We Know

Brass, just like the other one, but this was numbered 228. Probably right next to the P.O. box that had held the torn page of numerals. I'd been within a foot of whatever this key guarded. Oblivious. I flipped it over, read the familiar print: U.S. GOV'T, UNLAWFUL TO DUPLICATE. I shoved the key into the case, the case into my front pocket.

What else could I find that they hadn't? And how much time did I have?

With mounting panic I scurried toward the bedroom, skidding over fallen books, the titles staring up at me in bold-Living Sober, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, The Big Book. A stripe of wet carpet ran under and ahead of me, a guiding trail. My face was down near the floor, close enough that the vapor stung my eyes. Mack stared at me from the chair, a dark smudge at the edge of my vision.

In the bedroom a file cabinet by the double futon had been knocked over, photographs and papers scattered. I dug through the mess on the floor. Loose film cases, holding Ektachrome 100. Another contained a dime bag of weed. So much for living sober. Among glossy eight-by-tens of armchairs and bookcases, I found a picture of me climbing down the telephone pole the night I'd gone to Frank's old house.

The nightstand light had tilted over, throwing an ellipse of gold across a book. Twelve Steps. No dust jacket.

I'd slid over another book wrapped in that dust jacket on my way to the bedroom. Clambering on all fours back to the main room, doing my best to ignore the slumped, bound form across the way, I flung the books aside until I found the dust-jacket lettering-Twelve Steps. I tore off the cover to reveal what it was hiding-a leather-bound journal.

My fingers moved furiously through the pages. A ledger. Some pluses. A lot of minuses. Next to each sum was what I assumed to be a basketball score. LA 98, Miami 102~ $8,000. NC 88, Duke 90, $8,000. Interspersed were steep interest charges. The debt, as of last month, was $383,918.00.

The Voice in the Dark had been clear. I need my money. Not I want my money. As soon as the other addictions had fallen away, a new one had grabbed him.

I forced my eyes back to Mack. From behind, despite the cramped angles of his bound limbs, he looked as if he'd nodded off. Bound and doused with gasoline-the style seemed more crime syndicate than Secret Service. Had Mack been killed not by Bilton's crew but by his bookie's people? So why would they want to lure me to the scene with a photomat slip? The answer came with a shudder: Mack would've told them I had the money.

Bookie murder or Service hit. Neither option a comforting one.

I scrambled into the bedroom again to continue my search. As I crossed the threshold, something fell from the back of the ledger. An old-fashioned envelope, yellowed and brittle. It was unopened, a date scrawled across the seam in faded blue ink: 5/91. The month of Frank's death. Crouching, I tore at the flap, the paper slitting my finger. A Polaroid fell out into my waiting palm. Bilton at a campaign field office, wearing a smile and a too-narrow brown tie, his arm around a beaming woman in her late twenties. She wore turquoise dangly earrings, and her hair was center-parted behind a pouf of bangs. A sign behind them proclaimed BILTON FOR GOVERNOR! Nothing on the reverse.

Our future president popping up in the back of a gambling ledger with a woman other than his wife. Who was she in all this?

No time to ponder-someone could kick in the front door any second. Pushing the photo into my back pocket, I looked desperately around the bedroom. In my excitement I'd risen from my half squat. Standing in full view of the window. The angle still hid me from the street and the sedan below, but I stared with dread at the windows of the apartments across.

A wink of light from the opposing rooftop caught my eye.

Before I could react, I heard something strike the kitchenette, simultaneous with a pneumatic thump from outside, like a tennis ball leaving a court cannon. I looked through the doorway. Something pinged around the small corner kitchen, sending up chips of tile. Shot in through the open window one room over? I watched it spin on the cheap linoleum, then stop.

A miniature rocket, no bigger than two inches, narrow stem connecting the warhead to a fin assembly. It looked like a fat, olive drab dart.

I don't remember leaping. I only remember flying in the air toward the back wall when the overpressure lifted me from behind, flipping me over. Shrapnel studded the walls instantly. Air sucked past me, drawn toward the front door, and then the room seemed to pulse, flames billowing up everywhere at once, clouds of brilliant orange. I scrambled to my feet as the flames advanced, curling the pictures on the floor, scaling the walls.