The SA said it was ridiculous to think that the head of a company like Metargon, which paid eight million in state income taxes last year, would be involved in the kind of crime I was describing. As for the man Durdon, Mr. Breen had made it clear that he was led astray by some overzealous Homeland Security agents when Durdon was hunting for missing computer code.
“Eight million in taxes, but two hundred thousand in campaign contributions, which is more to your point,” I snapped. “Will Breen continue to try to murder Martin Binder, or can young Binder go peacefully about his business?”
The assistant state’s attorney advised me to tone down my language. Mr. Breen had issued a formal apology for suspecting Martin Binder of trying to sell proprietary code. If Metargon was prepared to let matters rest, I should leave things alone, too.
At least Sheriff Kossel down in Palfry was taking matters seriously. He was trying to get the Palfry County state’s attorney to file murder charges against Deputy Davilats and Durdon. I promised Kossel that I would testify if he was able to bring either or both men to trial.
In the days after Tinney, I was spending my small squares of free time with Jake, who’d returned from the West Coast. Lying on his couch, listening to him practice, or lying with him in bed after a late night of music and dancing, was restoring my spirit.
Alison decided to take a leave of absence from Harvard. She thought first of returning to Mexico City, to the program she was setting up, but the more she talked about it with me, the more tainted it felt to her.
“It’s so corporate: I was providing them with Metargon products—it’s like using a charity as a front for turning Mexican schoolkids into Metargon customers. We give the kids Metar-Genies and then they have to buy the apps and the games from us. I need time away from all that corporate stuff. And then, too, with my dad bringing in the FBI when he thought Martin might be in Mexico City with me—they don’t trust me now.”
She rented an apartment in the Ravenswood neighborhood, about a mile from where I live, and entertained herself by finding furniture at estate sales. When she learned about the Vienna expedition, she wanted to join us.
“You don’t think my dad will come after you in Austria, do you, Vic?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It depends on how much that patent matters to him.”
I’d gone back to using my own phone and my own computer identity—conducting business in secret is almost impossible and sucks up way too much time and energy.
If Breen was still obsessed with forestalling any publication of Martina’s patent, he was almost certainly tracking Max’s and my e-mails. Which meant he was also tracking Max’s exchanges with Herr Lautmann in Vienna.
I didn’t see Alison often after we left Tinney, but she dropped into my office from time to time to use me as a sounding board. When she persuaded Max that she had a legitimate need to be present at the Novaragasse excavation, she stopped by to talk to me about Martin.
“I know he has a right to be there, too: it’s his great-grandmother, after all. But he won’t let me buy him a ticket.”
“That’s good,” I said.
“How can it be good? He has so many expenses, and no job right now. My dad fired him, he’s put a lot of negative words out with other software companies, which means Martin is having trouble getting work. His mom is in serious rehab, you know, and even though she’s got Medicaid, Martin’s paying all the extra expenses.”
When Judy Binder was judged strong enough to leave the Tinney hospital, she moved into a halfway house in Chicago with the dog Delilah. It was her idea: rescuing Martin had been a turning point for her, or the last point in a turn that started when her mother died in an effort to protect her.
“Delilah and I, we’ve been through a lot together. She’ll look after me,” she told Martin when he heroically offered to let her join him in the Skokie house. She was still volatile, hot-tempered, often mean-spirited; her recovery went in fits and starts. You don’t change a thirty-five-year habit in a week, after all, but Martin reported that she seemed seriously committed to the process.
Mr. Contreras was disappointed when he realized we couldn’t keep Delilah, but Judy’s halfway house was only a half-dozen L stops north of us. He took to riding up to see the dog, impervious to Judy’s mood swings. Just the fact that she had a regular visitor was also a help in her recovery.
When Max agreed that Martin could be part of the trip, Alison gave up her first-class ticket to ride coach with him. And with me. And with Jake.
“I’ve been too laissez-faire about letting you go off into oubliettes and dungeons,” Jake said. “My attitude was that as long as you knew what you were doing I wouldn’t interfere. Especially since interfering carries a high probability of losing my bowing arm, or even my fingering.”
We were lying in bed, his long fingers on my breasts. Bowing and fingering gave him a magician’s touch on my body and I rolled over to lie on top of him.