Slice

SOUTH BUCKHEAD

“I'm sorry.” It was all he could say. Peggy was on his shoulder, collapsed, and he held her and rocked her like a baby for a moment as she sobbed. Donna had to physically pull her off and lead her into a bedroom. Bev Tuny had readied their guest room and the doctor was going to sedate Peggy. Donna was going to stay with her the rest of the afternoon. Tonight they were moving everybody to another location. Federal marshals were already working on a transportation plan that was as elaborate as could be devised and quite impenetrable. It would have to be, considering their adversary.

“He tried every way in the world to warn you. He couldn't find you,” Dana was saying.

Eichord answered in a cracked voice, emotionless and flat, saying the words not for the first time, “He datafaxed the latents to me about the time I got the rundown from docs on the note. It tested as Bunkowski's printing. Hair and fibers cross-matched the two locations, and so forth. And so on. It was him. Hadda be. I knew I had to get out of there. He was obviously on the way. But he's capable of anything. I had ‘em put a lid on it up there. I thought it might give us an edge. Shit, all it did was get Jimmie killed."

He broke down and Dana hugged him and said, “Don't say that, man. You didn't get him killed. No fuckin’ way. It was just—shit—his time.” They both sobbed. “If we'd found Donna there. Jesus, Jack, we would have left with a warning to her, or just put surveillance on the house and that insane piece of shit would probably have taken me and Jimmie out and gone in and got Donna, too. Just look at it like this—Jimmie saved her life."

“If she hadn't been outta the house because of the cat...” He trailed off. Donna had called Tuffy and the kitten hadn't come and she'd gone outside looking for him. The black tomcat had him cornered and she'd seen the cat attack the kitten again just as she went running toward them. The tom had Tuffy about half-killed by the time she chased it off. She had gathered up the injured cat and a neighbor lady had been kind enough to run them over to a nearby vet, where Donna had waited while they sewed up Tuffy's injuries, and they told her they'd keep the kitten there overnight. She took a taxi back to find her home, or what was left of it, in ruins, police cars, ambulance, God knows what all from the fire department to the bomb squad parked in the litter-filled street.

Eichord had been on the scene within an hour and a half. It was then that he learned Jimmie had been killed in the explosion. Donna and Dana Tuny and Bev had gone to tell Peggy and they were with her when Eichord arrived.

Dana and Jack went outside and sat on the front steps.

“It don't seem possible.” Dana shook his head.

“Yeah. I know.” Jack took a pen and pocket notebook out and began making notes. He would have sketches made of Bunkowski in every possible wig, facial hair combination, glasses, anything he could think of. He'd use his position with the media. He had an idea: a way he could make it very hot for the killer, whom he knew was still close. If not now, as soon as he found out Eichord was alive, he would be back to try again. Eichord could use himself as bait if he could devise the right sort of a trap. He tried to make some preliminary notes but all he could think of was Jimmie.

“Jack? Dana?” Donna was at the door. “Peggy wants to see you both."

The two of them got up. Eichord started through the doorway, but then stopped and held his arm out for his friend to join him. Chink and Chunk had a thousand little routines they'd always do. Like when they went through a doorway they'd try to go through at the same time so they could pretend they'd gotten stuck. Fat Dana's wedged-in-the-doorway shtick.

Dana realized what Jack wanted and he stepped up into the doorway and they squeezed through together, both of them laughing and then sobbing at the same time.

Jack looked at his fat friend. “I've never loved you any more than I love you right now, Dana.” And Dana hugged him and Jack sobbed. “Of course, I've never loved you any less either,” and broke up completely. He finally got control of himself and they went back to see Peggy, blowing their noses and wiping their eyes.

“Come in, guys,” Peggy said, and they went into the bedroom. “He would have said, Hey, you two look like you-know-what.” And they both smiled and nodded.

“That's right,” Jack said.

“Listen. I know you two are willing to do everything, but I'm okay. I've always been waiting for something like this. You're not ready for it, naturally, but I know what I have to do. I'm going to take care of the details. I've called Jeff and told everybody. I'm about to notify his family in China when the call finally goes through. I've been making some notes. I'll arrange the funeral details and all. I'll be okay.

“I know there was something going on and whatever it was it's all over now. I don't care what it was, but I know that at last he'd decided to do something different and, I dunno, change whatever it was so that it would be right. He was going to make things right. He said to me—one of the last things was, ‘Dana and Jack'll be relieved.’ So whatever it was he'd got it out of his system and I thought you both should know he'd said that to me."

Neither of them said anything.

“He loved you both very much, you know,” she told them, and the tears came in a screaming, uncontrollable flood, and both men went to her and the three of them held one another and cried.

It would be early the next morning before Peg told Jimmie's family about her husband's tragic murder. Nighttime, a day later, as a family friend would listen, carefully taking notes on the other end of a conversation that spanned an ocean and the international dateline. The friend would convey the news of the sad and tragic, faraway death of James Lee to a man who had no voice with which to cry and whose steel hard eyes had long since lost the capacity to shed human tears.