First Offense

Malcolm Rainey was released from prison on a morning in May when thick clouds drifted low and slow and there was a humid smell of earth and growth in the prison town. He had been permitted to phone his wife the evening before his release. There had been people in the office when he had phoned, and so he had tried to keep his voice level and factual, but Mary had been under no such restraint. She had tried to laugh at herself in the midst of tears, saying in a shaking voice, “I wasn’t going to... be like this. I’ll be there, darling. I’ll be there.”

The assistant warden had said, “You’ll be reporting to Laurts. He’s one of the best. He won’t be on your back. And it’s only for eighteen months.”

Rainey had thanked him.

“I’m glad you adjusted the way you did, Rainey. What I said five years ago still goes. Don’t work up a sweat. Let the ball bounce. Canelli was doing his job. I damn near believe your story. Suppose it’s true. Should Canelli believe it? The jolt for armed robbery, even on a first offense, is stiff. It has to be. Don’t go out with a con psychology. Canelli was a rookie. He was nervous. You had a gun in your hand, and he shot you.”

“He got a medal,” Rainey had said.

Now the phone rang. The assistant warden answered it, grunted, hung up. “That was the gate. Your wife is there.”

“You settled me down. So I didn’t have to do time the hard way. Have you got personal rules about shaking hands?”

“No. I did my job. You did your time. Good luck, Rainey. Don’t come back.”

“I won’t come back.”

The main gate had double doors. They were devised so the second one could not be opened until the first one was shut. A guard behind bulletproof glass controlled the area between the doors. The rain had started again. The old black Chewy coupe was parked across the street. He saw the pale blur of hair through the wetness of the side window of the car as he stood, the first gate shutting behind him, and he was glad she was in the car so that this meeting would not be where the gate guards could watch them. He looked up at the guard behind glass. The man gave him a mock salute. The last gate opened. Rainey walked out. He walked to the car, feeling as though he were crossing a stage. She moved over. He got in behind the wheel.

She reached toward him. “Mal! Mal, darling...”

“Wait,” he said. “Not here.”

He did not want to look at her yet. He was aware of her next to him, the familiar perfume. He stalled the car, then started it. He went through the town and out beyond it on the highway that led to the city. He pulled over on a wide shoulder and yanked the hand brake on. He reached for her then, holding her tightly, her face in the hollow of his neck and shoulder, his eyes burning. She was warm against him, breathing warm against his throat, breathing more quietly as the long minutes passed. Then he held her away and kissed her and held her away again and said, “Hello.”

“Hello, darling,” she said. Five years had changed her. He had been aware of it on her visits. She had been twenty-seven when he went in. Five years showed in the texture of the skin under her eyes, in a deepening of lines that had been faint near the corners of her mouth. They had taken five of his years. He could resent that bitterly. But five years of her. That was the unforgivable part. Five years of the security he could have given her. All the little abrasions of uncertainty and loneliness. It would always be there, that sense of loss.

They drove on, and she told him how to find the apartment. It was very small. It had a bed that pulled down out of the wall and a matchstick screen to hide the kitchen part. But it gleamed. She had saved the best pieces of their furniture. There were cut flowers in two vases. There were three presents for him, in gay paper. He felt awkward as he untied them. There was a shirt, pale blue in a good soft flannel, new gray slacks in the second box, and a bottle of champagne, last of all. She found room for it in the small refrigerator, said, her back still turned, “This darn oven better work right this time. I put a little scrawny wretch of a turkey in there this morning before I left, all wrapped in foil and the heat turned to three hundred.”

“Turkey and champagne. A celebration.” Something in his voice was not quite right.

She turned quickly. “Why not, Mal? Why not?”

“I... I’m sorry, I don’t know. It just seems...”

“Silly? Sentimental? I love you. You’re my husband. You’ve been away, and you’ve come back. It could have been away to the wars, or off on a slow freighter around the world, or... I mean you’re back. Don’t I have a right? Mal, please, don’t I?”

