McBride nodded. “Yeah, that’s probably it. He was probably ‘doing a research project.’“ He paused. “Is that what you think?”
She shook her head. “No,” she said. “I think it’s a hit list. And I think it means we’re dead.”
He nodded thoughtfully, and took her hand in his. She looked scared—and why not? He was scared. Knowing the truth about any one of these murders would be enough to get you killed.
“Now I know what he meant,” she told him.
“Who?”
“Shapiro. He said it was dark, but you know what? He was just guessing. He didn’t know how dark it really is.” She looked off, into space. “So what do we do?”
McBride shook his head. “I don’t know. I think… I think I’ll have another drink,” he replied. “Anyway, you’re the lawyer—what do you think we should do? I mean, what do we have that we can take to the police? Or Secret Service—someone.”
Adrienne sat back. “We’ve got your medical file.”
“Which shows… what?”
“That you had neurosurgery—and that the doctors found something.”
“Okay, what else?” McBride asked.
“Bonilla. They’ll have missed him by now.”
“Go on.”
She thought. “The rifle.”
“Except… we don’t have the rifle.”
“But I can tell them about it! I saw it.” She hesitated. Shrugged.
“What else?”
She shook her head. “I guess that’s it. There are the letters we saw—but they wouldn’t get us anywhere in court. They’re more like leads than evidence.”
McBride sighed. “That’s what I think, too.” “And the list—”
“—isn’t even a list. It’s just a bunch of clips. Which we also don’t have.” He paused, and summed up. “So… what we’ve actually got—that we can take to the police—is a missing detective, a missing rifle, some interesting leads and a photograph of something that was in my head.”
“And Crane,” she added. “We have Crane, too. He was murdered, and we can prove that Nikki was here when he was killed.”
McBride nodded. “Okay. Good. So, let’s say we go to the police with our little shopping list. Then what? What happens?”
She thought about it for what seemed a long while. Finally, she said, “If we’re lucky? They’ll write it up… and then they’ll file it.”
“That’s what I think,” McBride told her. “And by the time they get around to it—if they ever get around to it—you and I will be sharing the same astral plane as Eddie Bonilla and Calvin Crane. Not to mention Mr. Luciani—whoever he is. I mean, was.”
“And ‘Jericho’?”
The name coasted through his mind like an ominous wind. Jericho. The words from Crane’s letter to Opdahl came back to him. Jericho: a disaster. Jericho: beyond belief. McBride knew that Jericho—whatever it was—was what all this was about. It was the dark star that had swallowed up years of his life. It was the force that had killed Calvin Crane, electrocuted Nico, chopped down Bobby Bonilla and pulped Raymond Shaw. What was it? He didn’t know but it filled him with dread. Still, Adrienne was looking at him and he managed to dredge up a sort of determined, upbeat look, a look that was light-years away from the helpless weariness he felt.
“I don’t know,” he said to her, “but we’re going to find out.”
Chapter 38
Maybe it was the wine, or being under the gun the way they were. Maybe it was both. Or maybe it was just the right time.
They were standing outside the Super 8—the proverbial “cheap motel”—waiting for the car to stop running. For whatever reason, the Dodge had acquired the habit of continuing to run even after the ignition was shut off. And while there was nothing that either of them could do about it, whenever it happened, they tended to wait by its side until they heard the engine sputter out.
“I can’t believe this,” Adrienne told him, as they stood there. “That list, everything.” The air was cool. Palms trembled in the wind. The asphalt, still damp from the rain, shone under the parking lot lights. “I mean—every once in a while I step back from it, and I think: no. And then I think of Nikki. In the bathtub. And Eddie.” She was looking out, away from the motel. Traffic hissed down the damp street. A splash of blue from a neon sign zigzagged along the asphalt. “That candle,” she said. “The house in Bethany exploding.” He watched her push one hand up until her fingers were anchored in her hair. As if she had to hold her head there. He saw the glitter of tears in her eyes. “And then… all those murders.”
The Stratus finally coughed its last. “I know,” McBride said. “It’s dark.” He put his arm around her.
They were always stiff with each other, meticulous and careful during any incidental physical contact—but this time she sagged into him, tears rolling down her cheeks, her body trembling against his. After a few moments, he turned her head toward him and brushed the tears away. And then he leaned over and kissed her as tenderly as he’d ever kissed anyone. Her lips were cool, moist as the air; she tasted like mangoes. It was meant to be—and it was—a doting-uncle kiss, or something like that. Chaste. She drew back fractionally, made a little sound: “Oh.”
And then their lips came together again and this time the kiss got away from them. It didn’t take long—maybe ten seconds—and then they were up against the car, fumbling at each other’s clothing, teetering on the edge of public indecency. They were saved by a couple emerging from one of the motel rooms: the woman, blond, her ringleted mane bouncing, tapped along in her spike heels. She said to her companion in a loud, accented voice: “You want a TicTac?”
Adrienne started to laugh, a whisper of a giggle that bubbled up from inside her and then took on a life of its own. Together, they staggered toward 18-B, engulfed in laughter and desire. They barely managed to get the door closed before they were on each other. Adrienne seemed almost incandescent and as for himself…
Clothing proved far too obstructive and difficult to remove under the circumstances, the circumstances being that he was beginning to lose contact with where his body stopped and hers began. They parted to remove it. “This is a mistake,” Adrienne said in a sultry voice that dissolved into a giggle as she executed a kind of warp speed striptease.
“I know,” he gasped, flinging a sock across the room.
“It’s just going to complicate things,” she continued, throwing herself onto the bed.
“We should wait,” he told her, taking her in for about a nanosecond—the wonders of Adrienne—then falling on her as if there was no tomorrow. And it was a free-for-all. Adrienne, so buttoned up and buttoned down, was inexperienced, but fearless, in bed. They did everything. At one point, when McBride—pinned to the sheets by sweet exhaustion—thought they might be done, Adrienne propped herself up on an elbow. And then she said—as if their making love required justification—“Well, you know, we’re healthy young animals. What did we expect?”
“Well ‘animals,’—I’ll give you animals.”
“Hey.”
“And ‘healthy,’“ he continued, “I’ll give you healthy. But—”
“You’ll pay for that,” she said, a gleam in her eyes. She rolled on top of him, pinned his elbows with her knees, crouched above him.
He atoned.
She felt guilty, she said afterwards, laughing, about extracting payment.
“We have a cure for guilt,” he told her.
“Let me guess… “ She took the cure.
Afterwards, they lazed in each other’s presence, enjoying their newfound intimacy. McBride found a deck of cards in the desk where a Gideon Bible was supposed to be and, sitting on the bed, entertained her with them. He could cut the deck with one hand—which looked easy, until she tried it herself, and the cards exploded all over the room.