T. Bunn - Drummer in the Dark

Jackie found herself unwilling to press further. Not when his pain so closely resembled her own. She found herself wondering what it would be like to care so passionately about a cause, or have someone else carry such grief for her own passage.

She used her flowers to gesture along the lane. “You mind excusing me?”

He gave another of his gracious half-bows and showed the incredible wisdom to say nothing further. Instead he merely walked to an empty stone bench.

Jackie pretended she did not feel his presence as she rounded the curve and halted by the all-too-familiar patch of green. She settled her flowers into the stone vase rising beside the simple plaque. Preston’s name had been carved into the dark granite, nothing else. No need to add the burden of those too-brief dates. She would never forget the day of his departure or his age. Or how she had failed him.

As ever, the mirror to past mistakes remained imperfect and depressing. She endured it for a respectful period, then allowed herself to turn away. As dissatisfied and aching as ever.

The Egyptian rose at her approach. He seemed to reflect her own tumult, a gift of understanding so potent she found herself unable to remain at a safe distance. The deep melodious voice said, “My family is Coptic. An ancient Christian church, so old it is hard to know where truth ends and fable begins. Forty days we spend mourning over those gone ahead. People gather from all over the globe for the day of burial, then remain for a week and more at the side of those seeking either to heal or drown in grief. Both responses are acceptable to families such as mine.”

She felt drawn as much by his sorrow as his words. Nabil Saad kept his face turned toward the corner and the unseen grave. “Alas, my young friend was unable to attend her own funeral. And it was my fault. I used my position to insist that the Washington police not simply dismiss her death as suicide. She was murdered. I have no proof, but still I ordered them to treat it as such. The detectives in charge of the case were very angry. They took revenge in a very painful manner.”

Jackie guessed, “They refused to release the body.”

“I insisted that the young lady had been thrown from the roof for asking the wrong questions and hoping to make the impossible a reality. The detectives insisted the case would go nowhere, then punished me for this extra work. There were problems with the autopsy, questions of this and that. .” He waved a dismissive hand, an utterly Arab gesture. “I was left to face her parents and confess that I was responsible for their grieving over an empty coffin.”

His gaze was so open and wounded, Jackie could let herself be swallowed and comforted both. “So I must thank you, Ms. Havilland, for granting me this moment in a place of hallowed death.”

She looked back down the curved pathway and faced a rising tide of memories. “You’ve heard the expression, a child too fine for this world? That was Preston. A little boy to the end. My finest memories are all about making Preston laugh. He was my very best friend.”

“Come.” He touched her with the invitation and a gentle hand upon her shoulder, guiding her back to the stone bench.

Jackie found herself willing to seat herself beside this stranger, though normally she could scarcely draw breath until she had passed the outer gates. “Preston had a brilliant mind. He was a mathematician. He grew up in mind and body, but his heart remained that of a child. Untouched by anything.” Jackie halted and focused on something beyond her aching empty universe. After a time, she went on, “Preston specialized in calculating statistical probability. I had no idea what the words meant until he told me. I’ll never forget that day. Preston was sixteen and as excited as a man falling in love. Which I suppose was what he had done. He showed me these pages in his book, lines of calculus and a few sentences of description. I remember I told him, there aren’t any numbers. I said it as much to make him laugh as because that was what I was thinking.”

“And then he went to work for Hayek,” Nabil Saad intoned. “And you went back to school.”

“Preston worked as a specialist on the currency markets, calculating risk and currency trajectories. I never felt comfortable with his work or his world. But I could not say why.”

“It was the natural response of one who loved him with a goodly heart. Love grants one the wisest of vision.”

“It was almost enough to study, to grow and search and do all the things I had dreamed of. Still I wanted to put a name to my fears, so I started researching his new realm. I found some very real dangers. But it was never enough to make Preston back away.” The remembrances tasted metallic. “Then the work and the life began to consume him. Preston took to drugs like candy. Crystal meth and cocaine, they fueled his fire. That and adrenaline. He just burned up. By the time he finally came back for me to nurse, there was nothing left. The doctors put all sorts of names to it, but I knew and so did he.”

“And you stayed with him to the end.”

She turned away from the memories and the comforting closeness. She had to, or lose it totally. “Why are we sitting like this?”

“Some of those opposed to involving an outsider asked me to spy on you. I decided there was enough spying already. So I came to introduce myself, and to give you this.” He slipped an envelope from his pocket. “Esther asks that you come visit her. Tomorrow.”

“In Washington?” She stared at the envelope, but did not take it. “Why doesn’t she come back here?”

“There are difficulties. Go and you will see.” He settled the envelope into her hand and rose. “I count it an honor to have made your acquaintance, Ms. Havilland. I would even call it a pleasure, were we not so surrounded by remorse.”

She stared up at him, amazed at his ability to smile with his eyes and weep with his voice. “Call me Jackie.”

He offered his hand. “I agree. Such secrets as ours should only be shared between people who can claim first names.”

“I have about a thousand questions.”

“If you force me, I will speak. But the secrets are not mine alone, and I would prefer that you first go to Washington.”

She thought a moment, then released his hand. He rewarded her with an enigmatic smile of approval. Then she recalled an inept boatman and yet another baffling message. “A guy I met a couple of days ago, scared out of his wits, talked about a website called Trastevere. Does that mean anything to you?”

The shutters came down over those dark eyes. She actually saw it happen. “Piazza Trastevere is in Rome,” he said, and took another step back. “It is the site of a movement called Sant’Egidio.” The words became his only farewell, as he then turned and walked away. Not really fleeing, but moving swiftly enough to show he hoped she would not speak again.

Jackie found herself willing to let him go. To her quiet amazement, the day now held a strange sense of comfort, and the cloying heat was not altogether bad.

Thursday

" Let me get this straight.” Eric, a junior trader and Colin’s closest friend on the floor, was a tousle-headed young man on the downside of thirty with eyes of his grandfather’s generation. He bent over to observe Colin Ready sprawled on the floor by his feet. “You’re telling me that my computer doesn’t like having coffee poured down its plug holes?”

“I’ve read the care and feeding manuals cover to cover.” Colin continued removing a goop stubborn as old glue. Down here on the floor, among the cables and scraps of abandoned paper, the air smelled pretty foul-old socks, meal scraps, sweat, dead coffee. A human zoo. The underside of the money treadmill. “I’ve never come across any suggestion that you should kick-start your machine with caffeine.”