He went to her quickly and held her and said quietly, “I’m sorry. I’ve got rough edges. It isn’t easy for either of us. I want to make it easier for you, not rougher.”

“Me, too,” she said in a small voice.

“So we celebrate,” he said, the gaiety a bit forced.

It was a strange day. There were awkward silences. They did not want to talk of past or future. Slowly, for him, the apartment became a small, safe place, and it was good that it rained outside as though it would never stop. Their love-making was, in the beginning, queerly shy and stilted, as though they were strangers to each other, but then it became a bridge across five years, bringing them close and safe at last in remembered hungers.

The next day was Saturday, and she had taken the two days off from the store where she sold women’s clothing. They slept late. The sun was out, bright across the small table where they ate breakfast. He sensed, as he drank his coffee, that she would want to talk of the future. It made him resent her. Because he knew what he would have to tell her.

She tilted her head a bit, watching him, and started it in a way that surprised him. “Mal, I can’t get all the way close to you. There’s something sort of closed up in your mind. Like a door you’ve shut. Like you said last night, it’s going to be difficult for us. So we’d better start as clean as we can. So you better tell me how you feel about everything.”

He had meant to say it calmly, but it exploded in him so that the smash of his fist on the small table, the bounce and chatter of cups, were sounds he heard from far away. “He lied! He made a mistake and he lied, and they took five years out of my life. Just because he was a green cop. He was nervous. He didn’t want to make a mistake. So he lied and got a medal.”

“Mal! Please. You can’t afford that.”

He got up quickly, turned his back, hands shut tightly. “Good Lord, Mary, I’ve been over it ten thousand times in my head. The way they laughed at me when they questioned me in the hospital.”

They had laughed as if he were telling a joke. To them, it had been a joke. He’d gone over it and over it for them:

“I was walking home from the gas station. I close it at midnight. There wasn’t anybody on the street. I walked by that pawnshop. I saw the light move inside, and then it was dark. I walked on about twenty feet, and then I stopped. I wondered about the light in there. I wondered if somebody was robbing it. I should have called a cop. But I didn’t. I thought if I was wrong I’d look like a fool. I went back and looked in. It was dark. There was a big iron grate over the door. I had the feeling there was somebody in there. I wondered why there wasn’t any night light on. I seemed to half remember there always being a night light on. I took hold of the iron grate and pulled. It opened up.

“I should have gone away then and called a cop. I tried the inside door. It swung open. I stood there, and all of a sudden I thought how I was silhouetted against the street lights. I moved inside and started to move over to one side to get away from the door. Somebody ran right into me. He was moving fast. I grabbed him. I guess you grab instinctively. We both went down. He dropped a mess of stuff. I heard it clatter around. He kicked me in the pit of the stomach. It knocked my wind out. I got up on my knees. I heard him running down the street. I could have chased him if he hadn’t kicked me. I stood up. I stepped on something, and it broke under my foot. I took out my lighter. There were watches and rings and things on the floor. And there was a gun on the floor. I picked it up. I started to pick up the watches and things. I was afraid I’d step on them in the dark.

“I figured there would be a phone in the back someplace. I could call from there. I shoved the rest of the stuff on the floor into a pile with the side of my foot. I went back looking for the phone. It was inside a wire cage, in back of a counter. I saw it when I held the lighter up high. I went around behind the counter. I’d shoved some of the watches and things in my pocket to keep my hands free. I should have laid them down. I guess I was nervous. I was being a hero or something. I never thought about how it would look. Then somebody comes to the open door, and they put a big bright light in my face.”

“And you raised the gun, Rainey.”

“No. I started to say something. I think I said, ‘Somebody broke in here and—’ But I didn’t get any further, because a gun went off and the bullet hit my chest and knocked me down. I hit my head when I went down, I guess.”

“You ought to put that act in Hollywood. You ought to get an agent.”

“He had no reason to shoot me.”

“No, that’s right. He was right unreasonable, wasn’t he? Nice fella like you, gun in his hand, door busted, pry bar on the floor, watches and diamond rings in your pocket, aiming your gun at a cop. You better see your alderman, Rainey. You’ve been imposed on.”

