A little dignity.
The phrase kept repeating itself in my mind as I drove — and I had a sudden insight into Eberhardt, into what had made him quit me the way he had.
It wasn’t freedom he’d wanted; it was dignity.
It wasn’t that he’d grown to dislike me; it was that I stood in the way of him liking himself.
He’d put thirty years of his life into being a cop, a good honest cop, and frustrations and dissatisfactions had built up, and one day six years ago he’d made a sudden moral decision — just as I had in causing an evil man’s death — that went against everything he was and believed in. He’d let himself take a bribe. He changed his mind at the last minute, tried to back out of the deal, and that had spurred the briber to hire someone to murder him. The fact that he’d been shot down and nearly killed should have been punishment enough for his actions, but it wasn’t. He couldn’t reconcile the fact that he’d disgraced himself and his badge. Or that he’d compounded his guilt by not confessing to his superiors, by requesting an early retirement instead so he could keep his pension.
I was part of the problem, too, a large part. I chanced to be at his house when the hired gun showed up, and I’d also been shot and wounded. One more burden for him to bear: his fall from grace had nearly cost me my life as well as his own. Then there was the capper: I’d recovered first and gone hunting the people responsible, and in the process learned the truth about the bribe. Before long I was the only one besides Eberhardt who did know.
And yet, after he left the force he’d accepted my offer of a partnership because he had no other options. He’d thought he could live with the arrangement, but five-plus years of sharing an office and spending off-hours together had worn him down. I was a constant nagging reminder of the act he couldn’t forget, couldn’t forgive himself for. He must have seen himself as a loser, a sellout; and as he approached sixty, the feelings had grown more painful, less tolerable. He looked into the future and all he saw was more of the same. The grand-scale wedding to Bobbie Jean he’d planned in April had been a last-ditch effort to add some substance to his life; but he’d carried it too far and the whole thing had collapsed around him. Another loss, another failure. And I’d made it even worse by berating him, then losing my head and sucker-punching him in his own kitchen to end a heated argument.
He had to get shut of me after that; it had just been a matter of time. It was the only way he could go on living with himself. And once he was free of me, opening his own agency — taking charge of what remained of his life — was the only way he could recapture some of his self-worth.
The more I thought about it, the more I felt sure I’d hit on the truth. The insight made me feel something other than anger for the first time since he’d walked out; it made me sad and it made me hurt for him. It also made me want to go see him, tell him I understood now, tell him I wished him well. But it was too late for any gesture like that. He wouldn’t have wanted to hear it from me. He had too much pride.
Eb, I thought, goddamn it, Eb, it wasn’t just you. It wasn’t just me. Life does it to all of us, one way or another. Nobody can exist in a perfect vacuum, without some sin, some shame. There are no saints anymore, if there ever were.
But he wouldn’t have wanted to hear that either.
I drove the city until nearly two A.M., back and forth from Forest Hill to Mount Davidson to SoMa. No Victor Runyon. And no call from his wife.
Fatigue and hunger prodded me home finally. I didn’t feel like eating, but the pains in my belly were hot and insistent — I hadn’t had any food in eighteen hours — and I was afraid of doing some harm to myself. I forced down a sandwich. Half an apple, too, before I fell asleep sitting at the kitchen table.
Chapter 17
The telephone rang just as I was getting out of the shower. I hoped it would be Kerry, thought it was probably Kay Runyon; it was neither. Inspector Branislaus, SFPD.
“Wake you up?” he asked.
“No. I’ve been up for a while.”
“Six o’clock for me. On a Sunday morning that’s obscene. I hate pulling weekend duty.”
“What’s up, Branny? You find Runyon?”
“Not yet, alive or dead. No, I’m calling about Eddie Cahill. I thought you’d want to know.”
“Know what? Don’t tell me he’s still on the loose?”
“Afraid so. Daly City officers went out to his address last night and he wasn’t there. They waited around quite a while, but he didn’t show. Early this morning they went back. He was there, but when they tried to take him into custody he assaulted one of the officers and got away.”
“In the van or on foot?”
“On foot. They brought cars into the area pretty fast, but he still managed to slip through.”
“Armed?”
“We don’t know. Officers got a warrant and searched the house and there weren’t any weapons or spare rounds. But that doesn’t have to mean anything. What they did find was electronics equipment — the surveillance kind, including some of the same bugs Agonistes found in the Runyon house. The old phone company ID too.”
“Hard evidence.”
“Right. He’ll go up for sure once we nail him.”
“He might try to contact his sister,” I said. “Ask her to hide him out or help him leave the city.”
“I already talked to the brother-in-law,” Branislaus said. “He doesn’t like Cahill; he’ll turn him in if he has the chance.”
“Runyon’s wife know about this yet?”
“Yeah. She called here ten minutes ago. I figured she had a right to know.”
“How’d she take it?”
“She seemed numb. All she can think about is her husband.”
“Can you spare somebody to keep an eye on her and her son until Cahill’s picked up?”
“I wish I could. But we’re shorthanded. Hell, when aren’t we?”
“I’ll do it, then. Keep me posted, Branny.”
“Will do.”
I had drip-dried, talking to him. I threw the bath towel into the hamper and got dressed and went into the kitchen for another cup of coffee. Breakfast? I felt that I ought to eat something, but there was nothing in the fridge that appealed to me. I didn’t want to hang around here anyway. Too much time alone with myself the past eighteen hours; this was a day I needed to spend among people, even if they were all relative strangers.
Zim’s on van ness was where I went to eat. The food made no impression on me; I forgot what it was even as I was shoveling it down. The place was crowded, though, and when I came out afterward there was a congestion of cars in the area: morning mass at St. Mary’s, on Cathedral Hill nearby, had just let out. The good clear sound of church bells filled the warm Sunday morning. The people and the bells made me feel better than I had in a while.
I walked down O’Farrell to my office. One thing to take care of there before I drove to Ashbury Heights to see how Kay Runyon was holding up. As I walked, I had a mental image of the nave of St. Mary’s — the old church that had been destroyed by fire in 1962. Only once had I been inside the huge new cathedral that had opened in 1971, and that had been to see what it was like, not to attend services. More than thirty years since I’d been to mass at St. Mary’s or any other church, even though Cathedral Hill was only a few blocks from my flat. Long, long time. My ma had been a devout Catholic, had tried to raise me the same way; I’d gone along with her wishes to please her, but after she died, religion had no longer meant much to me. Such a good woman, so devout, and all she’d got for her virtue and her faith had been pain and suffering. God’s fault or not? For a long time I’d thought it was; now I wasn’t so sure. Might do me some good to give Him another chance... go to services again... take some of the old teachings to heart.