long shots.”
“You’re not an expert,” she said softly. “An expert is somebody who wins.”
Harry nodded. “I won a lot and lost a lot. By the time I came to you I didn’t look like much, but I felt the same. I felt young, like I had plenty of life left.” He sighed. “You gave me a few extra years. Nobody else would do anything.”
“And?”
“You’re about to lose your ass.”
“How?”
“That old man is six feet two, thin and craggy, and sixty-seven. You disguise him, he ain’t getting any shorter, younger, or less craggy. How long is this man going to stay invisible?”
“I don’t know,” Jane admitted. “Who’s going to find him?”
