Eric Lustbader - First Daughter

Jack looked up. "Do you and Egon work at it?"

"Goodness, yes." Candy came over, leaned on the pass-through. "We've had our ups and downs just like everyone else, I daresay. But the essential thing is that we both want the same thing-to be together." She looked at him with her wise eyes. "That's what you want, isn't it, to be with her?"

Jack nodded mutely.

Candy pushed the plate aside and began to shoo him out of the family room. Taffy barked unhappily. "Go on now." She kissed him warmly. "Go see my man, and I hope he makes you feel better."

"Thanks, Candy."

She stood at the door. "You can thank me by showing up on my doorstep more often."

QUIET AS a morgue, Jack thought as he entered the ME's office. In times past, that little joke would have put a smile on his face, but not tonight. He walked down the deserted corridors, hearing only the soft draw of the massive air conditioners. There was a mug half-filled with coffee on Schiltz's desk, but no sign of the man himself. The mug was inscribed with the phrase WORLD'S BEST DAD, a years-ago present from Molly. Jack put his finger into the coffee, found it still warm. His friend was here somewhere.

The autopsy room was similarly still. All the coldly gleaming chrome and stainless steel made it look like Dr. Frankenstein's lab. All that was needed were a couple of bolts of lightning. A dim glow came from the cold room. Jack stood on the threshold, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He remembered the time he'd taken Emma here. She was writing a paper on forensic medicine during the year the vocation had fired her interest. He'd been here many times, but he found it enlightening to see it through her eager, young eyes. Egon had met them, taken them around, explained everything, answered Emma's seemingly endless questions. But when she said, "Why does God allow people to be murdered?" Egon shook his head and said, "If I knew that, kiddo, I'd know everything."

Jack saw that one of the cold slabs had been drawn out of the wall. No doubt holding part of the hush-hush work that chained Egon to the office so late at night. Jack stepped forward, was on the point of calling out Egon's name when he heard the noises. It sounded as if the entire cold room had come alive and was breathing heavily. Then he saw Egon.

He was on the cold slab, lying facedown on top of Ami, his assistant. He was naked and so was she. Their rhythmic movements acid-etched the true nature of Egon's hush-hush work onto Jack's brain.

Jack, his mind in a fog, stood rooted for a moment. He struggled to make sense of what he was seeing, but it was like trying to digest a ten-pound steak. It just wasn't going to happen.

On stiff legs, he backed out of the cold room, turned, and went back down the corridor to Egon's office. Plunking himself into Egon's chair, he stared at the coffee. Well, that wasn't going to do it. He pawed through the desk drawers until he found Egon's pint of single-barrel bourbon, poured three fingers' worth into the coffee. He put the mug to his lips and drank the brew down without even wincing. Then he sat back.

For Egon Schiltz-family man, churchgoing, God-fearing fundamentalist-to be schtupping a cookie on the side was unthinkable. What would God say, for God's sake? Another of Jack's little jokes that tonight failed to bring a smile to his face. Or joy to his heart, which now seemed to be a dead cinder lying at the bottom of some forgotten dust heap.

He thought about leaving before Egon came back and saw that his "hush-hush work" was now an open secret, but he couldn't get his body to move. He took another slug of the single-barrel, reasoning that it might help, but it only served to root him more firmly in the chair.

And then it was too late. He heard the familiar footsteps coming down the corridor, and then Egon appeared. He stopped short the moment he saw Jack, and unconsciously ran a hand through his tousled hair.

"Jack, this is a surprise!"

I'll bet it is , Jack thought. "Guess where I just came from, Egon?"

Schiltz spread his hands, shook his head.

"How about a clue, then? I was just treated to the best cherry pie on God's green earth." Was that a tremor at the left side of Schiltz's head? "And speaking of God…"

"You know."

"I saw."

Schiltz hid his face in his hands.

"How long?"

"Six months."

Jack stood up. "I just… what the hell's the matter with you?"

"I was… tempted."

"Tempted?" Jack echoed hotly. "Doesn't the Bible tell us again and again, ad nauseam, how God deals with the tempted? Doesn't the Bible teach you to be strong morally, to resist temptation?"

"Those… people didn't have Ami working next to them every day."

"Wait a minute, if that's your excuse, you're nothing but a hypocrite."

Schiltz was visibly shaken. "I'm not a hypocrite, Jack. You know me better than that." He sank into a visitor's chair. "I'm a man, with a man's foibles." He glanced up, and for a moment a certain fire burned in his eyes. "I make mistakes just like everyone else, Jack. But my belief in God, in the morals he gave us, hasn't changed."

Jack spread his arms wide. "Then how do you explain this?"

"I can't." Schiltz hung his head.

Jack shook his head. "You want to cheat on Candy, go right ahead, I'm the last person to stop you. Except I know from personal experience how affairs fuck up marriages, how they poison the love one person has for another, how there's no hope of going back to the love."

Schiltz, elbows on knees, looked up at him bleakly. "Don't say that," he whispered.

"Another truth you don't want to hear." Jack came around the desk. "If you want to risk a broken marriage, who the hell am I to stop you, Egon? That's not why I'm pissed off. I'm pissed off because you go to church every Sunday with your family, you're pious and righteous-you denounce so-called sexual degenerates, ridicule politicians-especially Democrats-who've had affairs exposed. It's been easy for you to identify sinners from your high pedestal. But I wonder how easy it'll be now. You're not one of God's chosen, Egon. By your actions-by your own admission-you're just one of us sinners."

Egon sighed. "You're right, of course. I deserve every epithet you hurl at me. But, my God, I love Candy, you have to know that. I'd rather cut off my right arm than hurt her."

"I feel the same way, so don't worry. I'm not going to tell her."

"Well, I'm grateful for that. Thank you, Jack."

An awkward silence fell over them.

"Weren't you ever tempted, Jack?"

"What does it matter? This is about you, Egon. You and Candy, when you get right down to it. You can't have her and Ami, too, because if you do, you'll never be able to hold your head up in church again. I doubt even God would forgive that sin."

"Feet of clay." Schiltz nodded. "I've been laid low."

There was a rustling in the corridor and a moment later Ami entered, a clipboard in one hand, a pen in the other. She froze when she saw Jack. "Oh, I didn't know you were here, Mr. McClure."

"You must have been away from your desk." Jack saw her eyes flicker.

She was about to hand her boss the clipboard when she saw his stricken face. "Is everything all right, Dr. Schiltz?"

"Egon," Jack said. "You should call him Egon."

Ami took one look at Jack, then at Schiltz's face, and fled the room.

"Go on, make jokes at my expense, Jack." Schiltz shook his head ruefully. "God will forgive me."

"Is this the same god that was supposed to look after Candy, or Emma?"

I REMEMBER," Schiltz said. "I remember when everything was different, simpler."

"Now you sound like an old man," Jack said.

"Tonight I feel old." Schiltz sipped his bourbon and made a face. It wasn't single-barrel or anything close.

They were sitting in a late-night bar off Braddock Avenue, not far from the office. It was attached to a motel. While the interior was not quite so seedy as the motel itself, the clientele was a whole lot seedier. A low ceiling with plastic beams, sixty-watt bulbs further dimmed by dusty green-glass shades, torn vinyl-covered banquettes, a jukebox ringing out Muddy Waters and B. B. King tended to attract a fringe element right at home with the bleak dislocation of midnight with nowhere to go, no one to be with.