Skinner scowled at him.
“We’ll stay away all right … until I find out who you are. Then it’s open season on you and your Jew-boy friends.”
Landry knew Skinner was no threat to him. Worthier foes than this idiot had tried to track him down and failed. And after today Landry would never again look like a priest with horn-rimmed glasses and a mustache.
“Don’t be stupid,” Landry said. “If I have to come see you again—”
He lifted the gun and squeezed off a shot in one smooth motion. Skinner screamed again and jerked his head to the right. His good hand flew to the left side of his head, where a chunk of his ear was now missing.
“You’ll never see me coming,” Landry said, the smile gone now. “You’ll just be walking down the street one day and then a crowd will be standing over your body watching the blood leak all over the sidewalk. And the same goes for those excuses for human beings you call friends. If any of you so much as walks by one of those businesses and looks in the window, I’ll know.”
He pointed the gun at the middle of Skinner’s face and said, “Pow.”
Skinner flinched.
“And that’ll keep happening until the harassment stops.”
Landry stood up. “Be smart,” he said, then walked out of the apartment and left Skinner to contemplate his future.
Owen and Fay Donovan married late and Rob wasn’t conceived until their ninth wedding anniversary. One result of this was that Owen was sixty-two years old the day he visited his son in jail. Rob’s father had a full head of thick, white hair and his face was creased with laugh lines. His normal smile was missing on this day, though. He gazed with utter seriousness through the partition at Rob.
“Of course I believe you,” Owen said.
A lump formed in Rob’s throat. For the second time that day he felt like reaching through the Plexiglas to hug someone.
“You’re the first person who’s said that to me.”
“None of those other people raised you, did they?”
Rob felt like the cloud over his head had just miraculously started to thin.
“I have to admit, though,” Owen said, “talking to Stan last night forced me into a corner. I had to sit myself down and wrestle with some tough questions. Like how well do I really know my son, and is it possible the boy I taught to ride a bike could have done something so awful.”
Owen looked unwaveringly at Rob. It was like he was holding his son, only with his voice instead of his arms.
“What I wanted to believe kept trying to get in the way,” Owen said, “but I think I managed to shove that to one side. In the end I had to admit that yes, you could have done it. Every one of us is capable of doing extraordinary things if we’re pushed hard enough. I also decided in your case it would have taken an incredible amount of pushing. There would have to be some major crisis going on in your life, maybe something you were angry about or someone you wanted to impress very badly. Your mother and I talked about that a while. In fact we did a whole lot more thinking and talking last night than we did sleeping. After a bit we agreed something that big would have changed you, and even though you’re here in Boston now, we think we would have seen signs.”
Owen paused. His voice became quiet.
“Were we wrong, son? Is there something we should have noticed?”
Rob shook his head.
“Of course not,” he said.
“Then this is my long-winded way of saying I believe you,” Owen said, “and we believe in you, no matter what.”
Rob blinked and rubbed at his eyes. The last thing he wanted to do in this place was cry.
“Of course,” his father said, “what we believe doesn’t matter.”
“It matters plenty to me,” Rob said.
“But we don’t decide if you go to prison, and the people who do decide won’t care what your parents think.”
Rob had to admit he had a point.
“You have to face something, son. Regardless of what anyone believes, it looks like you did it.”
“That’s what the lawyer said.”
“You should listen to him.”
“Someone planted that evidence, Dad. I have no idea how they did it, or who would want to.”
“You may not have any ideas now,” Owen said, “but you better come up with some. The FBI is going to trot out all that evidence and tell their story at your trial. If you don’t have a better one to tell — well, you know what happens then.”
Rob’s gut clenched down hard. He knew all too well what would happen.
Ray Landry no longer looked like a priest as he sat perusing the wine list in one of New York’s finest French restaurants. The horn-rimmed glasses and mustache were gone, and he had rinsed the temporary dark color from his blond wavy hair. Landry made it a strict policy not to wear a disguise in what he considered his personal life. He never changed his appearance while at his hotel, preferring to rent a cheap motel room with cash for that purpose. The motel clerk would see him check in with blond hair, and Landry would park his car directly in front of the room so he could leave without being seen and never have to return. The practice made it virtually impossible to track him down based on what he looked like.
He also had other ways to leave his work behind. The combined Pilates and yoga workout he had done in his hotel room had cleared his mind so he could enjoy the meal.
The wine waiter hovered stiffly beside his table wearing a tuxedo with a short black jacket.
“A Bordeaux, I think,” Landry said. “The Lafite Rothschild, 1988.”
The waiter raised one eyebrow slightly as he accepted the wine list back from Landry.
“An excellent choice, sir,” the waiter said, and then walked away.
Landry lifted the corners of the cloth napkin that was folded over the basket of bread. He selected a white roll, buttered it, took a bite and chewed slowly, savoring the simple pleasure of freshness.
This was why he had entered his unique profession. His CIA salary hadn’t allowed him to enjoy the finer things in life as much as he wanted. He knew most people would be surprised that he could have passion for the nuances of an original Monet or a London Symphony performance, and still earn his living as he did. This troubled him not at all, since he allowed no one to know about both sides of his life.
Landry’s gut lurched again when he took a second bite of the roll. The discomfort passed quickly and he assumed it was just hunger.
The cell phone in his pocket vibrated. He pulled it out and smiled when he saw the text message.
A person in his line of work had to keep abreast of what was going on. He made it a habit to watch the national news and to scour the newspapers from several major cities every day. The story about one of his former clients being in trouble had been all over the news for the past couple of days. He was not surprised to hear from Stan Dysart.
Tim couldn’t remember the last time he had been this nervous. This was even worse than the visit from the FBI agents. He took a calming breath and then another lick of his double chocolate chunk ice cream cone. Lesley’s was butterscotch ripple — two scoops in a sugar cone.
The two of them strolled along a pathway through the Common, the setting sun creating long shadows of the trees and black lampposts. The air was unseasonably warm for an autumn evening.
“This was a good idea,” Lesley said. “I would have gone crazy if I had stayed in that apartment any longer.”
“I was worried about you,” Tim said. “When we talked earlier you said you were fine but you didn’t sound that way.”
“That obvious, huh?”
“Well, come on. Who would be with all this going on?”
Lesley took a bite off the top scoop. Tim swallowed hard and tried not to stare at those perfect lips coming together. Then she licked a runaway dribble on the side of the cone. He tore his eyes away with an effort and returned to the distraction of his own cone.