“I was aware,” Patterson says, “that your mother married me for my money. I was in my forties, she was in her twenties and beautiful. I knew-everybody knew. I married her anyway.”
O sits and listens.
Patterson continues, “I knew that I was her second husband but wouldn’t be her last. It was all right with me-I was happy just to borrow her beauty for a few years.”
Borrow, O wonders, or rent?
“We didn’t have a prenuptial agreement,” Patterson says. “My family was furious, my lawyers more so, but Kim wouldn’t hear of it. I knew what I was doing, but money has never been my problem in life. One agreement that we did have, however, is that there would be no children.”
O winces.
“I was too old,” Patterson says, “and didn’t want to cut that ridiculous figure of the middle-aged father trying to keep up with a toddler. But there was more to it. I knew the marriage would never last and, as a child of divorce myself, I didn’t want to inflict that on another child.”
But you did, O thinks.
“I knew that she was unfaithful,” Patterson says. “She would be gone for long, unexplained hours. She would take little trips. I knew but I didn’t want to know, so I never pressed the issue. Until she informed me that she was pregnant.”
“With me,” O says.
Patterson nods.
241
Ben follows them into the study, the walls lined with bookshelves filled with psychology texts, sociological studies, economic histories, evidence of their belief that the truth of the world is contained in books, if only you could read enough of them, and the right ones.
Now Ben wants a truth that can’t be found in books and says, “Please, I need to know.”
“We came here in the fresh bloom of our idealism,” Diane explains. “We thought we would change the world.”
Ben’s about to object to the whole “Diamonds and Rust” monologue he senses is coming, but then his mother starts talking about a guy giving away tacos.
242
Chon watches Crowe get out of the car and stand over Brian’s body, making sure.
There’s not a lot of doubt. Brian’s lifeless eyes stare up at the moon and a pool of blood forms beneath his head.
Chon slides the van door open and drops to the ground. Belly-crawls around until he sees Crowe swinging his gun at the sound.
Crowe sees him and fires.
But Chon has already dropped into a low crouch. Can’t shoot the man, can’t take a chance on killing him, so he drops the shotgun, lunges, and tackles Crowe at the waist, driving him into the sand.
Fifty-eight thousand fucking times he practiced on the sand south of here, down on Silver Strand, but he’s weak now, and rusty, so he lets
Crowe’s gun hand come around as he tries to jam the gun barrel into Chon’s head and the shot is deafening, a roar like a big wave going off and Chon feels the burn and his head roaring as he gets his knee up and drives Crowe’s arm to the sand and traps it there, but Crowe is big and strong and he pounds his left fist into Chon’s ribs, then the side of his head, bangs his hips up and bridges his back, trying to buck Chon off, but Chon slides up and gets his other knee on Crowe’s left forearm and now he kneels on the man’s arms, feels the blood running hot down his face, his pulse slamming in his neck and he takes his thumbs and presses them into Crowe’s eyes.
Chon’s forearms quiver with exertion, he’s trying to hold it until Crowe screams and drops the gun and yells, “Enough!”
Chon grabs Crowe’s pistol and gets off him, holding the gun on him.
Crowe rolls onto his stomach, presses his palms into his eyes, and moans, “I can’t see, I can’t see.”
Chon walks over to his shotgun and picks it up. He feels blood seeping out of his left leg where the wounds have opened up from the fight. When he comes back, Crowe is on his knees, trying to get up.
Chon kicks him back down.
Presses the shotgun barrel into his neck.
“Who do you work for?”
“They’ll kill me.”
“They’re not your worry right now,” Chon says. “I am. Who do you work for?”
Crowe shakes his head.
Chon’s out of wind and his leg starts to throb. He says, “They wouldn’t die for you.”
Crowe gives him a name.
It hits Chon like a blow to the chest.
He leans over and says, “Tell me the truth. Did you kill those two kids?”
Crowe nods.
Chon pulls the trigger.
Sorry, Ben.
He drags Crowe’s body over by Hennessy’s, then puts the shotgun in Hennessy’s hands and lays the pistol by Crowe’s.
Justice or revenge.
Either way.
Taking his knife, Chon cuts a strip off his shirt and presses it against the open wound on his leg.
Then he notices that it’s raining.
243
“What happened?” Ben asks when Diane finishes her story.
244
Chon starts to run.
A steady, disciplined trot.
It’s only six or seven miles.
Nothing to it.
The rain grows heavier now.
Thick, heavy drops fall on his shoulders, run down his side and his leg.
The blood mixes with the water.
245
John 14:2
“In my Father’s house there are many mansions-if it were not so I would have told you.
“I go to prepare a place for you.”
246
What happened? Stan repeats.
To us?
To the country?
What happened when childhood ends in Dealey Plaza, in Memphis, in the kitchen of the Ambassador, your belief your hope your trust lying in a pool of blood again? Fifty-five thousand of your brothers dead in Vietnam, a million Vietnamese, photos of naked napalmed children running down a dirt road, Kent State, Soviet tanks roll into Prague so you turn on drop out you know you can’t reinvent the country but maybe you reimagine yourself you believe you really believe that you can that you can create a world of your own and then you lower that expectation to just a piece of ground to make a stand on but then you learn that piece of ground costs money that you don’t have.
What happened?
Altamont, Charlie Manson, Sharon Tate, Son of Sam, Mark Chapman we saw a dream turn into a nightmare we saw love and peace turn into endless war and violence our idealism into realism our realism into cynicism our cynicism into apathy our apathy into selfishness our selfishness into greed and then greed was good and we
Had babies, Ben, we had you and we had hopes but we also had fears we created nests that became bunkers we made our houses baby-safe and we bought car seats and organic apple juice and hired multilingual nannies and paid tuition to private schools out of love but also out of fear.
What happened?
You start by trying to create a new world and then you find yourself just wanting to add a bottle to your cellar, a few extra feet to the sunroom, you see yourself aging and wonder if you’ve put enough away for that and suddenly you realize that you’re frightened of the years ahead of you what
Happened?
Watergate Irangate Contragate scandals and corruption all around you and you never think you’ll become corrupt but time corrupts you, corrupts as surely as gravity and erosion, wears you down wears you out I think, son, that the country was like that, just tired, just worn out by assassinations, wars, scandals, by
Ronald Reagan, Bush the First selling cocaine to fund terrorists, a war to protect cheap gas, Bill Clinton and realpolitik and jism on dresses while insane fanatics plotted and Bush the Second and his handlers, a frat boy run by evil old men and then you turn on the TV one morning and those towers are coming down and the war has come home what
Happened?