heritage thing that the families were trying to work out of… but that was it. If the phones were bugged, her protests would sound normal and innocent. If the tapes ever got into court, they might help influence a jury.
He watched the van the rest of the afternoon; watched as a mostly cloudy day turned gloomy and dark, and little spits of rain began trickling down the window. At a little after five o'clock, the van pulled away. The movement was so quick, and unexpected, that Grandpa almost missed it-and he knew for certain, from watching all afternoon, that nobody had gotten into it. Whoever was driving had been inside all morning and afternoon.
This was not paranoia; he was being watched.
At seven o'clock, with a steady drizzle darkening the streets, he drove slowly down to the supermarket, and then back to the house, going out one way, coming back on the other side of the block. He saw no one following, and he knew all the cars still on the street. So the watch was sporadic-the state cop and the Russian must have wanted to see if he'd panic after they talked to him. Grandpa smiled as he pulled back into the garage, just thinking about it. He'd sold them, all right.
There was, he thought as he went into the house, just the slightest possibility that they were watching from a neighbor's house… but then, why would they watch from the van at all? Still…
Inside, thinking of bugs and phone taps, he said to Grandma, 'Let's eat.' He banged around the kitchen, heating up some spaghetti, fed her and then himself. When she was done, he cleaned her up for the fourth time that day, and parked her in front of the TV again. The History Channel had a show about World War II, the landings at Normandy. They watched it together, and he talked to his wife, and then they watched a show about ice dancing, then the local news, and finally he said, 'Let's get you off to bed, sweetheart. Let's get you off to bed, okay?'
At ten thirty, he flushed the toilet and said into the walkie-talkie as the water rushed around the bowl, 'Exactly at eight.'
Three words. He got back two burps of static. Good. He got the silenced pistol and put it in the pocket of a black jacket, and pulled on the jacket.
At ten fifty-five, he slipped out the back door, stood in the shadows under the eaves. The rain wasn't as heavy as it had been, but the night was misty, with fog coming up from the street. He walked straight back to the garage, through the back door, pushed the button on the garage-door opener. If they were watching from the back of the house, then he was done. If they were on the other side of the street, he'd be okay. He didn't think they were there at all, but…
There was a figure coming up the alley, tall and thin, in a rain jacket. Carl. He gestured at the car, and Carl edged between the car and the garage wall, careful in the dark, and got in the driver's seat. 'Where to? What's going on?'
'We need to talk to your father,' Grandpa said. 'He's up in Virginia.'
'Dad? Do I have to talk to that asshole? What are we talking to him for?'
'Because he knows. And he's a drunk. The police have ways to put pressure on people, and he has to be warned. I can't call him-they may already be watching him… They asked about him this morning.'
'What if they're watching him now?'
'They might be. But I think this whole investigation is small. They had a van watching me for two days, different vans, and now there's nobody. The police who came today seemed confused about what was going on…' He told Carl about the interview with Nadya and Lucas.
'So they know everybody,' Carl said, when Grandpa finished.
'They know everybody, but not everything,' Grandpa said.
'What are we going to do?'
'I'm working on that,' Grandpa said. 'I'm working on a story. A story they can believe.'
'Dad's part of it? He's a drunk, he might say anything.'
'I think he'll be able to handle it. I've figured out a role for him,' Grandpa said.
Carl watched their back trail. Every time a car turned a corner behind them, he reported it. They took back roads, miles through the dark, rarely had anything in the rearview mirror.
'What did you tell your mom?' Grandpa asked.
'I told her I was going to stay over with you, that Grandma had been trying to get up at night.'
'Good. As long as she doesn't call.'
'She was already going to bed when I left.'
Grandpa turned in his seat, looked at the long dark road behind them and said, 'Enough. Let's go.'
'I don't know where he is. Dad.'
'I do,' Grandpa said. 'I had Bob Spivak find him.'
Roger Walther was living in a shack off Old 169 between Hibbing and Parkville; a shack in every sense of the word-old weathered-board siding showing streaks of moss and rot in their headlights, a tumbledown plank stoop, junk in the front and side yards-old washing machines, a junked car, a battered fourteen-foot Lund fishing boat with a thirty-year-old outboard on the back, sitting on a trailer with no wheels.
A small porch had holes where the screens should have been; there were lights in the windows behind the porch, and when Carl got out of the car, he could smell the smoke from a wood fire, the smoke being pushed down to the yard by the thin drizzle. Grandpa got out of the car and said, 'Come on.'
'You sure he lives here?'
'That's what Bob said.'
'I don't want to talk to the sonofabitch,' Carl said. 'I would've kicked his ass the last time we met up, except Mom stopped me.'
'I'm not asking you to come in, I'm telling you,' Grandpa snarled in the dark. 'This is not an option; this is an operation. We are going to try to figure out a way to put an end to this investigation.'
'How're we gonna do that?' Carl asked. The windows in the front had curtains, and now a silhouetted figure parted the curtains and looked out. The silhouette looked to Carl like a woman's.
'Watch,' Grandpa said.
They walked up to the porch and as they were about to knock on the front door, it opened. A woman was there in a terry-cloth dressing gown, yellow with age; she was forty, overweight, with dark, oily skin; she smelled of bourbon and cigarettes.
'Who're you?'
'I'm Roger's grandfather and this is his son. We need to talk to him for a moment,' Grandpa said.
The woman looked them over, then turned and called, 'They say it's your kid and your grandpa.'
'I'm coming…'
She stepped back from the door, and they stepped inside. The place smelled like cheap burning wood and newspaper, and baked beans. Roger came out of the back. He was a tall man, wearing black jeans and a plain white T-shirt; his hair, once blond, was going gray. He was barefoot. 'What do you two want?' he asked.
'We need to talk to you for a moment. It's important, but…' Grandpa looked at the woman, and then back at Roger. 'It's private.'
Roger looked at them for a long four seconds, then asked, 'Something happen to Jan?'
'No. It's about the four families,' Grandpa said. 'We've got a big problem.'
'Fuck that,' Roger said. But he turned to the woman and said, 'You go on back in the bedroom. I'll be back in five minutes. You shut that door tight.'
She put her hands on her hips and sighed, as if he'd just unloaded the burden of the world on her, then sullenly went back to the bedroom and slammed the door.
When the door slammed, Roger looked at Grandpa and then at Carl, and said, 'Carl knows?'
'Yes,' Grandpa said. He had his hand in his pocket and when he took it out, he had the silenced pistol in it.
Carl said, 'What?' when he saw the pistol coming up, and Grandpa shot Roger in the heart.
Roger, looking surprised, fell down with a thump. The wooden floor echoed like a drum.
Carl said, 'You shot my dad.' Like a slap in the face; it staggered him.
Grandpa said, 'Don't think. Go do the woman.' He handed the gun to Carl. 'Don't think, don't touch her, don't touch anything. Just go do it.'
'You shot my fuckin' dad,' Carl said, and the gun barrel drifted up toward Grandpa's waist.
'Don't point the gun at me; just take care of the woman.'
