“I guess I didn’t think about it.”

“We’re detectives. We ask questions. While fake detectives like you are getting the hell beat out of them, real detectives are asking questions. Like, what is that all about, you going to the funerals of dead lawyers?”

“Not all dead lawyers. They have to have maybe known my dad.”

“And that qualifies them because . . .”

“Because I go and pay my father’s respects. It’s a family thing. I sign his name in the book, I sit there and think about him and the way things might have worked out if he hadn’t died on me. And sometimes I feel his presence, like he’s watching over me.”

“Sounds like church.”

“Call it what you want to.”

“So that’s why you were at Laszlo Toth’s funeral, to get in touch with your father’s spirit?”

“That’s right.”

“Did it work?”

“Sure. He sends his regards.”

“Does he ever actually say something?”

“No.”

“The strong, silent type, is that it?”

“Now you’re just cracking wise.” Kyle struggled to sit up, but he got dizzy, and pain pushed him back into the bed. “I don’t care what you think, I can feel him.”

“Okay, baby. I believe you.”

“Well, don’t worry. Whatever I thought I was doing, I was being an idiot. But it’s over.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I’m through,” he said, and it was the truth. He was afraid of what could happen to him, afraid of what he’d f ind out about his father, afraid suddenly of the O’Malley file and everything it might contain. Tiny Tony Sorrentino had made it clear what would happen if that little thug saw his face again—Kyle was going to make sure it didn’t happen. Uncle Max was wrong, putting the legends to rest could hurt, and the effort had left Kyle pissing blood. One more call, one more meeting, just to tie up one more loose end, and then he was through. “I don’t have to be run over by a truck twice to learn my lessons.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know. Sleep, drink, heal, take a trip. Maybe Arizona.”

“I have relatives in Arizona. They hate it.”

“But it’s a dry hate.”

“So you’re going to run.”

“Running’s good. Running works. It always has at least.”

“You don’t seem the running type, but maybe I misjudged you. Can I just tell you one more thing?”

“Sure.”

She leaned forward until her lips were right at his ear. He could smell her scent, spicy and sweet, could feel her hair tickling his cheek and the gentle press of her breath on his skin. Even with the steady throb of the pain, he felt himself stir from her proximity.

“I don’t trust a word you say, baby,” she said softly, her lips almost brushing his ear. “Deep down, in your heart, I don’t think you’re a runner at all. W hich means you’re either lying to me or lying to yourself. Let’s just hope you’re lying to yourself, because if you are lying to me, baby, I am going to nail your ass.”

CHAPTER 22

ROBERT BOUGHT the prepaid cell phone at a Wawa convenience store in Delaware, snatched it on apparent impulse off the rack and added it to a gallon of milk, a pack of Winston Lights, a loaf of Wonder bread. He didn’t smoke and he didn’t drink milk, so he tossed those out in a Dumpster near the state border, along with the plastic clamshell that had surrounded the phone, but the Wonder bread he kept. Growing up, Robert Spangler had lived on Wonder bread, slathered with peanut butter or surrounding a thin slice of olive loaf. He still saw himself as that kid, gripping a half-eaten white-bread sandwich in his hand as he ran out to the street to play. Wonder bread reminded him of his childhood, when he still held illusions about the bright promise of his future and the goodness of his own heart.

Both illusions had now been shattered by the way she had bent him to her will. Whatever promise his life once held had withered; whatever goodness once lay in his heart had been twisted dark. All that was left was to learn what he had become in the process. And he had the suspicion that the answer would come from that phone.

The advantage of the prepaid phone was that there were no records to tie him to the number. The only link that existed was between the anonymous number of the phone and the fake O’Malley name on the card he had given to the Byrne boy. If the phone was going to ring, it would be Liam Byrne’s son calling, but no longer did he expect that to happen. It was clear the boy didn’t know anything about the O’Malley file, what was in it or where it might be. Robert had sent him searching, and he had shown up at the single most obvious place, the one place Robert knew the file wouldn’t be found. And then, just to scare the boy off for good, Robert had called the police and told them there was a break-in going on at the law offices of Byrne & Toth.

It had been days now, and the phone hadn’t rung. His gambits had worked as perfectly as he could have hoped, there would be no need for any more violence. Robert Spangler should have been pleased. And yet.

And yet he kept staring at the phone, feeling a strange, almost erotic desire, as if he were a high-school boy waiting for a call from the one girl in school he knew would put out. It was an inexpensive black and silver thing, that phone, decidedly low-tech, but as it lay silently on his desk, lying helpless on its back, he couldn’t tear his gaze from its smooth flanks and delicate keys.

He wondered if it was still working, and so, for what seemed the umpteenth time, he called the number with his other phone, his landline phone. This was a minor breach of his precautions, creating a link in a chain that could lead back to him, but he couldn’t help himself, so worried and excited and fearful was he. After a moment the cheap phone shivered to life and rang with a jangling jangle, and it was as if the call were coming not from his phone but from an independent part of his soul, a frightening part, the part that had grown to like the taste of acid.

He remembered the first time he had tried hot and sour soup at a Chinatown restaurant. It was the most unpleasant thing he had ever tasted, a thick, bilious combination of vinegar and heat. After a few spoonfuls, he gagged and pushed it away. But that night he had dreamed of the soup and couldn’t wait to order it again. And again. And now the vile taste of violence, a contradictory combination of power and subjugation all in service to her iron will, had left him with that same perverse craving.

Answer it, this frightening part of his soul called into his ear in a voice startlingly similar to her own craven caw. “It’s just the ring from my test call,” he whispered to himself. Answer it, you never know, came the reply. Do it. Now. Obey me. Now.

And in that voice was all that frightened him most. Not that the phone would ring and he might have to kill that boy; killing was merely an unnecessary task he had done before and could do again when necessity reared its fearsome head and stared at him with those ice-blue eyes. What frightened him was the part of him that wanted it to ring, wanted to be forced to confront that boy and hold the boy’s head down in a pool of water as he thrashed and then panicked and then calmed. Or point the gun at the boy’s chest and blast a hole in the boy’s heart. Or to place a gun to the boy’s head and blow his brains across the room. These first two he had done already in furtherance of her will, the third was still only a delicious possibility.