The Last Family

25

Rainey Lee seated himself across from Paul and locked his long fingers together on the conference table. “The Buchanans will be at home tomorrow night. I told them I’d call them then to see if they’d changed their minds. I’ll pop over then.”

Paul started to tell Rainey about the hit on the brochure when the telephone rang. Before Paul could pick it up, Sherry did. She lifted the receiver to her ear. “Yes?” She listened for a second and then held the receiver in the air. “It’s Agent McLean in Charlotte.”

Paul lifted his receiver. Rainey sat forward. “Joe. What is it?” Paul listened, smiled, and stuck his thumb up in the air so Sherry could see it from her desk. “Just now? Great. Miami to Orlando. Okay, that’s possible. Don’t close any doors unless you’re two hundred percent sure. By the way, I’ve been thinking about the other prints on the brochure.” He listened for a moment. “Forward them all to D.C. Sherry has the address for someone I want to take a look at them.”

Paul had thought maybe Tod Peoples could find out if any of the other prints belonged to a possible accomplice. A lot of people Martin knew from the old days might not have prints in the normal files, but might have prints in files Tod Peoples was in a unique position to index.

“Fax me a copy of the brochure and start working on Eve’s travel options. We need to get ahead on her itinerary.” He turned. “Sherry. Give Joe the address in D.C. of the Lux lab from the Rolodex.” He waited until she lifted the phone. “Great work and keep me posted,” he said before he hung up.

“What is it?” Rainey asked, standing. “Martin?”

Paul slapped his hands together. “They got three Martin Fletcher prints-two partials and one complete.”

“So where is he?”

“The prints were on a brochure. Junk mail.”

“You were right. How did you know?”

“It was what I would have done. What maniacs would fingerprint junk mail? Watch FedEx and UPS, sure-but junkers? Prints were in a pamphlet from a condominium development in Colorado. Denver office says the development has been sold out for two years, so he picked up the brochure and envelope at least two years ago.”

“What a fox,” Sherry said, the admiration evident in her voice.

Paul cocked his head and stared at her.

She blushed again. “I meant ‘fox’ as in ‘smart.’ ”

“It was mailed from Pueblo, Colorado. Three days ago.”

“Government information center’s there, isn’t it?” Sherry asked.

“So we go to Colorado?” Rainey asked. “Wait for Eve to come. Get into position.”

“No.” Paul said. “We wait. There was no message they could see in the brochure.”

“Maybe that’s what he wants you to think,” Sherry said.

Paul nodded. He had already considered that possibility. He would have helicopters and vehicles ready for his A team in both places. He would handle the logistics no matter how many cities might be thrown into the mix by Martin and the old lady.

“That just means the signal was a prearranged one. I doubt very seriously that he was in Pueblo long, if he was there at all. He might have paid someone to do that, or he may have been passing through. He wouldn’t mail it from a home base. When Eve Fletcher moves, we’ll be there. In the meantime we do what we’ve been doing and ignore the confetti he’s throwing. We’re running out of time.”

Paul rubbed his hands together and opened a box of pictures. The first one illustrated the magnitude of the task. The photo showed a grainy TV-screen image of fifteen people carrying briefcases and suitcases, moving into the airport lobby. The faces were hardly larger than an infant’s fingernails. “Great,” Paul said as he thumbed through the stack of pictures and looked at the other boxes yet unopened. A twist of his wrist sent the stack across the table in a fan. “Fuckin’ great.”

Then he had a thought. “Get the airport tapes overnighted to Tod Peoples. Let his people look and see if they can identify anyone they know.”

“This guy, Peoples. Do his guys know what everybody in America looks like?” Sherry laughed at the absurdity.

Paul looked at her. “Don’t tell me you think that’s not possible.” Then he laughed and shook his head. “We’re cooking with gas,” Paul said.

Sherry left the room.

Rainey was staring at the back of Paul’s head. “It’s coming down,” he said. “I can feel it.”

Sherry opened the door and stuck her head back into the room. “Paul, there’s a call for you. You might want to take it.”

“I’ve got a lot to do,” he said. “Ask them to call back later?”

“It’s Reb Masterson.”

The color drained from Paul’s face as he stared at the telephone.

“Later, Paul,” Rainey said as he hurriedly left the room.

As Sherry left, she saw that Paul, although he had a hand on the receiver, seemed to be studying the telephone’s blinking light. When she pulled the door closed, he still hadn’t taken the call. As she sat at her desk, she saw the blinking light go solid, indicating that he had opened the line.

Paul lifted the receiver to his ear and pressed the button opening the line. “Yeah?” he said. His ears felt as if they were burning; his stomach was hollow.

“Paul, it’s Thorne. Reb’s here in the watch room. He insists on speaking to you. I told him how-”

“Put him on.” Paul didn’t want Thorne to miss the displeasure in his voice.

After a second had passed, the small voice came on.

“Hello?”

“Hello,” Paul said.

“Is this my daddy?”

There was a long silence before Paul could speak.

