Rest was hard to come by. I was used to insomnia. Tired body, active mind. I had done some of my best thinking—and my craziest, which often amounted to the same thing—during hours when even bats were coming home to roost.
Tonight was different. My brain felt sluggish. My body couldn’t find comfort enough to relax. Any way I lay, my ribs and chest complained about it. Sitting up helped. I finally convinced Leo and Dez that the bed was wasted on me, injury or no, and I dozed fitfully in the one tall chair that I owned. A leather wingback that was a little too large and way too outlandish for the rest of my tiny apartment. I’d spotted the chair in a shop window while walking on the east side of Capitol Hill a month before. It had instantly reminded me of my grandfather’s favorite chair, an ancient piece, even though Dono’s chair had been the color of merlot wine instead of café au lait. I didn’t even haggle over the price.
At four past four in the morning, the burner hummed again. I didn’t have to get up to answer it. It had been in my chest pocket since Fain’s first call.
“We have to talk,” he said again, “not over this line.”
I agreed with at least half that statement.
“I figure if this is the cops listening, it’s too late to matter. And if it’s you, then you got no reason to say word one to me, am I right?”
That strain I had heard earlier was still in Fain’s voice. Along with something else. Resignation? Regret?
“I will be—we will be, don’t fade away if you see the others—at the corner of First and Yesler at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. That’s a public square, right? A busy place. If that’s safe enough ground for you, be there. This is the only chance we’ll get.”
The line went dead.
“Fain called back?” Dez, whispering from the bed. She and Leo had fallen asleep right after a midnight snack of pot stickers and chow mein left over from dinner. Open take-out containers still rested beside the bed, grains of sticky rice scattered like a trail leading to the sheets. I could hear Leo’s long heavy breaths. When he slept, he slept all the way.
“Yeah,” I whispered back. “Fain wants to meet.”
“I don’t know Army stuff, but that sounds like a dumb trap to me.”
“Me, too. Except that he wants it in Pioneer Square during morning rush hour.” I knew the place back to front. It wouldn’t be difficult to see them coming, not with a few extra eyes helping me.
“Leo and I talked, while we were downstairs waiting for the Chinese food. I decided to ask the Seebrights to handle the funeral arrangements for Wayne. Jim will do a good job.”
“If you’re worried about being safe there . . .”
“No. Thank you. It’s not a question of feeling safe. It’s about being free.”
She sat up and pulled one of the layered blankets to cover herself, even though she wore a white EL VY band T-shirt long enough to come down to her knees.
“Wayne had a grip on me for a long time. I was his girlfriend when he had everything, and his wife when he had nothing. It didn’t change how he behaved. Always making sure I would do whatever he wanted. Give up whatever he asked. Even if Mom hadn’t left her money to Erle, Wayne would have thought of it as his inheritance, because he had me. And I would have believed it, too. Does that make sense?”
“I think so.”
“Him killing Erle, killing himself, and blaming it all on our relationship. That’s his last turn of the screw. Trying to make me feel how he wants me to feel, even after I’d left him. Even after he’s dead.” She hugged her knees to her chest. “No more. I’m not going to stand over Wayne’s grave and pretend to be sad in front of everybody. I am sad, but for the lost time. Not for him.”
“That I get.”
“I’m going to Utah to meet Leo’s family. And then I’m going east, just to drive around for a while. Leo wants to join me.”
“He’d be a fool not to.”
I heard the smile in her voice. “Thanks.”
She rolled over and began to curl up to Leo’s back, and then turned her head toward me again.
“Are you upset about Luce getting married?”
Leo had told her the joyous news. “You don’t beat around the bush.”
“Are you?”
I shifted in the antique chair. It creaked. My chest creaked some with it.
“Yeah,” I said. “I am.”
“Sorry.”
“But I’m trying to be happy for her.”
“Tryin’ beats Dyin’. That was on a tin sign in our garage when I was little.” Dez’s words were beginning to slur.
“It’s true, mostly.”
“That sign spooked me. The word Dyin’, right there in big bold red.”
“Big bold idea for a kid,” I said, but Dez was asleep, matching Leo’s slow inhalations with her own.
I sat and concentrated on my own breathing, which still sounded like a busted accordion, and let myself think about other topics than Mercy River, or Fain’s guys, or anything about this hellish day. Including Luce. Instead I considered why people felt the need to put vintage signs in their houses, and what it might have been like to be a child way back when those signs were shiny new on the wall of the penny arcade, and soon I slipped into something next door to sleep.
An hour or two later, I woke as lightly.
The only chance we’ll get, Fain had said. What had he meant? That if I didn’t show, he was giving up? Or that if I wouldn’t make whatever deal he wanted, he would come after us?
I’d had more than enough of dealing with John Fain. And General Kiss-My-Ass Macomber. I wouldn’t put it past the general to have ordered Fain to sacrifice Leo and me if it gained the Rally millions of HaverCorp’s money. Macomber had that kind of single-mindedness.
So where was Captain Fain’s mind now? And why had he sounded almost desperate?
I realized I had decided, sometime during my short nap, to meet him in Pioneer Square like he asked. Time for us to conclude our business. All markers called in, all accounts paid. I didn’t want Fain’s unknown motives hanging over us, like a sword dangling from a single slim thread.