“I’d like to know what your intentions are. I’d like to know your reasons—why you took this on in the first place, especially if you thought it was such a poor gamble.”

“My reasons are personal.”

“Something between you and Frank Pastor?”

“No. I’ve never had dealings with the man.”

“Then what is it?” Mathieson sat up straight. “I realize it’s an impertinent question.”

“Impertinent? It’s personal. But then the only things that matter are.” Vasquez thrust his hands into his pockets. His face drew back defensively, chin tucked toward the plaid collar of his open shirt. “Call them my private demons. Matters of vanity and eccentric conviction. I’d prefer to leave it at that.”

“Ain’t enough,” Roger said.

Mathieson said, “I agree with Roger. I’m sorry to pry but we’ve got a right to be satisfied on this. I don’t want to be crude—but it’s my money you’re spending.”

“And my time you’re wasting,” Roger said. “All of us, our time.”

“An extraordinary amount of my own time as well,” Vasquez said. “Do you know how many other cases I’ve had to turn away or set on the back burner?”

Mathieson’s fist hit the table: “Why? You’ve got to tell us why.”

Vasquez blinked. His shoulders rolled around and settled; his chin poked forward until he looked querulous. “Are you religious, Mr. Merle?”

It took him aback. “What? No—not particularly.”

“You?”

Roger shook his head.

Vasquez said, “People who believe in God can leave the ultimate sortings-out to Him. Rewards and punishments. Heaven and Hell. When one has no faith in that, one must pay some attention to justice here and now. Otherwise it’s all meaningless chaos.”

Roger snapped at him: “We didn’t ask for a course in philosophy.”

“You’re going to get one. You asked a question. I’m answering it.” Vasquez’s eyes swiveled bleakly toward Mathieson. “My reasons have to do with the fact that I lost my faith in God a long time ago. Do you understand at all? I’m a Chicano, Mr. Merle, I have experience of injustice.”

Roger said, “You don’t talk like no ignorant barrio slum.”

“Nevertheless I was born in one. I was born on the south side of Tucson, Arizona. An adobe slum.”

“So now we get into ethnic stuff?”

Vasquez shook his head. “I believe with Edmund Burke that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. You see I may have lost faith but I still carry the burden of absolutism—I was raised in the Church. I believe in absolute distinctions between good and evil. It would have been easier if I’d been able to adapt myself to the current fashions in flexible morality. But I can’t—I won’t be corrupted, it would make my existence so complicated it would be impossible.”

Mathieson stared at him. Was it possible Vasquez’s reluctance had been caused solely by a fear of ridicule?

Vasquez said, “One meets decent people but most of them are decent largely because their lives have contained little hardship, little pain and little temptation. Mr. Merle is all but unique—he has faced those challenges and has not been ground down by them. He’s made his choices from principle rather than expediency. I can’t tell you how much I admire that.”

Roger watched, skepticism undiminished. Vasquez pulled out a chair and arranged himself in it. His voice dropped; it took on the dense foggy bass tones of a church organ. “My son was drafted into the army in 1969. He submitted to the draft but petitioned to be treated as a conscientious objector. We had long arguments. He insisted he would not kill. He said that was his credo. He’s a Catholic and as you know that’s a congregation not noted for its pacifism, but I had no doubt of his sincerity. I put a hypothesis to him. If someone were to point a gun at his mother with the unmistakable intention of killing her, what would he do?”

Mathieson said, “What did he say?”

“The question at this juncture is what do you say?”

“I don’t know what I might do. I’d try not to kill him. I’d stop him, or maybe get shot trying. But no, I wouldn’t deliberately kill him.”

“Those might have been my son’s exact words.”

Roger said, “What happened to him?”

“He was classified I-A-o. Assigned as a noncombatant, a medical attendant. Near Hue, in 1970, he disappeared. He’s still listed as missing.”

Mathieson said, “I’m very sorry.”

“Your sorrow isn’t of much use.”

It angered him. “I’m not a surrogate for your son. Don’t work out your penances on me.”

“Don’t be idiotic. Or at least don’t proclaim your idiocy. I’m not confusing you with my son. I’m trying to explain why I’ve had occasion to think these issues out.”

Mathieson felt exhausted. “Do you want to argue metaphysics all day?”

Vasquez disregarded him. “A man does the sort of thing you’re doing only after a great deal of considered analysis. To face such dangers requires a unique devotion to moral principle.”

“If you say so. Seems to me I’d face more danger if I did anything else.”

“Don’t be disingenuous. It’s not worthy of you. As we both know, you could always run.”

Roger came toward the table. “To where?”

“Anywhere.”

“Reckon that’s the same as nowhere.”

“We’ve tried it,” Mathieson said.

Vasquez glanced from one to the other. “In any case you asked what my motives were. Are you satisfied?”

Roger gripped the edge of the table and leaned on his arms. For a long time he studied Vasquez. “I believe it. Don’t ask me why.”

“Very few men would believe it,” Vasquez said. “It’s a cynical age.”

Mathieson was about to speak when he heard the door. Mrs. Meuth appeared. “Mr. Vasquez——”

“What is it?”

“Perkins says those men are coming up the road, sir.”

Mathieson was out of his chair before she completed the sentence.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Southern California: 22 September

1

THEY DISPERSED ON THE RUN. MATHIESON FOUND THE BOYS in the stable unsaddling. Perkins and Meuth came striding into the runway and Mathieson surprised himself by how calmly he spoke: “Leave that. Let’s get up to the house.”

Perkins said, “We’ll take the horses, boys.” Meuth reached for the trailing reins.

Ronny balked. “But they’ll——”

Meuth had a tart New England nasality. “They see two sweaty horses, they’ll want to know who was riding them. It’ll have to be me and Perkins. You boys git, now.”

Perkins’s thatch of white hair seemed to glow in the dim stable. He looked at Mathieson: “You’ve got maybe four minutes.”

“Come on—come on.” He took the boys across the driveway at full steam, leading the way with his long legs.

They caromed inside. Ronny was anxious: Mathieson saw him reach for Billy’s arm. “Wait a minute. What I was trying to say—the stirrups. What if they notice your stirrups?”

“Dudes,” Billy said with an echo of his father’s prairie twang. “Never notice it in a million years. Come on.”

Mathieson stopped halfway to the stairs. “Ronny may have a point. Get on upstairs—I’ll be right there.” He swiveled and ran back outside: went off the porch in a single flying leap, skidded on the gravel under the porte cochere and sprinted full-tilt across the lawn. He spared a glance to his right. There was nothing in sight—the trees masked the lower valley beyond the farther bend in the driveway.

Meuth and Perkins were leading the two geldings out into the paddock. Mathieson stopped in the stable door; if he went outside he’d be visible from below. “Meuth!”

He saw the man’s cap-bill turn.

“Lengthen those stirrups!”

Meuth shook his head; he looked away toward the end of the paddock fence. “No time. Run for it, man!”

Mathieson made his dash. If the car came around the bend before he got inside the house …

But it didn’t. He took the main stairs three at a time and pounded down the upstairs corridor.