Red on Red (69 page)

True enough, cold truth, the coldest, in its solid form. No promises and no lies. He’d see Allison tomorrow, the old wife, the old life. No, he’d see what was new. Tomorrow, after he woke, he’d see soon enough, he’d know what he’d dreamt, which dream had survived the daylight. Husband and father; neither and nothing. All in the air. Nothing was fixed yet, settled, as things were in the basement, down by the river, on the rocks. Three dead men, men of agency, of ambition and resolve, who had known the world was against them and had proved their own truth. Rapist, killer, and rat, the hell with all of them. Nick recoiled at the presumption, the lack of charity. Had he already forgotten—wasn’t it only minutes ago, when he’d last been forgiven himself? As if he were outside of the process, as if he wished to be. He walked over to Esposito, touched his cheek, tousled his hair. Not quite right, the contact; something distant and paternal to it, when he was neither. Esposito took a glove off and shook Nick’s hand. That was better. That would do. No desolation in Esposito’s eyes, not that Nick could see, now that his own sight was unhindered, unhelped, by the wilder lights. Tomorrow would tell, enough to keep him interested. He was not a hopeful man at heart, but he would manage. Nick turned and walked away, out of the deeper snow to the road, shaky-legged but thankful that he didn’t have far to go.

Abiding thanks to my agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh; Laura Van der Veer, Michael Mezzo, and, most obviously, Julie Grau at Spiegel & Grau; early readers Elizabeth Callendar, Amanda Weil, and John Driscoll; and last-minute Spanish proofreaders, Eduardo Castell and Rafael Estrella.

E
DWARD
C
ONLON
is a detective with the New York City Police Department. A graduate of Harvard, he has published articles in
The New Yorker
and
Harper’s Magazine
and has been included in
The Best American Essays 2001
. He is the author of a memoir,
Blue Blood
, a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award, a
New York Times
Notable Book, and a
New York Times
bestseller.