The Wolf in Winter

by Connolly, John

  The big house was rarely occupied, even by the standards of vacation homes. Neither was its care entrusted to any of the local Realtors, many of whom boosted their income by acting as agents for summer rentals, and taking care of houses during the winter months. Nevertheless, it was well kept, and local rumor suggested that it had been bought either as part of some complicated tax write-off (in which case the fewer questions asked about it the better, especially in an area swarming with Washingtonians who might or might not have connections to the IRS) or as a corporate investment, for its ownership apparently lay with a shelf company, itself a part of another shelf company, on and on like a series of seemingly infinite matryoshka dolls.

  And now, with the hold of winter still upon the land, and the beaches largely empty and devoid of life, the house at last was occupied. Two men, one young and one old, had been noticed entering and leaving, although they did not socialize in any of the local bars and restaurants, and the older gentleman appeared somewhat frail.

  But two men, of whatever vintages, living together was not so unusual in Rehoboth Beach, and so their presence went largely unremarked.

  INSIDE THE HOUSE, THE Collector brooded by a window. There was no view of the sea here, only a line of trees that protected the house and its occupants from the curiosity of others. The furnishings were largely antiques, some acquired through clever investment but most through bequests, and occasionally by means of outright theft. The Collector viewed such acquisitions as little more than his due. After all, the previous owners had no more use for them, the previous owners being, without exception, dead.

  The Collector heard the sound of the lawyer Eldritch coughing and moving about in the next room. Eldritch slept more since the explosion that had almost cost him his life, and had destroyed the records of crimes, both public and private, painstakingly assembled over many decades of investigation. Even had the old man not been so frail, the loss of the files would have seriously curtailed the Collector’s activities. He had not realized just how much he relied upon ­Eldritch’s knowledge and complicity in order to hunt and prey. Without ­Eldritch, the Collector was reduced to the status of an onlooker, left to speculate on the sins of others without the evidence needed to damn them.

  But in recent days some of Eldritch’s old energy had returned, and he had begun the process of rebuilding his archive. His memory was astonishing in its recall, but his recent sufferings and losses had spurred him still harder to force it to relinquish its store of secrets, fueled by hatred and the desire for revenge. He had lost almost everything that mattered to him: a woman who had been both his consort and his accomplice, and a lifetime’s work of cataloging the mortal failings of men. All he had left now was the Collector, and he would be the weapon with which Eldritch avenged himself.

  And so, where once the lawyer had been a check on the Collector’s urges, he now fed them. Each day brought the two men ever closer. It reminded the Collector that, on one level, they were still father and son, although the thing that lived inside the Collector was very old, and very far from human, and the Collector had largely forgotten his previous identity as the son of the ancient lawyer in the next room.

  The house was one of the newest of the Collector’s property investments, but also one of the best concealed. Curiously, he owed its existence to the detective Parker. The Collector had arrived in Rehoboth as part of his exploration of the detective’s past, his attempt to understand Parker. It was an element of Parker’s history—a minor one, admittedly, but the Collector was nothing if not meticulous—and therefore worthy of examination. The house, modest yet handsome, drew the Collector. He was weary of sparsely furnished hideouts, of uncarpeted rooms filled only with mementos of the dead. He needed a place in which to rest, to contemplate, to plan, and so it was that, through Eldritch, he acquired the house. It remained one of the few in which he still felt secure, particularly since the detective and his friends had begun tracking him, seeking to punish him for the death of one of their own. It was off to Rehoboth that the Collector had spirited the lawyer once his wounds had healed sufficiently to enable him to travel, and now the Collector too was sequestered here. He had never known what it was to be hunted before, for he had always been the hunter. They had come close to trapping him in Newark: the recurrent pain from the torn ligaments in his leg was a reminder of that. This situation could not continue. There was harvesting to be done.

  Worse, when night came the Hollow Men gathered at his window. He had deprived them of life and returned their souls to their maker. What was left of them lingered, drawn to him not only because they erroneously believed that it was he alone who had caused their ­suffering—the dead being as capable of self-delusion as the living—but because he could add to their number. That was their only comfort: that others might suffer as they did. But now they sensed his weakness, his vulnerability, and with it came a terrible, warped hope that the Collector would be wiped from the earth, and with his passing might come the oblivion they desired. At night they gathered among the trees, their skin wrinkled and mottled like old, diseased fruit, waiting, willing the detective and his allies to descend upon the Collector.

  I could kill them, thought the Collector. I could tear Parker apart, and the ones called Angel and Louis. There was enough evidence against them to justify it, enough sin to tip the scales.

  Probably.

  Possibly.

  But what if he was wrong? What might the consequences be? He had killed their friend in a fit of rage, and as a result he was now little better than a marked animal, running from hole to hole, the ring of hunters tightening around him. If the Collector were to kill the detective, his friends would not rest until the Collector was himself buried. If the Collector were to kill Parker’s friends yet leave him alive, the detective would track him to the ends of the earth. And if, by some miracle, he were to kill all three of them? Then a line would have been crossed, and those who protected the detective from the shadows would finish what he had started and hunt the Collector to death. Whatever choice the Collector made would end the same way: the pursuit would continue until he was cornered and his punishment meted out.

