Lifeguard - James Patterson [80]
“So how come I’m feeling like I finally did some good?” My father smiled. “Anyway, I’ve always been a small-picture guy. I’m glad you’re here, though, Ned. There’s some things I want to say.”
“Me, too,” I said, my palms resting on the bars.
Frank reached over and poured himself a glass of water. “I’ve never been very good at seeing you for who you are, have I, son? I never even gave you what you deserved after you got cleared on that prep school thing. Which was just to say, I’m sorry, Ned, for doubting you. You’re a good kid—a good man.”
“Listen, Pop. We don’t have to go over those things now. . . .”
“Yes, we do,” my father said. He struggled to his feet. “After John Michael died, I think I couldn’t face up to the truth that it was me that got him killed. Some part of me wanted to say, See, my boys are the same, the same as me. It’s the Kelly way. When you got that job at Stroughton, the fact was, I was pretty goddamn proud.”
I nodded that I understood.
“That day, back home . . . that was the worst day of my life.” My father looked in my eyes.
“Burying Dave.” I nodded, then exhaled. “Me, too.”
“Yeah.” His eyes rounded with sadness. ”But I was talking about that day at Fenway. When I let you walk away and take the heat for what I’d done. That’s when I think I realized what a mess I’d made of my life. How big a man you were, and how small I’d become. Nah, how much of a punk I’d always been. I was always a two-bitter, Neddie. But you aren’t.”
Frank shuffled, weak-kneed, over to the bars. “This is long overdue, Ned, but I’m sorry, son. I’m sorry for the way I’ve let everybody down. ” He clasped his hand over mine. “I know it’s not enough to say that. I know it doesn’t make anything right. But it’s all I have.”
I felt tears burning at the back of my eyes. “If Dave’s up there watching,” I said, trying to laugh, “I bet he’s thinking, Man, I sure could’ve used that particular bit of wisdom a few days earlier.”
Frank grunted a laugh, too. “That was always the rap on me—big ideas, shit timing. But I’ve left things okay. For your mother. And you, too, Ned.”
“We’re going to get this guy, Pop.” I squeezed him back. Now I was crying.
“Yeah, son, you get him good.” Our eyes met in a wordless, glistening embrace. And Sol was right. I forgave him there. For everything. I didn’t even have to say a word.
“I gotta go, Pop.” I squeezed his bony fingers. “You may not see me for a while.”
“I definitely hope not, son,” he chuckled. “Not where I’m going, at least.” He let go of my hand.
I took a step back down the cell row. “Hey, Pop,” I said, and turned, my voice catching.
Frank was still standing at the bars.
“Tell me something. Mom’s fur coat. The one you brought home that day. It was stolen, right?”
He fixed on me a second, the sunken eyes suddenly hardening, like, How can you ask me something like that? Then a smile creased his lips. “Course it was stolen, kid.”
I backed down the corridor and smiled at my father for the last time.
Chapter 99
THE FBI MAN fitted a wire around me.
“You’ll be miked at all times,” Ellie said. We were at Sol’s, which we’d been using as a sort of base. “Our people will be all around. All you have to do is say the word, Ned, and we’ll be all over Dennis Stratton.”
There was a whole team of agents now. Moretti’s replacement was a thin-lipped guy with slick, dark hair and horn-rimmed glasses who was calling the shots. Special Agent in Charge Ficke.
“Here are the ground rules,” Ficke said. “First, you don’t make a move without Stratton. No intermediaries. You don’t bring up Moretti’s name. I don’t want him to think there’s a chance he divulged anything. Don’t forget, Stratton probably never met Anson. He never met your father. Get him talking about the heist if you can. Who set it up? Ask to see the check. The check is enough to get him. Are you up to doing this?”
“I’m up to it, Agent Ficke. How do we handle the painting?”
“Here . . . Check it out.”
A female agent brought out a bundled, heavily taped