"You want to talk about it?"

He'd given a lot of thought to how he would begin. First, he'd nail his father's hide to the wall with a litany of his sins. He'd call him every name in the book, make sure he understood that Plato knew he was lower than pond scum. And then, he'd laugh. He'd tell his father that the Bible was wrong. The sins of the fathers didn't condemn their sons unto the third and fourth generation, they liberated them. Plato was a free man now. He no longer had to pretend.

But instead of his rehearsed opening, Plato asked, "Why did you say you'd killed Kirby Runbeck?"

"I wanted to protect you."

He hadn't expected that. "But . . . how did you know-"

"I saw you the day Runbeck cornered me in my office.

I watched through the window as you walked out to your car. I assumed you'd been standing in the front hall, listening to us."

"But I heard a noise in the kitchen. Someone was in there, too. I'm sure of it."

John shook his head stiffly. "No, that was the refrigerator. It clunks when it turns off and on. I made sure I was alone before I let Kirby into the house. Your mother and Bernice were out shopping. Milton was playing golf. I couldn't take any chances, son. I didn't hear you come in, but I saw you leave. I wanted to talk to you about what you'd heard, but I wasn't sure what to say. I was ashamed of myself, of what you'd think of me. I waited too long." He paused. "You did what you did to protect me. How could I do any less for you?"

Plato could feel something deep inside him give way. "I didn't realize what you'd done until I read the letters. But I knew it must be bad."

"You have the letters?"

He nodded.

"But how did you-"

"That's my business, not yours."

"What . . . what will you do with them?"

"I haven't decided. Why did you sign the letters J. D.?"

"It was a nickname."

"What's it stand for?"

His father seemed embarrassed by the question. "When I was young, I looked like the actor James Dean. A few of my buddies called me J. D."

"James Dean, huh? I don't see it."

John dropped his eyes to the glass of water on his tray table. "Give the letters to the police, son. Tell them you read them and got upset, so upset you wanted to kill me. That's why you came here with the dynamite. You were temporarily out of your mind. You snapped. Whatever you say, make it good. Tell them that after talking to me, you realized your mistake. The police believe I killed Runbeck. Let them go on believing it. My life is over. With what little I have left, let me protect you."

Plato shot out of his chair with such force that it skittered across the floor. "What the hell's wrong with you? I don't want you to be a saint to the end! I want you to own the fact that you're a low-life slime. I was never good enough for you. Never clever enough, never a star athlete, a wiz at math. I was a disappointment to you from the day I was born."

"That's not true."

"You never loved me!"

"I did-and I do," said John, his eyes pleading. "But sometimes . . . you'd frustrate me. How can I make you understand?" He raised a shaky hand to wipe his mouth. "Look, you're a father. Think with that mind for a second. You don't always like your sons, right? It happens. A friend of mine told me once that the trick to being in a family is, you don't have to like everyone, but you have to love them."

"What the fuck kind of reasoning is that? If you don't like someone, it's apparent. They get it! I sure did. How on earth was I supposed to figure out-through all your visible loathing-that underneath, you really loved me?"

"I don't know," said John, closing his eyes. "You and me, we're so different."

"Like hell we are. The reason we couldn't live together is because two narcissists under one roof will never get along. You think marrying all those women was noble? What a load of crap! You did what you wanted to do, just like me. You don't have motives, you've got appetites . You were an evil bastard from the beginning. Like father like son."

"You're wrong."

"I felt smothered my whole life by petty obligations and worn-out rules. The rules you didn't like, you ignored. Well, same with me. I took my pleasures where I found them. For your information, before I moved to the hobby farm, I went to a therapist for almost a year. The two of us tried like hell to work out a different plot for my life. We tried to come up with different explanations for my actions, tried to fit everything into a prettier package. She loved issuing her nifty little insights, but in the end, I couldn't stand the monotony. I could predict what she was going to say before she said it. Why the hell pay someone you can fake out so easily?"

Plato stepped over to the window and looked down at the street. It was shimmering with people rushing away from the building. Police cars were beginning to form a barricade on the far end of the parking lot. "Don't you ever just yearn for . . . for lightness, Dad? To wake up and find it was all a dream?"

"Every day," said John softly.

"I thought, if that therapist ever made one unalterably true statement about who I really was, I'd stay and work on my problems. But she couldn't see me. Nobody can. I'm the invisible man." He turned around and gave his father a sunny smile.

"You need help."

"I need a new life."

"What are you going to do?"

"Yes, the big question. Should I blow us up or not blow us up? What do you think?"

