As they went out of the apartment together, she said, "It didn't have to happen this way, you know."
"I know," Parker said.
Willis hoped there wasn't a gun in the room here. He hoped there wouldn't be shooting. With O'Brien along…
"Police," O'Brien said, and knocked on the door again.
Silence inside the room there.
Then the sound of a window scraping open.
"He's moving!" Willis said.
He was already backing away from the door and raising his right leg for a piston-kick. Arms wide for leverage, he looked like a football player going for the extra point. His leg lashed out, the sole and heel of his shoe hitting the door flat, just above the knob. The latch sprang, the door swung inward, O'Brien following it into the room, gun extended. Don't let there be another gun in here, Willis thought.
A man in his undershorts was halfway out the window.
"That's a long drop, mister," O'Brien said.
The man hesitated.
"Mr. Sebastiani?" Willis said.
The man still had one leg over the windowsill. There was no fire escape out there, Willis wondered where the hell he thought he was going.
"My name is Theo Hardeen," he said.
"So your wife mentioned," Willis said.
"My wife? I don't know what you're talking about."
They never knew what anyone was talking about.
"Mr. Sebastiani," Willis said, "at this very moment, your wife is driving in from Collinsworth with two detectives from the Eighty-Seventh Squad, upon whose instructions and advice we're…"
"I don't have any wife in…"
"They also have a chain saw in the car," O'Brien said.
"They found a chain saw in your garage," Willis said.
"There's a lot of blood on the saw," O'Brien said.
"Sir, we're arresting you for the crime of murder," Willis said, and then began reeling off Miranda-Escobedo by rote. Sebastiani listened to the recitation as though he were being lectured. He still had one leg over the windowsill.
"Mr. Sebastiani?" Willis said. "You want to come in off that window now?"
Sebastiani came in off the window.
"She blew it, huh?" he said.
"You both did," Willis said.
This time is for real, Carella thought.
No tricks this time.
This time I go west.
Swirling darkness, blinking lights, aurora borealis, murmuring voices, beeping sounds, everything so fake and far away, but everything so real and immediate, it was funny. Floating somewhere above himself, hovering above himself like the angel of death, "Wear this garlic around your neck," Grandma used to say, "it'll keep away the angel of death," but where's the garlic now, Grandma? Crisp white sheets and soft feather pillows, tomato sauce cooking on the old wood stove in the kitchen, your eyeglasses steaming up, the time Uncle Jerry ate the rat shit, thinking it was olives, everyone gone now, is Meyer dead, too?
Jesus, Meyer, don't be dead.
Please don't be dead.
Floating on the air above himself, looking down at himself, the big hero, some hero, open to the world, open to the hands and eyes of strangers, an open book, don't let Meyer be dead, let me hold you, Meyer, let me hold you, friend. Let's go in now, did someone say that years and years ago? Open him up now, open up the hero, big editorial conference out there, but no last-minute editorial decisions this time, no one here to say you can't kill the hero, big hero, some hero, cold-cocked by midgets, bang-bang, gotcha, close the book.
Exit.
But…
Please save that for later, okay? Save the final curtain for somewhere down the line, I'm a married man, give me a break. He almost laughed though nothing was funny, tried to laugh, wondered if he was smiling instead, heard someone say something through the fog rolling in off the water, heavy storm brewing out there, I never even learned to sail, he thought, I never had a yacht.
All the things I never did.
All the things I never had.
Well, listen, who's… ?
All the treasures.
Thirty-seven five a year doesn't buy treasures.
Ah, Jesus, Teddy, I never bought you treasures.
All the things I wanted to buy you.
Forgive me for the treasures, bless me father for I have sinned, A is for amethyst and B is for beryl, C is for coral and D is for diamonds, F is for furs and G is for gold and H is for heaven and I is for…
E is missing.
E is for exit.
But…
Please don't get ahead of me, please don't rush me, just give me a little time to finish the rest of the alphabet, I beg of you, please.
I is for me.
"Careful," someone said.
Shanahan talking.
Too many hours ago.
She had lost her backups, she knew that.
She didn't know what had happened on the street outside, but they were gone, that was for sure.
So here we are, she thought.
Alone at last.
You and me.
Face to face.
