Comeback

6

Miserable, hurt, alone, knowing at last what an utter fool he was, Tom Carmody lay on his back in the high hard bed in this small bare-walled one-patient hospital room and tried to decide what to do. Suicide; confession; silence followed by a life of atonement; silence followed by revenge on—

On whom? Revenge on whom? Which brought him full circle to suicide once more. Who else should he be avenged on, except himself?

Mary. Would they think Mary had anything to do with the robbery? Just because they were friends? Because he'd told her about— That he would never let them know! Never bring her name into it at all, never, never.

His head was heavily bandaged, all across the top and around the back, the thick white layers covering his ears and even pressing his eyebrows down lower over his eyes. He lay cocooned, sounds muffling as they made their way through the swaths of cotton. Why had Grant hit him so hard? Why hit him at all?

Of course, this way at least the police would never suspect, would have no reason to believe the person brutally attacked by the robbers was himself a part of the scheme. So, if he didn't confess—

He kept remembering Grant, on that first meeting, look at him with his cold eyes and say, "If the police catch you, they won't ask your motive." No, they won't.

But he could ask his own motive. Had he ever expected to get away with it, or had he unconsciously been trying to get himself caught all along? Had he ever realistically expected to collect his half of the take? When he didn't even know where they were going with the money from here, where to find them afterward? He knew George Liss's name; the others had probably used aliases. If George wanted to go on pretending to be an honest citizen, if he actually showed up next month at the parole office, Tom could make contact that way. What were the chances?

And what did it matter? An IV tube fed something or other into a vein in his left forearm; surely, if he wanted to kill himself, he could use that needle somehow. He might even be able to get to his feet and go out that window over there.

Wait, he told himself, trying to keep control of his mind, fighting the panic, the guilt, the fear. Wait. Wait to see what happens.

And then Archibald himself came in, followed by Dwayne Thorsen. Tom looked at that smug fat face—he barely registered Thorsen's colder harder face behind the preacher—and his resolve hardened. I'll admit nothing, he promised himself. Nothing.

There was one chair in the room, armless with tubular chrome legs and green vinyl seat and back, and of course Archibald immediately took that for himself, pulling it over to the right side of the bed and sitting where he could comfortably peer into Tom's face, his own face a mask of false sympathy. Naturally it was false, Tom knew better than to trust any emotional display from William Archibald. His skepticism, however, did not yet lead him to believe that Archibald's falseness was anything beyond the normal insincerity that defined the man's life. He did not at all guess that this time the fakery covered an absolute certainty in Tom's guilt.

"How are you, Tom?" Unctuous, oily, the moist eyes melting with sympathy. Meanwhile, his hatchet man, Dwayne, leaned his forearms on the foot rail of the bed, watched Tom like a specimen in the zoo, and made no attempt at all to show anything other than his normal cold indifference.

"Not feeling so good," "Torn said, and was surprised to hear the quaver in his voice. He didn't have to pretend weakness, did he? Weakness and confusion. No pretense at all.

"Guess that fella hit you pretty hard," Archibald said, and nodded in faux sympathy, agreeing with himself. 'Yes, sir."

"Shows you what can happen with those bad companions," Archibald said, face and voice as smoothly caring as ever.

Tom didn't absorb the meaning of the words for the first few seconds, #n

"What I think happened, Tom," Archibald said, gazing into Tom's eyes as though Tom were the greatest TV camera ever made, "I think we all just got caught up in the money too much. You, and me, and Dwayne here, and all of us."

"I don't know what you mean," Tom said. He tried to keep his own face expressionless, but

couldn't help staring at Archibald like a bird in front of a snake.

Archibald ignored Tom's feeble protest. With a theatrical sigh, he said, "I don't excuse any of us, Tom, no, I don't. We've all been culpable in this matter. I should have spent more of my time talking about what the money does, not just how we have to go out and get more of it."

He's a liar, Tom reminded himself, he's a liar and a charlatan, and he's just trying his usual crap on me, that's all it is. Tom knew that's all it was, and he was right, and he knew he was right, and yet he found himself being tugged in nonetheless, drawn by that syrupy voice and those smooth words. Grasping at inessentials because he didn't dare think about the essentials, he said, "The money doesn't do any good."

"Oh, but it does, Tom," Archibald said, "and that's where I've been remiss. Remiss, Tom. I've failed you, and I've failed the Crusade, and I've failed every good soul who has ever put his or her trust in me. Because all I've been saying is, 'Give me money,' and I have slighted, I have ignored, I have failed to make clear, what the money is for."

"It's for you," Tom said, feeling amazingly brave to confront the man like this, to throw the truth in his face for once, with no softening of the blow at all.

