The Throat (82 page)

Clutching one
hand to the side of his head, John wandered back into the living room.
"I have to go over there and get him," he said. "Do you think it's
safe?"

"I don't
think there's been any trouble up here," I said.

"I'm not
going out without that gun." John looked at me as if he expected me to
protest, and when I did not, he went upstairs and came back down
buttoning the linen jacket over a lump at his waistband. I said I'd
hold the fort. "You think this is all a joke," he said.

"I think it'd
be better for Alan to spend the night here."

John went to
the door, opened it carefully, looked both ways, gave me a last
mournful glance, and went outside.

I sat
watching pictures of fire lapping up entire blocks while men and women
trotted past the camera carrying what they had looted. Stocks must have
been getting low—their arms were full of toilet paper and light bulbs
and bottles of mineral water. When the phone rang again, I got up to
answer it.

Alan was
hiding in a closet. Alan was sitting in a pile of feces on his kitchen
floor. Whatever the crisis was, John had given up.

I answered
the telephone, and a voice I did not recognize asked to speak to Tim
Underhill.

"Speaking," I
said.

The man on
the other end of the line said he was Paul Fontaine.

When I didn't
respond, he asked, "Are you still there?" I said I was still there.

"Are you
alone?"

"For about
five minutes," I said.

"We have to
talk about a certain matter. Informally."

"What did you
have in mind?"

"I have some
information you might be interested in, and I think you have some I
could use. I want you to meet me somewhere."

"This is a
funny time for a meeting."

"Don't
believe everything you hear on television. You'll be okay as long as
you stay away from Messmer Avenue. Look, I'm at a pay phone near
Central Divide, and I don't have much time. Meet me across Widow Street
from the St. Alwyn at two o'clock."

"Why should I
come?"

"I'll explain
the rest there." He hung up.

I put down
the telephone and instantaneously found myself, as if by teleportation,
seated again on the couch in front of the babbling television. Of
course I had no intention of meeting Fontaine on a deserted street at
two in the morning—he wanted to put me in a position where my death
could be attributed to random violence.

John Ransom
and I had to get out of Millhaven as soon as we could. If the fog
lifted, we could get to the airport before Fontaine realized that I was
not going to show up across from the St. Alwyn. In Quantico, the FBI
had experts who did nothing but think about people like Paul Fontaine.
They could look into every homicide Fontaine had handled in Allentown
and wherever else he had worked before returning to Millhaven. What I
most needed was what I didn't have—the rest of the notes.

Where were
Fontaine's narratives of his murders? Now it seemed to me that Ransom
and I had merely rushed in and out of the house on South Seventh
Street. We should have pried up floorboards and punched holes in the
walls.

Once Fontaine
realized that I was not going to show up to be murdered, he'd check
every flight that left Millhaven during the night. Then he'd go to
South Seventh Street and make a bonfire in the old furnace.

My thoughts
had reached this unhappy point when the front door opened on a loud
burst of talk, and John came in, literally leading Alan Brookner by the
hand.

Alan wore the
wrinkled top of a pair of pajamas under a gray suit jacket paired with
tan trousers. John had apparently dressed his father-in-law in whatever
he had pulled first out of his closet. Alan's hair drifted around his
head, and his wild, unfocused eyes communicated both belligerence and
confusion. He had reached a stage where he had to express himself as
much through gesture as verbally, and he raised his hands to his head,
carrying John's hand along. John released him.

Alan smacked
his forehead with the hand John had just released. "Don't you get it?"
He boomed this question toward John's retreating back. "It's the
answer. I'm giving you the solution."

John stopped
moving. "I don't want that answer. Sit down, Alan. I'll get you a
drink."

Alan extended
his arms and yelled, "Of
course
you want it! It's exactly what you
want." He took in my presence and came through the foyer into the
living room. "Tim, talk sense to this guy, will you?"

