“Why?”
“To wait for the other man in the deal to come. To make sure he don’t bring anyone with him or try anything funny.”
The boy stared long and gravely at Langiono. “You mean you’re supposed to be like a bodyguard?”
Langiono gave him his grin. “Something like that. So when the man’s out there with you, just be careful not to look in my
direction, or say anything about my being here. You got that? Because it’s important.”
Paulie nodded. “What would happen if he saw you?”
“Nothing good.”
Paulie suddenly felt his heart going very fast, and he began yawning, dryly, nervously. He was starting to see why Frank Langiono
didn’t like his job very much.
They sat there together, leaning against the trunk of a big tree and looking out toward the clearing. The bark of the tree
felt rough and solid behind Paulie’s back, and he watched the way shafts of sunlight struck down through the foliage and lit
the tops of bushes in shiny gold. He squinted his eyes almost closed to bring everything down to masses of light and dark,
and thought about his father teaching him how to capture the true feel of the gold with paint, picking up great gobs of cadmium
yellow and zinc white together on the brush, not blending, but leaving the color broken to catch the vibration of the light.
The boy wondered if he was ever going to see his father again.
Then he heard the first faint sound of a helicopter and forgot everything else.
H
ENRY
D
URNING HEARD
the distant sound of the helicopter at almost the same instant as Paulie and Langiono.
The attorney general was just getting out of his car where the dirt road ended, and he still had a good-size walk ahead of
him to the designated clearing. Checking his map for a rising path through the woods, he found it about twenty yards off to
his left and started the climb.
He moved lightly and carefully, carrying his evidence bag in his left hand and his 9mm automatic in the right. The sun flickered
in small, bright stains among the leaves, and the air was piney and aromatic after a nighttime shower.
Then he thought of Carlo Donatti and had instant visions of snakes and demons setting off delicate warning systems in his
path.
It made him smile.
Other than for the don bringing Irene, they were both supposed to be coming alone. But Durning thought he knew Donatti better
than that. In all likelihood Carlo would have one or two people planted in the woods as backup. Which was exactly how he himself
would have handled it if he hadn’t felt compelled to do it alone and finally be witness free.
Mutual distrust. What better basis for a lasting relationship? Except that one way or another, this one was about to end.
The sound of the helicopter suddenly was loud enough to make Durning look up.
He swore softly.
It’s him,
he thought, and a spasm of something near to illness lifted from his stomach and touched his brain.
Through a break in the trees, he saw the copter circle down out of the sky like some creature from another age. Sunlight flashed
from the rotors and reflected from the bubble. Sudden gusts whipped leaves. Bushes leaned and bent as the aircraft hovered
for a landing.
Keeping low, Durning dashed the rest of the way.
When he reached the level of the clearing, he saw the two figures almost instantly. They knelt in the brush about twenty-five
yards away, watching the helicopter touch down. They were a man and a young boy. And although Durning had never seen either
of them before, he knew that the boy had to be the long-missing Paulie.
And the man?
Definitely not Battaglia or Garetsky. This was an older man with graying hair and a tough, lined face. Probably Donatti’s
backup.
Durning crouched behind some brush and waited to see what would develop. What he understood least was what the
boy was doing here and where he had come from. But he guessed he would soon find that out, too. Still, there was an element
of confusion for him simply in the boy’s presence, and this was something he had never liked.
Just watch and stop bitching,
he told himself.
He saw the helicopter lightly touch down at the center of the clearing. The wash whipped the high grass. The rotors screamed
and slowed, and a hatch opened. Donatti and the woman Durning had once known but could no longer really recognize as Irene
Hopper climbed out, ducked low, and ran to the far side of the clearing to escape the wash.
Almost immediately, the engines roared up to speed again and the helicopter took off, sweeping low over the trees and rising
quickly into the distance. In thirty seconds it was nothing more than a speck fading against the sky.
