"It's only""

"Yes?"

"None of my business, I know," he said.

"Don't let that stop you, Larry. It hasn't so far."

She heard him let go of his breath. "Fine."

"Finish it, Larry. And then we're done. Last shot. Fire away."

"Well, it's just sometimes when you chat about old Talmadge, it reminds me of the way you used to talk about what's-his-name."

"What's-his-name?"

"Your husband of blessed memory."

"Rod?" She actually laughed, loud enough that in spite of the engine's thrum, she could see a pa.s.senger stir across the row. There was no comparison. Talmadge was a behemoth, a local inst.i.tution. Rod was a sot.

"Thank you for sharing, Larry," she said, and opened another file. But the conversation wasn't done for her, because she suddenly remembered how she'd seen Rod when she'd chased him"luminous and engaging, surely not a wreck crushed against the rocks in his c.o.c.ktail gla.s.s. So, for a second, she followed Larry's thought and colored in the numbers. Both older. Distracted. Both her teachers. Both stars in her firmament. And both with a grandness about themselves that instinct might have told her camouflaged cavernous self-doubts. A freezing draft blew over her heart. What did all that mean? Everything? Nothing? She was forty-four years old and had made her deal, made her life. The philosopher beside her had told her the fundamental truth weeks ago: life wasn't perfect. She stretched against the confines of the airplane seat and, by habit, stashed these thoughts to again return to work.

Now and then, Larry had to get on a plane to question a witness, and on big cases, he was willing to go grab a murderer for an extradition. But the truth was that after Nam, he didn't much like leaving home. Before athletic schedules started to interfere, he took Nancy and the boys to Florida each summer, and every March he still traveled with a group of detectives to Vegas, where they behaved for four days as if they were twenty. They drank and gambled and called every escort service in town for prices, then went back to their lives, feeling a little like dogs that had escaped the backyard fence and were now only too happy to see that bowl of chow. But all in all, he'd rather not have come to Atlanta. The air was so thick you could swim in it. And he wasn't comfortable at close quarters with Muriel.

By 2:30, they were done at the tall, white federal courthouse. Afterwards, Muriel and Larry stood outside, planning the remainder of the afternoon with an a.s.sistant Attorney General named Thane and an investigator from the Fulton County Solicitor's Office who'd been delegated to a.s.sist them. The CNN Center and the Georgia Dome were visible across a canyon of roadway underpa.s.ses. Larry would be able to tell the boys he'd seen the sights.

The four of them agreed that Larry and the investigator, Wilton Morley, would serve Collins, while Muriel waited at the office of the Department of Law with her cell phone. If Collins was suddenly moved to give an interview without his lawyer, Muriel wanted to be on hand to doc.u.ment it properly. In the event she didn't hear from Larry, they'd meet at their gate at the airport for the flight home.

Morley had an address for Collins in a suburb north of the city. On the phone, with the d.a.m.n Southern accent, Larry had no clue about Morley's race, and here he was, black as coal and easy to deal with. Black and white were different here than in the North. Larry had noticed that in the service decades ago and it still felt true. Blacks had won down here more concretely. They'd beaten back slavery first, then Jim Crow. It made everybody happier to have actual bodies to declare dead.

In the car, Morley showed Larry records he had gathered. A credit report listed Collins as the owner of Collins Travel, his own agency. As Erno had insisted, Collins's rap sheets, both local and national, revealed no further arrests since his release from prison five years ago. Seventy-eight percent of the guys who did time went back. But now and then, Larry actually took heart from the other portion. With the worst cancers, oncologists would be ecstatic with a 22 percent cure rate. True, a lot of guys who went straight didn't really reform"they just got more skilled at not getting caught, and Larry had no way to know if Collins was one of them. It was a little suspicious that a man only a few years out of the joint would have the wherewithal to open his own business, and a travel agency would be a perfect sh.e.l.l if you were laundering drug money. But Morley had heard good things about Collins.

"One of my guys, he goes to church with this Collins," Morley said, "and buys his airline tickets from him. Says he does a great job. Whatever that means."

