Almost as a way of making up for that and giving the brief meeting some substance, he said, “What were you doing in Beirut?”
He smiled broadly and said, “Cutting loose. It just so happened we were all of us free. I had some friends out there and suggested to Jack he should come out for a while. Then a couple more guys got wind of it and showed up. We were there for about six months, I guess.” He got up and moved across the room to an oriental chest of drawers, searching through them before pulling out a fat brown envelope. “It was a good time to be in Beirut . . .”
“So this was after the hostage crisis and all that?”
“Long after, years after. Yeah, things were looking up for Beirut back then, talk of it returning to the way it was before the war. Doesn’t look like it’ll happen now, but those were good days.”
He pulled a bundle of photos out of the envelope and flicked through them. He pulled one out and handed it to Dan. It was of three guys standing with arms over each other’s shoulders. One was Tom, his hair cropped but not shaved as it was now, but otherwise not looking much different. The one in the middle was tall and blonde, with chiseled features.
The third guy looked smaller, though Dan guessed he was average size and only looked small because of the scale of the two guys he was with. He looked relaxed, his hair scruffy, his shirt tucked in on one side but hanging out on the other—the kind of good-looking traveler who turned up in places like that with a guitar.
As he looked, Tom said, “The guy in the middle is Jonny, the guy who was killed in the hit and run.”
“Jonny? He looks German or . . .”
Tom laughed and said, “Everyone always thought he was German. He was from San Diego, a real surf dude—slightly crazy but a good guy to be around.”
Dan nodded and said, “What about the guy on the right?”
As if it was obvious, Tom said, “That’s Jack.”
“Really?” Dan looked at it again. “It’s not like the pictures I’ve seen. Is this how he looked?”
Tom reached out and took the photo back, smiling as he looked at it, saying, “Yeah, that’s him alright. He was a charmer, could charm the leaves off the trees. Very unassuming guy, but, I don’t know, I guess that was part of his appeal. And I tell you, those were happy days.” He flicked through some more of the photos and handed another one to Dan. “That’s kind of a typical night out there, typical dinner.”
Dan looked at the picture, which showed half a dozen people sitting at a restaurant table which was laden with plates and wine bottles.
“You’re not in this.”
“I was probably taking the picture.”
Jonny, the blonde guy was there, his face slightly flushed from the heat and probably the drink. Jack Redford was there too, and Dan was reinforcing this new image of him in his mind—this was how he looked. Then he noticed the woman sitting next to him, and felt a strange, almost tectonic dislocation in his thoughts.
He held it closer, staring at her features as he said, “Who’s the woman with Jack? That’s if she is with Jack?”
“Oh she’s with Jack, alright. Maria. Beautiful, huh?” Dan nodded without speaking. “They were inseparable. Met at the end of the first month we were there, just stayed together. I think he seriously contemplated settling down with her.”
Dan still couldn’t take his eyes off her, because he recognized this woman, and his voice sounded distant even to himself, as he said, “Why didn’t he?”
“You know how it is, in our business. Settling down isn’t such an easy thing to do.”
Dan looked up and said, “You seem to be doing okay.”
Tom grinned and said, “Yeah, at my age. Never thought it would happen but, man, I’m blessed.”
“Can I keep this photo?”
“Sure. I’ve got plenty and I hardly look at them anymore. Very few buddies left to sit and reminisce with.”
Dan nodded, understanding that, but his own mind was reeling away from him. These past weeks, he’d thought one thing after another about Jack Redford, and yet the man had managed in some way to elude him, just as he’d eluded everyone else, until the bus crash, until now.
When Dan had first gone up to what had then been Jacques Fillon’s place, he’d pictured his life as so limited, tinkering with a bike, riding the bus every day, and he’d almost despised him for it. He hadn’t understood then, about the hidden shelter, the quest to bring down Brabham, to get justice for a girl he’d never known and had no connection with, Sabine Merel.
But even when he had learned those things, he’d still only understood half of the man. Jack Redford. He’d acted heroically on the day he died, but in truth, the whole of the last twelve years had been an act of heroism, one little act every day when he’d boarded that bus. That was what Dan only really understood for the first time now as he looked at this photograph—even in hiding, Jack Redford had never stopped being a hero.
Epilogue