Then Henry Durning saw the boy running out into the clearing. He ran like he was all skinny arms and legs held together by
rubber bands. His hair stood straight up, pressed by the breeze he made as he ran.
How small and thin he is,
thought Durning.
I never imagined he would be so small and thin.
The boy’s mother didn’t move at all. She just stood frozen beside Carlo Donatti, both hands covering her mouth, watching her
son struggle toward her through the high summer grass.
Insanely, Durning felt a hard dryness in his throat.
Jesus Christ, how did I ever get to this?
That same stupid question.
With its same irrefutable answer.
Trying to keep afloat.
When I should have just let myself sink a long time ago. I can still do it.
For an instant, in the imagining, he was stirred. But then, considering what it would mean, all it finally did was make breathing
difficult for him.
Across the clearing, the boy and his mother held each other as Carlo Donatti stood watching.
Durning rose, quietly came up behind Frank Langiono,. and shot him once in the back of the head. With a silencer in place,
the sound was barely more than a whisper.
The attorney general holstered his gun and circled around through the brush before revealing himself to those in the clearing.
Then carrying his bag of evidence, he walked toward the man, woman, and boy who stood silently watching him approach.
He saw the long bag in Donatti’s hand and recognized the beginning of it all.
He saw Irene’s surgically altered face and found enough fear and loathing there to make him believe in demons.
He saw Paulie’s eyes and they froze his heart because he knew he was going to have to kill the boy, too.
So, of course, he offered them his best smile and warmest, most winning manner.
“It’s been a long time, Irene, and you look just as lovely this way as you did nine years ago. Carlo, I’ve never seen a more
dramatic entrance. Imagine dropping out of the sky that way. You make even the gods jealous.”
Then Durning bent to the boy. “And you must be Paulie. Where have you been all this time? Didn’t you know half the world’s
been looking for you?”
Paulie stared into Henry Durning’s eyes as though he were trying to crawl inside them. “Where’s my father?” he said. “What
have you done to my father?”
Henry Durning stayed level with Paulie’s eyes. For one long moment he felt himself in the same place with him. “I’m afraid
I don’t know where your father is. I’ve never even met him. But I hear he’s a good man.”
“He’s better than
you.”
“I’ll bet he is.”
The attorney general rose slowly, feeling a less-than-ratio-nal urge to stroke the boy’s hair. Then he turned and looked at
Carlo Donatti.
“You have all the material, Carlo?”
The don nodded. “And you?”
“Right here in this bag.”
“Then let’s do it.”
There was no visible drama in the exchange. All things considered, thought Durning, the whole business seemed rather mundane.
If there was any touch of the exotic it came from the setting of a glorious sunlit clearing under an azure
Mediterranean sky. Otherwise, there were just two aging men opening their bags and handing each other assorted papers and
objects, while an attractive woman and her young son stood silently watching, and an unseen dead man lay staring up through
the trees.
When Durning finally tired of pretending to examine the plastic-wrapped rifle, jewelry, and forensic material he was squatting
beside in the grass, he looked up and found Carlo Donatti gazing at him over the blued steel barrel of an automatic.
The attorney general blinked. It was pure reflex.
“You always did have a rather bizarre sense of humor, Carlo.”
“I know. That’s why I never tell jokes.”
“What would you call this?”
“I’d say it was real serious stuff, Henry.” Donatti’s eyes were steady, cold as black ice. “You see, I’m not giving you Mrs.
Battaglia and the boy. I figure we’re all squared away now. And, sweet Jesus Christ, finally, enough has got to be enough.”
Durning squatted there in the grass. Among other things, he felt utterly foolish. He looked at Irene and Paulie and saw them
staring back at him with such gravity that even the air and grass seemed charged with it. So he laughed. He had no idea what
the laugh meant. It was just that at this particular moment it was the only thing he could think of that might make him feel
a bit less ludicrous and restore a measure of grace.
