He moved impatiently around the house, alert for the sound of the monitored telephone that never rang, unable to settle anywhere for long. He poured a drink he didn’t want and finally forced himself to remain in the main lounge, where the larger television was, so that he could watch the later broadcasts. They contained nothing beyond what he heard earlier but it was at least a way to occupy himself. He went finally to bed, because there was nothing else to do, but not to sleep. He took off his shoes and lay dressed on top of the covers, not wanting there to be the delay of even minutes when the news came. He tried to read but couldn’t concentrate, so he stopped bothering, lapsing into a half-doze from which he kept blinking awake at the smallest house-sound or noise from outside, in the guarded street or beyond. He got up early, when it was only half-light, and showered and changed—doing both quickly, in case the call came—and made coffee and went back to the television, for the early newscasts. Because it remained the major story, the indictment against Scarletti and the freeing of Gomez was repeated but there was no further development overnight.
He would give it until ten and then call Brennan, Farr decided. He guessed that the FBI supervisor would contact him the moment he heard anything, but at least he would be doing something; it was the inactivity as well as the uncertainty that was irritating the broker. No later than ten, definitely.
Brennan would create hell when Harriet and the boy were freed and the man discovered what he’d done. Farr expected it and decided he could not give a fuck; only one priority, he thought again, in familiar litany. He knew Brennan did not fully believe him—Seymour and Harrop maybe, but not Brennan. That had been obvious from the meeting afterward, in the district attorney’s chambers. Farr had rigidly maintained his insistence that Gomez was not the man he’d met in Lang’s office, knowing they couldn’t prove otherwise. But Brennan’s attitude was suspicious and accusatory; he subjected Farr to a virtual interrogation, until Harrop pulled the man back from some of the cross-questioning, and even then it hadn’t stopped. I hope to hell you haven’t done anything stupid, Brennan had said, in parting. Despite the apprehension, Farr smiled, sure that he hadn’t. Farr was not worried about Brennan. He could withstand any anger and attack from the FBI man—even official accusation, if they felt strongly enough to make any sort of case out of it. Anything, just as long as Harriet and the boy were OK.
Today, thought Farr; please make it today.
The arrangement was that he would not answer his own telephone; that one of the FBI men would respond, pretending to be staff, for the proper monitoring facilities to be triggered and the source traced during the apparent delay in connection. Farr had become accustomed to it—although he continued to start instinctively toward the instrument at the first sound, then held back. Because the routine was familiar by now, he was surprised at the quickness with which a bulging-stomached man named Edmington, who was that week’s FBI supervisor, came into the room after taking the call. The quickness was not the only unusual thing; Edmington was usually polite—almost excessively so. In the past he had always knocked; this morning he did not.
He seemed flustered upon entry, as if he had forgotten his usual manner. “Oh, you’re here. It’s Brennan: he’s coming. Soon.”
Farr smiled in anticipation. “They’re OK?”
“Brennan’s coming.”
“I didn’t ask that,” said Farr. “I asked if they’re OK.”
“He won’t be long.”
“Isn’t it about Harriet? Howard?”
“I don’t know,” said the other man. “He just called and said he’d be here soon. That he wanted to talk to you.”
Farr looked uncertainly at the FBI official. The attitude was understandable if Harriet had explained what had happened and Brennan—and the Bureau—knew how he’d lied, on oath. He said, “Do you know if they’re OK?”
“No,” said Edmington. Hurriedly, he said, “I mean, we didn’t talk about it. He’s coming.”
Brennan arrived soon afterward. The FBI supervisor entered abruptly, with Seymour behind him, but, once inside the house, the man seemed unaware of their surroundings, stopping immediately as if unsure of their way and staring around the lobby. Farr was expectantly at the drawing-room door, gesturing them forward urgently, looking beyond them for Harriet—this was her home, after all.
Neither Brennan nor Seymour responded at once to the encouragement. Both remained where they were.
