Sharp told him, Jerry Peake was never going to forget what he had seen.
Knowing these things about the deputy director gave Peake an enormous
advantagethough, as yet, he had absolutely no idea how to benefit from
what he had learned.
He had also learned that Sharp was, at heart, a coward.
In spite of his bullying ways and impressive physical appearance, the
deputy director would back down in a crunch, even against a smaller man
like The Stone, as long as the smaller man stood up to him with
conviction. Sharp had no compunctions about violence and would resort
to it when he thought he was fully protected by his government position
or when his adversary was sufficiently weak and unthreatening, but he
would back off if he believed he faced the slightest chance of being
hurt himself. Possessing that knowledge, Peake had another big
advantage, but he did not yet see a way to use that one, either.
Nevertheless, he was confident he would eventually know how to apply the
things he had learned. Making well-considered, fair, and effective use
of such insights was precisely what a legend did best.
Unaware of having given Peake two gootl knives, Sharp paced back and
forth with the impatience of a Caesar.
The Stone had demanded half an hour alone with his daughter. When
thirty minutes had passed, Sharp began to look at his wristwatch more
frequently.
After thirty-five minutes, he walked heavily to the door, put a hand
against it, started to push inside, hesitated, and turned away. “Hell,
give him another few minutes. Can’t be easy getting anything coherent
out of that spaced-out little whore.”
Peake murmured agreement.
The looks that Sharp cast at the closed door became increasingly
murderous. Finally, forty minutes after they had left the room at The
Stone’s insistence, Sharp tried to cover his fear of confrontation with
the farmer by saying, “I have to make a few important calls. I’ll be at
the public phones in the lobby.”
“Yes, sir.”
Sharp started away, then looked back. “When the shit-kicker comes out
of there, he’s just going to have to wait for me no matter how long I
take, and I don’t give a damn how much that upsets him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’ll do him good to cool his heels awhile,” Sharp said, and he stalked
off, head held high, rolling his big shoulders, looking like a very
important man, evidently convinced that his dignity was intact.
Jerry Peake leaned against the wall of the corridor and watched the
nurses go by, smiling at the pretty ones and engaging them in brief
flirtatious conversation when they were not too busy.
Sharp stayed away for twenty minutes, giving The Stone a full hour with
Sarah, but when he came back from making his importantprobahly
nonexistentphone calls, The Stone had still not appeared. Even a coward
could explode if pushed too far, and Sharp was furious.
“That lousy dirt-humping hayseed. He can’t come in here, reeking of
pigshit, and screw up my investigation.”
He turned away from Peake and started toward Sarah’s room.
Before Sharp took two steps, The Stone came out.
Peake had wondered whether Felsen Kiel would look as imposing on second
encounter as he had appeared when stepping dramatically into Sarah’s
room and interrupting Anson Sharp in an act of molestation. To Peake’s
great satisfaction, The Stone was even more imposing than on the
previous occasion. That strong, seamed, weathered face. Those
oversized hands, work-gnarled knuckles. An air of unshakable
self-possession and serenity.
Peake watched with a sort of awe as the man crossed the hallway, as if
he were a slab of granite come to life.
“Gentlemen, I’m sorry to keep you waitin’. But, as I’m sure you
understand, my daughter and I had a lot of catchin’ up to do.”
“And as you must understand, this is an urgent national security
matter,” Sharp said, though more quietly than he had spoken earlier.
Unperturbed, The Stone said, “My daughter says you want to know if maybe
she has some idea where a fella named Leben is hidin’ out.”
“That’s right,” Sharp said tightly.
“She said something’ about him bein’ a livin’ dead man, which I can’t