“Adam?”

“It’s Reb,” he said. “Don’t you remember? Reb. Nobody still calls me that.”

“Sure, son. What do you need?”

“I want you to tell me why you have these people watching us.”

“Because a very dangerous man is-”

“Killing people. I know all that.”

“Well, Mr. Greer can tell you. This man is very dangerous. You have to do what Thorne says. And everything will be all right.”

“I have a question.”

“Okay,” Paul said. He put a cigarette in his mouth and lighted it nervously, conscious that his right hand was trembling.

“If we’re in danger, why aren’t you here in New Orleans?”

“I’m in Nashville, Reb. I have a lot to do here. Really. It’s important for me to be here.”

“Why don’t you love us? Is it because of Mama and Reid?”

“No, Reb. You don’t have any idea how much I love you guys. Don’t I always remember your birthday and Christmas?” Paul’s voice was wavering slightly.

“Mama says words are cheap. You can’t say things if you don’t show ’em. And two things a year don’t mean anything, ’specially if you send things we don’t even need. And you don’t even write or call ever. I know kids whose parents are divorced and they see them a lot.”

“This isn’t about love and this isn’t the time for this discussion. Afterward we can-”

“After what? Erin and me are growing up without you, and you don’t even know how hard it is not to have a father. If it was you in danger, we would be there to help you and not get strangers to watch you.”

“I would be there if it was best,” Paul said slowly. “What I’m doing here is more important to the whole operation.”

“How’re you gonna feel if we get shot dead and you’re far away someplace? What if it was only you that could have saved us? You took a love-and-cherish oath with Mama. Death do you part, and you aren’t dead! And you made a deal with God to get us… children. Mama told me. You swore to God you’d love us and protect us and make sure we were raised right. Did you lie to us or to God?”

“Adam, that isn’t fair.”

Paul was startled when Reb screamed into the telephone. “It’s Reb, dangit! It’s Reb, and if you weren’t so stupid selfish, you’d know it! You don’t know us! You’re my daddy and you’re just like nothing at all!”

“Adam… Reb. I can’t come right now. Someday soon…”

“Don’t come, then. If I die, I’m gonna haunt you till you never sleep again!” The child seemed to calm a bit. “You come here right now, or you just stay away from us for good and ever. That man wants to kill us, and it’s you he oughta be trying to kill! We don’t even know him. What did you do to him?”

Paul fought to keep his voice level, to remain calm. Inside it was as though his internal organs were being twisted. “Reb… it’s more complicated than that. Listen to me for a minute.”

“You listen to me. I hate you, and I won’t let anybody say your name to me again, ever! You’ve always hurt us, and we never did any stuff to hurt you.”

Paul’s frustration and insecurity were replaced by anger, and he exploded. “Dammit, Adam Masterson, what the hell do you know about it? You’re a child and you’ll do what you’re told!” Paul felt a strange tingling in the roof of his head, and then the room disappeared as though an aperture in his eye were being closed.

Sherry heard Paul’s voice raised in anger. She couldn’t make out what he was saying, but then he quieted. She started checking through some notes he had asked her to type up and fax to Mr. Peoples. She heard a loud thump, and after a few seconds she tapped at the door. There was no answer and the line was still lit, but she had a strange, uncomfortable feeling. She opened the door into the conference room.

Paul was sprawled beside the conference table in the throes of a seizure, his mouth oozing white froth, his body jerking as though he were being electrocuted. “Somebody get a doctor!” she yelled. Within seconds the doorway from her office was filled with the faces of DEA agents and secretaries from the offices down the hall. Rainey Lee knelt beside Paul.

“Seizure,” he said. “Epilepsy. He takes medication for it.”

“What do we do?” she pleaded.

“Just keep doing what you’re doing. Just keep him from hitting anything and try to keep him on his side.” Rainey went into the bathroom and brought her a wet washcloth, pausing to close the door on the onlookers.

“Aren’t you supposed to do something with his tongue?” she asked.

Rainey shook his head. “No. He’ll be fine on his own,” he said as he rolled his coat into a pillow and tucked it between Sherry’s lap and Paul’s head. “It’s from the brain damage. He said this might happen, and that if it did, he’d come around and to just make sure he didn’t bang his head against anything. He forgets to take the pills sometimes. I’ll cancel the ambulance-it’ll just embarrass him.”

Sherry Lander was aware of Rainey closing the door as he left. After the trembling slowed, she took the opportunity to study the man she had been working with, up close. She put her finger on the scar on the side of his head and traced it slowly from the starting point to the finish. The indentation in the skull wasn’t as deep as she had thought. She picked up the patch, which had come unplaced, and covered the red, raw-looking, empty socket.