"Come over
here," I said, and Alan moved toward the couch while keeping his eyes
on John until he had passed through into the kitchen. Then he sat down
beside me and ran both hands through his hair, settling most of it into
place.

"He thinks he
can solve everything by running away. You have to stay in place and
face it."

"Is that the
answer you're trying to give him?" I asked. John had evidently told the
old man of his plans to move abroad.

"No, no, no."
Alan shook his head, irritated by my inability to understand the matter
all at once. "I have an endowed chair, and all I have to do is make
sure that John gets the chair, starting next term. I can give it to
him."

"Can you
appoint your own successor?"

"Let me tell
you something." He gripped my thigh. "For thirty-eight years, the
administration has given me every single thing I ever asked for. I
don't think they'll stop now."

Alan
addressed these last words to John, who had returned to set a dark
brown drink in front of him.

"It's not
that simple." John took the chair at the end of the couch and turned to
look at the television.

"Of course it
is," Alan insisted. "I didn't want to admit what was happening to me.
But I'm not going to pretend anymore."

"I'm not
going to carry on for you," John said.

"Carry on for
yourself," Alan said. "I'm giving you a way to keep yourself whole.
What you want to do is run away. It's no good, kid."

"I'm sorry
you feel rejected," John said. "It isn't personal."

"Of course
it's personal," Alan roared.

"I'm sorry I
brought it up," John said. "Don't make me say any more, Alan."

Alan
overflowed with all he felt—he had been waving his arms while he spoke,
splashing whiskey onto himself, the couch, and my legs. Now he gulped
from the glass and groaned. I had to get John away from Alan and talk
to him in private.

Alan came out
of his sulk long enough to give me a way to do this.

"Talk to him,
Tim. Make him see reason."

I stood up.
"Let's go in the kitchen, John."

"Not you,
too." He gave me a disbelieving glare.

I said John's
name in a way that was like kicking him in the foot, and he looked
sharply up at me. "Oh," he said. "Okay."

"Attaboy,"
Alan said.

I set off for
the kitchen. John trailed along behind me. I opened the door and
stepped outside. What was left of the fog curled and hung above the
grass. John came out and closed the door.

"Fontaine
called," I said. "He wants to trade information. We're supposed to meet
at two o'clock on Widow Street, across from the St. Alwyn."

"That's
great
," John said. "He still
thinks we trust him."

"I want to
get out of town tonight," I said. "We can go to the FBI and tell them
everything we know."

"Listen, this
is our chance. He'll hand himself to us on a plate."

"You want me
to meet him on a deserted street in the middle of the night?"

"We'll go
down early. I'll hide in that little alley next to the pawnshop and
hear everything he says. Together, we can handle him."

"That's
crazy," I said, and then I understood what he really intended to do.
"You want to kill him."

Alan shouted
our names from within the kitchen, and John bit his lip and checked to
see how persuasive he had been. "Running away won't work," he said,
unconsciously echoing what Alan had just said.

The door
swung open, and Alan stood framed in a spill of yellow light. "You
getting him to see reason?"

"Give us a
little more time," I said.

"The rioting
seems to be pretty much over," Alan said. "Looks like four people got
killed." When we said nothing, he backed away from the door. "Well, I
won't get in your way."

When Alan had
retreated from the door, I said, "You want to kill him. Everything else
is just window dressing."

"How bad is
that, as a last resort? It's probably the only safe way to deal with
the guy." He waited for me to see the force of this. "I mean, there's
no doubt in your mind that he's Bachelor, is there?"

"No," I said.

"He murdered
my wife. And Grant Hoffman. He wants to murder you, and after that he
wants to murder me. How concerned are you about the civil rights of a
guy like that?"

"Two more!"
Alan bawled through the window. "Total of six dead! Ten million dollars
in damage!"

"I won't con
you," John said. "I think it's a lot more likely that Fontaine will
wind up dead than on trial."

