Prayers For Rain Part 67

"Hanging to the left, my friend. Say, Pat?"

"Yeah, Wes?"

"When you get to the parking garage, go up to the roof, will you?"

"We going to meet, Wes?"

"Bring the envelope Don Guido gave you."

"But of course."

"Don't waste our time contacting the police, okay, Pat? There's nothing to hold me on."

He hung up.

I waited until I was in the shadows of the garage itself, unseeable to anyone inside or on the roof, before I called Angie.

"How fast can you get down by Haymarket?"

"The way I drive?"

"So about five minutes," I said. "I'll be on the roof of the garage at the base of New Sudbury. You know the one?"

"Yup."

I looked around me. "I need a picture of the guy, Ange."

"That garage roof? How'm I gonna shoot down on that? All the buildings around it are shorter."

I found one. "The antiques co-op at the end of Friend Street. Get on the roof."

"How?"

"I don't know. Outside of the friggin' expressway, I don't see any other place you could shoot from."

"Okay, okay. I'm on my way."

She hung up and I took the stairs eight stories to the roof, the stairwell dark and dank and reeking of urine.

He was leaning with his arms up on the wall, looking down at City Hall Plaza, Faneuil Hall, the sudden towering eruption of the financial district where Congress met State. For a moment, I considered rus.h.i.+ng him, giving his legs a quick lift and chuck, seeing what sounds he'd make as he tumbled end over end and splattered all over the street. With any luck, it'd be ruled a suicide, and if he had a soul, it would choke on the irony all the way down to h.e.l.l.

He turned to me when I was a good fifteen yards away. He smiled.

"Tempting, isn't it?"

"What's that?"

"The thought of throwing me off the roof."

"A bit."

"But the police would quickly ascertain that the last call I made from my cell phone was to your cell phone, and they'd triangulate the source of the signals and place you at City Hall, six or seven minutes before I died."

"That'd be a b.u.mmer," I said. "Sure." I pulled my gun from my waistband. "On your knees, Wes."

"Oh, come on."

"Hands behind your head and lace the fingers."

He laughed. "Or what? You'll shoot me?"

I was ten feet away now. "No. But I'll pistol-whip your nose beyond recognition. Would you like that?"

He grimaced, looked at his linen trousers and the dirty ground at his feet.

"How about I just hold up my hands, you frisk me, and I remain standing?"

"Sure," I said. "Why not?" I kicked him in the back of the left knee and he dropped to the ground.

"This is not what you want to do!" He looked back at me, his face scarlet.

"Oooh," I said. "Wesley gets angry."

"You have no idea."

"Hey, psycho, put your f.u.c.king hands behind your head. Okay?"

He did.

"Lace the fingers."

He did.

I ran my hands along his chest, under the flaps of his untucked black silk s.h.i.+rt, along his waistband, crotch, and ankles. He wore black golf gloves in the dead of summer, but they were too tight and too small to conceal even a razor, so I let them be.

"The irony is," he said as I searched him, "that even as your hand is running all over my body, you can't touch me, Pat."

"Miles Lovell," I said. "David Wetterau."

"You can place me at the sites of either of their accidents?"

Nope. Son of a b.i.t.c.h.

I said, "Your stepsister, Wesley."

"Committed suicide, last I heard."

"I can place you at the Holly Martens Inn."