“I tell you it was another guy. Look, I haven’t got any record. I own a gas station. I own my own home. Where’s my wife? Talk to her. Good Lord, this is a mess. It’s a mistake.”

“We’ve talked to your wife. You got a payment due on the station. You got a payment due on the house. You couldn’t have covered them both.”

“I was going to get an extension.”

“You were walking home. And left your car at the station. Why?”

“There was a chatter in the back end I didn’t like. I didn’t want to run it until I had a chance to take it down.”

“You’re exciting the patient,” the nurse had said.

“Where did you get the Luger, Rainey? When you were in the Third Army? Little souvenir?”

“I’m sorry. You’ll have to leave.”

It had been a nightmare, all of it. Mary, white-faced, grimly loyal. The lawyer she’d gotten for him, barely able to conceal his bored skepticism. The deal the lawyer had tried to make for him. But he would not plead guilty. He did not think it could be happening to him. It had not seemed real, even when Canelli had been on the stand, young and dark-haired and handsome, saying, “My partner and I were driving by. I spotted the light. It was his lighter flame. I told Gorman to pull over. I ran back. Gorman was behind me. The door was open. I’d grabbed a flashlight out of the car. I put it in his face. He pointed the gun at me. I fired first.”

“The defendant says he spoke to you.”

“He didn’t say a word. He just aimed.”

Canelli had gotten a citation from the department. Rainey had gotten six and a half years, the sentence prescribed by law for a first offense for armed robbery. He could not believe it. He still had the idea that all of a sudden the enormous mistake would be discovered and everybody would start shaking hands.

But the big doors had closed behind him, and for a few months, knowing the station was gone, the house was gone, the good years were gone, he had been dangerously close to insanity. The assistant warden had straightened him out.

He could not forget what the lawyer had said. “Patrolman Canelli’s testimony is what made the difference. If he had testified you had started to say something and had not pointed the gun, we would have had a chance. A small chance, but a chance. But he couldn’t testify without sounding trigger happy. I think he actually believes you pointed the Luger at him. You can appeal. You can always appeal, but it is too open and shut. It won’t work. You’ll just spend money, get so deep in hock you’ll never get out.”

“Doesn’t a clean record count at all?”

“Not in a case like this. For just breaking and entering, it might be a suspended sentence. But when you carry a gun, you’re licked.”

So at last he had made a stolid adjustment to the immutable fact of prison, the unchangeable days, the stone, the walls, the marching, the silences.

Now he was out, and coming back to life was a painful thing, like blood flowing into a leg that had been asleep too long.

He stood, his back to Mary, and said, “I want him to know what he did to me.”

“Don’t go near him. Please. Promise me you won’t.”

He didn’t answer. And in that way, their first weekend together was flavored by tension. The strangeness came back. They walked in the sunshine in the city because that was something he had thought about doing. But something was spoiled. He sensed the fear in her. But it was blunted against the anger he had nurtured for five years. So there was no true closeness. He was a stranger. She wanted him to give up. But you could not give up and remain a man.

Monday morning he reported to Laurts, found him to be a mild round man, a pipe smoker, quiet and unexpectedly friendly. “You’ve got good friends, Mr. Rainey. It’s a better job than most of the men I deal with manage to land. And that wife of yours is special, too.”

He appreciated being called Mr. Rainey. “How often do I report to you?”

“Come in and chat if you have anything on your mind. Any problem that bothers you. Let me know if you want to move or change jobs. I might look in on you at that trucking outfit sometime. I won’t, though, if you think it would hurt you there.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I want to give you as much freedom as I possibly can. The reports I have on you indicate I can do that. But I want to know one thing, Mr. Rainey. Do you think your sentence was just?”

“No, sir.”

“Could you tell me why?”

“I was convicted because a cop lied. I was innocent.”

Laurts examined the bowl of his pipe, tamped the coals with a yellowed thumb. “I see. And just what do you intend to do about that?”

“Nothing. That’s the way the ball bounced.”

