“Let’s get this done and you on your pathetic way.”

“Fine by me,” said Kyle. “But I must say, I’m disappointed in you, Senator. You impressed the hell out of me this afternoon. I thought I had actually met a politician with sincerity, but I suppose that’s like a vampire with sincerity—does it really matter if he sincerely wants to suck your blood?”

“I meant what I said this afternoon.”

“That means you were against buying the file before you were for it. Those questions you had for your mother. Were they about what happened to Colleen O’Malley?”

“My mother assured me that she wasn’t involved.”

“How about Laszlo Toth? What did she say about him?”

“My mother is not a murderer.”

“She didn’t pull the trigger, if that’s what you mean. I guess she’s in no condition to do her own wet work. But I’ve watched enough TV to know that you don’t have to pull the trigger to be guilty of murder.”

“Can we end these mad ravings and make our deal?” said Mrs. Truscott. “And then, dear, I have a psychiatrist I can recommend. He is quite fashionable—all the best loons see him.”

“What are you getting at, Byrne?” said the senator.

“You know a Spangler?”

“Spangler?” He looked at his mother. “What about it?”

“There’s a Spangler wanted in the killing of Laszlo Toth. And I’d bet he was involved in Colleen O’Malley’s strange drowning death, too. And the funny thing is, if you look in this file, the lawyer opposing my father, the one representing your interests in the O’Malley matter, was a Spangler, too. Want to look?”

“What’s he talking about?”

“I don’t know, dear.”

“Mother?”

“I have no idea what this maniac is talking about.”

“Well, there you go, Senator. Another mystery for you to solve, or to sweep under the family carpet, though I imagine it’s getting pretty lumpy by now. Here’s another lump.”

Kyle spun the file in the air toward the senator. Truscott didn’t move to catch it. The file hit the floor with a plunk, and he just stared at it while a briefcase appeared, as if magically, in the old lady’s twitchy hands.

“Take your money and get the hell out of my house,” she said.

Kyle gazed at the briefcase for a moment, thought of all the dreams contained within its flat gray walls, the new car, the trip to Aruba, a real start in life. And he also thought of his father outside, listening intently to the headphones as the scene audibly played out for him.

“Keep it,” said Kyle finally. He could almost see the wince on his father’s face, as if he’d been slapped. “Spruce the place up. Buy another pillar for outside, you can never have too many. I don’t want your damn money.”

The senator looked up, his face creased in bewilderment.

“Don’t look so puzzled, Senator,” said Kyle. “You’re the one who convinced me. You told me you weren’t going to turn me into a blackmailer. After talking to you, I decided I wasn’t going to let anyone else do it either.” Another shot across his father’s jaw. “So take the file. For free. This story belonged to Colleen O’Malley, not my father. He didn’t have the right to use it for his own gain, and neither do I. My father was wrong to bring it out fourteen years ago, and I’m trying to right the wrong by giving it back to you.” Slap, slap, slap.

“If you don’t want the money,” said the senator, “why did you come?”

“To put Colleen’s ghost to rest,” said Kyle. “And to see what I could learn about Spangler.” And to tell Liam Byrne over the wire what Kyle couldn’t tell him face-to-face: that he loved him, yes, but he wasn’t going to be him.

“My mother’s maiden name is Spangler,” said the senator. “And the lawyer whose name you saw in the file is my cousin Robert, my mother’s nephew. But he’s hardly a murderer. If you could meet him, you’d know that. He’s a harmless old man, I’m sure.”

“Don’t be, because he’s now on the run and considered armed and dangerous.”

“Mother?”

“I don’t know what he is talking about,” said the old lady, her chin jerking spasmodically upward. And now, strangely, beneath the licorice scent floated a line of something fetid, as if the rot at the heart of this old woman’s ambitions for her son were finally being exposed.

“Mother?” said the senator.

“Look at me, dear. I am telling you the truth. I don’t know what he is talking about. But whatever Robert might have done under an excess of zeal, he did it without my knowledge. You must believe me, dear. You must.”

“Oh, yes, you must,” said a voice from the doorway to the room. Kyle turned quickly, and there, with a bulky black bag in his hand, was O’Malley. His clothes were streaked with stains, an obviously false hairpiece was comically out of place, his face was filthy, and he smelled god-awful.

“Robert?” said the senator.

“O’Malley?” said Kyle.

The man sneered and gave the bag a quick hoist as if it were quite heavy. The bag’s zipper was open, and something shifted so that the thick black barrel of a shotgun poked out of the end.

“I wondered when you’d show up,” said Mrs. Truscott, even as she curled into herself and away from the stench. “Unfortunately, Bobby, we have ourselves a problem.”

CHAPTER 56

THERE WAS A TIME, during his youth in Iowa, when Robert Spangler became intoxicated with Script ure. A s he followed along with the preachers in their crowded tents, the words glowed on the pages of his Bible and spoke to the deepest yearnings of his immature heart: faith, love, redemption, sacrifice. And even in this new incarnation that owed more to Nietzsche than to Luke, the old stories lived as counterpoint to the dreams he had finally found courage enough to summon into reality. Now, as Bobby stood in the dark hallway, staring in at the scene playing out before him, it was as if one of those stories had sprung fully to life.

“Look at me, dear,” said the wellspring of Robert’s love and his cursed ambition, her fierce attention pressed wholly and urgently on the son, Francis, passing entirely over Bobby’s presence in the doorway just as it had passed over Robert lo these many years. “I am telling you the truth. I don’t know what he is talking about. But whatever Robert might have done under an excess of zeal, he did it without my knowledge.”

And somewhere a cock crowed.

“You must believe me, dear,” she said, her voice trembling with her delicious insincerity. “You must.”

“Oh, yes, you must,” said Bobby as he stepped forward and took his rightful place in this elegant room, the very room of power where she had made her promises about Robert’s future over and again and where, in the next few moments, that future would finally come to its blood-spangled fruition. They all turned toward him with a start— the son who had stolen all her love and all his glory, the interloping Byrne boy, and she, too, the object of all their fantasies, fixing him with a blue-eyed stare both malevolent and full of desire. A stare that brought him instantly hard.