Eyes of a Child (84 page)

‘In the ballpark?' Paget gave him a deprecating smile. ‘That kind of information would ruin Mac politically. He might even get indicted. All you'd need is to feed the “source” to the U.S. Attorney, and a grand jury would have a field day, to use another sports metaphor. As would you, the last honest man.'

Salinas's eyes flashed at the hint of condescension; Paget had reminded him that he would not forget the trial, and that there was no point in coyness. ‘All right,' Salinas said at length. ‘It's what I need. So will you help me?'

Slowly, Paget drew a manila file from a drawer and placed it on the desk between them. ‘It's all here, in Johnny's report to me. The “source” who called Brooks is the same man who funneled the information to Jack Slocum and, no doubt, the ten thousand dollars to our late friend Ricardo. It's yours, if you want it. In the public interest, of course.'

Salinas stared at the file. He began to reach for it, and then stopped, looking at Paget's face. ‘What do
you
want?' he asked.

‘James Colt.'

Salinas sat back, still watching Paget. ‘This “source” has ties to Colt?'

‘Yes. To a certainty, Colt is McKinley's secret friend. The one who tampered with your case.'

Eyeing the file, Salinas did not move or speak. After a moment, Paget nodded. ‘Your caution does you credit, Victor. Because once you let this particular genie out of the bottle, you lose control. Even if it were possible, Johnny and I will never let the damage stop with Brooks. The larger question, which the U.S. Attorney will be quick to see, is what politician the go-between Slocum and Brooks protected was working for.' Paget paused for emphasis. ‘Never once did Caroline Masters remind me that she was making a powerful enemy, who might well be able to deny her a federal judgeship. But that result is unacceptable to me. So if
you
accept this information, you're committing yourself to Colt's political demise. Which will make him
your
enemy as well.' Paget's voice became flat. ‘You help get Colt, Victor, or he'll get you.'

Salinas remained silent. But Paget could make out his emotions – fear, ambition, prudence, and the sudden knowledge that this, which he had seen as his chance, might instead be his ruin. And then he looked into Paget's face again.

Softly, Paget said, ‘Yes or no?'

Salinas's faint smile, mingling pride and calculation, lingered for a moment. And the he reached across Paget's desk, and took the file.

Paget lined up the cue ball, carefully aiming at the black ball numbered
8.
With a smooth stroke of the cue, he propelled the cue ball; there was a soft crack, and the eight ball glided away at a right angle and fell into the corner pocket.

‘There,' Paget said with satisfaction.

Carlo stared at the spot where, a moment befoe, the last ball had resided. ‘Another game,' he announced. It was not a request.

They racked up the balls again. In the last nine years, they had shot countless games of pool in Paget's basement; over time, Carlo had become Paget's competitor and then his equal. But Paget was reminded less of that than of the way he and Carlo, when Carlo was too young to talk much, had communicated by throwing a red rubber ball – and, more sadly, that in their recent silences, Paget thought of all the men who could not communicate with each other except through sports and games.

Paget put down his cue. ‘Look,' he said abruptly, ‘I know I screwed things up.'

Lining up the cue ball, Carlo did not look at him. His cue flashed; the white ball sped into the pack, sending them flying at all angles. Two balls at the corners disappeared into pockets.

Paget felt his son's rebuff. ‘Nice shot, Carlo.'

His son scanned the table. ‘You didn't screw things up,' he said. ‘You
screwed
up. There's a difference.'

‘Which is?'

Carlo lined up his next shot. ‘You screwed up the Richie deal, all right? What made it worse is that, since I was a kid, I expected you to be perfect. When you weren't, I was scared – and pissed.' Carlo made the shot and glanced up from the table. ‘You're really lucky, Dad. Of all the people in the world, you're the one I have the hardest time being fair to. Because, for a long time, you were the only person I could expect much from. Just like I said at the trial.'

Paget looked at him. He did not know what to say.

Turning, Carlo eyed another shot. ‘Guess being a parent's a shitty deal, huh?'

The ball disappeared. ‘Only sometimes,' Paget said. ‘Other times, it's not so bad.'

Carlo smiled, and made a bank shot. ‘I'm getting older, though. You can't make your whole life out of worrying about me. Or annoying me.'

