Time was racing in him now, the way it did when he would meet deadlines on the newspapers. Decade after decade. One deadline tonight, at Warren’s house. Another deadline tomorrow night, in a cave in Inwood. He might never see Healey again. He would never see the waitresses again. Nor would he see faces like these, passing him on the street: the high cheekbones and flared nose of this elegant high-hipped black woman hurrying downtown toward the post office or the World Trade Center; the gullied skin of the Puerto Rican man with the worried face and gray mustache, angling through traffic to the coffee shop across the street; the slack jaw of the teenage hip-hopper shambling along in his suit of polyester armor. Never see the boy become a man. He tried sketching the faces in his mind, drawing on old habit, using his eyelids like the shutter of a camera, freezing a moment: the Asian woman wrapped in solitary thought as she came out of a watch shop; the panicky glance of a heavy black woman whose three-year-old had jerked free of her grip. Never hear him talk about the Count of Monte Cristo.
And here’s a white rummy in filthy clothes spewing a personal jumble of words as if looking for directions to a mission that no longer exists. Take a left, Cormac instructs him from the side of the phone booth. Go up past Broadway and make another left. You’ll be in the Five Points then, old man. You’ll be in the Bloody Ould Sixth. They’ll know you there. Someone will give you succor.
There is harm in the world, son. There’s evil. There’s whiskey. There’s smack and crack and too much heartbreak. There’s violence. Listen to me, son.
And then he thought: If I do what I need to do tonight, I’ll see her on Tuesday evening. Then I’ll try to explain why I’ve killed a man named Warren. I’ll tell her that he’s the man in all the morning newspapers, on television, on radio. That man.
William Hancock Warren. Then I’ll take her to the north, to my farewell in the cave that gave me too much life, and tell her all of the truth. The least I can do: the truth. About who I am. All of it. While swearing to her that Usheen and Oshun will bring us once more together, forever.
He imagined her at this very moment, coming back from lunch, smiling, radiant, possessing her secret, walking between desks in her new suit from Century 21, women pleased with her, or envious, and men watching her with hungry eyes. But you can deal with it, son. You can deal with anything the world throws at you.
He stepped into the booth and called Healey.
“This is Healey,” the recorded voice said. “I am out of TOWN. With any luck, I will rob a BANK before I come home. If you leave a MESSAGE, I will call you BACK from the penitentiary!”
Cormac laughed and left a message: “Make sure it’s a big bank.”
He dropped the empty coffee cup in a trash bin and started walking home. Rain was predicted on New York 1, and they were never wrong. In a corner store, he bought a small bag of jellybeans, tiny, glistening, and delicious, one of the marvels of a long life. His sweet tooth had cost him many hours in a dentist’s chair, but he’d never gotten fat. Too much walking with Wordsworth in his head. Or (he thought) one more eerie mutation of my metabolism. A pregnant woman walked into the candy store as he was walking out. She was ochre-colored, with tired eyes above high cheekbones. He thought: Will her daughter ever know my son? You’re free to wander the whole wide world, son. Do it. See Paris and Rome and Florence. See Tokyo and Samarkand. Roam deserts and jungles. Sleep in an Irish meadow. Climb the Matterhorn. Go. Do what I could never do. Your mother will keep you safe.
He turned on Duane Street. Kongo was waiting in front of his building.
He wore a dark green corduroy jacket, a black turtleneck, and jeans. His brown boots were polished to a high sheen. His hands were jammed into his pockets. When he smiled, Cormac realized how much he looked like Michael Jordan. The true messenger of Chango.
“Good afternoon,” he said, as they embraced. “I just wanted to make certain all was ready.”
“All is ready.”
They talked about the coming night and where they would meet after Cormac’s appointment with Warren.
“It will be a cold night,” Kongo said.
“With rain, says the weather report.”
“Yes, with rain.”
They stood for a long moment without speaking, while cars and taxis honked for passage, the street blocked by a wide truck holding a construction crane. Kongo smiled.
“The woman is pregnant,” Cormac said. “With my child.” Kongo looked at him in a severe way.
“I know,” he said.
“It’s unfair.”
“Think of it as another gift.”
“But why now? Why after all the other women…”
“The time was right.”
Cormac thought: God damn you.
“You made it happen, didn’t you?”
“No, you made it happen and she made it happen.” He looked toward the river. “It was a sign that I must come and help you cross.”
“And leave the child behind me?”
He touched Cormac’s arm.
“Don’t worry about the child,” he said. “The gods will watch over him.”
He smiled, raised an open palm, then walked away toward the waterfront. To the flowing waters. To the abode of Oshun.
When Cormac entered the loft, there was a recorded message from Healey:
“Brother O’Connor, it’s me. I’m in the city of Lost Angels. My idiot producer was so excited over our spitballing, he ordered a private jet. He says it’s perfect for REDFORD, and this kid named DiCAPRIO, and some young blond chick with a belly button. He’s gonna pay me a SHITPOT of money to turn it into a movie. Believe this? I’m in some hotel, the Tarantula Arms with room service, and I got some insane real estate lady in the lobby, looks like Carol Channing; shit, maybe she IS Carol Channing. She’s taking me to see some apartment she says is PERFECT. Probably in a nursing home. Sorry I missed you, amigo. I’ll call when I know where the FUCK I am!”
He was always Healey, and Cormac was relieved, knowing he was safe. He sat down and wrote him a letter. He would ask Delfina to mail it on Wednesday.
He went to the bedroom and took a long nap, full of poisonous dreams. And then he dressed for his appointment with William Hancock Warren. One final uptown ride on the Lexington Avenue subway. One final trip back home. The sword was inside a long black Chambers Street backpack, the kind made for camping.
119.
In the lobby of Warren’s building, the sour doorman looks at Cormac, takes his name, calls the Warren apartment. Then he grunts his dubious approval. Cormac feels his heart and blood racing. When he reaches the penthouse, Patrick is standing in the open door. Cormac thinks: Shit, he isn’t supposed to be here.
“Evening, Mister O’Connor,” he says.
“Hello, Patrick.”
“Would you like to leave your—the pack, sir?”
“No, I have something in it for Mister Warren.”
“Very well. A drink?”
“Just water.”
Warren is standing near the fireplace when Cormac enters the downstairs living room. A large chunky log burns in the hearth. Cormac thinks: When I’m finished here, I’ll leave by the Western door, as in Ireland long ago. The door reserved for the dead. With me, I’ll take the fire out of the hearth. Warren reaches out a sweaty hand and Cormac shakes it. He wears a long-sleeved Brooks Brothers dress shirt, pale blue, the cuffs folded up, stains in the armpits. He glances at the backpack.