‘Let’s go to bed so we can get an early start, Madame Pilot,’ I said.
‘I think I’ll just sleep in here.’
She pointed the remote control and turned down the volume.
‘In your clothes?’
She shrugged.
‘If we can get to HeloAir around nine, I’ll call Kirby from there.’
‘What if they say don’t come?’ my niece asked.
‘I’ll tell them I’m on my way. New York City is Republican at the moment. If need be, I’ll get my friend Senator Lord involved, and he’ll get the health commissioner and mayor on the warpath, and I don’t think Kirby will want that. Easier to let us land, don’t you think?’
‘They don’t have any ground-to-air missiles there, do they?’
‘Yes, they’re called patients,’ I said, and it was the first time we had laughed in days.
Why I slept as well as I did, I could not explain, but when my alarm clock went off at six A.M., I turned over in bed. I realized I had not gotten up once since shortly before midnight, and this hinted of a cure, of a renewing that I desperately needed. Depression was a veil I could almost see through, and I was beginning to feel hope. I was doing what Benton would expect me to do, not to avenge his murder, really, for he would not have wanted that.
His wish would have been to prevent harm to Marino, Lucy, or me. He would have wanted me to protect other lives I did not know, other unwitting individuals who worked in hospitals or as models and had been sentenced to a terrible death in the split second it took for a monster to notice them with evil eyes burning with envy.
Lucy went running as the sun was coming up, and although it unnerved me for her to be out alone, I knew she had a pistol in her butt pack, and neither of us could let our lives stop because of Carrie. It seemed she had such an advantage. If we went on as usual, we might die. If we aborted our lives because of fear, we still died, only in a way that was worse, really.
‘I’m assuming everything was quiet out there?’ I said when Lucy returned to the house and found me in the kitchen.
I set coffee on the kitchen table, where Lucy was seated. Sweat was rolling down her shoulders and face, and I tossed her a dishtowel. She took off her shoes and socks, and I was slammed with an image of Benton sitting there, doing the same thing. He always hung around the kitchen for a while after running. He liked to cool down, to visit with me before he took a shower and buttoned himself up in his neat clothes and deep thoughts.
‘A couple people out walking their dogs in Windsor Farms,’ she said. ‘Not a sign of anybody in your neighborhood. I asked the guy at the guard gate if anything was going on, like any more taxi cabs or pizza deliveries showing up for you. Any weird phone calls or unexpected visitors trying to get in. He said no.’
‘Glad to hear it.’
‘That’s chicken shit. I don’t think she’s the one who did that.’
‘Then who?’ I was surprised.
‘Hate to tell you, but there are other people out there who are none too fond of you.’
‘A large segment of the prison population.’
‘And people who aren’t in prison, at least not yet. Like the Christian Scientists whose kid you did. You think it might occur to them to harass you? Like sending taxis, a construction Dumpster, or calling the morgue early in the morning and hanging up on poor Chuck? That’s all you need, is a morgue assistant who’s too spooked to be alone in your building anymore. Or worse, the guy quits. Chicken shit,’ she said again. ‘Petty, spiteful, chicken shit generated by an ignorant, little mind.’
None of this had ever occurred to me before.
‘Is he still getting the hang-ups?’ she asked.
She eyed me as she sipped her coffee, and through the window over the sink, the sun was a tangerine on a dusky blue horizon.