  The Collector wanted a cigarette. The lawyer did not like him to smoke in the house. He said that it affected his breathing. The Collector could go outside, of course, but he realized that he had grown fearful of showing himself, as if the slightest moment of carelessness might undo him. He had never before been so frightened. The experience was proving unpleasantly enlightening.

  The Collector concluded that he could not kill the detective. Even if he were to do so and somehow escape the consequences of his actions, he would ultimately be acting against the Divine. The detective was important. He had a role to play in what was to come. He was human, of that the Collector was now certain, but there was an aspect of him that was beyond understanding. Somehow, in some way, he had touched, or been touched by, the Divine. He had survived so much. Evil had been drawn to him, and he had destroyed it in every instance. There were entities that feared the Collector, and yet they feared the detective even more.

  There was no solution. There was no escape.

  He closed his eyes, and felt the gloating triumph of the Hollow Men.

  THE LAWYER ELDRITCH TURNED on his computer and returned to the task in hand: the reconstruction of his records. He was progressing alphabetically, for the most part, but if a later name or detail came to him unexpectedly he would open a separate file and input the new information. The physical records had been little more than aides-mémoire; everything that mattered was contained in his brain.

  His ears ached. His hearing had been damaged in the explosion that killed the woman and destroyed his files, and now he had to endure a continuous high-pitched tinnitus. Some of the nerves in his hands and feet had been damaged as well, causing his legs to spasm as he tried to sleep, and his fingers to freeze into claws if he wrote or typed for too long. His condition was slowly improv
ing, but he was forced to make do without proper physiotherapy or medical advice, for the Collector feared that if Eldritch showed himself it might draw the detective down upon them.

  Let him come, thought Eldritch in his worst moments, as he lay awake in his bed, his legs jerking so violently that he could almost feel the muscles starting to tear, his fingers curling so agonizingly that he was certain the bones must break through the skin. Let him come, and let us be done with all this. But somehow he would steal enough sleep to continue, and each day he tried to convince himself that he could discern a diminution in his sufferings: more time between the spasms in his legs, like a child counting the seconds between cracks of thunder to reassure himself that the storm was passing; a little more control over his fingers and toes, like a transplant patient learning to use a new limb; and a slight reduction in the intensity of the noise in his ears, in the hope that madness might be held at bay.

  The Collector had set up a series of highly secure email drop boxes for Eldritch, with five-step verification and a prohibition on any outside access. Telephone contact was forbidden—it was too easy to trace—but the lawyer still had his informants, and it was important that he remain in touch with them. Now Eldritch opened the first of the drop boxes. There was only one message inside. Its subject line was “IN CASE YOU DID NOT SEE THIS,” and it was only an hour old. The message contained a link to a news report.

  Eldritch cut and pasted the link before opening it. It took him to that evening’s News Center on NBC’s Channel 6, out of Portland, Maine. He watched the report in silence, letting it play in its entirety before he called to the man in the next room.

  “Come here,” said Eldritch. “You need to look at this.”

  Moments later, the Collector appeared at his shoulder.

  “What is it?” he said.

  Eldritch let the news report play a second time.

  “The answer to our problems.”

  CHAPTER

  XXIX

  Garrison Pryor was on his way to the chef’s table at L’Espalier, on Boylston, when the call came through to his personal cell phone, the one that was changed weekly, and for which only a handful of people had the number at any time. He was particularly surprised to see the identity of the caller. Pryor hit the green answer button immediately.

  “Yes?” he said.

  There would be no pleasantries. The Principal Backer didn’t like to linger on unsecured lines.

  “Have you seen the news?”

  “No, I’ve been in meetings all day, and I’m about to join some clients for a late dinner.”

  “Your phone has Internet access?”

  “Of course.”

  “Go to Channel Six in Portland. Call me when you’re done.”

  Pryor didn’t argue or object. He was running late for dinner, but it didn’t matter now. The Principal Backer didn’t make such calls lightly.

  Pryor hung up and found a spot against the wall by the entrance to the Copley T station. It didn’t take him long to find the news report to which the Principal Backer had been referring. He went to the Portland Press Herald’s Web site, just in case it had further details, but there were none.

  He waited a moment, gathered his thoughts, then called the Principal Backer.

  “Are you at home?” asked Pryor.

  “Yes.”

  “But you can talk?”

  “For now. Was it one of ours?”

  “No.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Absolutely. Nobody would have made a move like this without consulting me first, and I would have given no such authorization. It was decided: we should wait.”

  “Make sure that we weren’t involved.”

  “I will, but there’s no doubt in my mind. The man was not short of enemies.”

  “Neither are we. There will be consequences for all of us if we’re found to be anywhere near this.”

