He hadn’t gotten far, actually. After a few seconds of glorious freedom, alone with just his father by his side, his foot had caught the top of a gravestone he was trying to hurdle, sending him sprawling and the urn flying through the air. The urn landed with a thunk and a crack, loosing a fine cascade of ash and bleached bits of bone into the air. When the wiry gravedigger in overalls found him, Kyle was sitting on the ground, desperately trying to stuff what was left of his father back into the broken urn.

“What have we here?” said the gravedigger, calmly leaning on his shovel.

“It’s my daddy,” said Kyle.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“He was a lawyer.”

“Even so.”

“They burned him.”

“Yes.”

“I need to get him back in the pot.”

The man smiled kindly. “No you don’t, son. I’ll be glad to take care of it.”

“But it’s my daddy.”

“Don’t you worry, little man. No matter what happens to his remains, he’ll still be with you.”

“My daddy? How?”

“That’s just the way of it with sons and their fathers. He’ll be living on in your blood and bone. For better or for worse, he’ll always be there.” The man lowered himself on one knee. “Let me help you.”

“No thank you,” said Kyle, as the pounding footfalls and the shouts of indignation came from the direction of the chapel. “I think I need to do this myself.”

In the truck, on the way out of the cemetery, Uncle Max was complaining loudly about that rat Laszlo Toth while Kyle’s mom stared out the window, smoking. Kyle sat between them, his hand in one of his jacket pockets, feeling strangely happy.

He had liked the way the gravedigger had knelt to help him. It was the nicest thing that had happened to him all day. Maybe he would grow up to be a gravedigger, it seemed just then to be the noblest of professions, a helper of children and burier of griefs. He looked down at what was left of his suit. The knees on both of his pant legs were torn and marked by blood, and one elbow of the jacket was in tatters. The suit was ruined. That, at least, had turned out well.

With all that had happened, he felt relieved and almost normal. It was true that he still hadn’t cried for his dead father, he thought as the fingers in his pocket sifted through a handful of fine gray powder, but he had bled for him, and that had to mean something, didn’t it?

Didn’t it?

CHAPTER 2

NOW

THE NAME WAS ROBERT, not Bobby or little Bobby or Bobby dear. Robert. How many times had he told her? And still, with her it was always the diminutive. Bobby, I have something I need from you. Bobby, can you do this one important errand? I knew I could count on you, Bobby. In court, or in his pleadings, or atop his letterhead, he went by the name of Robert, Robert Spangler. It was a name of respectability, of sobriety and accomplishment. He was Robert, always, except when she needed something from him, one of her favors. Then, with her chin raised and her little sneer, she would call him Bobby, because she knew exactly how it made him feel.

“Bobby dear,” she had said just that afternoon, “do you still have your gun?”

Maybe he should just turn around, forget about her little task. That would show her, that would put her in a pickle. Who else could do for her the things that he could do for her? But he wouldn’t turn around, he knew that and he knew she knew that, for they both knew she held out for him the one thing he yearned for most. And even though he had begun to suspect he would never get it from her, still the scantest possibility was enough to ensure that Robert would always do her bidding. It had been that way from the beginning between the two of them.

But he was Robert, damn it, Robert Spangler, Esquire, and he had a job to do. The job was distasteful—it left an acid taste in his mouth, there was no way around that—but it was not outside his range. In fact, in the way it made him irreplaceable to her, he almost longed for the bright, bitter taste of acid, the taste of his devotion. Let her have her Thomases and Williams, her Stephans at the charity balls, her precious Francis. When it came time to take that final step, where others would falter, she always came to him. And he wouldn’t disappoint. And maybe with this one, this final one, she’d finally have to admit the truth, that he was the only one she could rely on, that he was the only one truly worthy of her love.

The building was now on his right, an old stone town house, a number of brass plaques bolted beside the heavy wooden door announcing the various businesses housed inside. He looked up at the dark building. The only windows lighted were at the corner of the second floor.

There was a parking spot directly in front of the building, but he passed it by, went a block farther, turned south on Fifteenth Street. He circled around and found an open meter about half a block away. After parking, he took his briefcase out of the car and quietly closed the door. It was too late for the meter to matter. He backed away a couple of steps, looked at the car in the spot. As ordinary as a rental car could look. He pressed the button on the key fob to lock it and headed north.

Before he reached Locust, he turned into a small alley behind the building. Amid the garbage cans and black bags filled with trash was a door. When this house had been a grand residence, this was the servants’ entrance. Fitting, he thought as he put down the heavy briefcase for a moment. She always seemed to make sure he entered through the servants’ entrance. Out of one jacket pocket, he pulled a pair of pale rubber gloves, which he yanked on and tightened with a thwack. From the other pocket, he pulled out a key.

She was a marvel, with a snap of her perfectly manicured fingers she could get anything. Even a key. He imagined the blue of her eyes for a moment, the coolness of her touch, and then wrenched himself out of his reverie. There was a procedure to follow in matters like this, a process that could go horribly wrong if you lost your concentration and missed a step. Later he would think of her, the way she insinuated herself into every part of his life, the way she played with his weaknesses like a cat worrying a ball of yarn. Now there was just the job.

He slipped the key into the lock, gave it a turn, pushed the door open with his shoulder. He grabbed his briefcase, stepped inside, closed the door tight behind him without locking it. Slowly he made his way through the pitch-black hallway.

He had memorized the layout from the hand-drawn map she had handed him along with the key. There was a storage room on the right, though he couldn’t see it, and boxes piled on the left. Through a door he passed into the ornate lobby, gently illuminated by the streetlight filtering through the gauze-covered windows. A desk for the receptionist, a conference room off to the side, an elevator. He skipped the elevator and took the steps that circled the shaft, climbing as silently as the old wooden staircase would allow.