Atlanta to Larry was like L.A. South, an appealing terrain"here hills and trees"surrendered to highways and shopping malls. Collins lived and worked thirty minutes northeast of downtown off Jimmy Carter Boulevard, in an old town, now engrossed by sprawl. In the mile or two from U.S. 85, they pa.s.sed every chain restaurant Larry had ever heard of and several churches that looked like Kmarts.

Morley circled by the agency once. It was on the end of a flat-roofed commercial strip with a stressed concrete facade, next door to a dry cleaner and a pet shop. On reflection, Larry had decided it was better to approach Collins alone.

"You're in the South now, man," said Morley when Larry suggested the investigator stay in the car. "Things may not be the same as where you come from."

Larry didn't know exactly what Morley was referring to. He probably thought a Northern copper would just walk in and punch Collins in the face.

"I hear you," said Larry. "Don't lose eyeshot of me. I just think I'll have a better chance to get something from this guy if it feels like old home week, instead of a pinch."

Morley parked on the other side of the busy avenue. While they were watching the agency, two people emerged, a man, big enough to be Collins, in a stylish shirt and tie, and an older woman whose hand he was shaking. After parting with her, the man walked down the block to a transmission shop adjacent to the strip mall. The overhead doors on the bays had been lifted, and even from a distance, Larry could hear on the wind the high-pitched whine of the power tools and the smell of the bad chemicals they used to keep the gears from grinding. The man was conversing with someone at the front end of an old Acura that was elevated on the greased shaft of the hydraulic lift. Larry looked both ways, then jogged across the street.

When the man stepped around the car again, Larry recognized Collins for certain. He walked up smiling. Collins took Larry's eye briefly, and then turned away and strolled back to his agency. When Larry saw Collins next, he was out the side door of the building, moving at full speed. For just a second, Larry watched him run.

This case, he thought. Jesus Christ, this f.u.c.king case.

Then he took off after Collins, who had disappeared up an intersecting residential street. Larry knew this was not especially smart, a white guy chasing a black guy through a neighborhood where somebody could just pull out his peashooter and send a bullet through a window. As an unruly teenager, he'd loved the rush of danger, but Nam had finished that for him. Danger, he'd learned, made you dead, not better, and he ran hard in the hopes of chasing Collins down quickly. Gaining on him, Larry was yelling the usual stupid stuff, "I just need to talk to you."

Collins was headed straight uphill and after another couple of hundred feet, he gave up. Either he'd heard Larry, or more likely he was on the verge of collapse. There were fifty pounds more to him than a decade ago and he stood heaving desperately with his hands on his knees.

"What the f.u.c.k are you doing?" Larry asked several times. Over his shoulder, he saw Morley flying up the block, his gun drawn. Larry motioned with both hands to stop. Morley did, but kept watch from where he was.

When Farwell could speak, he said, "Heck, man, I just don't wanna talk to you." In the intense heat, Collins had sweated completely through his clothes. You could see the outline of the sleeveless T underneath his white-on-white dress shirt.

"Bolting's the best way to get run in."

Collins got ornery for the first time. Up until now it had been a business discussion.

"I haven't done any kind of thing for you to run me in, man. I live a clean life. You check that out. I'm clean." Collins's face was a little rounder and he'd started to bald, but he remained uncommonly good-looking, with those striking eyes, the color of raw leather. In the summer, the white in him had tanned and lent a glow to his complexion.

"Listen," said Larry, "I came down here with a subpoena cause your smart-a.s.s lawyer wouldn't take it off of us. That's all. But I'm glad you're clean. Really, I love to see this. You've done a good job."

"Darn right," said Collins. "I got G.o.d's help, man, and I said no more. All of that when I known you, that's long gone. Lord said He could make me a new man, and I took Him up on the offer. You know. Made me an offer I couldn't refuse. I been baptized and cleansed of my sins."

"Good," said Larry, "great." He wished he had one of those junior badges that Community Relations handed out to kids. That's what Collins wanted.

