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CHAPTERLXX

That night, Zetta Nadeau returned to her studio after a bathroom break to find Louis circling her work in progress. To him it resembled a giant hand, its vertical fingers constructed from car fenders. The ends of the fenders had been sharpened to points by an angle grinder, transforming them into claws, and the palm was cupped. It was a throne fit for a demon ruler.

“How did you get in here?” Zetta asked.

“The gate was open.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“It was after I unlocked it.”

Zetta picked up a length of pipe. She wasn’t sure what to do with it, only that she felt safer with it in her hand.

“I recognize you,” she said. “You were at the Triton Gallery with Parker.”

“That’s right. Aren’t you going to ask how he is?”

Zetta might have preferred not to, but didn’t hold out for long.

“How is he?”

“Not good,” said Louis. “Your boyfriend attacked him at your parents’ house. He’s in the hospital up in Skowhegan—Parker, that is, not your boyfriend, though there are those of us who would prefer to see the positions reversed. For that reason, I’m here to ask you some questions.”

“And if I don’t want to answer them?”

“That isn’t an option.”

Zetta laughed.

“What are you going to do, beat me until I cooperate?”

Louis didn’t reply. Zetta stopped laughing.

“Big man, threatening a woman,” she said.

“Don’t mistake me for someone with scruples,” said Louis. “By the time I leave your body behind, I’ll already have forgotten your name.”

Zetta Nadeau had grown up the hard way and, as an adult, had shared her bed with lovers better avoided, but she’d never stared into eyes like this man’s.

“Nobody was even supposed to know Wyatt was up there,” she said, “except my folks.”

Louis indicated a pair of folding chairs by the studio wall. “Why don’t we take a seat. I have plenty of time. Not a great deal of patience, but plenty of time.”

CHAPTERLXXI

I slept fitfully, even with the aid of whatever drugs I’d been given, before being woken by a nurse at some god-awful hour, presumably to make sure I wasn’t dead. I dozed after eating breakfast and throwing up, then made the mistake of trying to get out of bed. I fell, landed on my busted ribs, hit my head, and blacked out.

So another day passed.

CHAPTERLXXII

In the laboratory version of the observer effect, studying an electron requires a photonic interaction, one that alters the electron’s path. Similarly, in the social sciences, an awareness of observation may cause the subject to change their behavior, while observer bias can lead those watching to interpret what they see according to their expectations and miss or ignore what does not match those preconceptions.

The federal agents conducting surveillance on Devin Vaughn suspected he might have become aware of them. It was a feeling as much as anything else, though one based on what the more experienced among them saw as identifiable changes in his habits, including leading them on a merry urban dance while they’d attempted to lock on to his latest burner. Vaughn had also ceased communication with Aldo Bern, or at least contact by any traceable means. Vaughn and Bern might well have reverted to old-school methods, which was why additional wiretaps were being sought for landlines in three business establishments frequented by some of Vaughn’s known associates.

Bern’s continued absence was a matter of concern to the agents. Devin Vaughn had been prone to rashness in his youth until Bern took him under his wing. Subsequently, Vaughn and Bern had developed a successful working relationship based on mutual respect and Bern’s near-constant presence at Vaughn’s side. They were two faces of thesame coin. Bern was believed by the FBI to have traveled to Tennessee, an undertaking related to the ongoing tensions between Vaughn and Blas Urrea. Now Bern had gone quiet, though not before gifting the FBI a name, Eugene Seeley. Digging had revealed Seeley to be linked to the Nashville Codex Corporation, which, for a company dealing in Bibles and restored religious tracts, had a complicated, even byzantine, financial setup. The FBI was prepared to set aside the NCC for the present, but they’d return to it in their own good time.

A more immediate problem involved the specific application of a general issue in surveillance, namely how beneficial it continued to be after its existence was noted by the subject. If that subject was a criminal or spy, surveillance temporarily removed them from the game, the downside for the observers being that the operation continued to consume valuable resources of time and manpower while potentially leaving the subject’s confederates to go about their business unhindered. In very sophisticated operations, awareness of surveillance could be used to influence a subject, a variation on photonic interaction, so that conscious changes in behavior revealed the existence of patterns by deviation. Eventually, the sensation of being watched, or the fear of it, might even break the subject, leading them to seek an accommodation to bring it to an end.