EPILOGUE
My heart asks for peace— Day after day flies by, and every hour takes away A little piece of life; but you and I, we two, We contemplate living…
—ALEKSANDR PUSHKIN (1799–1837), “IT’S TIME, MY FRIEND, IT’S TIME”
I SPENT THE REST of the week alone. I saw no one. I spoke to no one. I lived with my thoughts, and in the silence I tried to come to terms with all that I had learned.
On Friday night, I went to the Bear. Dave Evans was working the bar. I had already told him by phone that I was done with the job, and he had taken it well. I guess he knew that it would only be a matter of time. I had already received unofficial confirmation that my PI’s license would be restored to me within days, just as Epstein had told me, and all objections to my license to carry had been withdrawn.
But that night, it was clear that Dave was swamped. The main bar area was jammed, so it was standing room only. I stepped aside to let Sarah pass by with a tray of beer orders in one hand, a stack of food orders in the other. She looked frazzled, which was unusual, but then I noticed that everybody else who was working d Z Pè?id too.
“Gary Maser gave me twenty-four hours’ notice, then left,” said Dave, as he juggled mixing a brandy Alexander with keeping an eye on three pints that were pouring simultaneously. “Pity. I liked him. I figured he might stay on. Any idea what happened there?”
“None,” I said.
“Well, you hired him.”
“My mistake.”
“What the hell. It wasn’t fatal.” He gestured at the dressing on my neck. “Although that looks like it could have been. I guess I shouldn’t ask.”
“You could ask, but I’d have to lie to you.”
One of the taps began to splutter and froth.
“Damn it all,” said Dave. He looked at me. “Do a favor for an old friend?”
“I’m on it,” I said. I went in back and changed the keg. While I was there, two more ran down, so I changed those too. When I came back out, Dave was taking care of the service bar, which dealt with orders from the restaurant, and there were at least ten people waiting for drinks, and only one bartender to deal with them.
So, for one more night, I slipped back into my old role. I didn’t mind. I knew now that I would be returning to what I did best, so I enjoyed working one last time for Dave, and quickly fell into all the old routines. Customers came in, and I remembered them by their orders even if I couldn’t recall their names: Tanqueray Guy; Margarita Girl; five guys in their thirties who came in every Friday and always ordered five of the same beer, never once experimenting with some of the more exotic brews, so that their arrival was always known as the Charge of the Coors Light Brigade. The Fulci brothers arrived with Jackie Garner in tow, and Dave contrived to look pleased to see them. He owed them for keeping reporters away from the bar after Mickey Wallace died, even if he suspected that their presence had scared off regular customers too. Now, though, they were sitting in a corner, eating burgers and knocking back Belfast Bay Lobster Red like men who were about to be returned to prison the next day, an experience with which the Fulcis were not unfamiliar.
And so the evening passed.
Eddie Grace woke to the sound of a match being struck in the darkness of his bedroom. The drugs had dulled the pain some, but they had also dulled his senses, so that he struggled for a moment to figure out what time it was, and why he was awake. He thought that he might have dreamed the sound. After all, nobody in the house smoked.
Then a cigarette flared red and a figure shifted in the easy chair to his left; he caught a glimpse of a man’s face. He looked thin and unhealthy, his hair slicked back from his head, his fingernails long and, it seemed, nicotine tinged with yellow. His clothes were dark. Even in his own stinking sickbed, Eddie could smell the dankness of him.
“What are you doing here?” said Eddie. “Who are you?”
The man leaned forward. In his hand he was holding an old police whistle on a silver chain. It had belonged to Eddie’s father, and had been passed on to him when the old man retired.
c%" quo“I like this,” said the stranger, dangling the whistle by its chain. “I think I’ll add it to my collection.”
Eddie’s right hand sought the alarm that summoned Amanda to him. It would ring in her bedroom, and she or Mike would come. His finger pressed down on the button, but he heard nothing.
“I took the trouble of disconnecting that,” said the man. “You won’t be needing it anymore.”
“I asked what you were doing here,” Eddie croaked. He was frightened now. It was the only appropriate response in the face of this man’s presence. Everything about him was wrong. Everything.
“I’m here to punish you for your sins.”
“For my sins?”
“For betraying your friend. For putting his son at risk. For the death of Caroline Carr. For the girls you hurt. I’m here to make you pay for all of them. You have been judged, and found wanting.”
Eddie laughed hollowly. “Fuck you,” he said. “Look at me. I’m dying. Every day I’m in pain. What can you do to me that hasn’t been done already?”
And suddenly the whistle was replaced by a sliver of sharp metal as the man rose and leaned over Eddie, and Eddie thought that he saw other figures crowding behind him, men with hollow eyes and dark mouths who were both there and not there.
“Oh,” whispered the Collector, “I’m sure I can think of something…”