The day was growing more pleasant, its dense heat on the wane. They were on a block of smaller houses, most of them white clapboard with green shingle roofs and front verandas, a number of which had been screened. Stands of Georgia pines threw down deep shade along the block. Collins, too, looked upward momentarily with some sign of appreciation, then without a word, Larry and he began walking back down the hill. Larry waved to Morley that he was okay. Morley walked backward for about twenty feet, still with an eye on them.

"That your backup?" Collins asked.

"Right."

Collins shook his head. "Man comes with backup and all I'm doin is leading a peaceful life."

"That's why he stayed in the car, Collins. I'm just serving a subpoena."

"Man, you can gimme all the subpoenas you want. I don't have to talk. That's what the attorney said. Fifth Amendment, man."

"Well, sooner or later, you're gonna have to come up to the Tri-Cities and tell that to the judge eye to eye. Unless you want to answer some questions now."

Collins laughed. He'd heard similar gambits before.

"I'll talk when the attorney says. That Fifth Amendment, only way it works is for a man to just shut up. He says once you start goin on, you can't just up and stop when you want. And you know darn well I did a lot of stuff back in the day that I don't need anybody to be hearin about. Don't want to get pulled back down to where I been. Took me a long time to climb up, man."

"Look, I'm not writing anything down. This is just us mice. I only have one real question anyway. Your uncle is saying you lied to me back in that jail ten years ago when you put it on Rommy. He's saying you tricked on me."

Collins considered the pavement as they walked.

"My uncle's a good man."

"We'll put that on a plaque, Collins. What I want to know is if he's telling the truth. Straight stuff. Did you have my lunch?"

"Look"" Collins stopped. "Man, I can't hardly remember your name to save my life."

"Starczek."

"Right, Starczek. Starczek, it's like they say"you ain only gonna believe one answer, man. You know that. If I tell you, 'Yeah, I lied back then,' you're gonna say, 'Aw, he's just got his uncle's back.' All you want to hear is that my uncle's some kind of lying fool. And he's not. Most definitely not."

They had reached the agency and entered the same side door, still wide open, through which Farwell had departed. It led to a small back room, where stationery and ticket forms were stored. Out front, there were two desks, one for Collins and another, behind a freestanding divider, that probably belonged to a receptionist or secretary. There was n.o.body there now. Collins took a seat and motioned Larry to an armchair on the other side of his desk. On the paneled wall behind Collins, a large calendar with a religious scene hung beside a simple cross, carved of wood, probably mahogany, almost the same color as the paneling.

"How's business?"

"Not bad. Darn airlines don't want you makin any money. I'm more in the tour business, these days. Lot of church groups goin to different sites."

"And this is your place, Collins?"

"Yep."

"Very nice." Larry looked around appreciatively, as if he meant it.

"My uncle lent me the money to get started. Paid him off last year."

"Uncle Erno?"

"Only uncle I got. That man has been a blessing to me. It took me way too long to know it, but he has been the hand of Jesus Christ in my life. Truly. I would never talk against Erno. He's a good man. And come to Christ himself now."

"Spare me," said Larry before he could think better of it. He was always suspicious of true believers, the people who thought they were clued in to a higher truth"whether it was religion or yoga or vegan food"that the rest of us were too blind to see.

"Don't you laugh, Starczek, when I'm talkin 'bout my Lord and Savior. That's the most serious thing in my life."

"No, Collins, I'm getting my chuckles from your uncle. He's lying and you know it."

"See, now. There you go. Just like I told you. You think a man who'll stand in judgment before the throne of G.o.d any day now is just gonna lie? Not me. That's not what I think. I think he's going to tell the Lord's truth."

"Well, if he's telling the truth, why won't you come up there and back him up?"

"He doesn't want me to. He's done all that needs be done. I go up there naked, no immunity or nothin, you know darn well you folks are gonna call me a liar and go after me. That'd just be putting myself in harm's way. No point in that."

Without question, that was how Aires had explained it to Collins. Not that he was wrong.

"Yeah, well, if Erno's straight up, don't you think you owe something to Gandolph?"