“You’re not bitter about it?”

“Of course, I’m bitter about it. Wouldn’t you be?”

“I guess I would be. Just why don’t you want to do anything about it?”

Rainey shrugged. He hoped he was convincing. “What can I do? Beat him up? Kill him? Go back to jail? What’s the use? I’m out now. I want to stay out.”

Laurts gave him a long look. It made Rainey uncomfortable. “I really want to believe your adjustment is that mature, Mr. Rainey.”

“It is. I had a long time to think.”

“An innocent man in prison is one of the most dreadful things I can imagine, Mr. Rainey. But it happens sometimes. Usually when it happens it is due to an unfortunate physical resemblance, to false identification made in honest error. I went over your case carefully. I do that with every parolee.”

“And what do you think, Mr. Laurts?”

“Do you want me to say what I think?”

Rainey closed his fist slowly. “I guess not.”

“When do you go to work, Mr. Rainey?”

“I phoned Mr. Janson yesterday. I go over there right from here.”

Laurts stood up and held his hand out. “Good luck on the job, Mr. Rainey. I should give you some sort of pep talk about not letting your wife down, or me down, or your friend Mr. Janson down. I’m sure you don’t need or want that sort of thing. So just good luck.”

Barney Janson was in his warehouse office. He came out and shook Rainey’s hand and thumped him on the shoulder and led him back into the office and shut the door.

Rainey didn’t sit down. He planted his feet and said, “Barney, look. I’ve got to get one thing straight. I appreciate what you’re doing. The job offer helped get the parole. But if you think I did what they convicted me of, I can’t stay here. I can’t work here.”

Janson looked at him with disgust. “Sit down, for heaven’s sake. Your nerves are showing. Would I have testified as a character witness? Would I have gone to bat for you in every ineffectual way I could think of? I soldiered three years with you. You’re not a punk with a gun. Sit down and shut up before I get sore.”

Rainey sat down and let his breath out. He grinned at Barney. “Okay. I had to know. It looks like you’ve done pretty well while I’ve been out of circulation.”

“We’ve got twenty trailers, fifteen tractors, most of them free and clear. Eight of the trailers are refrigerated. We’ve got some fat contracts, good drivers, good maintenance, and a lot of work ahead. The dispatcher is named Schubert. I’ll put you with him for a while. That’s the nerve center.”

Schubert was a dry, cynical man. They got along well immediately. By the time Rainey went home that night, his head was spinning with new terms, new concepts. He had carefully planned how it was to be done. And close attention to the job was the first step. There had to be every outward appearance of adjustment. He knew he could deceive all the rest of them.

But not Mary. She knew. And it was something they did not talk about. It was a wall between them.

It was early June before he got to look over the terrain. He had found the name in the phone book and memorized the address. Arthur C. Canelli. Twelve Princeton Road. And he had found Princeton Road on a city map. It was one of the streets in a new development in the flats west of the city.

On a Saturday afternoon, Schubert asked him to drive into town and pick up some new forms from the printer. He took the pickup. He drove out and found Princeton Road, drove slowly by Number Twelve. It was a small cinder-block house, gray with blue trim, with a small, neat yard, a television aerial, a carport, a picture window. The neighboring houses were identical except for the color and the way they were placed on the lots.

He drove quickly into town and picked up the forms and went back to the terminal. Now that he had seen where the man lived, it all began to seem more clear in his mind. It was more possible to visualize what would happen and how it would happen.

During the following weeks, he placed a few phone calls from the terminal and a few from the apartment. In that way, he was able to determine Canelli’s duty hours. He learned it was now Sergeant Canelli. He wondered how much the citation had had to do with the advancement.

From then on, it was a case of waiting. He had learned how to wait. He and Mary no longer had much to say to each other. He waited in a grayness of the spirit, in a grim need for satisfaction that excluded everything but the job and the waiting.

On a Sunday afternoon in late July, when he knew Canelli would not be on duty, he made another one of the calls to the Canelli home. And this time he had a strong hunch about the phone call. Canelli answered. He asked for Mrs. Canelli. “She’s out right now. Can I have her call you? Who is this?”

