“You got a hat?”
“No,” she replied with a little laugh. “Why?”
“Because if you had a hat, I could show you how to toss cards into it from the other side of the room.”
“And why would I want to do that?”
“Because you could win a lot of bar bets with it—I mean, in case the law doesn’t work out.” Then he made her pick a card.
“‘Any card’?” she asked.
“What are you—psychic?”
“Unh-huh.”
“Well, pick one anyway”
She did.
“Now, remember which card it is… got it? Okay, now put it back in the deck.”
She did.
Holding the deck between them in his right hand, he cut the cards—again, and again. Then he shuffled them, and handed the deck back to her. “Now take your card out,” he told her, “and press it against your forehead.”
First, with a skeptical look, and then with a deepening frown, she looked through the deck, searching for the card she’d picked. Finally, she said, “It isn’t there.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yeah,” she said, with a laugh. “How’d you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Find the card!”
“What card?” he asked.
“The card I picked!”
“You mean… the queen of hearts?”
“Whoaa!” she exclaimed. “How’d you do that?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just a trick. And, anyway, I don’t have it.”
“Yes, you do,” she insisted. “Give it to me! It’s under your T-shirt, or something. It has to be!”
“But it’s not!”
“Is!”
“Isn’t!”
Getting to her feet, she patted him down—which wasn’t hard, since the only article of clothing he was wearing was a T-shirt. “Then, where is it?” she demanded.
He thought about it for a few seconds, his face settling into a solemn mask. Finally, he said, “It’s in the bathroom sink.”
She gave him a skeptical look. “No, really!”
“It’s in the bathroom sink,” he repeated.
“No, it’s not! It can’t be!”
He turned the palms of his hands toward the ceiling and gazed at her with the po-faced innocence of charlatans everywhere. What can I do with this woman? his eyes seemed to ask. Why won’t she believe?
“Okay,” she said, getting up from the bed. “But stay where you are. Don’t move!”
“I won’t move.”
“Don’t get up!”
“I won’t get up.”
Keeping her eyes on him, she walked slowly backward toward the bathroom, opened the door, stepped inside and—screamed. A second later, she burst into the bedroom with the queen of hearts in her hand and her eyes as round as saucers. “How did you do that!?” she shouted.
McBride laughed. “You’d be amazed at what I can do.”
“But where did you learn how to do that?”
“When I was a kid. I read every book anyone ever wrote about Houdini. You want to know the truth? If I hadn’t discovered basketball and girls, I’d probably be a lounge act in Vegas. The Great McBride.” He smiled. Sighed. “I’d forgotten all about it until… just recently.”
Soon after, they ventured into the shower, where they laved each other with soap, an activity that each of them knew could only end in one way, which it did—with the two of them on the floor, exhausted by each other’s enthusiasm and inventiveness. Finally, Adrienne struggled to her feet, and went to the sink, where she drank long and deep from the tap, cupping the water in her hands. By the time McBride went to join her in bed, she was sound asleep, with the covers pulled up to her chin and a childlike smile on her lips.
Adrienne was the first to wake up, and when she did, she decided she might as well let McBride sleep. She liked the way he looked in bed, with his right arm thrown up over his head—as if he were swimming through his dreams.
After she’d dressed and brushed her hair, she wrote a note.
Hey—I’m at the library checking
names. Back in a bit.
Love, A.
No.
Not love. It was way too soon for that. She’d never loved anybody—not really, not that way. Maybe last night would be the first of many nights and then again, maybe it wouldn’t. So she tore up the first note and wrote a second, which she left on the counter in the bathroom, next to his toothbrush:
Hey—
I’m at the library,
checking out names. Back by Noon.
Worker Bee
She asked at the front desk for directions to the library. The woman gaped at her as if the question were a joke. “‘Lie-berry’!?” she winced. “Sorry, hon’—I got no idea.”
Using a pay phone in the lobby, Adrienne got the number from 411, called and got directions. As it happened, the library was only three blocks away. Five minutes later, she was there. And an hour after that, she was done.
McBride was still in bed when she came back. Hearing her come in, he stretched luxuriantly and groaned with pleasure. “Mmmmm. Mmmmmmm. C’mere,” he said.
Adrienne was tempted. It would be nice to crawl back into bed—and dissolve in sensation. But she stayed where she was, clutching her yellow legal pad.
He propped himself up on an elbow, suddenly serious, concerned. “What’s-a-matter? Second thoughts?”
“No.”
“Whew! Because—I might be in love. I think—I think I am in love. You sure you won’t come here?” His voice slowed, became theatrically sleazy. “Show you a good time.”
“Lew.”
The somber note in her voice got through. “Okay,” he said, sitting up. “What’s going on? Where have you been?”
“The library.”
“Oh. So what did you find out?” He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and looked straight at her in a parody of alertness.
“Luciano Albino,” she told him.
“Albino,” he repeated, then frowned, trying to remember. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “The list. So who was he?”
She turned her notepad toward him, so he could see what she’d written. He squinted.
John Paul I.
“Oh, Jesus,” he muttered. “That’s who Crane was talking about. That’s ‘Papa.’ There were stories about him being poisoned after Vatican II.”
“They’re going to kill us,” she announced.
He was silent for a long moment. Finally, he said, “I know.”
“What do you mean you know?” There was a little quaver in her voice, and she worked to control it.
“I mean, I know they’re going to try. They’ve already tried. But they won’t get away with it—I mean, they won’t succeed.”
“Why not?” she demanded, sitting down on the bed.
“Because we’re going after them.”
“What?!”
“We’re going after them! I’m gonna kill the son of a bitch,” McBride swore.
“Who?”
“Opdahl.”
“What are you—crazy?”
“It’s the last thing he’ll expect,” McBride told her.
“Of course it is—because it’s the stupidest thing you could do!”
“No, it’s not. The stupidest thing I could do is keep running from him. Because, eventually, you run out of room.”
“And how is killing him going to help?” she asked. “I mean, assuming you could—which you can’t!”
“I’ll plead self-defense. You can be my lawyer. We’ll have a big trial, and everything will come out.” He paused. “What do you think?”
She looked at him wordlessly for ten or twenty seconds. Finally, she said, “You’re insane.”
His head fell back on the pillow. “I know,” he admitted. “But, unless you have a better plan, I’m going after him—because I don’t know of any other way to stop Jericho.”
“‘Jericho’? You don’t even know what Jericho is.”
“Yes, I do—a little bit.”
“Like what?”
“It’s a bloodbath,” he told her.
She nodded in agreement. “Right. What else?”