“Yes.”
Vespa smiled now. Grace did not know what he was thinking, but the smile broke her heart. “When Ryan was six, he was into baseball cards.”
“Max is into Yu-Gi-Oh!”
“Yu-Gi-what?”
She shook her head to indicate that it wasn’t worth explaining.
He went on: “Ryan used to play this game with his cards. He’d break them up into teams. Then he’d lay them out on the carpet like it was a ball field. You know, the third baseman-Graig Nettles back then-actually playing third, three guys in the outfield-he even kept the extra pitchers in a bullpen out in right field.”
His face glowed in the memory. He looked at Grace. She smiled at him, as gently as she could, but the mood still burst. Vespa’s face fell.
“He’s getting released on probation.”
Grace said nothing.
“Wade Larue. They’re rushing his release. He’ll be out tomorrow.” “Oh.”
“How do you feel about it?”
“He’s been in jail for almost fifteen years,” she said.
“Eighteen people died.”
She did not want to have this conversation with him. That number-eighteen-was not relevant. Just one mattered. Ryan. From the kitchen Max laughed again. The sound shredded the room. Vespa kept his face steady but Grace could see something going on inside of him. A roiling. He did not speak. He did not have to, the thoughts obvious: Suppose it had been Max or Emma. Would she rationalize it as a stoned loser getting high and panicking? Would she be so quick to forgive?
“Do you remember that security guard, Gordon MacKenzie?” Vespa asked.
Grace nodded. He had been the hero of the night, finding a way to open up two locked emergency exits.
“He died a few weeks ago. He had a brain tumor.”
“I know.” They had given Gordon MacKenzie the biggest spread in the anniversary pieces.
“Do you believe in life after death, Grace?”
“I don’t know.”
“How about your parents? Will you see them one day?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on, Grace. I want to know what you think.”
Vespa’s eyes bored into hers. She shifted in her seat. “On the phone. You asked if Jack had a sister.”
“Sandra Koval.”
“Why did you ask me that?”
“In a minute,” Vespa said. “I want to know what you think. Where do we go when we die, Grace?”
She could see that it would be useless to argue with him. There was a wrong vibe here, something out of sorts. He was not asking as a friend, a father figure, out of curiosity. There was challenge in his voice. Anger even. She wondered if he’d been drinking.
“There’s a Shakespeare quote,” she said. “From Hamlet. He says that death is-and I think I have the quote right-an undiscovered country from whose borne no traveler returns.”
He made a face. “In other words, we don’t have a clue.”
“Pretty much.”
“You know that’s crap.”
She didn’t say anything.
“You know that there’s nothing. That I will never see Ryan again. It’s just too hard for people to accept. The weak-minded invent invisible gods and gardens and reunions in paradise. Or some, like you, won’t buy into that nonsense, but it’s still too painful to admit the truth. So you come up with this ‘how can we know?’ rationale. But you do know, Grace, don’t you?”
“I’m sorry, Carl.”
“For what?”
“I’m sorry that you’re in pain. But please don’t tell me what I believe.”
Something happened to Vespa’s eyes. They expanded for a moment and it was almost as if something behind them exploded. “How did you meet your husband?”
“What?”
“How did you meet Jack?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
He took a quick step closer. A threatening step. He looked down at her, and for the first time Grace knew that all the stories, all the rumors about what he was, what he did, they were true. “How did you two meet?”
Grace tried not to cringe. “You already know.”
“In France?”
“Right.”
He stared at her hard.
“What’s going on, Carl?”
“Wade Larue is getting out.”
“So you said.”
“Tomorrow his lawyer is holding a press conference in New York. The families will be there. I want you there.”
She waited. She knew there was more.
“His lawyer was terrific. She really dazzled the parole board. I bet she’ll dazzle the press too.”
He stopped and waited. Grace was puzzled for a few moments, but then something cold started in the center of her chest and spread through her limbs. Carl Vespa saw it. He nodded and stepped back.
“Tell me about Sandra Koval,” he said. “Because, see, I can’t understand how your sister-in-law, of all people, ended up representing someone like Wade Larue.”
chapter 36
Indira Khariwalla waited for the visitor.
Her office was dark. All the private detection was done for the day. Indira liked sitting with the lights out. The problem with the West, she was convinced, was overstimulation. She fell prey to it too, of course. That was the thing. No one was above it. The West seduced you with stimulation, a constant barrage of color and light and sound. It never stopped. So whenever possible, especially at the end of the day, Indira liked to sit with the lights off. Not to meditate, as one might assume because of her heritage. Not sitting in lotus position with her thumbs and forefingers making two circles.
No, just darkness.
At 10 P.M., there was a light rap on the door. “Come on in.”
Scott Duncan entered the room. He did not bother turning on the light. Indira was glad. It would make this easier.
“What’s so important?” he asked.
“Rocky Conwell was murdered,” Indira said.
“I heard about that on the radio. Who is he?”
“The man I hired to follow Jack Lawson.”
Scott Duncan said nothing.
“Do you know who Stu Perlmutter is?” she continued.
“The cop?”
“Yes. He visited me yesterday. He asked about Conwell.”
“Did you claim attorney-client?”
“I did. He wants to get a judge to compel me to answer.”
Scott Duncan turned away.
“Scott?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “You don’t know anything.”
Indira was not so sure. “What are you going to do?”
Duncan stepped out of the office. He reached behind him, grabbed the knob, and started closing the door behind him. “Nip this in the bud,” he said.