‘I didn't plan to, actually.'

A moment's silence. ‘So what's happening with you and Terri?' Carlo asked, and sank his fifth shot in a row.

Paget raised his eyebrows. ‘I didn't know you cared,' he gibed, not joking.

‘Terri and I had dinner again the other night. I've decided to declare amnesty.' Carlo smiled again. ‘You know, before I push things so far you really get fed up with me.'

Slowly, Paget shook his head. That Carlo had protected Elena made him sad and proud at once; from what Terri said, it might yet be the saving of her. ‘You'd get a lot of points for Elena,' Paget said seriously. ‘Even if I didn't love you so much. You've shown more character than Terri, or I, had any right to ask.'

Carlo shrugged and then made his sixth shot running. ‘Terri's a nice person,' he said. ‘A lot better than her life.'

Paget hesitated for a moment. ‘What made
that
occur to you?'

‘I remembered why I used to like her,' Carlo answered, gauging still another shot. As it slid toward the pocket, he murmured, ‘Seven,' even before it fell.

‘And why is that?' Paget asked.

‘Two reasons.' Carlo sank another ball and then smiled up at his father. ‘First, she can honestly talk about how she feels, sometimes in complete sentences. Second, she doesn't talk to me like a parent. But then she's closer to
my
age than yours.' The grin widened. ‘That was eight, by the way. You lose.'

‘I want to go outside,' Elena said.

It was a crisp fall day, nine months or so after Chris's acquittal. Leaning through the window, Elena stuck her face into the sun; in her interest in the world, more constant now, she was a shade closer to the extroverted child she once had been. When she mentioned her father, it was rarely about his abuse of her; for good or bad, Elena clung to memories of when they had all been together, a family, before Terri left him. In one way, Terri acknowledged grimly, Rosa's solution to Richie had been perfect: Elena did not have to deal with her father, feeling guilty and ambivalent, trapped within whatever supervised regime of visitation the family court would have parceled out to him. As for Terri, who struggled with enough, she would never have to look at Ricardo Arias again.

‘Why don't we go to Golden Gate Park,' Terri said.

‘Okay.' Turning from the street below, Elena seemed to hesitate. ‘Do you think Carlo could go?' she asked. ‘He never plays with me anymore.'

As Terri looked at her more closely, Elena's eyes flickered. The question was disingenuous, Terri knew: in some way, Elena had pieced together the reason she did not see Carlo. ‘What if Carlo isn't home?' Terri asked. ‘Can Chris come?'

Elena looked at the ground. ‘All right.' She seemed to know that Terri would not ask Carlo.

When Chris met them, in a large grassy field surrounded by oaks, he was holding a kite.

‘Carlo always did this,' he explained. ‘I thought Elena might like to try.'

Elena looked dubious.
‘I'd
like to try,' Terri said. This was true; her memories of childhood did not include a kite, and Terri doubted she had ever flown one.

It turned out that she was a natural.

Within moments, she had the kite aloft. After a moment of self-indulgence, Terri turned it over to Elena and sat next to Chris. They watched from a blanket, drinking coffee, while Elena flew the kite, flicking its string from side to side in imagined feats of steering. Seeing this, Chris smiled.

‘Did Carlo use to do that?' Terri asked.

‘Uh-huh, and so did I. As a kid, kite flying was one of my major talents – it's something you can do alone, and San Francisco is great for wind.' Chris smiled. ‘Of course, Carlo always wanted to do it all himself. Floating somewhere over China are several perfectly good kites which somehow escaped his grasp.'

His tone was relaxed, matter-of-fact in his fondness for Carlo. But he did not look at her. Terri wondered if they would ever have a conversation about their children that was not shadowed by Richie's charges.

There was a sudden gust of wind; the kite slipped from Elena's hands, rattled upward, and became snagged in a nearby tree. She gazed upward, lips tremulous. When Chris and Terri got up to help, she considered them both, then turned to Chris, hesitant. ‘Can you please get my kite down?' she finally asked. ‘You're tall.'

Chris nodded. ‘I can
try
.'

Terri sat down, mildly amused; by the age of seven, she thought, girls learn that men are supposed to be good at things. And then, with sudden bitterness, she thought of Richie.

