We can take nothing, he says.

Okay.

Give me the box.

Okay, she says, but she won’t let go, she holds tightly to the box, the very box with which she shattered three lives, and he doesn’t have the heart to wrench this final scrap of wood from her grasp.

He takes a last look around, a last look at his dearest dreams lying shattered on the bloody floor, and switches off the light.

“We stepped outside the room,” he said, “and closed the door behind us. I used the throw to wipe away our fingerprints as we went. We slipped out the mud room window, out into the night. And we went home.”

Home, home to his one-room apartment in North Philadelphia, where just that morning he had felt the infinite promise of the future pour through him. He lies in his bed, with his love asleep by his side, her head resting on his chest, feeling the tickle of her hair as he prayed he would feel each night for the rest of his life. But now the room feels small, cramped, the walls are closing in on him.

She groggily opens her eyes, she smiles at him, that same lovely smile that just hours before had been able to light the darkest corners of his heart. Together forever, she says. Just like we promised. And then her eyes close and she falls back to sleep and in her slumber she looks so much like an angel, his Angel, that to look at her physically hurts.

“But the box,” whispered my father, his eyes now closed, his voice faint. “The damn box.”

It is still there, the wooden box with Atlas on the lid. It sits on the bureau, atop the bloody throw, the box glowing in the moonlight. And it is as if the box itself is sucking the promise from the room, and, along with the promise, the very air. The weight of her head on his chest is constricting his breathing. He’s having a hard time breathing. He coughs, he fights for breath.

“Are you okay, Dad?” I said, as my father struggled to catch his breath.

He didn’t answer, he was lost in the memory, his heart rate soared.

I shook him softly. “Dad?”

His eyes popped open. He startled at the sight of me. “What?”

“Dad? Should I get a nurse?”

“No,” he said, coughing again. “I’m all right,” he said, gasping still for breath.

“Dad?”

“I was just remembering,” he said. “Remembering the way I felt that night in my room. The way I felt ever since.”

“And how was that?”

“Like an animal,” he said. “Like an animal caught in a trap. Waiting to be put out of my misery. Waiting for the blessing of a shot to the head.”

Chapter 58

A DARK BLUE Taurus was parked outside the entrance to the hospital. As soon as I stepped through the hospital doors, the car’s lights turned on and it started ominously toward me.

I backed away.

The car kept coming.

I thought of turning and running, of loosing a high-pitched squeal and then fleeing for my life, but I fought the urge. Whatever end fate had in store for me, I doubted it involved being run over by a Taurus. An Eldorado maybe, a Lincoln Town Car, even a Lumina, sure, but not a Taurus.

I stepped back. The car slid to a halt beside me, the front window hissed down.

Slocum.

“What happened to the Chevette?” I said.

“I’m a supervisor now, higher pay grade.”

“K. Lawrence Slocum, living large in his Taurus.”

“You want a ride home?”

“Not in a Taurus.”

“Get in.”

“My car’s in the lot.”

“Get in anyway. I’ll bring you back after.”

“After what?”

“Someone wants to see you. Get in,” he said, and I did.

He drove north on Broad Street, away from Center City until he hit Roosevelt Boulevard and then headed toward the wilds of the Great Northeast.

K. Lawrence Slocum was one of those private men who never let you glimpse his inner life but, even so, you found yourself trusting him absolutely. You sensed in him a strict code of honor. It’s terms weren’t exactly clear to the outside world, they were of his own devising and remained locked away in some secret place, but to Slocum himself they were explicit and unyielding. He looked at you always as if he were judging you against his code, and under that gaze you couldn’t help but feel that you were failing his test. Except every now and then he smiled at you, a broad comforting smile, and you sensed that maybe, just maybe, you stood on the right side of his line. And you knew, with complete certainty, that so long as you stayed on the right side of his line, he would move mountains for you.

“Who are we seeing again?” I said.

“You were right about Lonnie Chambers being shot. The coroner confirmed it. The methamphetamine task force is investigating. They’ve been hauling in Pagans and Hell’s Angels from all over the city. They’re not getting very far.”

“They’re searching in the wrong place.”

“Well, you know. The light is better over there.”

“What about Rashard Porter?”

“We’re looking into it.”

“I hope you’re doing a damn sight more than looking into it.”

“Remember the young pup that escorted you down to the office?”

“The suit with the attitude. What was his name, Bernstein?”

“Berenson. Well right now, right this instant, Berenson’s enjoying the wonderful hospitality of Chinchilla, Pennsylvania, in Lackawanna County, reviewing their bench warrant procedures.”

“I hear Chinchilla has a wonderful Harvard Club.”

“You have something against Harvard?”

“Just the ivy-covered snots that go there.”

“Really? You know many Harvard graduates?”

“No. But I can imagine.”

“So it bothers you that graduates of Harvard Law are swooped up by the New York firms and given untold riches while you struggle to pay your bills?”

“Every minute of every day.”

“You ought to let go of that.”

“Why? If I have any power at all it derives from the keen edge of my bitterness. Give me all I want in this world and I would shrivel up and die, like a leech in salt.”

“I see your point, at least the part about you being a leech.”

“Where’d you go to law school, anyway?”

“Yale.”

“Well, bully for you. Who are we seeing again?”

“It’s a surprise,” he said.

He turned left off the boulevard, headed through some hard city streets, and then, suddenly, the signs changed, the edges softened, the roads turned downright leafy. He had driven me into the suburbs. The suburbs? Why would a city ADA be taking me into the suburbs?

It didn’t take much for me to lose my bearings as he weaved through a matrix of dark suburban streets. He was driving almost as if he were trying to confuse me.

“You know where we are?” he said.

“Not really.”

“Good answer.”

He coursed along a dark narrow road that had no street sign and then turned into a lot in front of a small row of town houses. Slocum parked. We both stepped out of the car. The town houses were cheap, temporary, a place inhabited by short-timers, by the recently divorced. There was a stillness in the air, like nothing happened here, ever. Slocum scanned the parking lot, half filled with cars but empty of people, and then headed toward one of the town houses. I followed.

The door was opened by a burly man in his shirtsleeves, blue suit pants, heavy black shoes, tie still tight, and a holster strapped around his chest. He nodded at Slocum, leaned out to make his own scan of the parking lot, and then stepped aside to let us in.

“You’re late,” said the burly man.

“He stayed past visiting hours,” said Slocum. “Probably going room to room giving out his card.”

The burly man laughed even as he took my arm and spun me around.

“What the-”

“It’s all right, Carl,” said Slocum. “Let him check you.”

I leaned against a closet as the man slid his hand up and down my pant seams, up and down my sides, my back, around my belt, all along my chest. When he was done he tapped me on the shoulder. “You’re all right.”