The sound etched itself into Gus's mind, but he kept working the reflection around until all that was left of Felix was a charred mass of smoking ash.
The light rays faded and Gus lowered his arm.
He looked across the river.
Night.
Gus felt like crying-all kinds of anguish and pain mixed together in his heart-and his pain was turning into rage. Fuel was pooled beneath the van, almost at his feet. Gus went to the cop who was still staring from the roadside at what had happened. He riffled through his pockets, finding a Zippo lighter. Gus popped the top and scratched the wheel and the flame jumped up dutifully.
"Lo siento, 'mano."
He touched off the fuel spill and the van went up with a boom, knocking back both Gus and the cop.
"Chingado-he stung you," Gus said to the cop who still held his neck. "You'll become one of them now."
He took the cop's gun and pointed it at him. Now the sirens were coming.
The cop looked up at Gus, and then a second later his head was gone. Gus kept the smoking gun aimed at the body until he was off the side of the highway. Then he tossed away the gun and thought about the handcuff keys, but too late. Flashing lights were approaching. He turned and ran off the side of the highway, into the new night.
Kelton Street, Woodside, Queens
KELLY WAS STILL in her teaching clothes, a dark tank shirt beneath a soft wraparound top and a long, straight skirt. Zack was up in his room, supposedly doing his homework, and Matt was home, having only worked a half day because he had a store inventory that night.
This news about Eph on the television had Kelly horrified. And now she couldn't get him on his cell phone.
"He finally did it," said Matt, the tails of his denim Sears shirt pulled out for the time being. "He finally cracked."
"Matt," said Kelly, only half scolding. But-had Eph cracked? And what did this mean for her?
"Delusions of grandeur, the big virus hunter," said Matt. "He's like those firefighters who set blazes in order to be the hero." Matt sank deeply into his easy chair. "Wouldn't surprise me if he was doing all this for you."
"Me?"
"The attention, or whatnot. 'Look at me, I'm important.'"
She shook her head fast, as if he was wasting her time. Sometimes it confounded her that Matt could be so wrong about people.
The doorbell rang, and Kelly stopped her pacing. Matt sprang up from his chair, but Kelly was at the door first.
It was Eph, with Nora Martinez behind him, and an old man in a long tweed coat behind her.
"What are you doing here?" said Kelly, looking up and down the street.
Eph pushed inside. "I'm here to see Zack. To explain."
"He doesn't know."
Eph looked around, completely ignoring Matt, who was standing right there. "Is he upstairs doing homework on his laptop?"
"Yes," said Kelly.
"If he has Internet access, then he knows."
Eph went to the stairs, taking the steps two at a time.
Leaving Nora there at the door with Kelly. Nora exhaled, soaking in awkwardness. "Sorry," she said. "Barging in on you like this."
Kelly shook her head gently, looking her over with just a hint of appraisal. She knew that there was something going on between Nora and Eph. For Nora, Kelly Goodweather's house was the last place she wanted to be.
Kelly then turned her attention to the old man with the wolf-head walking stick. "What is going on?"
"The ex-Mrs. Goodweather, I presume?" Setrakian offered his hand with the courtly manners of a lost generation. "Abraham Setrakian. A pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"The same," said Kelly, taken aback, casting an uncertain glance at Matt.
Nora said, "He needed to see you guys. To explain."
Matt said, "Doesn't this little visit make us criminal accomplices to something?"
Kelly had to counter Matt's rudeness. "Would you like a drink?" she asked Setrakian. "Some water?"
Matt said, "Jesus-we could both get twenty years for that glass of water..."
Eph sat on the edge of Zack's bed, Zack at his desk with his laptop open.
Eph said, "I'm caught up in something I don't really understand. But I wanted you to hear it from me. None of it is true. Except for the fact that there are people after me."
Zack said, "Won't they come here looking for you?"
"Maybe."
Zack looked down, troubled, working through it. "You gotta get rid of your phone."
Eph smiled. "Already did." He clasped his conspiratorial son on the shoulder. He saw, next to the boy's laptop, the video recorder Eph had bought him for Christmas.
"You still working on that movie with your friends?"
"We're kind of in the editing stage."
Eph picked it up, the camera small and light enough to fit into his pocket. "Think I could borrow this for a little while?"
Zack nodded slowly. "Is it the eclipse, Dad? Turning people into zombies?"
Eph reacted with surprise-realizing the truth was not much more plausible than that. He tried to see this thing from the point of view of a very perceptive and occasionally sensitive eleven-year-old. And it drew something up in him, from a deep reservoir of feeling. He stood and hugged his boy. An odd moment, fragile and beautiful, between a father and son. Eph felt it with absolute clarity. He ruffled the boy's hair, and there was nothing more to be said.
Kelly and Matt were having a whispered conversation in the kitchen, leaving Nora and Setrakian alone in the glassed-in sunroom off the back of the house. Setrakian stood with his hands in his pockets, looking out at the glowing sky of early night, the third since the landing of the accursed airplane, his back to her.
A clock on the shelf went tick-tick-tick.
Setrakian heard pick-pick-pick.
Nora sensed his impatience. She said, "He, uh, he's got a lot of issues with his family. Since the divorce."
Setrakian moved his fingers into the small pocket on his vest, checking on his pillbox. The pocket was near his heart, as there were circulatory benefits to be gleaned just from placing nitroglycerin close to his aged pump. It beat steadily if not robustly. How many more beats did he have in him? Enough, he hoped, to get the job done.
"I have no children," he said. "My wife, Anna, gone seventeen years now, and I were not so blessed. You would assume that the ache for children fades over time, but in fact it deepens with age. I had much to teach, yet no student."
Nora looked at his walking stick, stood up against the wall near her chair. "How did you...how did you first come to this?"