Charlotte covered the mouthpiece. "I told you he wasn't your father," she said impatiently. "The thing that was in your grandmother's shed is a time machine."
Marrity was still holding a glass of beer, and he drained it in one long swallow now. And he looked again at all the people sitting in the lobby.
He could feel Daphne in his mind — it wasn't a sensation or a thought, just the mental equivalent of holding his hand. He returned the psychic pressure. You and I will come out of this okay, he tried to project to her. The rest of these can go their own ways, whoever they are.
"I'll tell you," said Charlotte into the phone, "if you'll shut up."
He looks like me, thought Marrity, an older version of me. Daphne said so, right away. He told us not to go to an Italian restaurant. He claims to have met this crowd when he was thirty-five; I'm thirty-five. On Grammar's back porch this morning he said, I hate the old man as much as you do, and when I asked him if he meant his father or mine, he nodded and said, That one.
He believes it, at least, thought Marrity, and so do these people, apparently—
—and they don't seem to be fools—
—but I can simply acknowledge that they all believe it, and work from there.
"Okay," said Charlotte. "With Frank's help, I wrote out a letter and xeroxed it, and got envelopes and stamps here, and we just got done dropping three copies in different mailboxes. The envelopes are addressed to the FBI, and the Mossad care of the Israeli embassy, and to the LAPD — all Los Angeles addresses — and the letter includes an account of your murders of that San Diego detective and that kid last night, the two shootouts today on Batsford Street, your passport numbers, the New Jersey and Amboy locations, and the license-plate number of the bus." She paused, clearly listening. "You've both used your passports when I've been with you. You know me, I didn't exactly have to lean over your shoulders."
After another pause, she went on, "So listen, listen! The plan is the same as before, except that it's me you short out, my lifeline that you erase from the universe. No, dammit, think about it — without me in the picture, Frank Marrity wouldn't have got spooked so you decided we had to kill him, and without me he wouldn't have fled the hospital this morning and told the Mossad about the thing in his grandmother's shed. You only missed getting the machine today by a couple of minutes — do it this way and you'll be at least a day ahead of the Mossad. And without me, this letter wouldn't exist, wouldn't be in the mail right now."
Charlotte was leaning in close over the phone. Marrity remembered seeing tears in her eyes during the wild drive down the canyon. She had said, Probably they wouldn't have given me a new life anyway. I guess I knew that.
And he remembered the name she had originally given him: Libra Nosamalo. Libera nos a malo. Deliver us from evil.
"Denis," she said now, "it'll take you forever to track Frank Marrity, the young one, with his — with your horrible head, if Marrity knows to get away from me and keep running and changing direction. With those letters in the mail, you don't have the time. I'll call you back and arrange a trade — me for the girl."
She hung up the telephone. Without looking around, she reached one hand back toward Marrity. "Got another quarter?" she asked.
"Uh, yes," he said, digging into his pocket with his free hand. "Thank you for saving my daughter. Do you have to — can they really short out—"
"They really can," she said, taking the quarter, "and I'll do it if that's all that's left. I can't let all the things I've done stay done much longer. But let's see what your NSA man has to say — he's got the time machine now."
ACT THREE: Baruch Dayan Emet
Whose daughter art thou? tell me, I pray thee: is there room in thy father's house for us to lodge in?
— GENESIS 24: 1 3
Twenty-two
"Could I bum one of those?"
Lepidopt raised his eyebrows, then held out the pack of Camels toward Bennett. "Sure. You decided you need a new vice?"
The two of them stepped across the sidewalk away from the glass doors of the Hollywood West Hospital emergency room. There were spots of blood on Bennett's wilted white shirt and on his jacket, and he looked as if he hadn't slept in days; his fingers were shaking as he pinched a cigarette out of the pack.
Moira had been diagnosed as having a concussion, and at best it would be several hours before she would be released.
"I used to smoke," Bennett said, "but it's a stupid — well, today."
Lepidopt put the briefcase down on the grass while he lit his own cigarette, then he handed the lighter to Bennett. Out here in the warm breeze he couldn't light one without using two hands, one to cup around the flame, and he didn't want to invite remarks about his missing finger.
"That's," Bennett began, then sucked hard on the cigarette. "That's Frank's briefcase," he said, exhaling smoke.
"I picked it up when we got you and Moira out of that empty house. Didn't seem right to leave it there."
"Those people — with the helicopter — they grabbed Frank and Daphne."
Lepidopt sighed. "Evidently," he agreed.
"I should have the briefcase. That is, Moira should have it."
Lepidopt stepped back, then crouched and reached out to pick up the briefcase. "I'm likely to see Frank sooner than you are," he said with a smile as he straightened up. "I'll give it to him."
Bennett scowled, then shrugged.
They walked out of the building's shadow into the late afternoon sunlight, and Bennett slapped his jacket pocket and then just squinted. "Is anybody going to come looking for me, is what I want to know," he said. He waved his cigarette back toward the emergency room. "Or my wife."
Lepidopt could see the white Honda, with Malk behind the wheel, parked idling a dozen yards away. "These people wanted Marrity and his daughter," he told Bennett without looking at him, "and now they've got them. I don't imagine they'll bother with you anymore."
"I should — I should call the police."
"Go ahead."
A man had walked up beside the driver's side of the Honda — a white-haired old fellow, in a dark suit — and Malk was talking to him now. "You should go back inside," Lepidopt said. "Your wife seemed upset."
Bennett's shoulders slumped. "Her father's with that gang," he muttered. "She thinks he had amnesia, all these years. She'll want to try to get in touch with him."
Lepidopt saw the Honda's headlights flash twice, fast, then once. No problem here, that meant. "She won't be able to. Get back inside."
Bennett followed Lepidopt's gaze, then nodded and hurried back to the glass doors and disappeared inside the hospital. They'd yell at him for smoking in the building.
As Lepidopt strode toward the car, he didn't have to pat his waistband over his right hip pocket; he could feel the angular jab of the .22 automatic concealed by his jacket. He had sewn two steel washers into the jacket hem so that it would flip aside quickly.
The old man in the suit saw him coming and smiled, placing both his hands flat on the roof of the car. "Oren," he said, in a voice that carried just far enough across the pavement for Lepidopt to hear it. "I think you've strayed from the established plan." His accent was perfect American newscaster.