“Why not?” he said, and offered another smile as well. “I have no problem with that. As long as everybody is happy.”
No one seemed convinced.
“Fair is fair,” said Donatti. “You’ve got the rifle and forensic evidence, so there’s no real case against you. And Mrs. Battaglia’s
assured me she just wants to forget the whole miserable thing.”
Durning turned to her. “That’s true?”
“I told you when we spoke on the phone,” Peggy said. “You should have trusted me before. I would never have given you away.”
“And now?”
“Now I just want to be with those I love and get on with my life.”
Henry Durning slowly nodded.
How lovely,
he thought, and felt a quiet desperation in just how much he ached to believe that this sudden pathway to light, to some
vague hope of redemption, could still be possible. He felt he had good things in him that were yet to be done. He was sure
he had them.
He looked at Paulie, standing close against his mother, and saw it all in the incredible solemnity of the child’s face.
Such a serious little boy,
he thought, and wondered whether he ever laughed, or even smiled. He looked at those dark, tragic eyes, still level and steady
on his, and felt them enter his heart. He had promised Mary he would save the boy and wondered if he might yet be able to
do it. Except that it suddenly seemed to be less for her than for himself.
Durning smiled at the kid.
“And what about you, Paulie?” he said with that quiet, half-grave, half-facetious manner with which he had never failed to
charm children of all ages. “Do you think there’s some hope for me?”
The boy gazed at him. He didn’t understand facetiousness. He had a natural depth of perception that dug beneath and had no
use for charm.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said.
“Do you think if I tried real hard, I might get to be even a little bit as good as your father?”
Paulie considered the question. “Are you an artist?” he asked, because regardless of whatever else his father might do in
the course of his life, to Paulie he would always remain first and foremost an artist.
“No. Though I sometimes wish I were.”
“Then what are you?”
“A lawyer.”
“I don’t like lawyers.”
The attorney general laughed. “Who does?”
Then Durning suddenly remembered the dead man behind the bushes and felt it all go bad inside him.
Wait till they discover this one.
So much for dream time.
The whole thing had been crazy anyway. He had come too far on blood to suddenly start counting on good will to keep him going.
Too many knew about him. He might be able to handle those in Washington because they depended on such niceties as legal and
political considerations. But people like Donatti, Battaglia, and Garetsky were limited by no such constraints.
Too bad,
he thought, and felt something near to total despondency, as if such heartfelt remorse made him better in some way. Finally,
you were nothing more or less than what you did. And he knew exactly where that placed him.
“So that’s it?” he asked the don.
“
You
tell
me,
Henry.”
“I’m not by nature a villain, Carlo. I didn’t enjoy it and I had to work very hard at it. Since my basic survival needs seem
to have been met, I’m more than happy to retire as the heavy in all this.”
“Good.
Tutto buono.
For all of us.”
“Can I count on your getting the word to Battaglia and Garetsky?”
“As soon as I find them.”
Kneeling in the grass, Durning had started gathering together the jewelry and forensic evidence Donatti had brought him, and
putting the separate pieces in his bag.
“Will they listen to you?” he said. “Will they accept an armistice? Or will I be living with armed guards for the rest of
my life?”
“No problem. All Vittorio ever wanted was his wife and son. Now he has them.”
Henry Durning nodded as he put the last of the forensic evidence in his bag.
And I have you, he thought, and fired the big .357 magnum through the canvas Adidas bag, its full-scale, unsilenced explosion
filling the clearing and echoing from the cliffs. The don went over backward as if slammed by a bat. Durning saw his automatic
fly loose and disappear into the grass. Peggy and the boy stared blankly, stunned by the explosion, trying to understand what
had happened. Then Henry Durning stood up with the magnum out of the bag and in his hand, and they understood.
Paulie felt his mother grab him, but he didn’t look at her. He was too busy watching the two men. The explosion had filled
his head and overfilled it until there was nothing else.