Trong looks at him. “You want to call her on the phone?”
Radford just watches until the doctor shrugs and hands him a flip-phone. It slides into Radford’s pocket. Then he winces. “You put something in there. To make it hurt.”
Dr. Trong gathers the dishes and begins to wash them. “It’s harmless… Look, C.W., you just think you need drugs for the pain. You healed a long time ago. The headaches are psychosomatic. You don’t need drugs.”
Wojack studies the consulate through his rifle ’scope, sliding the view across the forbidding fences and walls and the imposing building behind them, then down past uniformed guards to a brass plaque on the gatepost — “consulate” but he can’t see which country’s — and he continues to shift his aim up past the wall to an upper-story window. Through it we see a man sitting up in bed with a pad in his lap, writing. Something foreign about him. He looks powerful; important. The man is smoking a cigarette, deep in thought. The ’scope’s reticule centers on his chest. Wojack speaks softly: “Don’t smoke in bed, you twit. Hazardous to your health.” He squeezes it off and the image jerks with recoil; when it settles the man in bed is dead, his chest blown apart in blood, the cigarette falling from his limp hand.
Wojack runs, stooped over, to the back of the rooftop and swings himself out over the back of the building onto something that looks like a miniature window-washers’ scaffold. It’s supported on a system of pulleys and lines. It lowers him, swiftly and smoothly like a high-speed elevator, to an alley floor where Gootch matter-of-factly recovers the lift-lines and tosses the apparatus into the back of the van while Wojack and his rifle climb into the passenger seat; Conrad puts it in Drive as Gootch jumps into the back and pulls the rear door shut, and the van pulls away at a sedate speed, breaking no traffic regulations.
An Army Jeep pulls up opposite the vast lawn of a house that exudes solid establishment wealth, where a very attractive woman in her thirties, wearing shorts and T-shirt but very well groomed, is snipping roses, collecting flowers. This is Dorothy, depicted in the photograph that was in Radford’s room; it was taken when they both were younger.
Dr. Trong, at the wheel of the Jeep, says, “She waited for you. Even after you cracked. When everybody else gave you up for a traitor, Dorothy waited. I think she may still be waiting.”
Beside him Radford wears windbreaker, khakis — newly borrowed clothes. The engine idles and they continue to watch the estate across the street. Dr. Trong says, “She could accept it even when you couldn’t. She had faith.”
Radford says, “She should’ve married some guy.”
Dorothy, cutting roses, is unaware she’s being watched.
Dr. Trong says, “She understands why you ran away — why you dropped out. I think she’s more understanding than I am. You were on your way, C.W. You’d have been a chairman of the board or maybe you’d have taken over her father’s seat in the Senate.”
“What’re we doing here? Come on. Let’s go.”
“Dorothy loves you, you know. She’s waiting, C.W.”
“Yeah. Well your timing’s terrific. I’ve got nothing to offer her but a death watch.”
By a culvert along the edge of a country road Dr. Trong stops the Jeep. Radford gets out. The doctor says, “It may not be just a death watch. We may just get this thing turned around. If we do, what happens after? I don’t want to see you washing dishes again.”
“I’ll give it some thought when I get the time.”
“Promise?”
“Get the fuck out of here.” Radford waves Dr. Trong away and watches the Jeep drive off. Then he climbs down to the overgrown culvert under the road. He uncovers the hidden motorcycle. And goddammit he’s got a headache again.
In the culvert there’s plenty of reading material. Graffiti, including: “To hell with tomorrow,” printed with surprising neatness.
The headache is too much for Radford. He unwraps Dr. Trong’s medicine and prepares an injection — hesitates but finally shoots up. At first there’s blessed relief. He switches on the bike’s police radio to listen to the calls and hears mostly scratchy dispatch broadcasts that he can’t understand. Then there’s a dreadful pain in his arm. He doubles over, clutches the arm, dances around.
“Holy shit. SON of a bitch!”
And then after a moment he is distracted by sound of the police radio; he crosses to the motorcycle to listen. It’s a woman’s voice, crackling with static: “… State police requested to assist. Subject C. W. Radford. New assassination seven a.m. this morning, same M.O., same kind of rifle. Cancel all leaves and passes. Off-duty personnel report in for overtime assignment.”
Radford stares. He just doesn’t believe this.
Police headquarters is crowded with intense activity — noise, arguments, cops and officials, everything moving busily. Commander Clay hurries toward her corner office. Reporter Ainsworth trails her. “Commander Clay…”
“Later.”
Clay swings into her office and turns to slam the door in Ainsworth’s face. Dickinson squeezes in past both of them.
Ainsworth pleads. “Hey, how about it?”
Dickinson slams the door, shutting Ainsworth out. “Shitfuck. No witnesses, no physical evidence except the 308 softpoint ammo — you can buy it anywhere.”
The ringing phone interrupts him. Clay grabs it up. “Commander Clay. I trust it’s important?” Then Dickinson sees her react. “You’re kidding! Put him on — and trace it.”
Radford stands by his motorcycle around the blind side of the boarded-up filling station. He’s talking on the flipphone he borrowed from the doc. “I don’t have to make this call. I’m taking a chance, right? So listen to me. I didn’t even know about this new killing. I just heard about it on the radio. I’m not the one you want. I’m telling you because I want you to look for the real assassins.”
Clay’s voice reaches him as if from far away in the stars. “They out there with the real killers in the O.J. case? Well hell — describe for me the people you say you saw.”
Radford gives a thumbnail description of Harry, the way Harry looked the last time Radford saw him. He adds, “He knew the club — he knew the range. And there was a woman. A blonde. Natural blonde.” He describes Anne.
Clay says, “C.W., I want you to come in here. We can protect you. I give you my word, we’ll look for them.”
“Some other time, Commander. You find ’em first.”
“You haven’t got a chance.”
“You can’t always go by that. Anyway you’ve got rules. I haven’t.”
“Oh, we’ve all got rules, C.W. Even you… We’ve traced this call and I’m going to nail you.”
Radford clicks the END button, gives the cell phone a quizzical look, then sets it down gently on the lid of a trash can and gets on the motorcycle and rides away, not in a hurry.
He arrives at the back-road culvert on the motorcycle, stops, looks all around, and when he knows he’s unobserved, rides the bike down the embankment and hides it in the culvert under the road. He sits down in his hidey-hole, holding his aching head, talking to himself: “Okay, smart ass. Now what?”
This pain is unbearable in his head. He takes out the syringe kit and gets ready to inject himself. Then he looks at the painful needle — and finally puts it back in the case without using it. He puts the stuff away. Then he bends over — way over, nearly upside down, holding his throbbing head in his hands. And from that angle he’s looking at the culvert wall and he sees, upside down, the graffiti “To hell with tomorrow.” He reacts, because upside down, the “To hell” part looks like “7734 OL.” He sits up, staring at the graffiti. He’s remembering that cafe window reflection of the upside-down backward reflection of the van’s license plate.