She walked away unsteadily on the gray path between the trees. He watched her, standing where he was, hands in his pockets still.
He envied her, the truth be told. He knew it couldn’t have been easy for her to confess to him—even to confess to herself—the things she felt, the way she had betrayed her own philosophy. But at least she had the courage to go through with it, to make her move. At least she’d plunked her money on her passion, and to hell with the usual human charade.
The path curved in the middle distance. It vanished in the trees. Brinks, her steps dreamy and faltering, rounded the bend. Another moment, she was out of sight.
Weiss straightened with a breath. He turned away.
He drove back to the Agency, heavy-hearted. Letting his dull, gray Taurus coast through the swift flat avenues toward the denser traffic of the hills. There was M. R. Brinks, he thought, arched like a high-board diver in the oh-so-hazardous air, and here he was, earthbound, paralyzed. Sweating over his weird little obsession with a whore he’d never met, stewing in his helpless paranoia about a killer he’d never seen.
All he had to do, he thought, was turn the steering wheel. Guide his car to the freeway. Point it north toward Paradise. Julie Wyant would be long gone from there by now, but it would be a start, anyway. It would be something.
Sick of himself, he continued on into the city center.
He arrived at the Agency silent and louring. Thumped down the hall toward his office. He passed me in my alcove on his way. There was Sissy, perched on my desk. Beaming down on me moonily. Picking lint off my shoulder with a proprietary air. I was trying my best to pretend she wasn’t there, or to pretend I was too busy stuffing invoices into envelopes even to notice her. Because how could I call Emma with her hanging over me like that? How could I call Emma at all before I’d extricated myself from this catastrophe?
As Weiss came by, Sissy quickly slipped away. But Weiss saw her. Of course he did. He saw and understood it all, the basics of it, anyway. He groaned inwardly as he went past. Sissy now, too, he thought. Sissy, whom he idolized. Whom he could never have approached himself. Christ, the whole summer world was just one big fucking love song today, wasn’t it?
He stepped into his office, shut the door behind him. Lumbered to his desk. Dropped into his swivel chair. Jabbed the Internet key on his computer. There was a three-note chime at once: a waiting e-mail. From Bishop. What now?
He opened it up.
Just one big fucking love song, he thought.
Weiss, the e-mail began, something happened.