“French?”

“Yeah . . . you run down the Atlantic, see, to the Islands, then across to the Canaries, maybe zip into the Med for a look at the Riviera—that’s French—then come back out and down along the African coast to Cape Town, then Australia, then Polynesia. Tahiti: they speak French. Then back up to the Galápagos, Colombia and Panama, and the Islands again . . .”

“Islands—I like the idea,” Lucas said.

“You like it?” asked Kennett, seriously.

“Yeah, I do,” Lucas said, looking out across the water. His cheekbones and lips were tingling from the sun, and he could feel the muscles relax in his neck and back. “I had a bad time a year ago, a depression. The medical kind. I’m out now, but I never want to do that again. I’d rather . . . run. Like to the Islands. I don’t think you’d get depressed in the Islands.”

“Exactly what islands are we talking about?” Lily asked.

“I don’t know,” Kennett said vaguely. “The Windwards, or the Leewards, or some shit . . .”

“What difference would it make?” Lucas asked Lily.

She shrugged: “Don’t ask me, they’re your islands.”

After a moment of silence, Kennett said, “A unipolar depression. Did you hear your guns calling you?”

Lucas, startled, looked at him. “You’ve had one?”

“Right after the second heart attack,” Kennett said. “The second heart attack wasn’t so bad. The depression goddamned near killed me.”

They turned and started back downriver. Kennett fished in his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

“Dick. Throw those fuckin’ cigarettes . . .”

“Lily . . . I’m smoking one. Just one. That’s all for today.”

“God damn it, Dick . . .” Lily looked as though she were going to cry.

“Lily . . . aw, fuck it,” Kennett said, and he flipped the pack of Marlboros over the side, where they floated away on the river.

“That’s better,” Lily said, but tears ran down her cheeks.

“I tried to bum one from Fell the other day, but she wouldn’t give it to me,” Kennett said.

“Good for her,” said Lily, still teary-eyed.

“Look at the city,” Lucas said, embarrassed. Kennett and Lily both turned to look at the sunlight breaking over the towers in Midtown. The stone buildings glowed like butter, the modern glass towers flickering like knives.

“What a place,” Kennett said. Lily wiped her cheeks with the heels of her hands and tried to smile.

“Can’t see the patches from here,” Lucas said. “That’s what New York is, you know. About a billion patches. Patches on patches. I was walking to Midtown South from the hotel, crossing Broadway there at Thirty-fifth, and there was a pothole, and in the bottom of the pothole was another pothole, but somebody had patched the bottom pothole. Not the big one, just the little one in the bottom.”

“Fuckin’ rube,” Kennett muttered.

They brought the boat back late in the afternoon, their faces flushed with the sun. And after Lucas dropped the mainsail, Lily ran it into the marina with a soft, skillful touch.

“This has been the best day of my month,” Kennett said. He looked at Lucas. “I’d like to do it again before you go.”

“So would I,” Lucas said. “We oughta go down to the Islands sometime . . . .”

Lucas hauled the cooler back to the truck and Lily brought along an armload of bedding that Kennett wanted to wash at home.

“Shame that he can’t drive the truck,” Lucas said as Lily popped up the back lid.

“He does,” she said in a confidential voice. “He tells me he doesn’t, but I know goddamn well that he sneaks out at night and drives. A couple of months ago I drove back to his place, and when we parked I noticed that the mileage was something like 1-2-3-4-4, and I was thinking that if I only drove one more mile, I’d have a straight line of numbers: 1-2-3-4-5. When I came over the next day, the mileage was like 1-2-4-1-0, or something like that. So he’d been out driving. I check it now, and lots of times the mileage is up. He doesn’t know . . . . I haven’t mentioned it, because he gets so pissed. I’m afraid he’ll get so pissed he’ll have another attack. As long as it has power steering and brakes . . .”

“It’ll drive a guy nuts, being penned up,” Lucas said. “You oughta stay off his case.”

“I try,” she said. “But sometimes I just can’t help it. Men can be so fucking stupid, it gives me a headache.”

They went back to the boat and found Kennett below, digging around. “Hey, Lucas, a little help? I need to pull this marine battery, but it’s too heavy for Lily.”

“Dick, are you messing around with that wrench again . . . ?” Lily started, but Lucas put an index finger over his lips and she stopped.

“I’ll be down,” Lucas said.

Ten minutes later, while Kennett and Lily did the last of the buttoning-up, Lucas humped the battery back to the car. In the parking lot, he propped one end of it on the truck bumper while he sorted out the keys, then turned and looked back through the fence. Lily and Kennett were on the dock, Lily leaning into him, his arms around her waist. She was talking to him, then leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth. Lucas felt a pang, but only a small one.

Kennett was okay.

CHAPTER

17

The New School auditorium was compact, with a narrow lobby between the interior auditorium doors and the doors to the street.

“Perfect,” Lucas told Fell. They’d taken the tour with a half-dozen other cops, and now, waiting, wandered outside to Twelfth Street. Fell lit a cigarette. “Once he comes around the corner, he’ll be inside the net. And the lobby’s small enough that we can check everyone coming through before they realize there are cops all over the place.”

“You still think he’ll show?” Fell asked skeptically.

“Hope so.”

“It’d be too easy,” she said.

“He’s a nut case,” Lucas said. “If he’s seen the announcement, he’ll be here.”

A car dropped Kennett at the curb. “Opening night,” he said as he climbed out. He looked up and down the fashionable residential street, bikes chained to wrought-iron fences, well-kept brick townhouses climbing up from the street. “It feels like something’s gonna happen.”

They followed him inside, and Carter came by with radios. They each took one, fitting the earpieces, checking them out. “Stay off unless it’s critical,” Carter said. “There are twelve guys here, and if all twelve start yelling at the same time . . .”

“Where do you want me?” Lucas asked.

“Where do you think?” Carter asked. “Ticket booth?”

“Mmm, I’d be looking at too many people’s backs,” Lucas said. He glanced around. A short hall led from the auditorium lobby to the main entrance lobby of the New School. “How about if I stood back there in the hall?”

“All right,” Carter said. To Fell, he said, “We’ve got you handing out programs. You’ll be right there in the lobby.”

“Terrific . . .”

“What’s the setup?” Kennett asked.

“Well, we’re supposed to start in twenty minutes. We’ve got you just inside the auditorium entrance, where you can see everyone, or get back out to the lobby in a hurry,” Carter said. “It’s right down here . . . .”

Bekker tottered down Twelfth Street ten minutes before the lecture was scheduled to begin, past a guy working on a car in the failing daylight. Bekker was nervous as a cat, excited, checking the scattering of people walking along the street with him, and toward him, converging on the auditorium. This was dangerous. He could feel it. They’d be talking about him. There might be cops in the crowd. But still: worth it. Worth some risk.

Most of the people were going through a series of theater-style doors farther up the street. That would be the auditorium. There was another door, closer. On impulse he entered there, turned toward the auditorium.