Bill Pronzini - Acts of Mercy

Justice shook his head. He understood just how grave the situation must be for a proud, aloof genius such as Harper to come seeking help from someone such as himself. But he had no alternative answers to offer; his mind was as blank in this moment as an erased slateboard. “I don’t know, sir,” he said. “I just… I don’t know.”

Harper gave him a look of disgust, got abruptly to his feet. “Behold the common man, the product of two centuries of struggle and pain since the French Revolution-totally incapable of creative thought or action.”

“I want to help, Mr. Harper,” Justice said, “but I don’t know how. I’m not a thinker or a planner, I’m just a man who follows orders-”

But Harper had already turned and was walking away.

And now we are sure of another one, a second part of the conspiracy, a second cell of the cancer which must be destroyed. He has been a major suspect all along, of course, especially for the past few days, but still there is an element of shock in unmistakable knowledge. The truth is always difficult, revelation carries its own small clout of pain, because for a long time we trusted him, we believed in him, and it is always painful to come face to face with deceit and your own misjudgments.

But that is not important. All that is important is that he is a traitor. The evidence is damning, the verdict is in, and sentence has been passed: he is a traitor, and he must die.

Tonight.

He must be executed tonight…

Dinner in Claire’s drawing room: the two of them alone, the lights turned down and a pair of slim tapers burning in silver holders, good cuisine and a good bottle of estatebottled pinot chardonnay, the wind whispering beyond the shaded windows and combining with the steady hum of the train wheels to form a kind of muted background music, Claire in a sheer white dressing gown and with her hair brushed into long smooth waves the way he liked her to wear it.

All the ingredients were there, Augustine thought, but the dinner was not what it could have been, what it should have been on the Presidential Special. There was no intimacy, no sense of peace or contentment. Claire seemed rested tonight, after her nap, but she was still quiet and withdrawn; and he was nearly exhausted and his head ached from the bourbon he had drunk too much of and his mind kept working, working, stuttering from one thought to another. They had said little to each other, and yet there was a strained atmosphere that seemed to linger between them, as if Claire had difficult things to say to him just as he had difficult things to say to her. Which made the dinner little more than an excuse for delay.

Augustine picked at his roast beef and watched her across the table. She had stopped eating-had barely touched her food anyway-and was looking now into her wine glass. Her eyes were dark, unreadable, somewhat distant; she looked in that aspect to be deep in a kind of spiritual meditation. In the flickering light from the candle flames her face had a distinctive, almost haunting beauty, like that of a woman seen and coveted but never known.

At length he put down his own fork, dabbed at his mouth with the linen napkin. Might as well get it over with, he thought. He cleared his throat.

Claire blinked, focused on him again. “Yes, Nicholas?”

“There’s something you should know,” he said, “something that happened this afternoon.”

A soft sigh. “About Julius Wexford, you mean.”

“You know he’s here on board?”

“Yes. He came to see me after he spoke to you.”

“Oh he did, did he. Then I suppose he told you about the National Committee’s decision.”

“I’m afraid so.”

So the difficult things plaguing both of them were the same. He ran a hand through his hair. “What else did he say?”

“He begged me to ask you to reconsider.”

“I’ll bet he did. For my sake and for the sake of the party and the country-is that how he put it?”

“Yes.”

“Did he also tell you he thinks I’m deteriorating mentally, heading for a breakdown?”

She winced. “Yes.”

“And what did you say?”

“I told him I didn’t want to listen to that kind of talk. I told him I found his and the National Committee’s opinions distasteful and their tactics unforgivable. If they had met with you personally, been frank and open with you instead of going behind your back-”

“It wouldn’t have made any difference,” Augustine said. He studied her closely. “Damn it, Claire, you didn’t let him convince you my position is as hopeless as they claim.”

“I didn’t let him convince me of anything.”

“But you think it just might be hopeless, don’t you.”

“Nothing is hopeless,” she said.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Nicholas, it’s just that with party unity behind Kineen, you’re facing an awesome struggle-a vicious and painful one-and I can’t help but worry what it might do to you.”

“It won’t do anything to me except put me back in the White House for another four years. We’re going to beat them, Clare, I promise you that. Together we’re going to beat them.”

Claire rotated her wine glass, silent.

“Together,” he said again.

“Yes,” she said, “together.”

Augustine nodded. “We’ll begin the campaign as soon as we return to Washington. I’ve got several ideas on how to proceed. But the first thing is to appoint a new campaign chairman and I’ve been thinking about Ed Dougherty. How do you feel about him?”

“He might be a good choice, yes.”

“Then again, maybe Maxwell Harper would be an even better one.”

“No,” Claire said immediately.

“Well, he’s a brilliant man. In the past his advice-”

“I don’t want to hear about Maxwell’s advice,” she said, and there was a vehemence in her voice that surprised him. “I don’t care about his advice. I don’t want you even to consider him as a campaign chairman.”

“Why not? My God, you sound as though you no longer like or trust him.”

“I don’t.”

“But why?”

“Nicholas, please. Let’s just drop the subject of Maxwell Harper.”

“All right,” he said. “For now. But I just don’t understand this sudden animosity toward him.”

She was silent again.

Frowning, Augustine massaged his temples. “Do you want to hear my ideas for the campaign,?”

“Wouldn’t you rather rest now? You hardly slept last night and you look exhausted. You can tell me your ideas at The Hollows.”

“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Maybe I should get to bed right away.” He paused. “Do you want to join me?”

“A little later, if you’d like.”

“I would. I’d prefer not to sleep alone tonight.”

He stood and stepped around to kiss her. Then he went to the connecting door between their compartments, opened it and stepped through. Before he reshut the door he looked at her again. The candlelight played across the soft planes of her face-and he was struck once more by the haunting beauty of her in that aspect, by the vaguely unsettling feeling that even after twenty years of marriage, he did not really know her at all.

The feeling stayed with him even after he was in bed and waiting for sleep to come and carry him away.

Restless, unable to sleep, Harper paced the floor of his compartment in small widening circles, returning to the center of the room when the circles increased enough to bring him up against walls and furnishings. He tended to do that when he was brooding, perhaps because it was an objective correlative for the way in which his mind worked: begin at the center, forage outward from a central idea or conception.