“He really does think the world of you,” Michaela says. She takes a seat in one of the minimalist chairs and curiously seems only taller. Bartosch crouches beside her, and they share one of those awkward glances only those newly in love can manage.

  I’m about to tuck the envelope away when I notice a slip of notepaper amid the bills. I pluck it out, unfold it.

  My Dear Mysterious Friend:

  I had always hoped that someday I might finally learn how it came to pass that you became so knowledgeable about so many things in such intimate detail. I imagined a brilliant education in your past, a doctorate in history at least, kept secret from others—from me—for reasons I could only guess at. It appears I will be obliged to keep on guessing.

  I cannot say goodbye without expressing my fondest gratitude for the time we shared together. Our afternoon colloquies so very often proved the highlight of my day. I cannot adequately express just how much you brightened this old man’s twilight.

  I fear for what you now face. Innocence is no defense against the mendacity into which this country has descended. The short-sighted selfishness of U.S. capitalism, combined with the sanctimonious self-congratulation of this latest wave of religiosity—believing as it does, among other heresies, that wealth signifies virtue, as though the invisible hand belongs to God—they cannot abide the self-restraint, communal spirit, and commitment to reason required of democracy. They worship certainty and strength, which inevitably find their purest expression in violence.

  You are walking into a whirlwind, with your lovely gifted friend as charge. I cannot begin to imagine the dangers you will face, and what you will need to do to survive them. Know this—you will be in my mind and in my heart every step of your journey.

  Ta godt vare på hverandre,

  Nils

  I fold the note over again, tuck it back in among the bills. Take care of each other. So Nordic a sign-off.

  “Incidentally,” Bartosch says, interrupting my reflection, “your car.”

  “No worries.” I slip the envelope inside my jacket’s vest pocket. “I’ve camouflaged the plates, glazed the windshield, dismantled all the trackers.”

  “Sorry, not an option.” He digs a key fob from his pocket. “Out back, ten years old, American-made. Economy sedan. Virtually invisible, it’s so nondescript. And like yours all the tracking software’s been stealth-stripped, the license plates decaled, the glass treated. Most importantly, it runs. Well enough to get you far away. Which is where you have to go now.”

  Not a suggestion. A directive.

  “I have an address,” I say. “In California. That far enough?”

  I might as well have said Tahiti. “You’re not serious.”

  “I rather wish I wasn’t.”

  “I meant New York, Boston, some big city where it’s easy to get lost in the numbers. Not all the way across . . . That’s madness. You’ll hit roadblocks everywhere, especially in the middle of the country. Christ, middle of the state. On top of which . . .” His voice trails off, as though in despair of all the other factors he feels I’m ignoring. “Seriously, I can’t think of a worse idea.”

  Georgie looks at me with a pinched, puzzled expression, rendered vaguely comic by her new appearance, the big square glasses.

  “I’ve not had time to explain,” I tell her. “I have an address for Reggie. It’s just a P.O. box, but I think—”

  “You’re not honestly thinking,” Bartosch says, cutting me off, “of trying to find Reggie Feely?”

  “He owes Georgie an explanation. At the very least.”

  “About what?” He glances back and forth—me, Georgie, me again. “You do realize what’s happened since he left Liguorian, how successful he’s become.”

  “We do,” I say. “And are you aware he stole not just the idea but the actual words, the text, the story, the whole shebang, from Georgie here?”

  “Just the first book,” she says modestly. “And the stories, for the most part, I learned from Shane.”

  Bartosch reflects on all that in silence. A shock of sunlight, having burst through the storm clouds outside, pierces the window blinds and striates the hardwood floor, creating what resembles a ladder of light.

  “You’re going to get caught,” he says finally. “Get yourselves killed. Get us killed. California—that’s insane. Find somewhere closer, at least till the worst blows over.”

  “And that means what—days? Weeks? Never?”

  “Look, you owe us at least—”

  “You said it yourself, the people trying to frame me have considerable resources—who else could they be but the people cashing in on Reggie’s books? Who else would go to such bother?”

