Page 104 of The Instruments of Darkness

“That’s why I always ask for it on the side.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin and gestured to the seat across from him. “Sit, please—unless I’m intruding on a romantic evening?”

He cocked an eyebrow, and I wondered again what he knew or suspected.

“No, it’s just me,” I said, taking a chair. “All part of my ongoing love affair with myself. The gossip is that you’d like to see it broken up by depriving me of my license, followed closely by my liberty.”

Nowak set his knife and fork side by side on his plate, leaving half a scallop uneaten.

“I like to think I hold a more nuanced position on your activities, but I have to admit to an ongoing sense of puzzlement as to why no one has successfully managed to jail or sue you. For example, you discharged a firearm on the streets of New York, which typically attracts a great deal of legal attention, as well as being a negligent thing to do.”

“I was young and foolish in those days.”

Which was entirely true, though only the first part was untrue now.

“Since then you’ve left more bodies and wreckage in your wake than the average hurricane, yet here you are.”

“Here I am,” I agreed.

This was the second time in twenty-four hours that someone had mentioned bodies and wakes to me, the other being Antoine Pinette. Maybe I needed to facilitate a meeting between him and Nowak. I had a feeling they might have more in common than an aversion to my existence.

“Someone—no, almost certainly more than one person—has been applying a finger to the scales on your behalf,” said Nowak. “At the last meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General, your name even came up at the bar. For a man with very few friends at the state level across our great nation, you’re remarkably resistant to prosecution. Even to raise the subject is to invite pressure: federal pressure. It’s subtle but definite. I find that intriguing. It’s led me to revise my opinion of you, if only slightly.”

“Why would that be?”

“Join the dots. You’re no neophyte. I wouldn’t be talking to you if I believed you were.”

“A man who wants to be governor of Maine almost certainly has larger political ambitions,” I said. “He’s not going to rock any boats until he knows who might fall overboard as a consequence, especially if it might be him.”

“That’s very good. I may steal that for a stump speech.”

He spotted a passing server and tapped his wineglass for a refill.

“Can I get you something?” he asked.

“I’m still working on this one.”

“I was about to order dessert. I was thinking of tonight’s special, which is their take on a Bête Noire, perhaps as a gesture toward your sometime employer, Mr. Castin. I’ve always found him to be characterful from a distance, if less amusing at closer quarters. Erin Becker would concur on the latter, if not the former. He’s giving her migraines over Colleen Clark.”

“You don’t waste time, do you?”

“That’s because I don’t have time to waste.”

“Impatient both of delays and rivals, as someone once said.”

“Of me?” he said, with the eagerness of a man whose own name was his main Google alert.

“Of ambition in general. I was thinking about it earlier, even before I was summoned to your presence.”

“If it’s not insensitive of me to say, given the tragedy in your past, you really need to find yourself a woman. If you already have one, you should consider spending more time with her, because sitting alone at bars is conducive to melancholy. So, Colleen Clark.”

“Moxie is her lawyer,” I said. “If you want to drop the charges, he’s the one to talk to. I can take a message, but you might have to spell some of the longer words. I’m not good with legalese.”

“We’re not dropping any charges,” said Nowak. “Clark is going to prison. It’s just a question of sentencing.”

“That kind of confidence may play well on the fund-raising circuit over a fried chicken dinner, but here it’s only us. Colleen Clark’s guilt hasn’t been established, and is unlikely to be. Your evidence is thin, and Moxie is ready to shred what little of it there is.”

“I appreciate you’re being paid to help prove her innocence, but when that bloodied blanket is shown to the jury, all bets will be off. This is theater, Mr. Parker, and the prosecution gets to set the stage. Your client’s role is already written, and we both know the ending.”

But the fact that we were having this conversation indicated Nowak had his doubts. What we had here was the prelude to a negotiation, one of which Erin Becker was either unaware or with which she was reluctant to be associated, even in a quiet corner of the Grill Room. Nowak was testing the waters, knowing that whatever was said here would be shared with Moxie.