Роберт Паркер - All Our Yesterdays

“Laura Winslow,” he said.

“Un-huh.”

“Grace’s mother.”

“Yeah.”

“The wife of the serial killer.”

“Yeah.”

Chris stared at him and then began slowly to smile. The smile got wider and became a soft laugh and grew. Chris laughed harder. He bent over with laughter. Tears rolled down his cheeks. He was having trouble catching his breath. Gus heard the edge of hysteria in it. He sat and waited. Slowly Chris got control. He wiped his eyes and then turned to the sink and splashed cold water on his face. He dried his hands and face on a paper towel and threw the towel in the wastebasket under the sink.

“Sorry,” he said.

He shook his head.

“This family...” he said.

“Yeah,” Gus said. “And that family. Three generations now.”

“And what happens between you and Laura?” Chris said.

“Nothing good,” Gus said.

“Be hard on Grace too,” Chris said.

“Should pretty well sew up Flaherty’s election, though,” Gus said.

“My opponent’s father is a serial killer? Yeah, that’ll play,” Chris said. “Maybe we could just do him on the money laundering thing, and not mention the pedophilia. It would get him out of circulation.”

Gus shook his head.

“It would be in his own best interest to cover that part up,” Chris said. “And you don’t have to tell the world you covered up a murder.”

“And let two more happen.”

Chris began to pace again, hands in his back pockets, looking at the wide boards of the yellow pine flooring.

“We could rig this,” he said. “You turn state’s evidence. Robinson’ll plea-bargain. Flaherty will love this. He’ll climb all over Robinson to do it.”

“No,” Gus said. “You’re starting to trim. You can’t trim.”

“Why the fuck not?” Chris said. “You trimmed. Christ, you slashed.”

“That’s why,” Gus said. “You’re all that’s left.”

“Left of what?”

“Left that matters,” Gus said.

Chris stared again at his father for a silent moment. Then he began slowly to nod.

“What about Tom Winslow?” Chris said.

“Tom’s dead,” Gus said.

Chris walked around the table and stood behind his father. He bent over and put his arm around his father’s shoulder and rested his cheek on the top of Gus’s head.

“What a fucking mess,” he said.

Mary Alice was leaning on the wall near the window, with her arms folded, and one ankle crossed over the other. Flaherty was behind his desk, his swivel chair turned sideways and tilted, one foot on the lower drawer. He was wearing a dark blue double breasted suit that went elegantly with his high color and his silver hair. He glanced at himself reflected in the long mirror opposite. Senator Flaherty, he thought. Chris Sheridan was there looking young and athletic, and Kendall Robinson, the DA, looking very Harvard, and Fiora Gardello, looking determinedly equal to anybody.

“Okay,” Chris said. “Your gang war is over, and your serial child-killing is finished, and you’re going to be the junior senator from Massachusetts.”

“Are you aware that Cabot Winslow withdrew this morning?” Flaherty said. His voice was neutral.

Chris ignored him.

“What I’m after,” Chris said, talking to Kendall Robinson, “is a deal for my old man.”

“No deals,” Flaherty said. “He goes down too.”

Chris continued to ignore Flaherty, talking to Robinson.

“He handed us this thing,” Chris said. “Wasn’t for him we’d be floundering around on this until the twelfth of never.”

“He’s a crooked cop,” Flaherty said. “With all due regard, Chris, he’s guilty as sin.”

Chris turned his gaze on Flaherty. It was almost like Gus’s, Flaherty noticed. Not as crazy, but still uncomfortable.

“And he got you the election,” Chris said.

“He didn’t do that for me. He wanted you to be a hero.”

“And I’ll be one,” Chris said. “‘Incorruptible son arrests own father.’ And I’ll be a media darling and I’ll be on all the talk shows, and every chance I get, I will try to stick it into you and break it off.”

“You think you can scare me?” Flaherty said.

“I can appeal to your pragmatic sense,” Chris said.

Mary Alice left the wall and walked to the coffee table. She took a small notepad out of her purse, and wrote something, and tore the sheet from the pad, and folded it in two.

“He gave it all to us,” Fiora Gardello said to Flaherty. “And he’ll testify.”

“Unless, of course, his testimony is self-incriminating,” Chris said. “In which case, of course, I can’t let him do it.”

“This is a conflict of interest,” Flaherty said. “You can’t be my prosecutor and his lawyer.”

“Quitting this job will be easier than anything I’ve ever done before,” Chris said.

“He has a point, Parnell,” Robinson said. “If we’re to get convictions we need Gus’s testimony, and we’ll have to deal with the self-incrimination problem.”

Mary Alice walked to Flaherty’s desk, and handed him the slip of paper, and winked at him and walked back to her post by the window. No one paid attention. She knew they wouldn’t. They were used to her, the trusted gal Friday, barely visible.

Holding the unopened note, Flaherty said, “The sonova bitch sat right there and drank my Scotch and lied his fucking brains out.”

He opened the note and read it. The note said: Take the deal or the press gets a detailed description of your cunnilingus skills on the office couch .

“You want his testimony, you work with me,” Chris said. He knew he was bluffing. His father would testify anyway. But nobody here was capable of understanding that. It was a workable bluff.

Flaherty finished reading the note and looked up at Mary Alice standing by the window. His face had no expression on it. Mary Alice smiled at him. He folded the note back in half and slipped it into his inside jacket pocket.

“What do you think about this, Mary Alice?”

“You’re an old hand, Parnell, whatever you think is the best course.”

Flaherty looked at Chris.

“I don’t like disloyalty,” Flaherty said. “And I don’t like threats. But I am paid to do what’s best for the people of this city.”

Chris was quiet. He could feel the direction changing. Flaherty turned to Kendall Robinson.

“You want the deal?” Flaherty said.

“Fiora,” Robinson said. “You’ll prosecute. It’s your call.”

“Sure,” she said. “Immunity.”

Chris nodded.

“Your word?” he said to Flaherty.

“I’ll abide by the recommendation of my district attorney and my prosecutor,” Flaherty said.

“Your word,” Chris said.

Their eyes locked for a moment. Then Flaherty smiled.

“Hell, yes, Chris-boy. You’ve got my word.”

Chris said, “Thank you,” and stood.

No one else spoke.

“My father and I will be in touch,” Chris said. He looked at Mary Alice and smiled and turned and walked out of the office.

In the elevator, riding down, Chris thought, What was in the note?

“Gus gets immunity for testifying,” I said. “Your brother withdraws. I’m a great hero of the people for fifteen minutes. And Flaherty gets elected.”

“And my father is dead and my family is disgraced.”

“That too,” I said.

“And you ran.”

“I like to think of it as getting some distance,” I said. “But ran will do. I called you once, you didn’t return the call. I was almost relieved. I couldn’t think what I could say about all of it, anyway. So I went to Dublin.”