  “I don’t know, but—”

  “His disappearance is no doubt costing someone money. Maybe a great many someones. I’d be amazed if there isn’t a keen hunt for his whereabouts. Somehow they dredged up Georgie’s name—from the checks he was sending, I imagine.”

  He shakes his head in disbelief. “You’ve already made up your mind.”

  “It’s not me they’re after, it’s Georgie. Maybe they think she’ll lead them to Reggie. Maybe they intend to use her as bait. Regardless, if they’re willing to rig up a video to make me out as a ruthless murderer—”

  “Which, for all we know, you are.”

  “Oh, stop now. You’re right, my past before arriving here in the states, enlisting with the Wolfhounds, is sketchy for a reason.” Far beyond your capacity to understand. “Back home, I was involved with some characters of, shall we say, lackluster morality.” Not just of late, but for centuries, nor just in Ireland. “But a cold-blooded killer, that I’m not.” Not recently.

  This recitation, cryptic as it is, earns me another pinched stare from Georgie.

  “And if they catch you?” Bartosch glances over his shoulder at Michaela, who stares absently at the dust motes swirling midair, nervously finger-combing her ponytail. “They’ll have questions. About who helped you. Why they—”

  “For what? If they already have us, what good are you to them?”

  “You’re not seeing the bigger picture. Whoever is after you isn’t acting in a vacuum. I can’t imagine they don’t have sources, connections—and we have enemies.”

  “Do for yourselves what you’ve done for us. We don’t know your real names, clearly. Abandon this flat. We have no address for you.”

  “Oh, so you’re in charge now?”

  “I won’t insult you with promises. But our best hope, maybe our only hope, is to go to the source, Reggie himself. Find out the truth. Otherwise we’re just waiting to be found. I don’t care for that option.” I turn to Georgie. “Do you?”

  She gazes up through the phony glasses with an expression even more puzzled than the last, as though I’ve just suggested an overly elaborate suicide pact. Then her features soften, the alarm dissolves. She reaches for my hand, turns toward our pseudonymous helpmates.

  “I understand the risks you’ve taken,” she tells them, “and for two strangers. You did it at the request of a lovely old man, but that’s no protection, I know. Nor is our gratitude. I won’t bore you describing what the past two years have been like for me—and then to find out I’ve been robbed, lied to, by everyone, absolutely everyone except this man here.” She glances up at me with tight-lipped conviction. “I need to find Reggie, speak to him, hear him out. It’s that or go back to living in a cage. I’ve done that. I’m tired of it. Done with it.”

  Her voice quavers, but not from fright. Something else, something I’ve not heard in a very long while.

  “I know how much trouble we’ve been,” she continues. “I’m sorry for that. But we have something to do now, and it will require more than simply disappearing.” She squeezes my hand, bracing herself. “On our way to the professor’s, we encountered a woman hung from a lamppost with a sign around her neck reading ‘Snitch.’ I’ll say now to you what I said to Shane at the time: I won’t betray you. I mean that will all my heart. I’d rather die. Regardless, wish us luck. You’ll never see us again.”

  —18—

  It’s late afternoon as we head off in the nondescript sedan. The interior reeks of chemical cleanser, the odor like a waxen orange magically overripe, presumably from a recent detailing—to remove all trace of previous passengers, I imagine—against which a pine-scented air freshener, dangling from the rearview mirror, feebly competes.

  All in all, the perfect vehicular manifestation of its inhabitants, Mr. and Mrs. Meyer.

  Strapped into the passenger seat, Georgie sits quietly, hands clasped tight in her lap, staring out at the passing housefronts as I negotiate the side streets, aiming for the interstate. The rain has stopped, the streets and sidewalks fill up with others as anonymous as we hope to be.

  “I think it’s finally hitting,” she says after a moment. “I’ve not slept in—well, I can’t remember exactly. Do you mind if I drift off for a bit?”