“That’s all right. I’ll call back later. Thanks.” He hung up.

Mary came out of the bathroom. “Who were you talking to?”

“I’m going out,” he said.

She looked at him. “Mal, please.”

“I’m just going out. Don’t get in an uproar.”

“Don’t yell at me, Mal. Where are you going?”

He banged the door behind him, closing out the sight of her standing there, hugging herself as though she were cold. He did not want to think about her. He wanted to do a lot of thinking about Canelli. He parked the old Chewy on a parallel street. Houses were being built there. He got out of the car. It was a hot day. He walked beside the piles of lumber and cinder blocks and approached the Canelli house from the rear. Knock on the back door. Move in on him the moment the door opened. Give the neighbors no chance to see anything.

There were some small trees growing along the property line. He had to stoop to go between two of them. The back end of the carport projected beyond the rear line of the house. In the corner it formed, a man squatted with flat stones and mortar, building a small terrace. He was a thickset man. Somebody Canelli had hired, Rainey guessed.

Another man sat on a low wall, smoking a cigarette. Both men wore grimy slacks, sweaty T-shirts. The man on the wall saw Rainey and said something to the man laying stone. The man laying stone turned around and looked at Rainey. Rainey’s mouth went dry as he saw it was Canelli, a much heavier Canelli, rapidly balding.

Rainey stood, his heart thumping, waiting for the words he knew would come, waiting for trouble, cursing his own luck. But Canelli was looking at him without any recognition, looking at him with a mild curiosity as he said, “Hi, there.”

Rainey walked slowly toward the two men, made himself smile stiffly, and said, “Hi!” His voice sounded rusty.

“You going to be a neighbor?” the man on the wall said.

“I was thinking about it.”

The man got off the wall. “My name is Hodge. Will Hodge. This is Art Canelli. He lives in this one. I live right across the street. I spend Sundays watching the neighbors work.”

“My name is Jones,” Rainey said. “Uh, Bob Jones.”

Canelli wiped his hand on the side of his pants and shook hands. “These places are built pretty good, but they ask too much money for them. But it’s quiet out here. Good for kids. You got kids?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Haven’t I seen you someplace?” Canelli asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” Rainey said, trying to smile casually. “I look like a lot of people.”

Two kids came racing around the corner of the carport and a dark-haired boy of about five yelled to Canelli, “Can I give Georgie a Coke? Can I, Dad?”

“Go help yourself. But just one apiece. And don’t bust anything getting them out, hear?”

The two children raced into the house. Canelli said, “I got to keep working before this stuff sets on me. You two guys can watch. Will, why don’t you go in and get us some cold beer.”

“I was waiting for that,” Hodge said. He went into the house and came out in a few minutes with three cans of beer. He gave one to Rainey and one to Canelli. Hodge looked at the small terrace and said, “If I wasn’t so lazy, I’d build one myself. Where do you work, Jones?”

“Janson Trucking,” Rainey said. It was the first thing that had popped into his mind.

Rainey wanted to leave and did not know how. His thought processes were dulled. Canelli was putting in the last few stones, working efficiently with the trowel. Hodge set his empty can on the wall and said, “I got to be getting home. Hope you move in the neighborhood, friend. You’ll like it.”

Rainey thanked him. A car drove in. Canelli was setting the last stone in place. “Judy!” he yelled. “Judy, come around and look.” A pretty woman with dark-red hair came around the corner of the carport. A girl about three years old came with her and stood and stared solemnly at the stranger and then at the new terrace.

“It’s lovely, dear,” Mrs. Canelli said.

“This is Mr. Jones, honey. He’s thinking of buying.”

“You’ll like it out here, Mr. Jones,” she said. “Art, I think you’ve done a wonderful job. Is it all done?”

“Just got to even things up a little.”

