The Pandora Key aka The Hostage Room

33

BY THE TIME I’D FINISHED DRYING MY HAIR, IT HAD BEEN half an hour, so I did my Max Kraft routine, beeping him and putting in my number and 911, just in case he needed a reminder to check his e-mail. I called Felix and told him he was on standby. Then I tried Bo again and finally got him. He was still in Philadelphia and would be until things in Boston cooled down. Timon was with him for the same reason. I felt bad for having dragged him into it. He told me not to worry, that he had done what he did for Harvey. He gave me detailed instructions on how to reach Radik if I needed help.

Harvey had spent most of the night before going through Lyle’s research. He had organized it and put it all into a nifty leather portfolio. I should have tried to sleep, but I was too wired. Besides, there was no way I wasn’t going to listen to more of what Tony Blackmon had to say. I unzipped the portfolio and pulled the contents out. Harvey would have come up with some kind of index or summary. I sifted through the stack and found it. The tapes were there, one still in the small player I’d bought from Staples. It was at the end of the B-side of the second tape, which meant Harvey must have listened all the way through. He was thorough that way.

I found the A-side of the first tape, which had been rewound, dropped it in, and started listening. After a very short time, it was clear that Cyrus had gone over to the dark side early on. What was interesting was to hear Blackmon, the nonpsychopath, struggle with the pinpoint effectiveness of vigilantism versus the slow grind of due process. He talked about Mossad and its efforts after the 1972 Olympics to hunt down and murder every terrorist involved in that bloody fiasco. He talked about Pablo Escobar and how the only reason he was ever caught was that the vigilante group Los Pepes had turned the tables on him, kidnapping his family and friends, killing members of his crew, and using all manner of violence to persuade people not to help him. He made the point that Los Pepes was very likely made up of moonlighting police and military officers who followed the rules by day and made the real progress at night. He made a persuasive argument for the ends justifying the means, at least in the case of terrorists determined to nuke us all to kingdom come.

I was at the beginning of the first tape, side A, when my phone rang. Private call. It was either Thorne or Kraft. I flipped it open and answered.

“I got your e-mail. I’m on my way there.”

It was Kraft. I checked my watch. It was just about nine in the morning. “How long?”

“It will be a few hours. When I got closer, we can decide where to meet. Keep the key with you, and we need a safe word.”

“What do you mean?”

“If I call and for any reason you need to tell me not to come in, use the word quiet, and I’ll know. I’ll call you.”

Click.

I hated how he did that-kept all the power over our communication. Still, the news was good, and I wanted to share it. I went downstairs to tell Harvey.

From the top of the stairs, I heard the unmistakable razor-blades-and-vodka voice of Tom Waits. I slipped quietly down, trying to stay under the sound of “Jersey Girl,” one of the all-time great songs about being in love when it’s easy. Its gently swooping sha-la-las and quietly strutting acoustic guitar sounded like boardwalks and striped cabanas and ice cream that drips out of the cone and down your hand, the sweet cream mixing with the taste of salt on your skin.

A set of packed bags was at the bottom of the stairs, and Harvey and Rachel were in the front room, the one with the new sound system. Neither noticed me, but the planet could have fallen into the sun and they wouldn’t have noticed, because Harvey was on his feet, and Rachel was in his arms, and they were dancing.

They weren’t moving much; it was more like swaying. But it was enough to imagine them years before on a dance floor somewhere, when Harvey had his legs under him and could do what he loved to do and move the way he wanted to move.

Harvey had been a good dancer. I could see it in the way he held Rachel, with one hand flat against the small of her back, his wrist cocked just so. His other hand, with hers in it, was high in the air, in case he was struck with the impulse to spin her. Rachel’s head was tucked under his chin, and his eyes were closed, and all that weight that he carried around in his life was just…gone. He was floating. That’s what she did for him. No matter what she was, no matter what she said or how I felt about her, some part of her loved him, and every part of him loved her beyond words. She made him dance.

Watching them together, holding each other, made it easy to understand why he would do anything for her. It also made me wonder what it would be like to be loved that way.

Nothing else matters in this whole wide world,

When you’re in love with a Jersey girl…

They were saying goodbye to each other. I sat down on the steps and waited for their music to end.