  I slow to a stop to allow a bedraggled young mother—oversized topcoat, neckerchief, wellies, gripping the handle of her pram like a lifeline—to jaywalk left to right. “You needn’t ask permission.”

  She tucks her wigged, bespectacled, and padded self into the nook between seat and passenger door. Her eyelids flutter shut.

  My inner drummer beats to quarters—all hands, man your stations. A steady calm comes over me. From the moment I first felt aware of the world and the eyes of my mind cracked open, I knew what it meant to fix on a target, locate my prey. The fact that, in this instance, the quarry lies three thousand miles off matters not at all.

  On a main drag I accelerate, swim into traffic. The world drifts into the slipstream blur.

  The going’s slow on the expressway—rush hour, undiminished despite the state of emergency. Apparently the titans of industry have been urging folks to shake off their dread and don the mask of normalcy. Step out onto the stage of daily life, America! Play your part, hit your mark, recite your lines! And so we find ourselves joining the general slog, heading toward the burbs, off in the dusty red distance.

  Like ours, over half the cars around us remain little different than their gas-guzzling forebears. So much for the fabled green revolution. The previous regime strangled it in its crib. This one’s disposed of the body.

  As for the drivers, a sizable number still wear the air-filtration masks so prevalent during last year’s outbreak, a lung-ravaging bit of retroviral mayhem that bubbled up from the equator. After dozens of friends, co-workers, family members fall sick and die, there’s something reassuring, I suppose, about the sour warmth of one’s own breath.

  Soon enough, traffic stalls, always a danger. Red taillights flash in the sepia haze.

  Then, off to the right, war cries.

  Several dozen raggedy teens burst from the roadside woods wielding hammers, crowbars, hacksaws, charging through the high grass toward the motionless trucks and cars.

  Georgie sits up straight. “What’s happening?”

  “Looks like we’re in for a bit of bother.”

  Not so long ago, they were just urban folklore, avatars of the becchini of plague-era Florence, the Ukraine’s beguny, ragtag bands of homegrown barbarians taking full advantage of the failing state. Now they’re a daily menace.

  In a flash they’re all around, pounding on bonnets, shrieking through windshields, threatening damage unless paid. Horns start blasting, as though that can ward the hooligans off.

  One of the youths, pale and scrawny and rat-haired, takes up position in the space between our car and the station wagon just ahead.

  He’s shirtless, his skeletal torso blazoned with crude tattoos. Screeching something meant to be fearsome, he reveals a maw of nightmarish teeth while holding a machete over his head, two-handed, ready to bring it crashing down.

  I ease off the brake, just enough to budge forward, and tap the station wagon’s rear bumper, pinning him in place.

  He stares down in panic at his legs.

  Georgie says, “You crushed him.”

  “Not in the least. Stay put.”

  Getting out of the car in my homely disguise, slowed somewhat by the knee brace, I head for where he stands trapped. My left hand snatches the machete away—he’s too stunned to resist—as my right hand hammers his nose.

  His head snaps back. Threads of blood fly. The driver of the station wagon, having watched the action in her rearview mirror, edges her vehicle forward.

  The boy drops to the pavement, shaking with fright.

  A trucker several car lengths ahead reaches out his window and fires a pistol shot. The marauders snap to a halt. In the smoggy distance, the wail of a siren.

  The youths begin to peel away, jogging back toward the woods.

  I pull the bloodied scrap of flesh to his feet. He staggers but stands, legs no worse for the bumper nudge. Desperation whirls in his eyes—how long since he’s eaten?

  “Keep on like this, you’ll be dead come winter. And you really should see to those teeth.”

  I nudge him toward the roadside. He stumbles, falls to one knee, then scrambles back to his feet, looking back with naked hate.

  I wait for him to scarper far enough away into the tall grass that he’s unlikely to turn around to retrieve the machete when I toss it toward the gravel berm.

  A few nearby drivers applaud from behind their steering wheels. Others merely stare in dumbstruck confusion, like I represent something they’ve forgotten. Only then does it dawn on me that I’ve made myself conspicuous—a gimpy old man acting the hero.

