Last Chance to Die, Noah Boyd [most read book in the world TXT] 📗

about to start a reinvestigation of him, including a polygraph, which is routine with any sensitive assignment. It may be another reason he’s still worried about Kate. Anyway, they’re going to ambush him with the polygraph first thing tomorrow morning, making some excuse about an upcoming shortage of polygraphers that necessitates it being done now. Once they get him strapped in, it’ll be all ahead full on the video and Gulin. That, along with the usual questions about contacts with foreign nationals, accepting money, et cetera, should blow the needles off the box.”

“Are you going to be there?”

“Yes. I told him I’d like to watch, just out of curiosity, but I think my pal suspects it’s because I want to make sure that they’re pushing it. Otherwise we’d have to take over.”

“We’ll wait to hear from you.”

Vail disconnected the line. “Let’s hope he breaks.”

“And if he doesn’t?” Kate asked.

“I’m turning you in for the reward.”

“In that case you should take me to dinner tonight. You know, the condemned, a hearty meal and all.”

Bursaw said, “There’s a couple of decent restaurants within walking distance.” They both looked at him as if they’d forgotten he was there. “No, no, I’m not inviting myself.”

“Please come, Luke,” Vail said with mock insincerity.

He laughed. “Just for that, I should go along. But I have a life of my own to screw up.” He got up and slipped on his topcoat. “I’ll be by first thing in the morning—unless there’s a tie on the doorknob or U.S. Marshals crime-scene tape across the jamb.”

Dusk added to their anonymity as Kate and Vail strolled down M Street, ignoring the falling temperature. She had ahold of his arm and pulled herself closer with each sharp gust of wind. “Sure it’s not too cold to walk?” he asked.

“After three days in a cell, it feels good.” They were early for their dinner reservation and turned into a brick courtyard that housed several small shops and art galleries to window-gaze. One of them displayed several sculptures and ceramic works. “Anything you like?” she asked idly.

She was wearing Luke’s sister’s navy camel-hair coat. There was something about the color that made her hair and skin luminous. Her long, dark lashes contrasted her flashing blue eyes perfectly. He took a half step back to look her over. “As a matter of fact . . . there is.”

He continued to stare at her until she bumped her hip into his in amused protest. “I was referring to the items on the other side of the glass.”

A series of sculptures were displayed, some metal, some bronze and clay. There was even one in wax of a heavy-bodied figure lying on its side in a catatonic curl. A series of semicollapsed ceramic containers caught his attention. They leaned at different angles and, although the same general shape, were different in size. Vail appraised all of them. “These people are legitimate artists.”

“I don’t get it. Why do you think this stuff is good and yours isn’t? I know I’ve only seen two of your sculptures, but they were at least as good as these.”

He waved his hand across the window respectfully. “This isn’t about technical ability. There’s an instinct involved in creating something like this, an instinct that even they don’t understand. They are real artists because they have to let loose on the world what they create. The belief in themselves to say, ‘This is my art, and if you don’t like it, I don’t really care. Here it is anyway. I’d almost rather that you didn’t buy it. It’s what separates me from people like you.’ ”

“ ‘People like you’? You actually mean you.”

“That’s right, people like me, because I can’t put it out there for anyone to judge.”

“Because they might not like it?”

“Everything I do is carefully orchestrated so people aren’t allowed to examine me. That’s why I sneaked out of that bank robbery, and that’s why no one except you has ever seen my sculptures.”

“So what you’re really saying is that it’s not just your art, but you’re not willing to put any part of your life out there to examine.”

“That’s my choice, yes.”

“Why would you sculpt if you didn’t want anyone to see it?”

“It’s something I want to be good at.”

“And how will you decide when you’re good enough?”

“I guess I’ll know.”

Kate stared back through the window, carefully measuring what she was about to say. “Now I know why you like being a bricklayer.”

“This should be good.”

“All brick walls look the same. As long as they’re level and straight, they look like every other wall in the world. No creativity, no individuality, and—apparently most important—no judgment.”

Vail stared at the objects in the window for a while longer, ignoring the icy wind. Kate stood huddled against him. The expression on his face told her she’d stirred something that had been deeply buried. She waited for one of their arguments to begin.

“On my fourteenth birthday, my father announced to me that he was going to start teaching me to lay brick. I had worked the summers and weekends for years as his laborer, probably since I was ten or eleven. Naturally I was excited to finally learn. I’d watched him for years, envious of his skill. Something a boy does no matter what kind of father he has. That day we were building a chimney, and he let me lay the last three feet of it. When I was done, I thought it looked pretty good, at least for a first try. He sent me down to start cleaning up. Fifteen minutes later he came down without saying a word. The next day I was surprised when we went back to the same job. He put up the ladder and told me to go up on the roof. When I got there, the entire top of the chimney I’d built had been torn down, the bricks scattered all around it. He told me that I’d done a lousy job and that this was the only way