“Please believe me, man. I’m not happy about this,” said Cook, his voice low. “About none of this. But you’re my chance. Okay? You’re my chance.”
He stood up again at the table, leaned forward while he talked. While he explained—while he tried to explain. “All I’m supposed to do is get Barton’s secrets. That’s the job: get the man’s secrets, and they set me free. That’s my deal. Two years I been at it, and two years he’s been keeping me low on the pole. Errand boy, muscleman, bullshit. Two years.” He put up his hand and spread apart two fingers.
He turned abruptly to Martha. “Then here comes your friend.” I did not look at her. I couldn’t. “Sad little mush-mouth Jim Dirkson. Talking about this wife in the mines. Here’s my chance. I push you on the priest, let’s do this one, let me quarterback it. Tutor me, Padre, you know? Here’s my chance to learn some secrets, get into the inside. Agent Lawler keeps saying, get what we need and you’re done. You’re free.”
Every time he said that word, free, I felt sick. Lord, what they had done to this man. What they had done to me. The monsters they had made us into, prowling along, sniffing for chances.
“But then you”—he pointed one finger at me, wagged it—“you go and turn out to be what you are. Turn out to be like me. And I was like, whoa, whoa. Wait. This is even better.”
Morris belched, long and loud. Settled in the armchair, coasting through this dull guard duty with the bored confidence of a white man lording it over a black and a woman. I stared at Cook, remembering his excitement that morning on the banks of the White River. Kevin lying dead, Maris furious, Barton grieving, Cook seizing the moment. I was having my realization in that moment, and he was having his.
“I explained to Barton that he should send you to go and get this thing. I told him how we could tap your chip, how I had me a solid connect in the marshals. Then I called up Agent Lawler.”
Me on the phone with Bridge, sending him to BWI airport, and Cook—or whatever this man’s name was—on the phone with Lawler. Phones ringing off the hook in Gaithersburg.
“I said, listen, baby, remember this evidence Barton’s been so hot on? What about I get that for you? Illegal collusion. Major federal lawbreaking. Well, she liked that a lot. She loved it.”
There was no point in explaining to Cook that his agent wanted her hands on the evidence for the same reason mine did: to get rid of it.
“And better than that, I said to her, I said, what if I can get you one of me, a nigger-catcher soul-stealer motherfucker like me—except this one’s gone to the dark side? He’s working freelance for the Airlines. What if I get you all that? If I get you all that, you gotta let me go, right? Then you gotta set me free.”
He lifted the envelope off the table, and I was surprised at the sudden pain I felt. I felt it in his hands like it was a part of my body, like it was my heart he was holding. The idea of that thing going back to Maryland, getting buried by the marshals, after all Kevin had gone through to get it, all that Luna had gone through. Even me. But that’s where it was always headed anyway, wasn’t it? I was never really going to bring it to Father Barton so he could announce it to the world.
But somehow in the wake of Cook’s revelations, I was mourning that alternative future, longing for a victory I had never really contemplated.
“So here’s what’s up, man,” said Cook. “We’re going to take out this hard drive, hook it into the laptop here.” He gestured to the computer on the table. “Just to make sure you didn’t pull a fast one, like my pops used to like to say. Make sure we got what we think we got. And then I’ll call Agent Lawler.”
He tore the envelope open at the top. I held up my hands, the chains rattling.
“Wait, though. What if Barton’s right?” I said. “What if there really is information on here that could”—what were the words, all those hopeful, lunatic words?—“shake the foundations? Change the world? Just—what if?”
“Come on, now,” he said. “Barton’s full of shit.”
“Yeah, I know. I know.” I took a step toward Cook, aware of Morris in the corner of my eye. “But we’re talking about the future. The future of the country. Talking about three million slaves.”
Cook said something familiar; something I had thought to myself—and not long ago, either. “I ain’t thinking about the three million” is what he said. “I’m thinking about me.”
“Wait…”
“Hey. Hey!” He had the package open. He pulled out what was inside. He looked up at me. “What the fuck?”
Motion from the other side of the room, Morris rising from the chair. “What is that?”