me and for the first time I recognize it. I want so desperately to push it away, to be the man Melody suggested I could be—that she wants me to be—but I’ve been trained that the better use of a blazing temper is to harness the power behind it. I try to beat it back like a demon attempting possession, but the violence runs through my veins like an amphetamine. But this time—the first time—I pin it down, begin the process of suffocation: I have every intention of finding Melody, and when I find her I’m going to bring her right through the front door of my father’s house, and I’m going to present her, the innocent girl that she is, to my father and Peter and the rest of my family. My original plan now has fuel; Peter’s asinine metaphor has given me clarity and purpose. I will challenge them to look at Melody, to meet her and touch her, to take in her beauty and honesty and integrity and to try and find the slightest ability to take her life. Call me a hopeless romantic. Just call me hopeless. But I pray my family will see what I see, that they will lay down their frigging weapons this one time and say, Maybe you’re right. And if one of them—any of them—reach for a weapon or turn her way with evil intent, they will have to kill me first.
Take that, fury.
SIX
I sit in my car and face the sun, let the engine idle. Now that I have an enriched goal, I must find Melody and bring it to completion. If there’s been any plan to snag her without my knowledge, Peter would’ve been aware of it.
The next likeliest scenario is she fell—or leapt—into the arms of the feds, which also makes this the best-case scenario. The sooner she’s under their care, the better, for within a day’s time Randall will be put to good use again.
I start driving in concentric circles. I begin with tight ones, up and down every street near the restaurant, double back and begin again, eyes peeled for any sign of her having been anywhere: an abandoned sandal or clothing item, an intentionally left sign that she was taken rather than having left of her own accord.
As I negotiate the urban streets, I briefly replay the conversation with Peter, try to understand why Eddie is involved in taking all these people out. Eddie Gravina is a good guy, very trusted in our family. But he has two things working against him: He’s only been part of our crew for about eight years, and he’s never been on the action end of anything that I’m aware of. His purpose and value rests more in giving advice, acting as a sounding board for my father. So why would he be keeping, as Peter put it, a close eye on everything—on anything? It’s not sitting right with me. His name should have never come up. Last time I saw the guy he was sitting in the kitchen at Sylvia, reading the sports section and slurping a free bowl of Sylvia’s version of cioppino, a thin rivulet of broth dribbling out of the corner of his mouth.
As the sun shifts to an afternoon sky I make my way back to downtown Baltimore, hover around the federal building I’d hid behind not so long ago. Dr. Bajkowski is apparently working out of the office today, along with all of his or her associates, as not a single space is free. I circumnavigate the building a few times, not wanting to sit still in case my car was recognized or tagged back at the restaurant. The frigging thing sticks out like a bloody knuckle.
The more time that passes, the more nervous I get, the less in control I feel of the situation, despite the obvious truth: I have lost complete control. My nerves get the better of me and I call Gardner. He sighs, hangs up, calls me back from the server room; he’s performed this ritual enough times that I’ve come to recognize the sound of the fans whirring on all of the computers.
“You forget I have a job?” he says.
“You mean the one I just called you at?”
“I’ve got a meeting in seven minutes, and when that’s over I need to finalize a database design and submit the final draft of a disaster recovery plan.”
“I’m trying to recover from a disaster of my own.”
“Let me clarify: I do