“Christ knows it’s our turn for some,” Daniel said.
Jennifer had already talked to Carla about an interview, and when Lucas called to agree, she told him that Carla was ready. They would shoot it at three o’clock and run an early, tight version at six o’clock. A longer version would be promoed for the ten-o’clock news, which the station had decided to expand to accommodate the interview.
Wear a suit, she said, and a blue shirt.
Shave again.
The interview lasted an hour, Lucas cool and distracted, Carla warm and insistent. With a proper cut, it would look good. Jennifer watched the interviewer talking with them, and halfway through, realized that Lucas and Carla were sleeping together. Or had slept together.
When the interview was over, she left with Lucas, trailing behind the cameraman and sound technician, who were carrying gear down to the van. Alone in the elevator she said, “I thought you might have been sleeping with McGowan. I see I was wrong. It was Carla Ruiz.”
“Ah, man, Jennifer, I can’t deal with this today,” Lucas said, staring at the elevator floor.
“I don’t mind so much,” she said sadly. “I knew it was going to happen. I was hoping it wouldn’t be this soon.”
“I think it’s done with,” Lucas said dispiritedly.
“Just slam-bam-thank-you-ma’am?”
Lucas shook his head. “She gave me a little talk a few days ago. She likes me okay, but she’s ready to cut me off when I conflict with her work.”
“Oh, my, that hasn’t happened before, has it?” Jennifer asked. Her tone was light, even sarcastic, but a tear rolled down her cheek. Lucas reached out and thumbed it away. “Don’t do that, for Christ’s sake.”
“Why not? You can’t tolerate real emotion?”
He looked at the floor between his feet, then cocked his head at her. “Sometimes people don’t know each other as well as they think they do. You’re giving me shit and I’m supposed to take it like a man, right? You know what I feel like? I feel like going home and sticking my forty-five in my mouth and blowing my brains out. I’ve been beat up by a madman. I might recover. I might not. But I’ll never forget it. Not in this life.”
The elevator door opened and he walked away and never looked back.
Elle watched him across the expansive game board. The bookie and attorney had gone together, the two students followed a few minutes later. The grocer was still staring at the map, figuring.
Meade was no dummy. After a day’s fighting, in which the South controlled most of the heights south of Gettysburg, he cautiously withdrew to the south, toward Washington. There were prepared positions waiting. Now the ball was in Lee’s court. Lee—Elle, with advice from Lucas, as Longstreet—could continue his invasion of the North. That looked increasingly untenable. Or he could go after Meade’s army to the south. That army would have to be destroyed in any case. But if Lee went after Meade, it would mean the kind of Napoleonic attack that failed at the real Gettysburg. Once he got down to close-quarters fighting around Washington, with the mountains to his west and a flooding Potomac to his south, it would be kill or be killed. Lucas’ game could end the Civil War two years early . . .
“You can’t keep thinking about it,” Elle said.
“What?” Lucas had been balancing on the back two legs of his chair, staring at the ceiling.
“You can’t keep brooding about the tragedy out at the reporter’s house. It’s pointless. And you almost had him. You drew him in. If you’d stop feeling sorry for yourself, you’d come up with something new.”
Lucas dropped the chair to the floor and stood up.
“My problem is, I can’t think of anything. My head is frozen. I think he’s gone.”
“No. Something is going to happen,” Elle said. “You know how there’s a rhythm to these games? When we all know something is about to happen, even when it doesn’t have to? I feel the same kind of rhythm here. The rhythm says this whole thing is about to resolve itself.”
“The problem is, how?” the grocer interjected.
“That is the problem,” Lucas said, snapping a finger at the grocer. “Exactly. Suppose the guy resolves it by leaving? He could start all over somewhere else, and we wouldn’t even know it. And we’ve really got nothing to go on. Not a real clue in the bunch. If he wants to leave, he can walk.”
“He won’t,” Elle said positively. “This thing is rushing to a conclusion. I can feel the wheels.”
“I hope so,” Lucas said. “I don’t think I can take much more of it.”
“We’re praying for you,” Elle said, and Lucas realized the second nun was also watching him. She nodded. “Every night. God will answer. You’ve got to get him.”
CHAPTER
25
The maddog called in sick from Eau Claire. He lay in bed watching cable television from the Cities and finally left the motel just before the noon checkout time. He got back to his apartment in the early afternoon, cleaned up, drove down to his office, and said he was feeling better. He tried to work. He failed.
The fiasco at the McGowan house was the big news. The entire office was talking about it. The maddog took no pleasure in the talk, felt no power flowing from it. He had been mousetrapped. Davenport had done it, had lured him to McGowan. Davenport understood him that well. Had stalked him. Had failed only through a set of circumstances so bizarre that they could never be repeated.
The maddog knew he had been lucky. So lucky. It was time to reconsider the game. Perhaps he should stop. He was far ahead. He had the points. But could he stop? He wasn’t sure. If he couldn’t, perhaps he could move somewhere else. Back to Texas. Get away from the cold. Rethink the game.
It took him until well after five to clear his desk, finish the routine real-estate and probate work. When he left, a television was flickering in one of the associates’ offices, an indulgence not permitted during the regular workday. Lucas Davenport’s face was on the screen, the camera tight on his features. There were dark marks under his eyes, but he was well-controlled. The picture froze momentarily and then the cameras switched to the anchorwoman.
He stepped closer to listen. “ . . . the complete interview with the survivor Carla Ruiz and Lieutenant Lucas Davenport tonight on an expanded edition of TV3’s Ten-O’Clock Report.”
He was torn between Channel Eight and TV3. Channel Eight had been breaking all the most interesting news during the game, but the interview on TV3 might tell him more about the man who mousetrapped him. He finally decided, after consulting his video recorder’s instruction book, that he could tape TV3 while he watched Channel Eight. He tried it with a network comedy. It worked.
McGowan, so beautiful, led the evening news, dominated it. She recounted the surveillance, showed off the alert beeper she’d worn on her belt. Told of sitting in her bedroom alone at night, listening to every sound, wondering if the maddog was coming. She was taped as she made a single woman’s portion of stir-fry. Unused copper skillets hung from the walls. An old-fashioned pendulum clock ticked in the background.
With the scene set, she recounted the attack, running through the night with a camera bouncing behind her, ending with a camera-activated reenactment of the shootings, McGowan playing all parts. Then across the final fence to the sewer ditch, where she pointed out the maddog’s footprints in the yellow clay.