The flowers on top trembled as they were lowered out of the sun forever and Adam actually felt a stab of pity for them. Felt more for a spray of cut flowers than he ever had for any human being.
The coffin touched bottom, the straps slacked, then the minister dug a silver trowel in a heap of dirt and passed it to Mary.
It made the rounds, but when it got to Latovsky he shook his head.
Either he wasn’t religious or couldn’t bear to throw dirt on his friend’s grave.
Then it was over.
People started walking across the grass to the path down to the road. The women’s heels sank into the soft earth; the men took their arms. A crowd collected around Mary for a last word or hug. Latovsky towered over them, his face grim in the sunshine.
Suddenly there was a flurry in the crowd... a wail of “Nooooooo....” And Mary Bunner burst past the others and raced for the grave. Her hat blew off and cartwheeled across the grass, the soft dirt grabbed her heels, and she flailed her arms to keep her balance. She got to the edge of the grave, hesitated, then tensed, and Adam knew she was going to pitch herself into it. He leaped forward to stop her, but Latovsky beat him to it. He grabbed her shoulders from behind and hauled her back and she turned on him, fighting to get away. He held on to her, mashing her body against his so she was immobile. The minister ran back with his stole streaming out behind him, and the two boys joined them. Mary struggled fiercely; she was a big woman, not fat, but hefty and probably weighed almost as much as Adam. But Latovsky subdued her gently, easily, keeping his head bent back so she couldn’t scratch his face.
The minister said something. She screamed, “I can’t...” He said something else, the younger boy sobbed brokenly, and she finally stopped fighting and sagged against Latovsky.
He turned her sideways, put his arm around her waist to support her, and started walking her across the grass to the path.
She went docilely, her bare head bent.
They’d forgotten the hat, which was caught in a clump of daffodils, and Adam took a few steps toward it, but one of the boys ran back to get it. Mary’s legs were wobbling; she was losing control of her muscles the way Ellen Baines had a few minutes into the Librium shot. By now Ellen’s uterus and its attachments were frozen and microtomed and Lil Toomey was doing the final tumor-staging and grading. Vanderveer had done the initial pathology, but he was here.
Mary’s legs gave way completely and Latovsky swept her up in his arms. She must be a hundred and fifty pounds of dead weight, but he carried her easily, with her head tucked against his chest, her legs bent over his arm.
The limousine chauffeur leaped out and opened the door, and Latovsky eased her into the back as if she were a piece of fragile china.
“Jesus,” Harris said from next to Adam, “bet Dave works out lifting refrigerators.”
“You know him?”
“Met a few times at Bunner’s.”
“What’s he like?” Adam asked, watching the scene at the limousine. The boys and older couple got in back with Mary. Latovsky and the girl, whose hair was the exact color of Latovsky’s, stood aside. The doors closed, the limousine hummed away, and Latovsky and the girl crossed the road to a beat-up Olds.
The girl must be his daughter, and Adam wondered where the wife was.
“Nice enough in a gruff man’s-man way,” Harris was saying. “God knows he’s strong. Going to the party?”
“The what?”
“Don’t know what else you’d call it. It’s not a wake since he’s in the ground. Don’t know if Episcopalians have wakes, being Congregational myself. So I guess it’s a party... at Bunner’s house.”
The house was packed when Adam got there. Air-conditioning fought the heat of the crowd and the afternoon sun streaming through the windows and lost. Adam kept an eye on Latovsky, which was easy since he was the tallest one there.
He followed him across the foyer to the dining room, which was set up with tables of salads and cold meats, and Latovsky got something fizzy to drink from Al Cohen, who was tending bar. Adam got a glass of white wine and started to follow the lieutenant into the hall, but Vanderveer stopped Adam at the door.
“Anything on Baines yet?” he asked.
“Not yet.” Adam tried to get around him, but Vanderveer blocked the way.
“I’m sure it’ll be okay. I’m sure the grading’s right,” Vanderveer didn’t sound sure.
“I’ll let you know.”
“She’ll be fine.”
“I hope so.”
Vanderveer pulled the handkerchief out of his breast pocket and mopped his streaming face. “Hot as shit in here,” he said. “Well, you’ll let me know.”
“Soon as I do,” Adam said. Vanderveer finally got out of his way, but Latovsky had disappeared.
He wasn’t in the living room and Adam went down a wide carpeted hall to a space-module kitchen with women refilling platters, and Ada Cohen, whom he’d met at several hospital functions, sitting at a stark white plastic table, crying. Latovsky wasn’t there.
Down another hall he came to a back staircase; Mary must be upstairs in drug limbo.
Then he came to a large den-family room that was almost as crowded as the living room, but open sliding glass doors in one wall kept it cooler.
Latovsky wasn’t there either.
He went down another hall back to the front of the house and the living room and there he was, standing at the mantel with some people around him. Naomi was a few feet away with a bunch from the hospital and when she waggled her fingers at Adam to come over, he went and maneuvered himself to face Latovsky.
Latovsky didn’t say much; he smiled a few times, but that only accentuated the sorrow in his eyes, and once he laughed, a sound that made Adam’s flesh creep, although it was deep and pleasant. Suddenly the word formidable came to Adam and he knew David Latovsky wouldn’t shiver or shake at the sight of the Python or fall apart at the kneecapping threat even if Adam got it out with a straight face.
The Colt would blow as big a hole in the lieutenant as it had in Bunner, but that wouldn’t get Adam any closer to her and this man wouldn’t tell him anything he didn’t want to no matter what Adam threatened him with. Worse, Latovsky was big enough, strong—formidable—enough to get the Colt away from Adam and blow a hole in him.
David Latovsky wasn’t just a dead end, he was dangerous, and Adam would be a horrendous fool to take him on with a Python, or anything else he could come up with.
Better safe than sorry, his mother would say and she’d be right again. He’d have to find another way to find her.
“Doctor Fuller?” Ada Cohen called from the living room doorway, “Is Adam Fuller here?”
The room hushed a little and Adam called back, “Here,” and threaded his way through the crowd to the door.
“Phone,” Ada said. “You can take it there.” She nodded at a phone off the hook on the foyer table. “It’ll be quieter than in the kitchen.”
He thanked her and glanced back into the room.
Latovsky was watching him.
Lil Toomey was on the phone.
“Baines’s done,” she told Adam, “and I got bad news and good news. Which do you want first?”
“Just say it, Lil.”
“Okay. Vanderveer had his head up his ass on the grading. We’ve got a mitotic, highly invasive tumor and I’m regrading it three.”
“Shit.”
He’d told Ellen it was okay, that she’d go home to her garden in ten days. Vanderveer had made a liar out of him.
“That’s the bad news,” Lil said.
Adam felt someone behind him and turned. Latovsky was in the living room doorway, watching him over the rim of his glass with his eyes slitted against the carbonation. Adam’s heart gave a thud, sweat popped out on his hand holding the receiver, and he turned away, cupping the mouthpiece.