Weiss went on standing at the big arched window, went on looking down at the misty city. Hands in his pockets, shoulders low, chin sunk nearly to his chest. He let his eyes follow the slow progress of a motorcycle as it wove its way through an intersection thick with cars.
A pale white light played over the room behind him. The computer was on at his desk. There had been no e-mail from Bishop. The long silence was like fuel on the fire of urgency in him. Knowing Bishop, it meant he was out of touch. Which probably meant that, against Weiss’s specific instructions, he had worked his way into Hirschorn’s confidence and was moving toward the heart of his operation. Whatever they’re planning, it’s going down soon. Time’s short, I’m doing my best. JB.
Time’s short. But how short? And what were they planning? And what the hell did it have to do with Whip Pomeroy, with Julie Wyant, with the Shadowman?
Weiss stood at the window, stood still, looked down. He watched a man in a black raincoat as he walked swiftly along the sidewalk. The man came under a streetlight haloed in mist. His figure was etched clearly for a moment, hunched against the rain. Then he was gone into the haze and darkness. Weiss stood gazing at the place where he had been.
His mind wandered back to that moment in the car, that moment when he had felt the presence of the Shadowman, felt the poison in him, felt the logic of his monstrous rage. He remembered what Bishop had said about Hirschorn, how he had left a lot of dead bodies on his way to the top. What if it had been the Shadowman who arranged for those bodies to become dead? What if Hirschorn owed the Shadowman something—or owed him everything? And feared him, as anyone would fear him? What if the Shadowman had called in his debts? It would be the nightmare of Hirschorn’s life. Hirschorn would probably do anything to make the hit man go away again.
But what? What had the Shadowman wanted him to do?
Weiss let his thoughts play over it. Pomeroy. Whip Pomeroy was the key. Pomeroy with his secret: Julie Wyant’s new identity, her name. Pomeroy, who had overheard the Shadowman’s humiliation. Weiss knew the Shadowman would have to kill Pomeroy for that. Torture him to find out about Julie and then kill him because he had overheard. Pomeroy knew it too. He knew it and was so terrified he was willing to barter away his clients’ identities if the law would only keep him locked up in the most secure prison in the country—and then he was still terrified. Nothing stops him in the end. Nothing. Ever…You can’t protect me. You can’t protect her. You can’t protect anyone.
Weiss made a soft noise, his head moving slightly. His focus shifted upward from the people and the traffic on the street below. He saw instead the mist coiling and turning above them. No one can protect me. It was ridiculous, he thought. North Wilderness SHU was impregnable. If the Shadowman, if anyone, could get close enough to Pomeroy to make him tell his secret, well, then Weiss was king of Romania.
And yet…And yet he felt that rage, that poison, that unstoppable rage. Rage itself in love. What wouldn’t it do? Weiss peered down into the mist and thought; Rage. Rage in love.
And so he began to consider. If it could be done, how could it be done? If your rage and your love compelled you. If Julie had to be found. If Pomeroy had to die. It was a complicated thing. You couldn’t just bribe a guard or another prisoner to take Pomeroy down. No. You’d need access, real access, real time to work the secret out of him. You’d have to look in the man’s eyes for yourself and know when he was finally telling the truth.
Weiss frowned into the night, unseeing now. The easiest way would be to threaten Pomeroy’s family, his friends, let him know you would hurt them if he didn’t give over. But that was no good. Weiss remembered what Ketchum had said. Moncrieff was the only friend he had, the only anything he had, family, friend, anything.
Weiss’s big chest lifted on a breath. Then there was only one other solution. The Shadowman would have to get into the prison himself. He would have to get a job there as a guard or something. But even as the thought occurred to him, Weiss gave a small shake of his head. He remembered reading that the North Wilderness guards were specially chosen. They needed years of experience, extra months of training. You could fake the credentials but not the references, the recognition. It would take too long, be far too uncertain.
“Ach,” he said softly. The whole thing was impossible. A crazy idea, just Pomeroy’s paranoia.
But that rage. That poison he had felt in the car. The logic of that rage. He stood with his hands in his pockets, unmoving. He came back to himself, focused on the mist again. He stared down into that swirling, shifting mist. Saw the silhouettes and shadows moving underneath it, the lights, ringed and rainbowed, breaking through.
The image of Julie came to him. Those deep and distant, dreaming eyes. That beckoning gesture from the computer screen. For a moment, he was with her by the Golden Gate, watching in suspense as she ditched her car, put on her wig, picked up the new car, the new papers Pomeroy must’ve arranged for her.
And now he was with Pomeroy in his prison cell. Waiting, afraid.
And now he was with the Shadowman. That rage…
There was only one other way into that prison, he thought. The easiest way. The surest way. The way everyone else got in.
Finally, Weiss raised his eyes, raised them until he was gazing, not outside anymore, but into his own reflection.
“For fuck’s sake,” he whispered.
Then, quickly, he turned away from the night-blackened window and moved into the glow of his computer.