Funny, the ways things happened; the way the horror and shock of his parents’ deaths had led him, unwittingly, to the place and the life he was meant for.
The streets around the nursery were completely empty now – everyone in the neighborhood was probably glued to their TVs, waiting for tornadoes and the excited weather-men to tell them when to take cover. Everyone but him, of course. He couldn’t afford to let a little weather scare him off, because he was on a mission, and sometimes missions were very dangerous.
He’d already circled the block around the nursery three times, and found everything as it should be. No armed figures crouching in the bushes, the single squad car that arrived this afternoon still in its original place in the parking lot, and most important, Mrs Gilbert still safe in the house.
A rumble of distant thunder made him jump a little, and he covered a nervous giggle with his hand. The sky was getting blacker by the minute, and off to the west, webs of cloud-to-cloud lightning flashed, followed by more ominous thunder, charging the air with excitement. God, this was fun. Meek, quiet Jeff Montgomery slinking around in the near-darkness, eyes sharp and busy checking all the shadows, strangely titillated by the possibility of danger.
When he reached the nursery’s hedgerow, he pressed himself into the greenery and moved slowly and stealthily, inch by inch, along the screen. He rotated his head, covering all directions, keeping a sharp eye out for anything suspicious, maintaining his cover. He couldn’t afford to be seen – if Mr Pullman or the officer spotted him, it’d be all over and they’d send him packing, or even worse, they might shoot him by accident. He had to be very, very careful.
At this moment, it didn’t seem at all odd to be thinking of all the things the Gilberts had done for him – paying him twice what other nurseries paid their help, covering the cost of his classes, even helping him out with rent if he came up a little short on the first of the month. He knew she didn’t expect it, but someday he was going to pay back every dime to Mrs Gilbert. It was the least he could do.
He felt a secret thrill when he realized he was now on the nursery property, and so far, no one had spotted him… made him, he amended. Darn, he was good at this. Maybe he should quit school and join the CIA.
The last time Marty Pullman had felt this way – like someone had flicked a switch and shut off his brain – he’d been sitting on the cold cement of the parking ramp, looking down at his dead wife.
A lot of the emotions that had gone through him that night were fighting for their place in line again – disbelief, outrage, shock, and finally, a sadness beyond measuring. Jack was right about that stupid Elvis analogy, and now his world was rocking and he didn’t know which end was up. How do you get past learning that a man you’d worshiped, idolized because he was so much better than you could ever hope to be, had been every bit as flawed as you were? And maybe a little bit more, he thought, if you looked at it numerically. A silly part of his mind looking for distraction had tried to estimate how many men Morey had killed during the years when he’d had his son-in-law the cop over for Sunday dinner once a week. And just when the outrage started to set in, the sense of betrayal, he almost laughed aloud. Was there really such a difference between murdering Nazis and murdering the man who had killed your wife?
No wonder you loved him so much. You were two of a kind.
Jack had been totally silent for the past few minutes, maybe giving Marty time to absorb what he’d said so far, maybe waiting for the big question Marty was almost afraid to ask. So Rose Kleber had taken her turn shooting the old man behind the fishing lodge counter, and then handed the gun to Jack.
What did you do, Jack? What the hell did you do?
Jack giggled drunkenly, and Marty realized he’d asked the question aloud. ‘Actually, I threw up. Hurled all over the floor, the gun, and the old lady’s hand. Boy, was she pissed. Not as pissed as Pop, though. He kept telling me to shoot him, “shoot the Nazi bastard” were his exact words, and that was the first time I had an inkling of what was going on. Maybe if he’d been in one of those S.S. outfits torturing somebody I could have done it. I guess I’ll never know. But the thing was, I didn’t see any Nazi. I just saw this really old, messy dead guy.’
‘You didn’t shoot him.’
‘Jesus, Marty, of course not. What do you think I am?’
‘I don’t know, Jack. You keep surprising me.’
‘Whole damn family’s full of surprises, isn’t it?’ Jack said bitterly. ‘Anyway, on the way home Pop told me what they’d been doing all these years, a lot of things about Auschwitz I wish I hadn’t heard, and how it was my duty as his son, his legacy to me, for chrissake, and that if he died before the “work” was done, I had to finish it.’
‘What did you say?’
Jack looked at him over the rim of his glass. ‘I told him I didn’t want to be his son anymore, that I didn’t even want to be a Jew anymore. And then I set out to make sure I wasn’t.’
Marty nodded slowly, remembering the confirmation picture and the wedding picture, Jack’s sudden absence from the family, finally making sense of the jumble of his actions that Lily had called slaps in the face. ‘You should have talked to Lily about it, Jack.’
Jack smiled and drank all at the same time. ‘Double-edged sword, that one. Triple-edged, actually. Hell, for all I knew, she could have been in on it…’
‘Jesus, Jack, how could you ever think that?’
Jack gaped at him. ‘Christ, Marty, maybe because I never would have thought it of my father either, and look how that turned out. I never really bought that Ma could do such a thing, but I wondered, How do you live with somebody for over fifty years and not know something like that is going on? And whether she did it or just knew about it…’ He shrugged helplessly. ‘I couldn’t face it. I didn’t want to know. And if by some miracle she’d been as fooled by him as I’d been, I sure as hell wasn’t going to break her heart by telling her. So I stayed away from both of them, not saying anything, wondering all the while if Pop was out murdering people while I sat there doing nothing, saying stupid things to get through the days like “Gee, Jack, don’t worry, they’re just Nazis and probably deserve it,” trying to figure out if I could live with myself if I turned in my own father and ruined my mother’s life, or if I could live with myself if I didn’t… Christ.’ He took a breath, then a drink. ‘Gotta tell you, though, the alcohol helped.’
On the other side of the bolted door that led to the potting shed, Lily leaned against the splintered wood, listening, her eyes closed, her face creased with pain. ‘Goddamn you, Morey Gilbert,’ she whispered, then she turned and walked away.
‘You should have come to Hannah and me,’ Marty was saying.
‘Are you kidding? I couldn’t get anywhere near Hannah. She would have had it out of me in three seconds, you know she would have. And it would have killed her, Marty, finding that out about her father. She worshiped that man.’
‘Almost as much as you did,’ Marty said, leaning back in his chair, looking at Jack the drunk, the schlock, the inconsiderate, irresponsible black sheep who had sacrificed everything to spare the people he loved. Inside, Marty wept for him, struggling to focus on what he needed to know. ‘You said the killer was finished except for you, Jack. How do you know that?’
‘Oh, yeah, that. I suspected, but didn’t know for absolute sure until the guy took a shot at me. Pop and the others made a lot of trips, killed a lot of people – he was pretty proud of that – but I was only with them once.’
‘At the fishing lodge in Brainerd.’
‘Right. There was a big old loft up behind the registration desk. Last thing I remember was Pop dragging me out by the arm, everybody yelling at me, and I looked up and saw a shadow move behind one of the big wooden posts up there. Somebody saw us, Marty, and as they say, what goes around, comes around.’