But nothing has been easy, on this night of death. He dug the trench with a shovel from the hallway, grunting, moaning. Losing feeling in his hands. He brought down the bloody sheets and wrapped her in them, making a shroud. The boy’s flesh was already cold, still tied to her by the cord. He placed the boy facedown on her rain-washed body, both of them like ice, moved her arms so that she was holding the baby, hugging the boy into eternity. Then he moved the sheet over her head, covering her face, and tied the ends beneath her neck. Praying all the while. Ending with Allah is most great, four times.
Then he climbed the stairs one final time, gathered what he needed into a backpack, scattered what was there as if it had been a crack house. He thought about spreading alcohol and setting it all on fire. And decided, No, that would attract police and firemen. Then he came down through the dark hallways, paused for a final prayer. Now he sets off into the night without end. Night of godly avenging horror. Night of red rain.
2:42 a.m. Myles Compton. New York State Thruway.
There is almost no traffic on the thruway. The driver is following orders: driving just above the speed limit, because his passenger doesn’t want a delay caused by a state trooper. No ticket either. No record. Myles doesn’t explain any of this to the driver and the two men don’t chat. The digital clock on the dashboard changes by the second. Myles keeps repeating his new name, silently, like beads in a rosary. Martin Canfield, Martin Canfield, Martin Canfield… And in a silent echo of long ago, adds an ironical coda: Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of thy death…
For a while in the past two months, he even thought of going back to his real name, his birth name, his baptismal name. Michael Cooney. The one he changed when he arrived on Wall Street. The name that was too Irish. Who the hell would invest money with a mick? At least in those years before the Celtic Tiger roared in Ireland. Now that’s gone too. And if he became Mike Cooney again, then some smart little prick from the FBI could trace it, and trace me. Martin Canfield, Martin Canfield…
— How much longer, driver? he says.
The driver pauses, taps a finger on the GPS, says: Maybe ten minutes, sir.
— Okay, Myles says. They’ll wait. Just don’t speed.
— Yes, sir.
Myles slouches lower as the interior of the limo suddenly brightens. He feels a moment of fear. The Bulgarian’s eyes. But a pickup truck passes on the left. No passenger. The driver in his thick plaid shirt doesn’t look. Within seconds, the truck becomes two red eyes far ahead of them.
Martin Canfield.
He looks at tree branches whizzing above him, a stretch of emptiness, more trees, conical, dark and full, pine without Christmas ornaments. He thinks: My guys will be pissed at me today. All charged as co-conspirators. They’ll probably think I was turned. All except the fucking Bulgarian. Sorry, guys. Blame me, okay? Just don’t come looking for me. Don’t find me.
He knows that Sandra won’t even try. Too proud. She would no more pursue a man than she’d stick up a blind news dealer. Maybe that’s why… Does he love her? Maybe. Probably. Whatever the hell love means. For sure, she didn’t want a dime from him. Never asked for stock tips. Never asked about his business. A lot of women he knew were creatures of appetite and opportunity. Sandra, no. Maybe later, a year from now, the man formerly known as Myles Compton can call from somewhere. He could ask her to meet him in another place, and they could drive to Martin Canfield’s house, and… Nah. She’d hang up.
Christ, he thinks, it’s harder to run from a woman than to run from an indictment.
The driver passes an exit sign and begins to slow. He pulls right, onto a ramp. Myles glances behind him through the tinted rear window. No other cars have turned off the thruway. He leans back, closes his eyes. In his mind, he sees the Learjet waiting on the landing strip. The pilot is standing by the door, glancing at his watch. The limo pulls over, and Myles gets out. No bags. A briefcase is all. Business trip to Toledo. The pilot says: Mr. Canfield? Then he sees himself tightening the seat belt and hears the engine revving up.
The limo driver makes several turns, and then is on a dark country road. Two lanes. Myles watches now. They pass houses whose windows are all dark. They pass some shuttered country stores. Another turn.
Then the driver leaves the two-lane road, into a lane with a painted sign for a place that ends in “Farms.” He drives slowly now, then passes a dark house, moves into a parking area just beyond, and stops. The area is fenced by trees.
— One moment, sir, the driver says.
He steps out, leaves the door open, walks back toward the house.
Myles thinks, sucking saliva: This is not an airfield.
He pushes a button to lock the door beside him, his heart pounding now. He reaches across the front seat for the open front door.
Then a hand is in the car, and it’s holding a pistol.
— Out of car, a voice says.
— Who are you? Myles says.
— Out.
The pistol is aimed at his head. Myles lifts the door button, pushes down on the handle, steps out into the rain.
There’s a second man on the far side of the car. He walks around to face Myles.
— We take walk, he says.
And gestures to the woods.
3:10 a.m. Ali Watson. Fort Greene.
He can smell her everywhere in the house. Aromas more powerful than when he left, an hour or so ago. In the kitchen. On the stairs. In the sweetness of hand soap in the parlor-floor bathroom. There are traces of her cooking in the air, her breath, her skin. The perfumes of Mary Lou Watson. His body is clenched as tight as a fist. He knows he will have to leave.
His gun lies on the kitchen table, jammed into the holster that fits under his arm. He stares at the pistol. He knows he must carry it back into the night. And use it to find the person who stabbed his wife to death.
And remembers many of the people he has met after slaughter in this city, wives, lovers, husbands, boyfriends, children: the whole broken lot. All wrecked by the death of love. Life blown out of the ones they loved, or sliced out of them, or battered, or gouged. In their presence, working his imperfect craft, Ali was always low-key, knowing that force or threats or accusations never worked when the goal was to find out what happened. He wonders now how long it took the survivors to find sleep. He imagines them reaching for pills or whiskey, reefer or smack, anything that would obliterate memory or consciousness. In memory, every one of them talks about revenge. Some loudly. Some bitterly. Most often in whispers. The baffled children simply weep. But every one of them must have known that there were some problems you could not shoot.
He opens the refrigerator, looking for the bottle of Diet Coke that would scour the ash in his mouth. And sees Mary Lou there, too, in the neat Ziploc bags of cold cuts, the jars of sugarless jam on the door, the plastic cup of fake butter: the armory of her campaign against his cholesterol problem and her diabetes. He takes a bottle of water and closes the door. He cannot yet climb to the bedroom. He cannot stare at her shoes and clothing in the closet, or her dresser with its vials and combs and brushes and powders, or the sink with her mouthwash and toothbrush and tube of Crest.
He should not have come here alone. Ray Kelly offered to drive him home in his own car. “We can talk on the way,” said Ray, who had talked to many survivors too, starting in Vietnam. But Ali Watson insisted that the commissioner had too much to do. Implying that this horror would be in all the papers. Kelly would have to speak in front of cameras and lights, maybe at the side of the mayor. So Kelly hugged him and whispered that he was very, very sorry. Malachy Devlin, his young partner from the task force, arrived in a raw angry mood, and used Ali’s car to drive him back to Brooklyn. He wasn’t angry at Ali. He was angry at whoever had caused Ali such pain. Everything was arranged, the kid said. A local squad car would return Malachy to Manhattan. All the way to Brooklyn, they talked very little. Ali Watson didn’t want to sound like another mourning example of collateral damage. The kid offered to stay the night. No, Ali Watson said, I’ll be all right.