'Yes.'
'I'm sorry, Jack, I truly am. Looks like somebody in D.C. found out this guy Tiny Man has been running amok in the drug trade, and with this new drug war and all was afraid that if he got caught the regular way a whole line of dirty old wash would get hung out. I mean, we're talking about another My Lai here, and in Cambodia, yet. So this somebody tells Petty the real story and figures Petty'll go birddog and take care of the whole mess for them. I mean, look at Coleman. Maybe Petty was the only one who didn't know why they went into Cambodia. It could happen, couldn't it?'
Paine didn't want to say it. He saw Petty's face before him, the laughing face filled with tears, and he saw the essential Bobby Petty, the blue soul deep inside him that had found that his heroism had turned to shit, that he was a murderer as much as any man he had ever tracked, and that his family and friends would, from this time onward, know only a murderer and would be tainted by his presence just as his own soul was tainted, and that he could never look into their eyes again without seeing his own sin reflected in them, and in their lives. And Paine saw the essential Bob Petty and knew that he would wipe his family and friends free of him, separate them in reality even as they were separated by sin, and he saw Bob Petty coldly doing all these things out of love-the destruction of his family, the alienation of his friends, the renunciation of his livelihood. Paine now saw Petty's face not in a dream but in reality, in that room as Petty stood over him with the cold eyes not of hate but of self-death, of love, as Petty swung his fist up, the tremble in the fingers, and brought it down upon Paine as a loving kiss. .
'Jack, couldn't it happen?'
Paine saw Petty's face and wanted to believe that he couldn't go mad, could not execute his fellow murderers as they had executed a village of innocent men in an alien country, but Paine knew that this was something that was part of Bob Petty's essential sell-was, in fact, part of his own and most other men's-for madness is sometimes the handmaiden of justice.
'Jack?'
'Yes,' Paine whispered, 'it could happen.'
The line between them was silent a longtime. Paine heard the hiss in the wires, the distance of a wire in the ground and hung on a pole, the wire connecting his mind, his soul, to Billy Rader's mind and soul, and, finally, Billy Rader said what he had to.
'I'm going to write about this thing, Jack. You know I have to. When it's all over, when I have everything in place, I'm going to publish it. Too many people will be hurt if I don't. It's too big a story to let go. We're talking about another big government scandal, something that shouldn't be going on. All of us get burned when that happens.' His voice became quieter. 'I know what will happen to your friend, and I'm sorry.'
'I know,' Paine said.
There was another silence. And then Billy Rader said, 'There's one other thing, which I know you would find out anyway. I don't want you ever to think I'm using you, Jack, that it's for a story. It's just that I know you, and you'd find it out anyway.'
'Go ahead, Billy.'
'I just want you to be careful, Jack. I want you to be very careful.'
'I will.'
'I know where Bobby is now, where Tiny Man must be.' And then he told Paine where.
26
Paine didn't like wearing disguises. When he had used the drinking glass to listen in on Sims and Martin, it had made him feel as if he were playing detective. But there were times when playing detective worked, and was necessary. He had colored his hair blond, and he wore a red baseball cap, and he had a blond mustache called 'the Baron' that he had ordered from an outfit in New York that supplied Broadway theaters, and he wore an old denim jacket and a pair of faded jeans with the bottoms frayed, and an old pair of sneakers. All of these things together made him look like someone else, a guy from Yonkers who worked on the crew that mowed your lawn, perhaps. He looked like someone on a budget heading to Tucson to see a friend, or, perhaps, to try to persuade his errant girlfriend to come back to New York. He didn't look like someone who would succeed in getting the girlfriend to come back, but that was all right.
At La Guardia, he told the ticket seller that his name was Jimmy Plunkett and paid in cash. He smiled a lot. People smiled back, and soon he was on a flight with his headset on, thinking about the fed he had seen hanging around outside his apartment building in Yonkers. He knew the disguise was all right, and the makeup covering the bruises, because he had gone up to the fed and asked him the time, smiling, and the fed had not smiled but had given him the time and then put his dead eyes back on the front of the building.
'Thanks, man,' he had said.
The fed had answered, 'Get lost.'
The flight was long, and he slept a little, but Bobby Petty didn't haunt his dreams any longer. When he didn't sleep he listened to the headset and stared at the flat earth below and enjoyed the stale air-conditioned atmosphere of the plane until it landed in Tucson, where it was still 100 degrees with no help in sight.
He rented a car, paying cash and showing his Jimmy Plunkett driver's license. He kept smiling, and everyone smiled. When you pay cash, he thought, it didn't matter if you looked like a landscaper's assistant from Yonkers, everyone returned your smile.
He wondered how long it would be before the fed outside his building, and Bryers, and Sims and Martin, found out he was not in Yonkers.
He figured he had twenty-four hours.
He drove past the hotel he had stayed in before, thought of going up to room 419 to see if Martin and Sims were still there and ask them the time. He kept driving.
He drove a long while.
He was almost where he wanted to go when he knew for sure that he was being followed. A tan Datsun had made all of his turns, and he didn't know how long it had been back there but he knew it had gotten closer. He tried to make it get closer still, to see the driver, but it hung back, refusing to bite.
He made a few more turns, getting fancy with the wheel, but the Datsun stayed with him.
Finally, he picked a wide street with lots of light on it and pulled over to the curb.
The Datsun, a half block behind, pulled over and stopped.
Paine got out of his car and began to walk toward the Datsun. The sun was in the windshield, and he still couldn't see the driver. And then, as Paine approached the car, the driver's door opened, and the driver got out.
'Paine,' Philly Ramos said, smiling. 'What a lousy disguise.'
As Paine got close, Philly held out his right hand in greeting. In it was a small can, the top of which he depressed. A small cloud came out of the can, up into Paine's face. 'Sorry, man,' Philly Ramos said, affectionately.
Paine began to choke; his eyes watered and he could not see. He threw out his arms and backed away from Philly Ramos.
But then Philly said, 'Sorry,' again, with gentleness, and something came down hard on the back of Paine's skull and he met blackness.
27
Paine awoke in a room somewhere, sitting up on a chair, handcuffed behind. Paine's throat was parched with the taste of chemicals and dry heat.
Philly came into the room and smiled. He wore a long silk paisley robe. His feet were bare. The toenails shone as if they had been covered with clear lacquer. Philly had loosened his ponytail; his straight, ink black hair hung loosely down, framing his beautiful face.
