Pierce waved his waiter over. “Another plate like mine for my friend.”
The man bowed and backed away. Quillan crowded the table. “My journal, Pierce.”
Pierce sighed, reached behind the half curtain along the window, and handed the journal over.
Quillan flicked the pages, swiftly noting his own handwriting, then laid it in his lap. “I suppose you’ll tell me you didn’t read a page.”
“On the contrary, I devoured as much as I could. Incredible writing. I’d hoped for more time before you discovered the loss.”
“You blackguard.”
“Not entirely. But I say, I never would have pegged you for a poet.”
“I hadn’t pegged you for a thief.”
Pierce smiled. “Thievery connotes intent to retain. I only guessed it would be one sure way to get you here tonight. And I was dying for a look at those pages.”
“I ought to blacken your eyes.”
“Maybe you ought, but I suspect you won’t.”
Quillan brought his fists to rest on the table. “Why not?”
Pierce nodded. “Because I read your journal.”
Quillan wanted to reach over and squeeze his throat. He lifted the journal from his lap and waved it in the man’s face. “Not even my wife has read this.”
“Don’t worry. I haven’t your memory.”
“I wouldn’t doubt you’ve copied it somewhere.”
Pierce held up both hands. “I give you my word.”
Quillan snorted. “Your word?”
“My tactics may be suspect, but my word is good.”
The waiter brought Quillan’s meal. He sat back as the plate was set before him, then tucked the journal once again into his lap. He looked down at the plate, the beef aroma causing the juices in his mouth to flow.
“Well, eat,” Pierce said, resuming his own meal.
Quillan took up his knife and fork, cut a bite, and chewed it slowly.
Pierce smiled, raising his brows and nodding. “Eh?” They spent their next minutes eating and washing it down with hot coffee.
Then Quillan pushed his plate away. It was the first hot meal he’d had in days, and it did sit well. “All right, you’ve got me here. What do you want?”
“The more I learn vis-à-vis your journal there, the more convinced I am these biographies will be a triumphant success. You read the article?”
Quillan wished he could say no. “I looked it over.”
“Then you know what I can do.”
It didn’t matter what Pierce could do. “How do I make it clear to you I don’t want my life in your pages?”
“In all fairness, Quillan, I could write them now. From what I’ve already collected—”
“And stolen.”
“True, in a manner of speaking. But that’s my job.”
Quillan shook his head, spread his hands. “What do you find so fascinating you can’t let it go?” He truly did not understand.
Pierce tapped his nose. “It’s just here, Quillan.”
“Then what do you need me for?”
Pierce bowed his head a little. “I’m a fair man. I want to split the fee.”
“Why? You have what you need.”
Pierce half smiled. “Well, I have enough to whet my interest, but not really to fulfill the contract. There are gaps.”
Quillan sat back with a sardonic smile in return. “Patchy work, is it?”
Pierce held up his hands. “Don’t start that.”
Their waiter came and cleared their plates. He laid the bill beside Quillan, who slid it over to Pierce. With a quirk of his brows, Roderick Pierce paid it, then he took a pad from his pocket and eyed Quillan frankly. “I’ve contracted three short sketches. I’m envisioning a rework of the news article for the first, to hook them in with a flourish. A little more detail on the bank robbery and your subsequent departure from home. Being an eyewitness to the train sequence, I need only your own thoughts.”
Quillan couldn’t believe he was sitting there contemplating Pierce’s request. “What do you envision for the others?”
“The movement you led to clear Crystal of its rough element. How and what transpired.”
Quillan frowned. “And the third?”
Pierce cocked his head. “A love story. How you stood up to opposition and won back your wife.”
Quillan’s chest constricted. “That story’s not been told.”
“I’m on leave from the paper.” Pierce waved his pad. “I’ve got time.”
Quillan shook his head, suddenly tired of the fight. “You’re more than half crazy.”
Pierce shrugged. “Maybe so. But I cap the climax as a journalist. Say, can we use some of those poems?”
Quillan raised his eyes in disbelief.
TWENTY-TWO
What fulfillment can contend with possibility?
What sufficiency compare with opportunity?
Take heart, you fool, whom joy has spurned.
In strife the greatest prize is earned.
—Quillan
FLAVIO PRESSED IN BETWEEN the warm, soft flanks and sides of the cows as he opened the door to let them out of the milking shed. They went out to his father’s pasture with a rolling gait, and Flavio dragged his fingers along the bony back of one tawny cow before closing the door behind them.
His mother had looked dumbfounded when he offered to do the milking for her that morning. “Are you all right, Flavio?”
His eyes were burning from two nights with no sleep, and a sharp pain connected his ears across the top of his skull. “Go back to sleep, Mamma Lanza. I’ll bring you the milk.”
Six pails of it sat now on the wooden table in the center of the milking shed, milk and cream together, which Signora Lanza made into marvelous cheeses: creamy Bel Paese and mozzarella in soft white balls still moist with whey.
He took up two of the pails and carried them to Mamma’s kitchen, then made two more trips with the others. No wonder his mother was surprised. When was the last time he had helped with the farm? Not since university, surely. He didn’t want to damage his hands. He needed them soft and pliant for his artwork.
But this morning it had seemed an art to urge the milk from the teats of the cows, something so basic it eased a little of the strain inside him. He had to let it go or the cows would not release their milk easily; they would sense his tension. Now, though, he felt the grips across his chest, the ropes in his neck frayed and taut. How much longer could he bear the strain?
It had never been so bad. He must find release. But how? He thought of the old man he’d struck down with bocce balls. It was shameful and humiliating, horrifying, to go against everything he believed. Yet was that what it took? Must he hurt and destroy to find peace? The thought shook him.