“Agent Banish,” Kearney said.
Fagin spoke first. He was starving and wanted to get in what he went there for. “I’m going to eat,” he said to Banish. “You coming?”
Banish said, “Hold on.” He was hassled. Ables on the radio obviously worried him. He looked over at Kearney. “What is it?”
“Call for you, sir.”
Banish told him, “Give it to Coyle.”
“It’s the outside line,” Kearney said. “A woman.”
Fagin watched Banish’s eyes hold on Kearney then. They held there tightly, as though seeing something else altogether.
“My office,” Banish told him.
“I’m going to eat,” Fagin said, but Banish was already moving toward the back.
Office
Banish went right to the phone. He looked at the blinking light. He wiped his hands on his shirtfront and picked up the receiver.
“Hello,” he said.
“John? John Banish?”
“Yes,” he said.
“It’s Dr. Juliet Reed.”
Banish’s eyes searched.
“From the Retreat,” she said.
Banish turned and sat against his desk. “Dr. Reed,” he said. He put his hand to his hot forehead and held it lightly. After a moment he closed his eyes.
“Hello, John. I wasn’t sure I would be able to get through.”
“Yes.”
“How are you getting along?”
Banish opened his eyes. The disappointment drained him. “Fine,” he said.
“I read your name in the newspaper. You can imagine my surprise. I contacted some people at the Retreat rather on a whim. They got back to me and gave me this number. They thought it might be a good idea that I call.”
“I see,” Banish said. Hearing her voice again had triggered within him a subtle ebb of passivity. It was as though the years had not passed and he was still living in that small community of sterilized floors and broken men.
“I am no longer associated with the Retreat,” she said. “I have a private practice in Boston now. It is so rare that I come into contact with a former patient. Are you keeping up with the therapy, John?”
“Yes.”
“Poetry still?”
“Yes.”
“You excelled at that. Have you given any thought to publishing?”
“I’m working on a translation now. Just for myself, to keep my mind focused.”
“Translation of what?” she said. “If I may ask.”
“A notebook of German poems. Kept by a low-level guard at Buchenwald, recovered after the emancipation. Slipped to me by a friend of a friend from the old OSS.”
“Well,” she said, as though catching her breath. “That sounds absolutely fascinating. I can’t imagine — was he humane at all, or an ogre along with the rest?”
“I guess there’s no simple answer for that.”
“Fascinating,” she said. “How is the case progressing?”
“We are into negotiations now.” He spoke optimistically, as a matter of habit. “It should break soon.”
“An awful situation. And the dead young girl — tragic. I’ve been following it in the newspapers here. Remarkable, and terrible.”
Banish rubbed his face. “Dr. Reed, I’m sure you can understand, I am pressed for time—”
“Are you strong, John? Do you feel strong?”
Her words cut him. “Strong enough,” he said.
“You recovered fully from your wounding?”
He touched his lower torso over the scar, a gesture of remembrance. “It was kind of you to visit me in the hospital,” he said. “I do remember that.”
“An awful thing. I treated Lucy Ames myself, in another wing of the facility. After you dropped the charges. She grew to be quite strong before her discharge. Quite solid and rational.” She paused then, reflective for a moment. “I am not sure why I was so moved to call you, John. What exactly it was that compelled me. Concern, perhaps, although it is not at all professional to take an interest in a former patient. Especially, I suppose, a patient from the Retreat, due to the sensitive nature of that place. But I’ve always felt your therapy there was unfinished. That we did not have enough time. That has always concerned me.”
Banish said, “Dr. Reed, I really do have to go.”
“But I can tell by your voice, John, you are strong now. You must be to have been assigned this case. I am so encouraged by your progress. You have overcome more than anyone will ever know, John. It is a triumph, and I do hope you understand that. To have come as far as you have. You have much to be proud of.”
She went on saying a few more things like that, then they said their goodbyes and hung up. Banish remained sitting there awhile looking at the phone.
Sound Truck
Perkins was there now too. There were four of them: Perkins, Banish, the sound man, and Blood himself. The inside of the van smelled faintly like their chicken-and-gravy dinner, a picked-at plate of which sat on the control panel near Banish.
It was getting late in the day, and this fact was well known and weighed heavily upon all concerned. Banish was sitting back from the desk panel. He was brooding. “Let me hear it again,” he said.
The sound man worked the buttons and the distant, eavesdropped conversation was replayed once again.
Ables’s voice saying, “Esther. Get back here.”
A young girl’s voice, more distant. “Mommy in back room.”
Ables’s voice again, sharper, “Becca, get her back here.”
Then footsteps and off. Banish sat there thinking.
Blood said, “Which one is Esther again?”
Perkins told him, “The five-year-old.”
The sound man was puzzled. “In the back room,” he said. “Must be her post.”
“Watson.”
The voice surprised them, but most of all Perkins, who wasn’t used to being jump-started by it. He stepped up behind Banish as though they were about to meet Ables in person. Banish moved forward to his microphone. “Go ahead, Mr. Ables,” he said.
Ables said, “One: The house will be put in my wife’s name. She will not be arrested, and neither will Shelley or my kids.”
Banish sat up straighter. Perkins brought out a small notebook and pen and started scribbling. “That can be arranged,” Banish said measuredly. “Go ahead.”
“Two: I will walk off my land a free man. I will walk out of my house and down to the bottom of the mountain. TV cameras will be set up to film my arrest.”
Banish said, “That is fine, Mr. Ables. The only problem I can foresee is the location—”
“These are demands, Watson,” Ables said. “Three: I will not be placed in any handcuffs whatsoever.”
Banish sat and listened. It was obviously a snag. Perkins scribbled next to him.
“Four: I will read a speech on television at the time of my arrest. Five: The federal government will publicly admit its conspiracy and guilt in the premeditated murder of Judith Ann Ables.”
The pause told them Ables was through. Banish frowned. “No deal,” he said into the handset.
Ables said, “I didn’t offer you a deal, Watson. These are my demands.”
Banish took the list from Perkins and quickly reviewed it. “One,” he said. “Any statements you wish to make, political or otherwise, may be released through your lawyer at an appropriate time following your arrest. Two: Arresting you at the bridge could incite a riot and may risk the safety of my men; I won’t do that. Three: I am not, nor is anyone here, authorized to speak on behalf of the federal government of the United States of America.”