Farr looked between the two men and said, “They’re OK? You’ve found Harriet? And Howard?”
Still there was no response. At last, they moved. There was further awkwardness, neither seeming sure if they should sit or stand. Brennan said to Farr, “You got a doctor?”
“Of course I’ve got a doctor,” said Farr, confused.
“Maybe we should get him,” said Brennan.
“Get him? Why …?” Farr stopped, conscious of his own stupidity. “… They hurt …?”
“We weren’t thinking of them. Not of Harriet or Howard,” said Seymour quietly.
“I don’t …” started Farr.
“I’m sorry,” said Brennan. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t think—hoped—that it would be like this.”
“Like what?” After the emotions of the preceding weeks and months, Farr expected to have some reaction. Incredibly, he didn’t. It was as if he were suspended above it all, an uninvolved observer of the conversation and interaction of himself and Brennan and Seymour. Not waiting for Brennan to reply to one question, Farr posed more. “You’ve found them, haven’t you?” he said. “They’re all right?”
“They’re dead,” said Brennan.
There was a long silence, which was finally punctured by Farr with a wail of echoing, plaintive despair. “No! Oh dear God, no!”
“Sorry,” said Brennan. “All I can say is, I’m sorry. How we’re both sorry.”
“That wasn’t …” started Farr. “You said you could find them,” he completed. “Get them back.”
“We did everything we could,” said Brennan. “There was so little.”
“Fucking liar!” erupted Farr. “You did fuck all! Nothing! Let them die.”
“It won’t mean much, not now,” said Seymour. “But it was true what I said during the meeting with the district attorney. Harriet was one of us and so it was an attack upon one of us. We did take the bricks out of the houses. We had every informant and streetman and contact on the entire eastern seaboard turned over and shaken, for just a clue. There was nothing: believe me, there was nothing.”
Farr began to cry unashamedly; his nose ran, too, and he sobbed and he didn’t care. “They shouldn’t have died!”
“They have,” insisted Brennan. “Don’t run from it, not from the truth. They’re dead. I always feared they would be but I tried to convince you—convince myself—that they’d be all right. That it wouldn’t happen.”
“You didn’t say,” said Farr emptily.
“Of course I didn’t say.”
“Conviction was too important?”
“Would it have helped?”
“Would anything have helped?”
“That was the problem,” admitted Seymour. “Nothing would have helped. Certainly not telling you what it was going to be like.”
Farr shut his eyes, against the men in the room and against what they were telling him and against the possible mistake he’d made—although he still wasn’t sure it was a mistake—and against what it meant.
“We want you to agree to something,” said Seymour, seemingly from a distance.
Reluctantly Farr opened his eyes, knowing they were still there and that what they were telling him still existed: that Harriet was dead and that Howard was dead. “What?” he asked dully.
“Harriet’s got a relation. An uncle. Lives in San Diego. What about Howard?”
Farr tried to concentrate. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Is there any other relation, apart from yourself?” said Brennan.
Farr frowned, stil
l not understanding. “No,” he said, slowly. “Ann’s dead. So are her parents—my parents, too, before he was even born.”
There was an exchange of looks between the two FBI men. Brennan said, “We’ve been in touch with Jennings at the school. Halpern, too. If you’re willing—in the circumstances, we could get the coroner to agree to their providing the identification.”
“What?” demanded Farr, his voice hollow.
Brennan said, “We think it would be better for Jennings or Halpern to do it.”
“How bad?” said Farr, increasingly feeling the witness to someone else’s conversation.
“Bad,” said Brennan. “I’m sorry. Very bad.”
“For Christ’s sake stop telling me that you’re sorry!” erupted Farr. “You couldn’t give a fuck!”
The other men refused to argue with him; react in any way. Seymour said, “Is it OK with you if we have Jennings or Halpern carry out the identification?”
“No!”
