of the photograph over Marchent,s library fireplace. Maybe Reuben would wear his long like the impressive Margon the Godless. Well, for a while.
He laughed.
As soon as he walked into the door of the house on Russian Hill, he made for his desk. He was firing up his desktop as the private-duty nurse took vitals.
It was early afternoon, eight days since the massacre, and one of those clear sunny days in San Francisco when the bay is vibrantly blue and the city is still white in spite of its many glass buildings. He went out on the balcony and let the cold wind sweep over him. He breathed it in as if he loved it, which frankly he never had.
He was so glad to be back in his own room, with his own fireplace, his own desk.
He wrote for five hours.
By the time he hit the key to send the text by e-mail to Billie, he was happy enough with the blow-by-blow account. But he knew that the drugs were still clouding his recall and his sense of the rhythm of what he,d written. "Cut where you feel you should," he had written. Billie would know what to do. Ironic that he, one of their most promising reporters, as they always put it, was the subject of headlines in other papers.
In the morning, he woke up with one thought in mind. He called his lawyer, Simon Oliver. "It,s about the Nideck estate," he said. "It,s about all the personal property up there and, most especially, the personal effects and papers of Felix Nideck. I want to make an offer on all of it."
Simon started to advise patience, taking things one step at a time. Reuben had never gone into his capital before. Why, Grandfather Spangler (Grace,s father) had only been dead now five years, and what would he have thought of this rash expenditure? Reuben interrupted. He wanted everything that had belonged to Felix Nideck, unless Marchent had made arrangements otherwise, and then he hung up the phone.
Not like me to talk like that, is it, he thought. But he hadn,t been rude, really, just eager to advance the plot.
That afternoon, after his article had gone to press at the Observer, he was dozing, half awake, looking out the window at the fog rolling in over San Francisco Bay, when Oliver called to say that the Nideck estate lawyers were very receptive. Marchent Nideck had discussed her frustration at not knowing what to do with all that Felix Nideck had left behind. Did Mr. Golding want to make an offer on the entire contents of the house and all its related buildings?
"Absolutely," said Reuben. "Everything, furniture, books, papers, whatever."
He closed his eyes. He cried for a long time. The nurse looked in once, but obviously not wanting to intrude, left him alone. "Marchent," he whispered. "Beautiful Marchent."
He told the nurse he had an intolerable craving for some beef broth. Could you get in the car and find some, you know, just some really good fresh beef broth?
"Well, I,ll make it," she said. "Just let me go to the store and get what I need."
"Superb!" he said.
He was dressed before her car left the curb.
Slipping out the front door before Phil was the wiser, he was off walking, pounding down Russian Hill towards the bay, loving the feel of the wind, loving the spring in his legs.
In fact, his legs felt stronger than they ever had, it seemed to him. He might have expected a little stiffness after so many days and nights in bed. But he was really sprinting along.
It was dark when he found himself in North Beach. He was moving along past the restaurants and bars, eyeing people, feeling strangely separate from them, that is, able to look at them as if they couldn,t see him. Of course they did see him, but he didn,t feel as if he was being seen, and that was something entirely new in his brain.
All his life, he,d been conscious of how people saw him. He,d been far too visible for his own comfort. And now it didn,t matter. It was as if he was invisible. He felt so free.
He went into a dimly lighted bar, took one of the stools near the end, and ordered a Diet Coke. Didn,t matter to him what the bartender thought, for the first time in his life.
He drank it down and the caffeine sizzled in his brain.
He fell to watching the passersby through the glass doors.