“So how come I’m feeling like I finally did some good?” My father smiled. “Anyway, I’ve always been a small-picture guy. I’m glad you’re here, though, Ned. There’s some things I want to say.”
“Me, too,” I said, my palms resting on the bars.
Frank reached over and poured himself a glass of water. “I’ve never been very good at seeing you for who you are, have I, son? I never even gave you what you deserved after you got cleared on that prep school thing. Which was just to say, I’m sorry, Ned, for doubting you. You’re a good kid – a good man.”
“Listen, Pop. We don’t have to go over those things now…”
“Yes, we do,” my father said. He struggled to his feet. “After John Michael died, I think I couldn’t face up to the truth that it was me that got him killed. Some part of me wanted to say, See, my boys are the same, the same as me. It’s the Kelly way. When you got that job at Stroughton, the fact was, I was pretty goddamn proud.”
I nodded that I understood.
“That day, back home… that was the worst day of my life.” My father looked in my eyes.
“Burying Dave.” I nodded, then exhaled. “Me, too.”
“Yeah.” His eyes rounded with sadness. ”But I was talking about that day at Fenway. When I let you walk away and take the heat for what I’d done. That’s when I think I realized what a mess I’d made of my life. How big a man you were, and how small I’d become. Nah, how much of a punk I’d always been. I was always a two-bitter, Neddie. But you aren’t.”
Frank shuffled, weak-kneed, over to the bars. “This is long overdue, Ned, but I’m sorry, son. I’m sorry for the way I’ve let everybody down. ” He clasped his hand over mine. “I know it’s not enough to say that. I know it doesn’t make anything right. But it’s all I have.”
I felt tears burning at the back of my eyes. “If Dave’s up there watching,” I said, trying to laugh, “I bet he’s thinking, Man, I sure could’ve used that particular bit of wisdom a few days earlier.”
Frank grunted a laugh, too. “That was always the rap on me – big ideas, shit timing. But I’ve left things okay. For your mother. And you, too, Ned.”
“We’re going to get this guy, Pop.” I squeezed him back. Now I was crying.
“Yeah, son, you get him good.” Our eyes met in a wordless, glistening embrace. And Sol was right. I forgave him there. For everything. I didn’t even have to say a word.
“I gotta go, Pop.” I squeezed his bony fingers. “You may not see me for a while.”
“I definitely hope not, son,” he chuckled. “Not where I’m going, at least.” He let go of my hand.
I took a step back down the cell row. “Hey, Pop,” I said, and turned, my voice catching.
Frank was still standing at the bars.
“Tell me something. Mom’s fur coat. The one you brought home that day. It was stolen, right?”
He fixed on me a second, the sunken eyes suddenly hardening, like, How can you ask me something like that? Then a smile creased his lips. “Course it was stolen, kid.”
I backed down the corridor and smiled at my father for the last time.
Chapter 99
THE FBI MAN fitted a wire around me.
“You’ll be miked at all times,” Ellie said. We were at Sol’s, which we’d been using as a sort of base. “Our people will be all around. All you have to do is say the word, Ned, and we’ll be all over Dennis Stratton.”
There was a whole team of agents now. Moretti’s replacement was a thin-lipped guy with slick, dark hair and horn-rimmed glasses who was calling the shots. Special Agent in Charge Ficke.
“Here are the ground rules,” Ficke said. “First, you don’t make a move without Stratton. No intermediaries. You don’t bring up Moretti’s name. I don’t want him to think there’s a chance he divulged anything. Don’t forget, Stratton probably never met Anson. He never met your father. Get him talking about the heist if you can. Who set it up? Ask to see the check. The check is enough to get him. Are you up to doing this?”
“I’m up to it, Agent Ficke. How do we handle the painting?”
“Here… Check it out.”
A female agent brought out a bundled, heavily taped package. “What’s in it?” I asked.
“A lot of trouble for you if they get to open it,” Ficke replied. “So, ask to see the check before they do. If they give you a hard time, we’re coming in to get you.”
I looked at Ellie. “You’ll be there?”
“Of course I’ll be there.”
“There’ll be backup on every level,” Ficke said. “Once you get what we need, or they open the goods, we’ll break down the door. You’ll be okay.”
I’ll be okay. I eyed him. Like some expendable private being waved out to test a minefield. Go ahead, you’ll be okay. One thing everyone in the room knew: Stratton had no intention of letting me leave that hotel room alive.
“I want to talk to Ellie,” I said.
“She’s not running this show,” Ficke said rather sharply. “Any questions, address them to me.”
“I don’t have any questions. I need to talk with Ellie. And not here. Alone. Outside.”
Chapter 100
WE WENT OUT on the pool deck. I saw Ficke watching us through the blinds, so I led her down the steps to the beach, my office, as far away from him as possible.
Ellie rolled up her pants and left her shoes on the stairs. Then we walked out onto the sand. The sun was starting to set. It was going on six.
I took Ellie by the hand. “Nice out here, huh? Kind of makes me miss my old lifeguard days. Didn’t know how good I had it then.”
I held her by the shoulders, and brushed a wisp of hair out of her eyes. “You trust me, Ellie, don’t you?”
“You don’t think it’s a little late to be asking me that question, Ned? I didn’t arrest you when I had the chance. We stole a car. Withheld information, kidnapped a material witness… In my book, that goes as trust.”
I smiled. “You should’ve gotten out of that car when I told you to. Things would be a whole lot different.”
“Yeah, you’d probably be in jail, or dead. And I’d still have pretty good job security. Anyway, as I recall, I didn’t have much choice at the time. You did have a gun.”
“And as I recall, the safety was on.”
I pulled her close and I could feel her heart beating forcefully against my chest. Neither of us knew what was going to happen tonight. And afterward, the whole world would be different. I had felony charges waiting for me. I’d have to do time. Afterward, I’d be a felon and she’d still be an FBI agent.
“What I’m asking, Ellie, is for you to keep trusting me. Just for a while longer now.”
She eased away from me and tried to read what was in my eyes. “You’re scaring me, Ned. We can nab him. This whole thing’ll be over. Please, just for once, play this one by the book.”
I smiled. “You gonna be there for me, Ellie?”
“I told you,” she said, looking at me with resolve in her eyes, “I’ll be right outside. I wouldn’t let you go in there alone.”
I know you wouldn’t. I pulled her against me again and looked beyond her at the setting sun.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her I meant afterward.
Chapter 101
JUST TURNING ONTO the long drive leading up to the Breakers took you back to another world.
The twin majestic towers awash in glowing light, probably Palm Beach ’s best-known sight. The stately loggia of arches welcoming visitors to the lobby, the rows of light-kissed palms. Once, Flaglers and Mellons and Rockefellers went there in lavish private rail cars. Now it was people who were trying to act like them.
Tonight I was going to crash it for a while.