بخش 04 - فصل 06

6 Brady comes out of these memories–a reverie so deep it’s like hypnosis–to discover he’s got a lapful of shredded plastic. At first he doesn’t know where it came from.

Then he looks at the newspaper lying on his worktable and understands he tore apart the bag it was in with his fingernails while he was thinking about Frankie. He deposits the shreds in the wastebasket, then picks up the paper and stares vacantly at the headlines. Oil is still gushing into the Gulf of Mexico and British Petroleum

executives are squalling that they’re doing the best they can and people are being mean to them. Nidal Hasan, the asshole shrink who shot up the Fort Hood Army base in Texas, is going to be arraigned in the next day or two. (You should have had a Mercedes, Nidalbaby, Brady thinks.) Paul McCartney, the ex-Beatle Brady’s mom used to call Old

Spaniel Eyes, is getting a medal at the White House. Why is it, Brady sometimes wonders, that people with only a little talent get so much of everything? It’s just another proof that the world is crazy. Brady decides to take the paper up to the kitchen and read the political columns. Those and a melatonin capsule might be enough to send him

off to sleep. Halfway up the stairs he turns the paper over to see what’s below the fold, and freezes. There are photos of two women, side by side. One is Olivia Trelawney. The other one is much older, but the resemblance is unmistakable. Especially those thin bitchlips. MOTHER OF OLIVIA TRELAWNEY DIES, the

headline reads. Below it: Protested Daughter’s “Unfair Treatment,” Claimed Press Coverage “Destroyed Her Life.” What follows is a twoparagraph squib, really just an excuse to get last year’s tragedy (If you want to use that word, Brady thinks–rather snidely) back on the front page of a newspaper that’s slowly being strangled to death by the

Internet. Readers are referred to the obituary on page twenty-six, and Brady, now sitting at the kitchen table, turns there double-quick. The cloud of dazed gloom that has surrounded him ever since his mother’s death has been swept away in an instant. His mind is ticking over rapidly, ideas coming together, flying apart, then coming together again

like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. He’s familiar with this process and knows it will continue until they connect with a click of finality and a clear picture appears.

ELIZABETH

SIROIS

WHARTON, 87, passed away

peacefully on May 29, 2010, at

Warsaw County Memorial

Hospital. She was born on

January 19, 1923, the son of

Marcel and Catherine Sirois. She is survived by her brother, Henry Sirois, her sister, Charlotte Gibney, her niece, Holly Gibney, and her daughter, Janelle Patterson. Elizabeth was predeceased by her husband, Alvin Wharton, and her beloved daughter, Olivia. Private visitation will be held from 10 AM to 1 PM at Soames Funeral Home on Tuesday, June 1, followed by a 10 AM memorial service at Soames Funeral Home

on Wednesday, June 2. After the service, a reception for close friends and family members will take place at 729 Lilac Drive, in Sugar Heights. The family requests no flowers, but suggests contributions to either the American Red Cross or the Salvation Army, Mrs. Wharton’s favorite charities. Brady reads all this carefully, with several related questions in mind. Will the fat

ex-cop be at the visitation? At the Wednesday memorial service? At the reception? Brady’s betting on all three. Looking for the perk. Looking for him. Because that’s what cops do. He remembers the last message he sent to Hodges, the good old Det-Ret. Now he smiles and says it out loud: “You won’t see me coming.”

“Make sure he doesn’t,” Deborah Ann Hartsfield says. He knows she’s not really there, but he can almost see her sitting across the table from him, wearing a black pencilskirt and the blue blouse he especially likes, the one that’s so filmy you can see the ghost of her underwear through it. “Because he’ll be looking for you.”

“I know,” Brady says. “Don’t worry.” “Of course I’ll worry,” she says. “I have to. You’re my honeyboy.” He goes back downstairs and gets into his sleeping bag. The leaky air mattress wheezes. The last thing he does before killing the lights via voicecommand is to set his iPhone

alarm for six-thirty. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day. Except for the tiny red lights marking his sleeping computer equipment, the basement control room is completely dark. From beneath the stairs, his mother speaks. “I’m waiting for you, honeyboy, but don’t make me wait too long.”

“I’ll be there soon, Mom.” Smiling, Brady closes his eyes. Two minutes later, he’s snoring.