Pacific.â
âThat what you want?â
âNo. Iâd go nuts if I didnât have people around me who talked the same language.â
âSo?â
âWeâve talked. I realize you want the decision fast but weâre talking about the rest of our lives, Glenn. Iâll let you know as soon as I canâweâre not crazy about motel rooms either.â He threw the empty styrofoam cup at the wastebasket, missed, ignored it and leaned back in the chair. âGot any aspirin?â
Caruso went toward the bathroom.
Bradleigh said gently, âScared, arenât you.â
âSure I am. They found usâthey can do it again. I donât really care how they did it, Glenn. I donât care if youâve plugged this leak. They can find another one. Thatâs what gives me nightmares.â
âNo more leaks.â
âSuppose my kid had gone home to get his baseball bat or any damn thing. Suppose heâd been in the house when they threw the bomb.â
âItâs no good supposing. He didnât. Nobody was home. They tried Benson and they tried you and they came up losers on both. Mobsters arenât supermen, you know. They get power by keeping people afraid, but take away the guns and theyâll never last a day in the real world.â
âThey may not be mental giants but they frighten the hell out of me.â Mathieson took the aspirin with the glass of water Caruso gave him. He rubbed his eyes; theyâd be bloodshot all day.
Bradleigh said with unusual heat, âItâs a crazy mythology weâve created about the mob. The cold professionals, the never-miss hit men. All they know is triggers and bombs. More often than not they canât even handle the simplest job without screwing it up. Look at you. Look at Benson. Bensonâs off the critical list, incidentally. About the worst they did to him was inconvenience him.â
âInconvenience.â Mathieson clenched his eyes against the ache. âIâm sorryâI donât feel grateful. I donât even feel relieved. Iâll feel grateful when thereâs nobody out there with guns and bombs looking for my wife and my son.â
âI know how you feel.â
Bradleighâs detachment enraged him. He sat with his eyes closed. He was remembering different people, different times. A cheerful young lawyer and his sparkling young wife and their bubbling three-year-old son. Friendships that were built on laughter and simple enjoyments. They had taken warm pleasure in one another: That had been the center of their worldâwarmth. He remembered the cramped apartment on Thirteenth Street and the laughter that always filled itâand then a man in a menâs room had handed a white envelope to another man and it had all taken on weight and begun to sink beneath the surface.
He bestirred himself. âPhil Adlerâs drawing up dissolution agreements. Youâll have to use that power of attorney for me, wrap things up with him.â
âSure.â
âSell the cars, handle the insurance people about the house, you know.â Scrape up the leavings of the life of Fredric Mathieson, 1967â1976âborn by fiat and died of fear, aged eight and one half years .
Bradleigh said, âWeâll make it as though you never existed at all.â
4
They had the pool to themselves: noon in a motel. A few cars were parked in the diagonal slotsâthe day sleepers who didnât have air-conditioned cars and drove by night. The pool was in the center of the two-story court, out of sight of the street; outside, Bradleighâs four operatives were positioned to enfilade the entrances. Caruso was the only visible official presence; he wore a loud Hawaiian shirt with the tails out over his slacks and Mathieson knew there was a revolver under his waistband.
âHow about a drink?â
She shook her head. âItâs not even one