Where had she come from? Had she been watching -
“That makes eight,” said Henry, unfazed by the violence, as though he had been expecting it. He wrote the man’s name on a page of his notebook.
After the deputy had taken the handcuffed gunman away, Charles was about to rise, when Henry restrained him with one hand on his arm. The sculptor pointed to a figure on the path leading into the cemetery from the bridge road. It was Alma Furgueson, the woman with purple highlights in her black hair. A few days ago she had run from the square in tears, and now she was slow-stepping toward the angel, and her face was a study in horror. The woman fell to her knees and said. “I’m so sorry, so sorry.. sorry.”
And now a young man, clutching a cloth bag in his arms, entered the cemetery. He was gaping at the angel, moving closer, flapping his oversized clown shoes. His rolled up pantlegs were coming undone.
“Oh, Jimmy, she’s crying.” Alma extended a hand to this young man. “Come pray with me, Jimmy. We’ll ask her forgiveness.”
“I’ve seen that man before,” said Charles. “He was at the tent show. Do you know him?” He looked down at Henry’s notebook as the artist was adding the name Jimmy Simms to the list. Henry slipped the notebook back in his shirt pocket so his hands could speak.
“He’s a small-job man. Every town has one. He washes windows and sands floors. Most of the time, he just walks around the town, waiting for the day to end.”
“He’s homeless?”
“No, the sheriff arranged a room for him in the back of the library. I think he sweeps the floors for his keep.”
Jimmy Simms reminded Charles of Ira: both were young men walking on the edge of a life.
Once more, Alma begged the young man to join her in a quest for atonement. The man seemed more like a child in his oversized clothes and his shattered face – a child who had just been brutally slapped. And now he did what all children do when they are badly frightened – Jimmy ran away.
And Charles died a little.
Alma went after him on her knees for a bit, and then she stood up and came back to the angel. Her legs were unsteady, and now she fell.
What had he done? Charles was moving toward her when Henry blocked his way and shook his head.
“Now what’s that all about?” said a familiar voice behind them. Riker?
Charles whirled around to see his old friend standing there. The detective was staring at the prostrate woman, and he was not happy. “Charles, why do I think you’ve been picking up bad habits from Mallory?”
The three men watched in silence as the woman made an awkward stand and walked aimless through the city of tombs, careening toward the perimeter, arms outstretched, seeking balance, crying.
Now Riker reached up to tap Charles’s shoulder, and in his face was the question Why? He was probably alluding to the maiming of an unarmed woman.
Riker turned his face away from Henry Roth and spoke in low tones. “I told the sheriff I never heard of you or Mallory. Will the little guy play along with that?”
And now Charles realized that Riker had been watching them long enough to see Henry use sign language, and he had assumed the man was deaf as well as mute. Charles didn’t correct this impression when Riker turned his back on Henry to hold a more private conversation.
“Henry is an old friend of Mallory’s,” said Charles. “He wouldn’t do anything to – ”
“Good.” Riker put one hand on Charles’s arm and guided him over to the angel. There were chips in the marble. One ear was gone and the tip of a wing had been blown away by the recent gunfire.
“What a travesty.” Charles looked down at Henry. “It was a beautiful piece of work.”
“Oh, I especially like the tears,” said Riker, staring up at the angel’s moist eyes. “I know a guy in SoHo who specializes in weeping icons. Only two bills a miracle. So what did you use – calcium chloride?”
“No, nothing that sophisticated. My secret ingredient is beef fat. In a proper mixture, it liquefies in the first hour of sunlight.”
“So you timed it for the tour group?” Riker turned to see Alma at the edge of the cemetery. She fell down again and did not get up this time, but crawled down the path on her hands and knees. “Very effective, but a bullet would have been quicker and cleaner.”
Charles jammed his hands into his pockets, and lowered his tell-all face to hide his thoughts from Riker. He stared at the ground, as though he might find salvation there.
“I understand,” said Riker, sounding almost genuine in his consolation. “It’s not your fault. The devil made you do it, right? And just where is our little Princess of Darkness?”
“The truth, Riker? I don’t know. I don’t think she’d trust me with that information.” And now he let Riker see his face as naked proof.
“But you can get a message to her, right?” Now Riker smiled, gleaning an affirmation from Charles’s silence and averted eyes. “I have to talk to her, and real soon. The kid must have been in a hurry to pull information out of government files. She got sloppy. The feds found her little footprints in a highly classified computer. That’s a federal rap, but they’re willing to cut a deal.”
“But you know she’s compulsively neat. So, our government said Mallory was sloppy, and you believed that?”
“Nice try, Charles. Tell Mallory to get in touch while I can still run interference for her, okay?”
“I don’t think she’d appreciate interference just now. Perhaps if you – ”
“How many people do you figure that kid has on her hate list, Charles? Twenty? Maybe thirty people? That’s bad, real bad, because Mallory wouldn’t waste time hating anyone she couldn’t destroy.”
Charles didn’t consider the import of these words beyond wondering if Riker knew he was mangling a quotation of Goethe’s. He had always suspected Riker of being much more than he let on. Beneath that incredibly awful suit, the badly spotted tie, the slovenly, crude, unshaven veneer, was a -
“I’ve known her longer than you have,” said Riker. “I watched her grow up. You know how much I love that kid, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then believe me when I tell you, for the last time, Charles – Mallory is a freaking sociopath. I know at least one of your degrees is in psychology, so why do you still have so much trouble with that? And don’t give me any of that ‘little lost soul’ crap. She doesn’t have a soul.”
“She does.”
“Doesn’t! She lost her soul before Lou Markowitz found her. Lou’s wife tried to knit her a new one, but the kid wouldn’t wear it.”
Charles was casting around for some defense of Mallory, and failing in this, he offered, “But did you know that she could play the piano when she was only six years old?”
Riker looked up at the sky for a moment. And then he shrugged in surrender and inclined his head as a bow to the absurd. Without another word, he turned around and walked away.
Now Henry was standing by Charles’s side, words flying off his fingers asking why this man said all these things about Kathy. “I’ve only known her to tell one lie. She said she was seven years old while she was still six.”
“She told a similar lie to a friend of mine,” said Charles. “When he was filling out papers for her foster care, she told him she was twelve when she was only ten. They compromised at eleven.”
However, that had not been her best piece of work. Louis Markowitz had brought the child home one night, after arresting her for theft. It was to be a one-night arrangement for his own convenience, or so he said. But he was a very warm and decent man, so that part of his story had always been suspect.
By Louis’s account, when young Kathy appeared at the breakfast table the following morning, her glittering eyes were cold, and she wore a very unnerving smile. His wife had stood behind Kathy’s chair and explained to Louis that he would not be taking the little girl off to Juvenile Hall, or anywhere else – not ever. Kathy was here to stay, Helen told him flatly, and that was that. And then poor Louis realized that the baby thief had casually pocketed his wife and one mortgaged wood-frame house in Brooklyn.