"It's for the Crusade," Archibald corrected him, but gently, the milk of human kindness still sheening on his face. 'The television costs us so much, Tom, but without the television how will we reach God's creatures? And the counseling, the crusades in the field, all our efforts . . . Now, I know some of the good we do is strictly speaking not in His service, is more social work than religious work, but I believe God can and will forgive us for our lunch programs and our school crusades and—"

"The money's for you\ⁿ Tom cried, feeling himself sink under Archibald's platitudes, drown in his false pieties, lose his own hard certainties in the undifferentiated sludge of Archibald's philosophy. "It's all for you! The rest of it, it's all just fake, it's all just to cover for you, for you, for you!"

Archibald sighed, more sinned against than sinning. He sat back in the small chair, gazing with sad forgiveness at Tom as he contemplated what had just been said, and finally he replied, "I had suspected that was what you believed of our mission, Tom. I'm glad you've unburdened yourself of it, brought it out in the open where we can look at it."

"It's true, and you know it."

Another sigh. Archibald said, "And I suppose that's why you helped those men."

A hard wall. There, right there, in the path of Tom's life. A huge hard impenetrable wall, right there now. His throat pained him, his eyes pained him, with the emotional sense of his loss. He looked at the stolid Dwayne Thorsen, then back at Archibald. They were waiting for an answer. And he too was waiting to hear his answer. He and they all wanted to know: Would Tom lie? At this point in his life, at this nexus, at this nadir, would he lie? or would he tell the truth?

"Yes," Tom said.

Archibald's long sigh this time seemed more honest, more human, and even Dwayne shifted position slightly, though his face didn't alter. Archibald, as though the question hardly mattered, said, "And do you know where they are now, Tom?"

"No."

"Oh, Tom," Archibald said. "Don't disappoint me at this stage, Tom. You have started to open your heart, don't close it again."

"I don't know where they are," Tom insisted. "And that's the truth."

Archibald and Dwayne shared a glance. Tom knew they were trying to decide whether or not it was the truth, and he knew Archibald didn't really and truly care whether Tom believed all that stuff about the money, all that face-saving garbage about lunch programs and counseling and of course his own work with former convicts. There's a laugh; the work with former convicts. How do you like your social programs now, Reverend Archibald?

Archibald turned his attention back to Tom. "I hope to do what I can to help you," he said, "in your difficulties with the law. And I equally hope you will—"

A knock at the door interrupted him. Archibald frowned at Dwayne, the unctuous mask slipping slightly, and Dwayne silently crossed to the door, opened it, spoke briefly in a low voice with someone outside, accepted a sheet of paper, and shut the door again.

While Archibald and Tom watched, Dwayne came back to the bed, reading the sheet of paper, which was white but flimsy, curling at the edges. Archibald, tension at last apparent in his voice, said, "Dwayne? What is it? Do they have the rascals?"

"No," Dwayne said, and extended the sheet of paper for Archibald to take. The paper curled like parchment as it changed hands, so that for one instant there was something almost Biblical in the transaction.

Archibald unrolled the paper, read it, and the blood drained from his face. That expression of shock wasn't false. Tom stared at the soft clean hands holding the sheet of paper; he burned with both fear and curiosity, wondering if they would even tell him what the paper was all about. And then Archibald looked at him with something new and incomprehensible in his eyes. Sympathy? The genuine article?

Extending the rolled-up sheet of paper, Archibald said, "You should see this, Tom. And I am truly sorry."

What in God's name could it be? Fear clenched Tom's chest as he took the paper and fumblingly unrolled it. A fax, on the letterhead of the Memphis police. It was addressed to Detective Second Grade Lewis Calavecci, and the body of the message read:

"Mary Quindero discovered dead in her apartment. Preliminary medical exam suggests death by drowning. Body found in a closet. Under the circumstances, we'd appreciate more particulars regarding your interest in this person. Please forward your response to—"

"NO!"

"I'm sorry," Archibald said, and this time he sounded as though he really meant it. "Do you have any idea why they would do such a thing?"

"No." Tom gestured vaguely with both hands, too distracted to think. "No! They didn't have to— They didn't even know about her until... I didn't think they knew about. . . There's no reason."

Softly, almost whispered, Archibald said, "Who are they, Tom?"

Tom let the paper go, and it curled into a tube on the blanket covering his legs. "The first one," he said, in a dead dulled voice, "is called George Liss. I met him in the parole program ..."

Around midnight, one of the night nurses foiled Tom's suicide attempt. He'd been trying to slit his wrists with the IV needle torn from his forearm. The tool was inefficient, making a number of shallow gashes, painful and disfiguring but not in any way fatal.

A doctor from emergency was called, who oversaw the cleaning and bandaging of the wounds. Tom spent the rest of the night strapped into the bed, horribly awake, thinking unwillingly about Mary and the people who had killed her. Why? Why?

George Liss. Let them find him, please, God. Let them find George Liss.