"You want to kill me? Is that what this is all about?"

"Golly, no, Dad. I want to keep you around. With you in the world, I don't feel so alone."

"Stop it!" said John, closing his eyes and looking away.

"The truth is hard to take." Sitting down on the edge of the bed, Plato waited until his father looked at him again. "I'll tell you my truth, Dad. Are you ready? There's a crack in me. I can feel it. I've known it was there ever since I was a kid. It's a small crack, so other people don't notice it, but it's there. It's been growing for years. Getting bigger. Too much pressure and I'll shatter."

"What are you saying?"

"You look frightened. Don't be." He reached over to straighten the front of his father's bathrobe. "I'm going home now. I will walk out that door and leave the hospital. Quietly. Peacefully. If anyone upsets me, well . . . you're not deaf. Dumb and blind, maybe, but not deaf. If I shatter, you'll hear me break."

41.

"We can work this out," Deputy Sheriff Doug said, following Plato down the hospital corridor. "I know we can."

"Leave me alone."

"I realize you're upset with your father. Who wouldn't be? Look, we've got a psychologist outside. He wants to talk to you."

"I don't want to talk to him."

"But he says he can help you. He's sure of it." Wasn't that it in a nutshell? thought Plato. Optimism. The belief that wrongs could be righted, problems could be solved. At a time like this, optimism was just one more burden.

"You can't get away, you know. We've got the entire hospital surrounded." Doug glanced at the detonation device in Plato's hand.

All the way down in the elevator, the officer continued his patter. By the time they reached the glass front doors, Plato had a splitting headache. The sun was already white hot. Police were everywhere. People were running around; some had stopped to gawk. Car fumes choked Plato's throat. "I just want to be left alone."

"We can't allow that."

"You can allow anything I damn well please. I'm the one with the dynamite, Doug."

Just then, two teenage girls rushed around the side of the building. They were giggling, acting like they'd just heard a big joke. An officer across the street hollered for them to stop, to get back. But it was too late. Plato grabbed the smaller one and jammed her against his chest. Doug drew his gun, but he didn't fire. He couldn't.

Plato guided the girl toward his car and told her to get in. As everyone watched in abject horror, Plato eased into the driver's seat and rolled down the window. "Leave me alone and nothing will happen to-" He looked at the girl. "What's your name?"

"Brittany," she said, her eyes round with terror, her body pressed to the door, cowering.

"There you have it. Brittany. Leave us the hell alone and she won't get hurt!" He started the motor, then burned rubber. Glancing in his rearview mirror, he yelled "Damn it all!" when he saw that he was being followed.

Twenty minutes later, Plato and Brittany were inside his barn. He used an old rope to tie the teenager's hands and feet, and he slapped a piece of duct tape across her mouth to shut her up. Finally, he stowed her behind the baled hay. Speaking very slowly and clearly, he promised he wouldn't hurt her. Once he decided what to do, he'd let her go. But she had to stay until then because otherwise, there was no telling what the police would do.

Astrid was still in the barn. Plato led her out of her stall, sidestepping the cow dung, then dragged a barrel over next to her and sat down. He needed time to think. Astrid would help him figure it all out. Her big brown eyes blinked their sweetness at him. Her unconditional love enveloped him.

"Oh, hey," he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out an Oreo. "I brought this for you. Here," he said tenderly, feeding it to her, then petting her head. People thought cows were lumbering animals, dimwitted and smelly. Astrid might be a tad smelly, but she was also delicate. She bared her teeth ever so slightly as she took the cookie. She loved her Oreos, just like Plato did. It was kind of early in the morning for a cookie, he supposed, but then this was a special occasion. A party. Except, Plato couldn't quite come up with the theme.

"The problem is, Astrid, you have to make so many important decisions in your life before you're ready to make them. Like marriage. I was incredibly hot to marry my wife, but I was twenty years old. What the hell does a twenty-year-old know about life? How was I supposed to guess she'd turn into the Farmer in the Dell? Not that I've got anything against farm life, you understand. If I hadn't come here, I would never have met you, but to be truthful, I don't belong on a hobby farm. I hate the outdoors, hate tramping through the woods and dales. Give me a book and an easy chair any day.

"And then, there's children. How did they happen? Well, I mean, I know how they happened, but . . . I don't know them. They don't know me. My wife and I are strangers. And nobody seems to notice except me. Or, if they do notice, they don't care. We all just continue with our lives as if nothing's wrong. But everything's wrong, Astrid."

Plato could smell the foul odor of car exhaust wafting in through the open door. He stomped over to look outside. Sure enough, squad cars had ringed the barn, but they were at least seventy-five yards away. They weren't taking any chances.