She smiled at Rainey and told him she was glad to meet him, and then she went on into the house with the small girl. Rainey had finished his beer. He set the can beside the empty can Hodge had left. He knew he could say, as Hodge had said, “I got to be getting home.” And he knew he could not say it. He knew this was a turning point. He knew it was important, without knowing what would happen.

The trowel clinked on stone. Rainey stood by the wall, looking down at the man, at sweat beads on the balding head.

“Don’t you know who I am, Canelli?”

He saw the thick hand lay the trowel down. Canelli straightened up slowly. He was no longer homeowner, terrace builder, neighbor. He stood up, and his face was quite still and he was all cop.

“I had a feeling about you. Who are you?”

“Rainey.”

There was no change of expression. Canelli moved one foot slowly, getting more firmly planted. “Why did you come here? I heard you were out. I remembered what you yelled at me in court. Most of them do. It doesn’t mean a thing.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“All you get here is trouble. All kinds of trouble.”

“You gave me trouble. You gave me five years of it.”

“You gave that to yourself, Rainey. I didn’t give it to you.” Canelli had more confidence. The jocular, patronizing confidence of the working cop.

“Now you change, Canelli. As Jones, I was okay. As Rainey, I stink.”

“You’re a con. I don’t want cons around my home. I don’t want any losers around here where the wife and kids are. I’m going to take you in and book you.”

“For what?”

“Trespass, and anything else I can think of.”

“Will you listen to me?”

“Why should I?”

“Because I could have finished my beer and walked away, and that would have been the end of it. So you ought to want to know why I opened my mouth.”

There was a flicker of uncertainty in Canelli’s eyes. “What do you want to talk about? There’s nothing you can tell me.”

“It’s something I want to ask you.”

“What?”

“I want to know why you lied. I wanted to find you here alone. I wanted to hammer the truth out of you. It didn’t break that way. So I’m asking you. You took five years out of my life. You did it just so you could look better.”

Canelli stared at him. “Are you nuts?”

“I nearly went crazy the first few I months up there. It was close, but I didn’t. I thought about you for five years. I kept wondering how one man could do that to another man.”

“I caught you with the meat in your mouth. I fired before you did. What’s all this about lying?”

“Look. There’s just the two of us here. No witnesses. I can’t prove anything one way or another. Just tell me you lied and tell me why you thought you had to.”

“Brother, you may think you didn’t go crazy up there.”

Rainey looked at him, sensed the contempt, sensed the absolute and brutal honesty of the man, and saw how it had been with him. A man too keyed up to hear Rainey’s first faltering words of explanation, too keyed up to see anything other than the gun, believing later it had been pointed at him. And he could not reach Canelli.

Suddenly Rainey was very tired. “I can’t say anything to you, Canelli. There’s no point in pleading my innocence any more. Nobody is ever going to really believe it except me and my wife. I was tried, convicted, sentenced. I’ve served time. I can’t reopen the case. Do what you want with me. All I can tell you is this.” He leaned closer to Canelli, and he spaced each word. “I’ve never stolen anything in my life.”

“But I caught you there with—”

“I know. With a gun and a pocketful of loot. What difference does it make? Nobody can ever tell you different. My story was true. I thought you lied. I guess you didn’t. I guess you believed what you said on the stand. It was the only chance I had.”

“Why didn’t you go away from here and catch me alone some other time? That was you on the phone, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know. I watched you work. I saw your wife and kids. I got a good look at the way you are under all that rough-cop manner. I thought you might give me a break. I thought it might not hurt you now with the police because it happened five years ago. It was a mistake, I guess.”

Canelli took out a handkerchief and mopped his face slowly. He shoved the handkerchief back in his pocket. He said slowly. “You get so you think in terms of angles. So what’s your angle in coming here? I’m not asking you. I’m trying to think. The only way it can work out is if it did all happen like you said. But I don’t want to think that. If I think that, it means I was wrong and you were right. I don’t want to think that. But I keep remembering I was pretty tensed up. I ran ahead of my partner because I was so damn scared. I had to run fast, because if I slowed down I wouldn’t have gone in there at all. I swear you aimed that gun at me.” He looked at Rainey.