“Walter,” said Brennan. “I’m not going to try to pretend there’s been anything like friendship between us. Try to defend or explain anything, even. Let’s just say we got thrown together. There’ve been some foul-ups, but I always tried to keep it straight—as straight as I reasonably felt I could. Now I’m being completely straight. Let’s do it our way: we’re trying to help.”
“What did they do to them?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Don’t be so fucking stupid!”
“Don’t you be so fucking stupid,” came back Brennan. “Don’t do this to yourself.”
“I won’t agree to either Jennings or Halpern identifying Howard,” said Farr. “I want to do it. I want to identify Harriet—to see Harriet—as well.”
Brennan made as if to argue further but stopped at a headshake from Seymour. The bespectacled FBI man said, “Please. Don’t do it.”
“Yes!” insisted Farr.
They went to Boston in an FBI plane, a small executive machine with only six seats but surprisingly luxurious, leather-seated, and with what appeared to be a cocktail cabinet at the rear. It was the sort of detail that registerd with Farr in his suspended state, rather than where he was going or what for. He was almost oblivious of the landing and the journey into Boston, but the moment he entered the building to which they took him he realized that it was the one he’d gone to the night of Howard’s arrest, when the boy had hunched in the detention cell and asked him to get drugs and made Farr wonder if they’d be able to establish any sort of relationship ever again.
The mortuary was brightly white and smelled of formaldehyde and antiseptic. An attendant led them to the wall of tiered racks, like giant filing cabinets. When they got to it, Seymour said, “Let’s not do this. It isn’t necessary. There’s no point.”
“I want to be the one.”
There’d been warning enough and despite the unreality of his feelings, Farr had tried to be prepared—but he wasn’t, not at all, for what he saw. The anguished despair moaned from him, in a desperate, wailing sound, at the sight of his son. Because of the beating, everything was obscenely bloated, not just Howard’s face but his body as well. There was no nose or ears and there were brutalized stitch marks where his mouth had been secured, to enclose something. Against the grotesque distortion, the bullet wound in the temple appeared surprisingly neat—considerately, the attendant maintained the covering sheet over the hugely swollen body.
“You’ve got to say yes,” insisted Brennan.
“Yes,” said Farr and then he vomited, hardly able to turn away from the tray upon which his son’s body was laid. He used the edge for support, retching and vomiting further, crying as well. The three men—Brennan, Seymour and the attendant—stood back, not so much to distance themselves but to give him room for his grief. Seymour even offered the broker a handkerchief, for his face and eyes, and after he’d used it Farr looked unsure what to do with it. Aware of the mess he’d created, he said to the attendant, “I’m sorry.” The man shrugged and said, “It happens. Forget it,” and Farr wondered—seizing details again—whether it often did.
Farr was unaware of their leaving the building or of entering the bar or of ordering the whisky he found cupped between his hands. “I should have listened to what you said.”
Brennan and Seymour did not speak.
Farr said, “Harriet? Is Harriet like that?”
“Yes,” said Brennan. “Don’t do it. Don’t try to see her.”
Farr had to grip the glass tightly and needed to keep his head bent over the table for some moments, to stop the urge to cry again. Then he said, “No. No, I won’t.”
“I guess it’s not much satisfaction—will never be—but at least we got the indictment against Scarletti,” said Brennan. “He has to be the one responsible.”
Except that it wasn’t Scarletti, Farr knew.
The Colombians went home from America by a variety of different routes. Gomez flew first and direct. Ramos was pleased with the way it had gone and decided he deserved a reward, so he stayed three days in Haiti, because there was a brothel in Port au Prince specializing in very young girls, and Ramos’s preference was for very young girls. It meant that he was the last to arrive in Medellin, which was the way he wanted it; everyone assembled to see him get the proper recognition for freeing Gomez. He telephoned from Bogotá and when he got to the finca in the Andean foothills he saw that they were assembled like some reception committee in the courtyard with its green, floral centerpiece. Ramos descended smiling from the car. The men he’d summoned to America—both groups—were gathered in a half-arc, and all the guards whom Ramos controlled were waiting. As he approached, Gomez emerged from the house, as if he’d been waiting as well. Ramos stayed smiling in anticipation of the greeting.