Sharpshooters were standing by the trees, their rifles pointed at the barn door. A crowd was beginning to form, well behind the cars. All the bored townspeople were coming to watch a real-life drama as they sipped their morning coffee. Overhead, Plato could hear a helicopter. Scanning the assembly, he could pick out a few familiar faces. Sophie Greenway was there; so was his sister, Bernice, his uncle Milton, and his mother. Next to them, his wife was talking to a cop. They were all huddled together under an oak tree. His two sons stood about fifteen feet away, hands shielding their eyes from the sun's glare, the better to witness their father's demise.

As Plato continued to watch the voyeurs arrive, he noticed several vans pull in. Men scrambled out the back doors with handheld cameras and sound equipment.

"You should see this, Astrid. It's like a county fair." Just as he said the words, a minidonut truck drove in. "I'll bet we're live on CNN. Welcome to the twenty-first century, huh? Mass media can now capture a man's mental collapse right on camera, as it happens, for all the world to see."

Astrid mooed. With the acoustics in the new metal barn, it had a deep, metallic ring. She must want another cookie, thought Plato. He didn't have one. If he could just get his hands on a package of those minidonuts, they'd both be happy.

Doug's voice blasted through the air on a loudspeaker. "Plato, this is Deputy Sheriff Doug Elderberg."

"I know who it is, asshole," muttered Plato. "I didn't figure Dan Rather was here yet."

"We've got the place surrounded."

"Gee, I never would have guessed."

"Send Brittany out. You said yourself you didn't want to hurt her. She's just an innocent bystander."

"Aren't we all? No, I take that back. I've never been innocent. Maybe that's my problem."

"Plato, if you can hear me, make some sort of sign."

Plato took off his right loafer and heaved it out into the sunlight.

"Good," said Doug, a little dubiously. "Was that your shoe? Never mind."

They couldn't fire their rifles as long as the girl remained inside. Bringing her along had been a stroke of genius.

Plato returned to the barrel and sat back down. "You know what, Astrid? One day, this is going to be the great town anecdote. Where were you when that crazy Plato Washburn got cornered in his barn? 'Why, I was there,' the old men will say. 'Saw the whole thing with my own two eyes. He was a freak, all right.' " Plato stopped, looking the cow full in the eyes. "But what's the ending, Astrid? I can't see it. What should I do? If I give myself up, I'll go to jail for the rest of my life. I'm not sure I could stand that. It seems unlikely I could get out of the barn without getting shot. Unless I came up with a pretty amazing plan, that is. And I seem to be fresh out of plans."

"Plato, this is Doug again. How you doin' in there? We've got a man out here who wants to come in and talk to you. He's unarmed. He won't try anything funny, I promise. Like I said, he just wants to talk."

Plato rushed to the door. "No way," he shouted. "If he approaches the barn, I'll blow the whole place up."

"Okay, okay," said Doug. "Maybe he can just talk to you on the loudspeaker."

"I want to be alone! Go away!"

"We can't. Not unless you send the girl out."

"She's the only thing keeping me alive. Do you think I'm an idiot?"

The crowd began to shout insults.

"Ill words butter no parsnips!" screamed Plato, huffing his way back to the barrel.

Astrid looked glum.

"Yeah, this is a mess. I won't tell you what I've done 'cause you won't like it." One more being he could disappoint. But with Astrid, it was different. She didn't really care, so she was safe.

"Plato Washburn?" A woman's voice boomed over the din of the crowd. "This is Cora Runbeck. Where's my cat?"

He grunted. The cat was the least of his worries.

"I kept my part of the bargain. Now you keep yours."

The letters, thought Plato. With all the commotion, he'd forgotten about them. He hurried over to the wooden workbench, and pulled them out from under a box of gardening tools. "What am I going to do with these, Astrid?" Part of him wanted his mother to read them, to see just what kind of man she'd married, and part of him wanted to protect her. He took the letters and walked back to the barrel, slumping down on top of it. Deep inside, his heart felt like a wet, drippy piece of ice, melting not from the heat of the barn, but from the fire of his indecision.

"I'm melting," he said to Astrid.

"I want my cat!" Cora hollered again.

"Oh, shut up, you old biddy."

"Plato, it's your mother." This time the voice was close. Soft. Reassuring. Mary stepped to the edge of the barn door, her body caught in a shaft of sunlight. "Can I come in?"

Plato looked over at her, then dipped his hand into the pocket of his suit, where he'd put the detonator. "Go away."