  I scramble back inside the car, strap myself in behind the wheel. Using a napkin dampened with hand sanitizer, I wipe my knuckles clean and dab away the few spots of blood on my sport coat.

  Georgie’s staring. “That was . . . wild.”

  “Hopefully, once traffic thins, we’ll be—”

  “You made it look so easy, so la-di-da.”

  “In fairness, the boy was barely more than a shadow. What worries me—”

  “I know so little about you.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “You needn’t worry, I’m not—”

  “No, I’m sorry, that came out wrong. What I meant—I owe you an apology.”

  I slip the car into drive. “Whatever for?”

  “The thing about depression, it makes you totally self-absorbed. It’s like your head’s a prison, all you can think about is how to get out—when will this be over, why me? It never crossed my mind that I should ask about your life before we met.”

  Oh, but I told you. You’re just unaware, thought it a mere story. “If I thought any of that mattered—”

  “Is it true, what you told them, Bartosch and Michaela?” She turns toward me in an awkward jerk. “Back in Ireland, before you came to the states—you said you were involved with some people of . . . how did you put it?”

  Lackluster morality. “I’ve my dark spots, like most anyone, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “I just always found you so charming it never dawned on me that you might have, you know, your own . . . Stupid of me. Selfish.”

  “Georgie—”

  “But we’ve got all the time in the world now. I’d like to know.”

  “About?”

  “What happened. In Ireland. Why you left.”

  I stare out through the windshield, gathering my thoughts. Traffic finally eases a bit. We begin to move at a middling clip. In the distance, a stark red sun hovers in the choking haze, calling to mind the deathly eye of Balor the Fomorian.

  “I promised to do something that, in the end, I refused to carry out. The people I promised were none too delighted with my refusal. It seemed best we part ways.”

  “Who were these people?”

  “Volunteers, they call themselves. Rebels to some, terrorists to others. The Brits prefer ‘ordinary decent criminals,’ sucks the political wind out of their sails.”

  “What did you promise?”

  What else? “To kill a man.”

  “Who?”

  A nagging itch beneath my wig creates an urge to slip a finger underneath and scratch. Somehow I resist.

  “A tout,” I tell her. “Informer.”

  “A snitch.”

  And just like that, the woman hanging from her lamppost once again rises in our shared mind’s eye.

  “What was his name?”

  “It’s of no importance.”

  “What was his name?”

  “McCann. Quinn McCann.”

  “How did you get involved with . . . ?”

  “Same as anything. One step at a time.”

  “That’s not really an answer.”

  “Mistakes beget mistakes. I chose a friend poorly. By the time I saw him for who he was, there were others as well. A whole gaggle of friends. And a favor to be repaid.”

  “Like what?”

  “I tried to break up a nasty fight—bicycle chains, straight razors, broken bottles. Got arrested as one of the brawlers, charged with assaulting a peace officer—and attempted murder.”

  Behind the phony glasses, her almond-shaped eyes grow round.

  “Anyway, these friends, they bailed me out, arranged to have the matter dismissed.”

  “They were behind the whole thing, the fight, the arrest.”

  “Very astute of you.”

  “And this Mr. McCann?”

  “Supposedly he’d been the tipster in an arms raid at a farm in Armagh. I was to take him to a place on the bank of the River Blackwater. His grave lay waiting, freshly dug. I put the gun to his head, pulled back the hammer. He dropped to his knees, sobbing. But that’s not why I felt moved to spare him.”

  She’s barely breathing now. “What was the reason?”

  I offer a helpless shrug. “Didn’t see the point.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Forgiveness isn’t a crime, though you’d hardly know it given the state of the world. I told him to run. I did the same. Found my way across the water and into a recruiting center in New York. They were desperate for bodies—all that was washing up on their doorstep was the usual flotsam of drunks and druggies. I was able-bodied and willing. No questions asked. And so off I went, like so many Irishmen before me—the Wild Geese, the San Patricios—fighting someone else’s war.”

 

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