An Absence of Light

“That’s right,” she said, putting down one hand to steady herself as she got up. He got up too, and jammed his hands into the pockets of his tight jeans while she fished in her purse for the keys to the Corvette. She always left first. “I’ll call you.”

“Don’t worry about anything,” he reassured her. “I don’t think they’ll be back to see you. I’d even lay a little bet on it.”

“You’d better keep your money,” she said, finding the keys. She was pretty sobered by his abrupt interruption of her fantasy. “See you later.”

She turned and started walking back along the long pier. There were a few people as she got nearer the land, a guy crabbing, a couple sitting on the pier looking out to the bay. When she got to the light where the pier connected to the land, she turned around to look back. He was still there, and though he was a little more obscured by the night she could tell he wasn’t looking at her anymore. As a matter of fact, she thought she could see him pissing off the end of the pier.

Chapter 34

By the time Paula and Neuman had called in-their call was closely followed by Arnette’s-Graver had read several times through the intelligence reports on Victor Last as well as the crime analysis reports that detailed occurrences of MO’s fitting the description of Last’s known operations. The exercise was educational. He put a few things in his briefcase, grabbed his coat, reset the security system, turned out the lights, and pulled the door closed behind him.

Riding down in the moaning elevator, he thought of how Besom’s death suddenly had galvanized the investigation. None of them, Neuman or Paula or himself, could imagine anything but the worst now. It still felt like he was living a bad dream when he thought of Burtell’s role. Even when he spoke to Ginette on the telephone earlier, he felt as if the expression on his face was unnatural. He simply found the whole distorted situation too bizarre to know how to behave. The hardest part now was trying to decide whether Dean was in danger, or whether he was the danger. The thought of it ate at Graver like an ulcer.

His consternation was one of the main reasons he was keeping a detailed journal of the developments and of his reasons for his decisions and actions. He hoped that keeping a precise record somehow would help clarify the events. He felt like an alchemist performing rituals he didn’t wholly understand in the hope that magic would happen and with the magic would come knowledge and the fine gold of the truth.

This journal remained in the computer in a password file while he kept a printed copy at home. His initial thought had been to keep the copy with him at all times, an impulse that was the emotional equivalent of the fetal position. Later a saner view prevailed, and he decided to keep the second copy at home. If the investigation became increasingly unstable, he would put a third copy in the safety deposit box at his bank. This was a flat-out effort to cover his ass, and even at that he had no idea how something like this would hold up in an inquiry, if it ultimately came to that.

Outside, the night was warm and moist, and the smell of sticky weeds and bayou mud was laced with the pungent odor of the oil-stained asphalt that, even at this late hour, was still radiating an uncomfortable fever. Pausing, he looked toward the city across the bayou, at the high urban sierras of scattered light He recalled Arnette’s observation that trying to anticipate the “bad guys of this world” was like gazing at the stars, by the time you saw the light it was all over. You had to use your imagination, she said, to get the jump on the physics of iniquity.

In her own inimitable way, of course, Arnette had been giving him good advice. Under the circumstances, he was dealing with this entirely too cautiously. In the normal course of events he was used to looking way out in front of the curve, having plenty of time to gather information methodically, to think it through. But this wasn’t the normal course of things, and it clearly was looking like a Darwinian lesson: adapt to change or perish. He had better start thinking imaginatively, or this was going to be over before he even knew what it was that had happened.

The pager on his belt vibrated. He pushed back his coattail and looked down at the number. He didn’t recognize it But fewer than a dozen people had his new number, and he would want to talk to any of them. Without hesitating he turned around and walked back into the building to the pay telephone in the lobby. He set his briefcase on the floor, put a quarter in the slot, and dialed the number. It rang only once before someone answered.

“This is Graver.”

“Graver, good.” Victor Last sounded as controlled as ever, but there was an undercurrent of eagerness in his voice. “I’ve got something for you. I think you’re going to like this. Can you meet me now, at La Cita?”

“Not there,” Graver said. “Where are you?”

“I’m rather in the north part of the city,” Last said vaguely.