"I do, too,"
I said. "You better make sure you know what you're doing."

"It's my life
too." John held out his hand, and when I took it, I felt my uneasiness
double on itself.

Hovering near
the sink when we came back inside, Alan looked at our faces for clues
to what had been decided. He had shucked the suit jacket, and parts of
his pajama top had worked their way out of his trousers. "You get
things straightened out?"

"I'll think
about it," John said.

"Okay!" Alan
boomed, taking this as surrender. "That's all I wanted to hear, kiddo."
He beamed at John. "This calls for a celebration, what d'ya say?"

"Help
yourself, please." John waved his hand at the evidence that Alan had
already been helping himself. A scotch bottle and a glass with slivers
of ice floating in dark brown liquid stood on the counter. Alan poured
more whiskey into the glass and turned again to John. "Come on, join
me, otherwise it's not a celebration."

John went
into the living room, and I looked at my watch. It was about
eleven-thirty. I hoped John was going to have sense enough to keep
sober. Alan gripped me by the shoulder. "God bless you, boy." He pulled
another glass from the shelf and splashed whiskey into it. "It's not a
celebration unless you join in."

John was
going to lead Alan on until I left town, and then he'd refuse the
chair. That would be the end of it. I felt as though I'd just assented
to a second murder. When John returned, he raised his eyebrows at the
drink before me and then smiled. "Something to calm the nerves."

Alan clinked
glasses with John, then with me. "I feel better than I have all day."

"Cheers,"
John said, raising his glass and giving me an ironic glance. His jacket
shifted far enough to catch on the handle of the revolver, and he
quickly pulled it back into place.

I tasted the
Scotch. My whole body shuddered.

"Thirsty,
eh?" Alan took a gulp and grinned at both of us. He seemed almost
half-crazy with relief.

He and Alan
left the kitchen, and I poured the drink out into the sink. When I came
back into the living room, the two of them were back in their old
places, staring at the television.

Alan's pajama
top had come all the way out of his trousers, and a bright, unhealthy
flush covered his cheekbones. He was saying, "We should go into the
ghetto, set up storefront classrooms, really work with these people.
You start with a pilot program and then you expand it until you have a
couple of real classes going."

For another
thirty minutes, we stared at the screen. The family of the boy who had
been killed in City Hall announced through a lawyer that they were
praying for peace. A pale blue map indicated burned-out neighborhoods
with little red flames and areas where gunfire had taken place with
little black pistols. John refilled Alan's glass. His hair and necktie
back in place, Jimbo declared that the worst of the rioting seemed to
be over and that police had restored order to all but the most troubled
neighborhoods. Fire fighters trained hoses on a long row of blazing
shop fronts.

At ten past
twelve, when Alan's head had begun to loll forward on his chest, the
telephone rang again. John jumped up and then waved me off the couch.
"Go on, get it, he's checking in," he said.

Alan raised
his head and blinked.

"You said I
should call," a woman whispered. "Well, I'm calling."

"You have the
wrong number," I said.

"Is this Al
Underhill's boy? You said I should call. He's back. I just saw him go
into the living room."

I opened my
mouth, but no words came out.

"Don't you
remember?"

"Yes, Hannah,
I remember," I said.

"Maybe you
don't want to do anything, it's such a terrible night—"

"Stay in the
house and keep your lights off," I said.

I came back
into the living room and told Alan that I had to speak privately to
John again. Before Alan had time to ask any questions, John was up on
his feet and leading me into the kitchen. He went as far as the back
door and then whirled to face me. "What did he say? Does he want you to
come now?"

"Hannah
Belknap called to tell me that she saw someone in the house next door."

"What is he
doing there
now
?"

"He might be
taking advantage of the chaos to move his notes again."

"What are you
talking about?"

"Maybe we
didn't look hard enough," I said. "They have to be there—it's the
safest place."

John pursed
his lips. "He might have decided to destroy them."