At the mention of Squirrel, Collins grew decidedly more somber. He slunk down somewhat in the broad desk chair.

"Only one thing I'll say to you about Gandolph, and I won't say no more. When I pray each night and ask Jesus' forgiveness, first thing I mention is Gandolph. First thing. I ask G.o.d to forgive me every day for what we did to that poor hook." Collins looked across the desk fearlessly, his light eyes held wide, and applied a mighty nod.

Whatever these guys were up to, it was all too deep to Larry. He reached into his pocket and took out two copies of the subpoena. He filled out the return on one, describing where and on whom the subpoena had been served, and handed over the other copy. Collins studied it, while Larry surveyed several pictures on the desk. A big sweet-looking blond woman appeared in most of them, often with two tow-headed twin girls.

"They're mine," said Collins, "if that's what you're wondering."

"The kids?"

"Yep. Look white as you do. When I went to leave the hospital with those babies in my arms, security guard wouldn't let me out with them. And she was black herself. Anne-Marie, my wife, she really started hollerin, too. She's touchier than I am when folks go racial. But those babies're mine. Time was, I didn't even wanna know anyone white. But a man can't escape the truth. Truth is, every relative I claim as mine is white. And I'm a black man. You try and figure that out. Only thing that makes any sense is that Jesus had something special in mind."

Once rebuked, Larry tried to contain himself this time at the mention of the Lord's plan, but Collins still detected a tremor of doubt.

"You think I'm, like, some nut. But this is the truth of my life, man. They let me outta Rudyard, I wasn't on the street more than a month, and I was back to all my stupid ways. There isn't a sin I hadn't committed. And you know what happened? Same as you'd know was gonna happen. I got myself shot, man. And I came out of it like it was nothing. Here I am. Two arms, two legs. Doctors, man, at County, they couldn't believe it. That bullet was like a cruise missile. Like it was taking directions. Here's this boy's spine, I ain gonna hit that, then I'm gonna take a little turn so I miss his kidney, then I'm gonna go a little right so I don't tear up any of those major veins or arteries. It was a miracle. You know why?"

"Not exactly."

"Cause Jesus was sayin something to me, man. He was sayin, I have given you signs and given you signs and you still wanna be a fool. So I'm gonna work an actual miracle. If you can't recognize that I am here and looking down on you and wantin better for you, if you don't know it now, then there just isn't any more I can do for you. You wanna be a fool, then be a fool. But no man is gonna come to heaven without Me. You can sit in one more cell and say, Never again, but until you take Me in your life, you won't come out from under all that. But if you do, if you take Me in, then there's no need for any more. Not one more moment. And there hasn't been.

"So if it's time for me to talk, Starczek, then Jesus will let me know. And once I swear my oath to Him, you gonna know every word is true. But right now, this is where Jesus wants me. And where I'm gonna stay. Fifth Amendment, man."

Collins walked Larry around to the door, shook his hand, and wished him well. He even added a little salute to Morley across the street.

Chapter 22.

June 19, 2001 The Raven Family EARLY TUESDAY, Judge Harlow issued a brief written order, ruling on several discovery motions Arthur had filed. Virtually all were denied, but Harlow's reasoning was welcome. The motions could be ventured later, the judge said, "inasmuch as the testimony of Erno Erdai appears to the Court to be of sufficient credibility to allow this matter to proceed." The Court of Appeals retained the actual authority to determine whether Gandolph would be permitted to go forward with his new habeas corpus pet.i.tion, but Harlow's ruling gave Rommy an enormous leg up. If the appellate court ruled as expected, Rommy Gandolph would live several more years, while Arthur and Pamela pursued his exoneration. They celebrated and called their client. Afterwards, the reality settled on Arthur that he was headed for an indefinite period of sc.r.a.pping and scuffling on Rommy's behalf. Rommy was now his cause"and his albatross.

This news served as a welcome distraction from the prospect of this evening, when Gillian Sullivan was scheduled to join Susan and him. Arthur had convinced himself that Gillian would find an excuse, but late in the afternoon his secretary placed a message slip in front of him, while he was on the phone with a reporter. It said, "Ms. Sullivan will be in the lobby at five."

