“But did he keep threatening you?” said Liam after the second bout of laughter had subsided. “Did he insist on still getting the file?” “No,” said Kyle. “Not after. He looked up at that painting of his first wife, let a shiver roll through him, and told me to get the hell out of there.”

“Ah, Eleanor.” In his mock ghost voice, Liam said, “ ‘Should I summon Eleanor to convince you? She’s here. She says your new wife is a bigger whore than the last one.’ That was the final touch that put it over, I believe.”

“How did you think to bring her in?”

“It was the painting. When he lit his lighter and backed away from my ghost, I saw it in the glow of the flame. I knew Eleanor. No one in life had ever frightened that scoundrel more. It’s good to know that some things survive the scythe. So you’re off the hook?” “It appears I am. Thanks.”

“Ah, think nothing of it, boyo. What else could a father do? But we put it over together. You and me, father and son. And we still have that Truscott in our crosshairs. It’s a grand night for the Byrnes, yes it is. We need commemorate the event with a celebration worthy of the achievement. Pull over there.”

“Where?”

“There. Right there. The state store. It still seems to be open. Pull over, and I’ll grab us some libations, and we’ll toast to the budding partnership of Byrne & Son.”

Kyle sat in the car, suffused with an exuberant joy. He did feel good, great, free. Part of it was getting out from under the thumb of Tiny Tony Sorrentino, but it was more than just that, far more. These last two nights and a day with his father, first coming through the fire, and then the altercation outside Kat’s place, and now this supernatural trick played on the bookie bastard who had beat the hell out of him a few days before, all of it had been the realization of the secret dream of his life. His father was back, and it wasn’t working out horribly, it was working out well—hell, it was working out great. He almost liked the old guy, and the old guy almost liked him, and they actually seemed like a pretty good team. What could be better? He had a father again.

Yes, a celebration was in order. His father would come out with a bright bottle of champagne. They’d go back to their motel room and fill a couple of glasses with the bubbly. They’d make a toast to their successes in the past twenty-four hours, to their blinding boldness. And as they sipped and celebrated, they’d talk to each other about all the hours of each other’s lives they’d missed and all the hours together still to come. Kyle’s eyes grew unaccountably misty as he thought about it.

When Liam Byrne danced out of the state store, there was a gleam in his eye and a large paper bag in his hand. He smiled his broadest smile yet and winked as he stood in the headlights of the car and pulled out a gallon of something, its amber color swallowing the light.

And later . . .

“It is what I miss so much about the law,” said Liam Byrne, as he paced around the motel room, waving his arm in emphasis, the cheap scotch sloshing wildly in his water glass. The rumpled bedspread had a brown and red checkerboard pattern that failed to hide the stains. The place smelled of ammonia and piss. Liam Byrne was walking around in his socks, and there was no champagne.

“The drama of it all, the oratory,” said Liam Byrne. “To be armed only with your words and your wits, but all the while keeping the audience rapt as you push it to do your will. That’s what it is to be a lawyer. And that’s what we did tonight, boyo. It was an audience of one, true, but we had him believing in the impossible, and he did as we bade. It was my one great talent, to be a trial lawyer, and I miss it. But you have it in you, all of it. You should find a place for yourself in the law.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” said Kyle, holding his own glass of scotch as he sat in the chair. Kyle was still on his first, his father had poured three times. Kyle could drink to distraction, but he didn’t like the taste of the cheap scotch, and he didn’t like drinking in a motel room. There was something about it that gave him the skives. These rooms were made for bad sex and hard, hopeless drinking, and though he preferred the first to the second, he didn’t really want any part of either. So mostly he nursed his drink and watched as his father poured from the rapidly emptying bottle.

“I’m serious as the devil,” said Kyle’s father. “You have it in you.”

“I don’t want to be a lawyer,” said Kyle. “I can’t get churned up about other people’s money.”

“Oh, it’s not just money, my boy. Money’s only the marker. It’s right and wrong, it’s passion and anger and love, it’s the world with all its dramas playing out in a single confined space: the courtroom. It is a grand profession, a noble profession. Losing the law is my greatest regret about leaving like I did.”

“I know how much it meant to you.”

“Ah, do I detect a pout in your voice?” Liam shook his head and took a long swallow. His eyes fluttered as he smacked his lips. “I thought we were beyond that.”

“It’s hard.”

“I know, but it’s time to move through the resentment to something better.” A fist pump, a quick swallow. “Something together.”

“Okay,” said Kyle. “You’re right. Cheers.”

“Cheers back to you, boyo. Cheers back to you.”

And later . . .

“Don’t doubt that you were marvelous in there, boyo,” said Liam Byrne after a few more drinks. The old man’s breathing was heavier now, his anxious gait slowed as he shuffled about the room. “You had that popinjay believing in your evident sincerity all the while you were playing your part in our little joke. It is a talent, yes it is. Don’t turn your back on it. The law is a possibility. And if not the law, then something else. You could be an actor. A politician. My God, man, you could even be a mortgage broker.”

“You’re sending me lower and lower,” said Kyle.

“Now, when you meet the senator, you have to play the same kind of role. You can’t come right at him, he’s far too dangerous. Remember what I said about giving a feint?”

“Yes, I remember,” said Kyle. “But I wasn’t sure what you meant.”

“You have to let him think we’re after the commonest thing, the one thing he’ll be sure to believe. The one thing men like that think everyone is after.”

“Sex?” said Kyle.

“Well, it is always that or money, isn’t it? But for this it makes more sense to go with money. And lots of it.”

“How much?”

“Half a million, I think.”

“You’re cracked.”

“No, it’s enough for him to know we’re serious, but not too much to get his hands on.”