  “I’ll send out word. There will be no further activity until you say otherwise.”

  “And get somebody to Scarborough. I want to know exactly what happened at that house.”

  “I’ll make the call now.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line, then:

  “I hear L’Espalier is very good.”

  “Yes.” It took Pryor a second or two to realize that he had not told the Principal Backer where he was eating that night. “Yes, it is.”

  “Perhaps you should inform your clients that you won’t be able to make it to dinner after all.”

  The connection was cut off. Pryor looked at the phone. He’d only had it for two days. He removed the battery, wiped it with his gloves, and tossed it in the trash. As he walked on, he broke the SIM card and dropped the pieces down a drain. He crossed Boylston, heading for Newbury. He stepped into the shadows of Public Alley 440, put the phone on the ground, and began grinding it beneath his heel, harder and harder, until finally he was stamping furiously on fragments of plastic and circuitry, swearing as he did so. Two pedestrians glanced at him as they passed down Exeter, but they didn’t stop.

  Pryor pressed his forehead against the wall of the nearest building and closed his eyes.

  Consequences: that was an understatement. If someone had made an unauthorized hit on the detective, there was no limit to how bad things might get.

  IN AN APARTMENT IN Brooklyn, the rabbi named Epstein sat before his computer screen, watching and listening.

  It had been a long day of discussions, arguments, and something resembling slow progress, assuming one took a tectonic view of such matters. Epstein, along with two of his fellow moderate rabbis, was trying to hammer out compromises between the borough of Brooklyn and the local Hasidim on a lengthy series of issues, including the Hasidim’s desire for the separation of the sexes on city buses and their religious objections to the use of bicycles, mostly with little success. Today, for his sins, Epstein had been forced to explain the concept of metzizah b’peh—the practice of oral suction from a baby’s circumcision wound—to a disbelieving councilman.

  “But why would anyone want to do that?” the councilman kept asking. “Why?”

  And, to be honest, Epstein didn’t really have an answer or, at least, not one that would satisfy the councilman.

  Meanwhile, some of the young Hasidim apparently regarded Epstein with little more affection than they did the goyim. He even heard one of them refer to him behind his back as an alter kocker—an “old fart”—but he didn’t react. Their elders knew better, and at least acknowledged that Epstein was trying to help by acting as a go-­between, attempting to find a compromise with which both the Hasidim and the city could live. Still, if they had their way the Hasidim would wall off Williamsburg from the rest of Brooklyn, although they’d probably have to fight the hipsters for it. The situation wasn’t helped by certain city officials publicly comparing the Hasidim to the Mafia. At times, it was enough to make a reasonable man consider abandoning both his faith and his city. But there was a saying in Hebrew, “We survived Pharoah, we’ll survive this too.” In the words of the old joke, it was the theme of every Jewish holiday: they tried to kill us, they failed, so let’s eat!

  With that in mind, Epstein was hungry when he arrived home, but all thoughts of food were gone now. Beside him stood a young woman dressed in black. Her name was Liat. She was deaf and mute, so she could not hear the news report, but she could read the anchorman’s lips when he appeared onscreen. She took in the images of the police cars, and the house, and the picture of the detective that was being used on all the news reports. It was not a recent photograph. He looked older now. She recalled his face as they had made love, and the feel of his damaged body against hers.

  So many scars, so many wounds, both visible and hidden.

  Epstein touched her arm. She looked down at his face so that she could watch his lips move.

  “Go up
there,” he said. “Find out what you can. I will start making inquiries here.”

  She nodded and left.

  Strange, thought Epstein: he had never seen her cry before.

  CHAPTER

  XL

  It was Bryan Joblin who told them the news, just as he was running out the door. His departure at that moment, leaving them alone, seemed a godsend. Harry and Erin had been growing increasingly fractious with Joblin as his perpetual presence in their lives began to tell on them, while he had settled happily into his role as their watcher, houseguest, and sometime accomplice in a crime yet to be committed. He still pressed Harry to find a girl, as if Harry needed to be reminded. Hayley Conyer herself had stopped by the house that morning while they were clearing up after breakfast, and she had made it very clear to the Dixons that they were running out of time.

  “Things are going to start moving fast around here pretty soon,” Conyer said, as she stood at the front door, as though reluctant even to set foot once again in their crumbling home. “A lot of our problems are about to disappear, and we can start concentrating again on the tasks that matter.”

  She leaned in close to the Dixons, and Harry could smell on her breath the sour stink that he always associated with his mother’s dying—the stench of the body’s internal workings beginning to atrophy.

  “You should know that there are folk in Prosperous who blame you for what happened to our young men in Afghanistan, and to Valerie Gillson and Ben Pearson, too,” she said. “They believe that if you hadn’t let the girl go”—Conyer allowed the different possible interpretations of that conditional clause to hang in the air for a moment—“then four of our people might still be alive. You have a lot of work to do to make up for your failings. I’m giving you three days. By then, you’d better produce a substitute girl for me.”