The kite was easy enough for Chris to reach, Terri saw; with a few twists, he could get it down. But after working the string loose from a couple of branches, Chris stared up at the tree, his hands on his hips.

‘I need some help for the last part,' he said. ‘if I hold you up, can you get it loose from that branch?'

It was just the opposite, Terri thought, of what Richie would have said. Elena stared up at the string, caught on a branch perhaps five feet over her head, as if it were at the top of a building.

‘I won't let you fall,' Chris told her.

Elena paused again. Then, turning to Chris but looking away, she held out her arms as she once had to Richie.

Chris held her aloft. Elena's head disappeared amid the leaves; Chris held the string in one hand, to prevent mischance. But when he lowered her, Terri saw Elena's delighted face, and then the kite.

Chris smiled. ‘Thanks,' he said to her. ‘That would have been hard by myself.'

Firmly gripping the kite string, Elena appraised him. ‘Do you know Susie Goldman?' she asked.

Chris tilted his head, as if trying to remember. ‘I don't think so,' he said.

‘She's in first grade with me.' The little girl frowned. ‘Sometimes we're friends, and sometimes we fight.'

It made Chris smile again. ‘Sometimes friends are like that.' He knelt to wrap the string around her wrist. ‘You're a good kite flyer, Elena. At least as good as Carlo.'

At the mention of Carlo, the little girl scurried off with the kite again.

Chris sat down again. ‘I thought you weren't any good with little kids,' Terri said.

He picked up his coffee, took a sip. ‘I never said I was no good. I said I'd had no practice. Especially with girls.'

Terri gave him an amused look. ‘You
are
good, though – letting her get the kite was a true lesson in self-esteem.'

Chris smiled. ‘It's easier to resist impressing women,' he said, ‘when they're in grade school.'

Terri smiled back and then wondered for a fleeting moment if this was a sardonic allusion to Richie. She found herself staring at Chris.

He gazed out at Elena; somehow, Terri knew that he was conscious of her scrutiny. ‘I honestly think you still wonder,' he said, ‘after what Carlo went through, how I truly feel about Elena.'

It was disconcerting; Terri could not tell if, because she looked at him, Chris had guessed her thoughts. ‘I know you feel sorry for her,' she said quietly. ‘But yes, I suppose I do.'

He turned to her. ‘What happened to Elena was a tragedy,' he said. ‘How can I possibly blame her for it? So don't make things any worse than they are, okay?'

Could you ever
love
her? Terri wanted to ask. But she was not sure that the question mattered.

Just before the November election, McKinley Brooks was indicted by a federal grand jury.

The formal counts included conspiring to violate the federal campaign laws, as well as Christopher Paget's civil rights. But the essence of the charge was that, at the apparent instigation of James Colt, Brooks had prevented the police from following leads in the murder of Ricardo Arias. The witnesses included Jack Slocum and a political consultant, George Norton: Norton had received immunity for describing his conversations with Brooks, Slocum, and an aide to James Colt.

On the day of the indictment, Paget met Johnny Moore downtown, to watch the evening news. The two friends sat at a mirrored bar beneath a television, Paget drinking a Tanqueray martini, Moore his usual mineral water. ‘Does drinking that stuff ever bother you?' Paget asked.

Moore smiled. ‘All the time. By ten o'clock, I'm not half the wit I used to be. Nor do I have those wonderful epiphanies, where I suddenly go for the political throat of whoever's sitting nearest me, in flights of scorn and eloquence. Worse yet, the surviving drunks bore me to tears.'

‘Maybe you should develop a new passion, Johnny. Like going to the gym.'

Moore gave him a look of distaste. ‘And start lifting weights in front of mirrors? At least alcoholism can be shared with others. Besides, I can experience narcissism vicariously. Through you.'

Paget smiled, and then the news came on.

The lead story was Brooks's indictment. The anchorwoman, a blonde who looked something like Marla Maples, spoke in a voice typically reserved for kidnappings and mass disasters. ‘San Francisco District Attorney McKinley Brooks was indicted today, on five counts alleging obstruction of the Senate race and subsequent murder trial of prominent San Francisco lawyer Christopher Paget. . . .'