“Motherfucker!” screamed the trafficker. “You were supposed to see it didn’t happen! You let me get arrested and go through a fucking hearing! Do you know what they’ve seized; that I can’t get seven hundred and fifty million dollars!”
Then he hit Ramos, a clubbing punch that so took Ramos by surprise that the man stumbled backward and then fell in front of everyone. As Ramos lay in the dirt Gomez kicked him low in the stomach, so that all the breath was driven from him and he writhed in pain. Through misted eyes Ramos saw Gomez turn away from him and stride back toward the main house.
29
Farr’s grief was absolute. He retreated within himself, reacting automatically to outside events but practically unaware of them or of the people concerned. Angela Nolan and Faltham organized Howard’s funeral and escorted Farr to it—with the now customary FBI protection. Brennan and Faltham explained the circumstances to the San Diego uncle, who was not close to Harriet and who therefore agreed to her being buried on the East Coast as well. Howard was buried in the same plot as Ann, and Farr arranged the purchase of an adjoining space for Harriet. Her funeral took place after that of his son.
Farr made no effort to leave 63rd Street for almost a month—no effort to do anything, in fact, not bothering to shave or to bathe or to change his clothes. He wouldn’t have troubled to eat if the housekeeper whom the FBI finally allowed back into the house hadn’t prepared things for him; even so he scarcely touched the food, oblivious to what it was. He drank too much in the first week, mostly Scotch, wanting to numb himself—it worked, to a degree, but it began to make him sick, and the hangovers worsened, so he reduced the intake, physically hurting instead of physically numb, which wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.
Faltham maintained daily contact by telephone and came to the house at least three times a week. He made no comment on Farr’s personal neglect. He concentrated entirely upon the business, insisting that Farr discuss things with him and forcing the broker to respond with an opinion, making Farr accept work as the support and rum away from the internally eroding self-pity. Farr rejected his friend’s efforts initially, wanting to turn everything over to Faltham and get out. He told Faltham to draw up the transference documents, w
hich Faltham refused to do—just as Angela Nolan refused when Farr gave her the same instructions. Between them, the woman and Faltham worked hard at diverting Farr from his determination to quit to achieve instead what they wanted: his return to the business. Individually they hinted and argued that there could not be the sort of change that the broker wanted until there had been what, in a limited or public company, would have been an annual general meeting, where they could examine the profit or loss of the business. It worked. Farr began to take an interest in the work that Faltham brought to 63rd Street, and Faltham began to complain at the difficulty of transporting files and dossiers between the two places and of the disadvantage they suffered at the house by not having computers available.
Faltham received the warning of Farr’s return from the FBI, because the broker told them what he intended to do, and the Bureau insisted upon checking out the security of the floor with its view of Battery Park and the trade center. It enabled Faltham fully to prepare the entire staff—the clerks and the secretaries, not just the senior investment personnel—so that when Farr emerged from the elevator there was no surprised reaction whatsoever to his reappearance. From the first day of Farr’s return, they burdened him with activity and decisions, but cleverly, so that it was impossible for him to suspect that he was being patronized or spoon-fed: the portfolios and investments needed examination and choices genuinely needed to be made. Angela Nolan, who had maintained his personal section of the business during the man’s absence, was the most closely involved, but Faltham was constantly present as well, and when the pressure began to slacken upon Farr, after he’d reviewed everything the woman had done, it was Faltham who devised the way to sustain it. Appearing to follow Farr’s wishes about the transference, he had the senior and junior brokers in the firm submit their activities for review, for an overall assessment to be made of success and viability. It meant concentration from early morning to late night for Farr, and Faltham and the woman watched with increasing satisfaction Farr’s further emergence from the cocoon in which he attempted to wrap himself.
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