“I was setting it on the countertop.”

“It’s... No, I can’t go along with that.”

“How about this, then. I needed money. That was shown in court. Okay, I’m not stupid. If I had decided to get money dishonestly, I had an easier way to get it.”

“How?”

“Fake a holdup of my own station some night. Hide the cash and get a refund from the insurance. It’s been done before. But I wouldn’t do that. Not Rainey. Not the honest man. I just go to jail for five years for walking home.”

Canelli went over and sat on the wall and mopped his face again. “I’ve wondered about some of the others sometimes. It’s a bad thing to think about, sending a guy up if he’s innocent. But I never thought it about you. That one was open and shut.”

“And the one where it happened. The one time it happened just that way.”

Canelli looked at him with sudden anger. “Go home, will you? Go on home. Get away from me.”

Just before Rainey ducked under the trees, he looked back. Canelli was still sitting on the low wall. The three beer cans glinted in the sun. The trowel lay where Canelli had set it down.

Rainey went back to the apartment. Mary was in the one comfortable chair. She looked up as he came in.

“It’s okay,” he said harshly. “It’s okay. Don’t look at me like that.”

He pulled the bed down out of the wall and stretched out. She did not move from the chair. Somebody near by was listening to the Sunday Philharmonic. It made him think of the five years’ worth of Sundays in prison.

He did not know how long it was before he called her over. He pulled her down and put one arm around her. She felt rigid under his arm, alien and apart.

It was important to explain it to her. The words did not come easily. “Things... happen to people. Being alive means things happen to you. There was a friend of my dad’s. A girder swung and hit him. He was out for nearly two years. They fed him with tubes. They kept him alive. After a long time, he came out of it, and it was another year before he was up and around. So who could he blame? Somebody gets polio. They live in an iron lung for years. So who put them there?

“I don’t know how to say it. I had to blame somebody. It’s hard. I’ve got to start thinking that it was just... a thing that happened to me. People get worse things. I’m not being Pollyanna. It happened, and I’ve got to live with it. That’s all. There isn’t anybody to blame. Not even myself for being stupid. I’m alive. I’ve got you. I’ve got to stop poisoning what I’ve got left. I saw Canelli. He didn’t lie. I can’t beat him up and march him up to God and twist his arm until he confesses. I’ve got to live the best way I can.”

He heard the small sound she made and turned toward her. He saw she was crying, almost silently.

“Hey!” he said softly. “Hey, there!”

“I’m all right. I just... waited so long for this to happen, and I thought... it never would. I thought you’d... go back there again.”

“I won’t go back.” he said, and this time he knew he wouldn’t. He knew he’d outgrown the taste for the dramatic kind of happy ending, and in doing so, had learned there could be another kind.

A little over a week later, he came home and found Canelli sitting in front in a car waiting for him. Canelli asked him to get in and listen for a minute. Rainey got in beside him. Canelli looked straight ahead, tapping his fingers on the horn ring lightly.

“One way I can get it straightened out in my mind. Rainey, I can look up the arrest records. I can find who was picked up later. I can check it through the MO. I can find the people who were picked up for other things. I can make deals. A cop can always trade time for information. All he has to do is admit he was there. It might not work. It might take a lot of time and still never come to anything.”

“I’m glad you’re going to do it.”

“I wasn’t going to tell you I was going to do it. I’ve talked it over with my wife a dozen times. She said I should tell you I was doing it. I said I didn’t want to get your hopes up. She said you maybe needed to know I was doing it because it would mean something to you.”

“It’s a good thing to know.”

“Don’t get your hopes up. It was a long time ago. They don’t even remember the places they try to tap.”

“Thanks. Canelli.”

The man looked at him then with suppressed fury. “Don’t you thank me for a thing. Don’t even talk to me. Get out.”

Rainey got out. Canelli drove off, pushing the car hard. Rainey watched him wrench it around the distant corner. And he saw Mary come around the same corner, walking home from work. She saw him and waved. He waited for her so they could go up the stairs together.