bullet, and by the time he got around to taking care of Perry Reed someone else had done it for him.
Which was good, as it saved Ray the trouble of planning and committing a major act of arson, and bad, because it denied Ray the pleasure of planning and committing a major act of arson.
The diner’s door opened and Ray’s buddy Joe Dahl strolled in, ordered a coffee, and joined Ray at his table. Joe Dahl was a big guy in his forties, which was how he got away with wearing a Yankees cap in Maine. You needed to be big to wear a Yankees cap this far north without someone taking it from your head, and maybe trying to take your head from your shoulders along with it. Dahl claimed that he wore the cap in memory of his late mother, who came from Staten Island, but Ray knew that was bullshit. Dahl wore the cap because he was ornery and peculiar, and because he lived for those times when someone tried to knock it from his head.
‘You see this shit?’ asked Ray.
‘Yeah, I saw it,’ said Joe.
‘I’d like to shake the hand of the guy that did it. First piece of good news I’ve had all week.’
‘I got some more,’ said Joe, as his coffee arrived. ‘I found you a job.’
‘Yeah? What is it?’
‘Guide work.’
‘Hunting?’
Joe looked away. He seemed uneasy. Scared, even.
‘Kind of. We’re going to look for something in the North Woods.’
‘Something? What kind of something.’
‘I think it’s an airplane . . .’
33
I made one small detour before I headed north to Maine: I drove into Boston and found the headquarters of Pryor Investments in Beacon Hill. It occupied a relatively modest-looking, but still absurdly expensive, brownstone not far from the Charles/MGH T-station. There was no sign of activity, and I saw nobody pass in or out of the building while I was parked nearby. So far, Epstein had been unable to find out anything of note about the company, apart from one small detail: the name of Pryor Investments was on documents relating to the formation of a 501(c) body called the American League for Equality and Freedom, and one Davis Tate, now deceased, had been the principal benefactor of the funds channeled through the organization. It was a small thread, but a thread nonetheless. Still, now wasn’t the time to pull it and see what would unravel. I drove away from Beacon Hill, and it was only as I passed the Pryor building that I saw the camera systems discreetly mounted in the shadows on the wall, their watchful glass eyes taking in the details of the street and sidewalks surrounding it.
The meeting with Eldritch had not been particularly satisfying, but then meetings with lawyers rarely were. I had no great desire to renew acquaintance with the man who sometimes called himself Kushiel, but was mostly referred to as the Collector. Neither did I want him running loose, indulging his taste for divine justice, or his own interpretation of it, by killing anyone who appeared on his copy of the list, particularly if I was among them. I did not trust the Collector enough to imagine that, if he found my behavior wanting, he would not consider consigning me to his personal retinue of the damned. We had been uneasy allies in the past, but I had no illusions about him: I believed that he, like Epstein, had concerns about my nature, and the Collector tended to err on the side of caution in such matters. He surgically excised polluted tissue.
But there was no reason to believe that the Collector knew about the plane in the Great North Woods, and it was important to secure it before any hint of its existence reached him. Better that Epstein should have the list that Harlan Vetters had seen than have it fall into the hands of the Collector, for Epstein was essentially a good man. Yet even about Epstein I had doubts: I didn’t know enough about those who worked alongside him, beyond the fact that the younger ones liked waving guns around, to be certain of their capacity for self-restraint. Epstein appeared to be a moderating influence, but he kept much about himself hidden.
It seemed obvious to say it, but knowing the identity of your enemies was the first step toward defeating them. With their names in his possession, Epstein could begin the task of monitoring their activities, and undermining them when necessary. He would also