Sherry turned Paul’s head so that the right side was against her lap, his profile standing out against the black skirt as though lit from within. Aside from the damage the bullet had done, Paul Masterson was a very handsome man. The affected side did take some getting used to, but Sherry had liked something about Paul Masterson from the very first time she had laid eyes on him, heard his rocky voice. She could feel a shaft of sorrow in him that reached to a great depth. She had seen fleeting glimpses of a warm, caring person with a sense of humor buried beneath the serious mask of command. Somehow she felt that he had doubts about his abilities. It was just a sense she got when she caught him staring out the window, deep in thought. He was playing a game of life and death, and his own flesh and blood was the wager. How could he not be insecure beneath the facade?

Sherry wiped his face gently, and the eye showed its pupil again. Somewhere inside her a tension spring relaxed, and she was filled with a warm glow that he was coming back. She tried to imagine what it must be like to live with what he had to live with. Loss of blocks of memory, loss of physical abilities he had taken for granted, the constant pain. Rainey had described the rages that had taken control of him during his rehabilitation. That he had run away from the world and hidden alone for years. She felt sorry for him but not because of his injuries. She felt sorry for him because he still had a long way to go before he could begin to live again. She tried to imagine him relaxing but couldn’t conjure the image. She tried to imagine him at the height of his ability-a man with the self-assurance of an alley cat. That she saw. She could imagine herself in his arms.

Paul tried to smile as the room came filtering back into his consciousness. She knew he must be embarrassed. He sat, rubbed the back of his head, and stood uncertainly before seating himself in the conference chair closest to him. He put his fingers to the patch reflexively, to make sure it was in place.

“Thank you,” he said. “I guess I fell.”

“Happen often?”

“No. Not really. Anger, frustration… I’m not sure of the triggers. I guess frustration and anger this time.”

“You didn’t miss a few pills, perhaps?” she asked.

“Yes. I suppose I must have.” He stood and then sat behind the desk. He hung up the telephone.

Sherry stood and patted her skirt back into place. “You know, I saw on TV where there are dogs that can spot the signs of a seizure and get you to sit down before you fall.”

Paul dropped the smile. “I don’t like dogs,” he said.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to presume.”

“I don’t exactly dislike them. I’m just sort of allergic to them.”

“A poodle,” she said. “They’re hypoallergenic or nonallergenic, or whichever it is. And Chihuahuas, and there’s some Japanese one.”

“Poodles I hate,” he said. “And Chihuahuas?” He laughed. “I’d rather fall a thousand times than tolerate company like that.”

Sherry frowned. “Standard poodles are like normal dogs-my mother has one. And my aunt Grace has a pair of Chihuahuas. Yin and Yang. I know… Chinese names for Mexican dogs?”

Paul laughed, bent down, and started picking up the files he had scattered over the carpet when he fell. Sherry helped him, gathering them in her hands. When she handed him the files, her hand wrapped his, and she held it in place for a long couple of seconds. Then she smiled at him. He averted his eye and turned.

“You okay?” she asked as professionally as possible.

“Thanks for everything. Sorry about the trouble I caused. Mind if I ask you a personal question?”

“If I do, I just won’t answer it.”

“Are you single?”

“Yes. I ask you one?”

“I guess so,” Paul said. He shifted and put his arms behind his neck, enjoying the prospect of his first pleasant conversation in a week.

“Why didn’t you ever get your face fixed?”

Paul laughed out loud as he jerked his hands from the chair’s armrests to the desk. It was a laugh of surprise and embarrassment, more like a dog’s bark. He stared at her, trying to decide whether he was hurt or angry or exactly what he was. “Why would you ask that?”

Paul started squeezing down on the tennis ball with his left hand.

“Well, you said I could. And because you would be a remarkably handsome man. I mean the left side of your face is really nice to look at. I just wondered if you didn’t get plastic surgery because you wanted to punish yourself.”

Paul turned and opened the file closest to him. He tried to read it, but he was shaking. “If that’s all,” he said.

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Mr. Masterson. Really I didn’t.”

“I have work to do-I imagine you do, too.”

She went to the door and stopped and turned. “Should I leave? Am I fired?”

“No, you aren’t fired. Do something constructive. You shouldn’t waste your time wondering about… me.” He almost swallowed the last word.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “if I offended you. Sometimes I let my curiosity get me in trouble.”

“It’s all right. I opened the door but let’s close it.” He looked up and slammed the file closed. “Two things. One, don’t ever try to analyze me, because you don’t have any idea what’s gone on in my life or what I think or how I feel. And keep up the good work.”

She smiled. “Thanks,” she added. “Sorry.” She stood still and stared at him.

He knew what he wanted to say. I’m lonely right now. I need company. Companionship for a little while. I want to… After Sherry left the room, he spent a half hour staring out the window at downtown Nashville, thinking about what had happened before the seizure had struck. How many days since I took the antiseizure medicine? Paul thought about the medicine and knew that because he was back in the saddle, he had almost unconsciously decided he wouldn’t need it.

Paul had been in a rage when the seizure had taken him down. He regretted what he had said and how he’d said it. But he decided that his instincts had been fine. It was better that the child forget him. Better they all do. Even if he wanted to, he could not go to New Orleans until the time was right. You’ll see me soon enough, Martin.