Gillian Sullivan in his terrible little apartment. For a second, he was seized by terror and shame.

She was there as promised. On the way to the Franz Center to pick up Susan, Arthur did what little he could to prepare Gillian for his sister. The problem, however, was that even after nearly thirty years, he found little predictable about Susan's behavior. Schizophrenia was all too often a disease of the gifted, and there was no end to the inspired contrivances with which Susan could fortify her anxiety and suspicions. Whatever came his way, Arthur was hardened in his patience"threatening or critical responses just made her worse. Only in private did Arthur allow himself to react. Susan e-mailed him several times a day, and without anything to distract her, her brief messages were occasionally fully lucid. At times, she sounded as witty and perceptive as a columnist.

"Sometimes when I get those e-mails," said Arthur, as they neared the Center, "it breaks my heart. I'll sit in the office and cry. But you know, my father made himself crazy thinking about what might have been. And there's even a way it's disloyal to Susan not to accept the illness as part of her."

The North End neighborhood surrounding the Franz Center was comprised princ.i.p.ally of worn shingle-sided homes, mingling with a few stouter structures. Arthur pulled up in front of the large, banged-up-looking brick house and spent an instant surveying the block. A group of roving boys, most wearing silky gang jackets despite the heat, were on the corner.

"You better come in," he told her. "It might not be so smart to be a white lady just sitting around." As Gillian stepped out, the chirp of Arthur's remote attracted attention from down the block. "You can watch my car from the window," he said, "and inventory the pieces as they're removed."

Susan's accommodations were referred to as supervised living. Each of the eight residents had a separate studio apartment, and Valerie or one of the other M.S.W.'s was on duty twenty-four hours a day to a.s.sist. When Susan was stable and working, she was able to cover much of the expense on her own, but that was because of a large state subsidy and a grant from the Franz Foundation that supported the Center. The state funding was under constant threat, and Arthur was always writing letters or contacting his a.s.semblyman to prevent the Center from perishing. His father's estate"which, due to Harvey Raven's scrimping, was larger than a man of his means should have left"remained in trust as a backstop.

Susan's apartment was small and well kept these days. There were periods when her hygiene deteriorated, and she seldom thought on her own of appearances, but she complied with the social workers' suggestions about cleaning up. There was not a picture on the wall, or any electronic appliances, since sooner or later they would foster a delusion of attack. Generally, it was their mother's voice Susan heard, warning her about some invisible menace.

The Nurse Pract.i.tioner who administered the Prolixin was already there, and the shot had been dispensed by the time Arthur was through the door. Susan was ready to go. Arthur reminded her again about Gillian, as he knew Valerie had several times during the week, but Susan gave no sign of recognizing what he was talking about until she was settled in the front seat of the automobile and they were under way.

She then asked her brother without any warning, "Does this mean you're f.u.c.king?"

Raven burned from his shoulders to his scalp, but his response, as always, was measured.

"Susan, it's much nicer when you try to be considerate."

"You're f.u.c.king? I know all about f.u.c.king. Arthur doesn't know much." The last comment was clearly aimed at Gillian, although Susan did not look in her direction.

"I don't think they give degrees in that subject," Gillian answered quietly. Arthur had advised her beforehand not to allow his sister to bulldoze or terrify her, and this one response seemed enough to quell Susan. In Arthur's rearview, Gillian, as usual, appeared entirely unruffled.

When his father died, Arthur had moved back into Harvey Raven's apartment. It was comfortable in a way. Arthur had lived for years in an efficiency in a high-style building near the Street of Dreams, where even a glance down to the sidewalk in the evenings was sometimes enough to leave him defeated by the world of fashion and allure he would never join. But there had been an element of surrender in his return to the dour environment his father had always wanted him to escape. Yet there was little choice. Susan was badly shaken by their father's death, and her counselors confirmed that the apartment held great significance for her. This was the only home in which Susan Raven had been healthy. For her, the apartment represented the otherwise elusive reality of mental stability. Abandoning the place would close a door forever.