He heard the sound of steps on the stairs and sat up a little straighter. He had been hearing sounds on the steps for the past hour, but always been disappointed. The steps had reached this landing and gone on. Nobody had even stopped in to say hello.
These new steps reached this landing and stopped. Whoever was walking was also whistling. Eamon Donleavy stood up.
“Eamon, you in?” Michael called out.
“I’m in.” Eamon picked up the picture and put it in the pocket of his jacket.
Michael reached the door of his own office and waved to Eamon across the hall. Michael’s door was propped open with a rubber doorstop and he left it that way. Eamon walked across the hall and stood in the open doorway.
“Hi,” Eamon said. “You got a minute?”
“Just about one,” Michael told him. “I’m on duty in Emergency. Jenny needed the afternoon off.”
“This will only take one. I’ve got something to show you.”
Eamon put his hand in his pocket, got hold of the picture, took it out. He handed it over and waited. He wondered what he was waiting for. Michael looked at the image of himself for a long time, but he showed no reaction. He just handed that picture back.
“So, Eamon,” he said. “What are you going to do with that? Keep it as a souvenir?”
“I’m going to burn it, of course. What did you think I was going to do with it?”
“If you’re going to burn it, you’d better do it soon. We wouldn’t want something like that to go wandering around the center.”
“Fortunately, it’s too raw to end up on the cover of the New York Post. Michael, for God’s sake—literally, for God’s sake, for your sake, for anybody’s sake—Michael what do you think you’re doing?”
“Eamon, for God’s sake yourself. Take a good look at that picture of yours. It’s perfectly obvious what I’m doing.”
“Thanks a lot, Michael. Thanks a lot.”
Michael’s chair was pulled far away from his desk almost to the back wall of the office. Michael pulled it in close again and sat down, putting his elbows on the pile of papers on his desktop, putting his head on his hands. Eamon thought he looked tired, but Michael always looked tired. Michael had been born tired. What was it all supposed to mean?
Michael sat back, ran his hands through his hair, looked away, looked at Eamon again, put his chin on his hands again. He was uncomfortable.
“Look,” he said, “Eamon. Believe it or not, I don’t do this stuff just to make you crazy.”
“I know that. But Michael, no matter why you’re doing it, if you keep on doing it, you’re going to make yourself sick. Very sick. It’s a miracle you aren’t sick already. Never mind the rest of it. Like Gregor Demarkian. Like Charles van Straadt’s corpse. Like the fact that if you had been any other human being in this city, the police would have booked you two weeks ago.”
“I didn’t kill Charlie van Straadt, Eamon.”
“I know you didn’t. But the entire New York City homicide division thinks you did. They think Charlie was so disgusted at the things you were doing, he was going to withdraw funding for the center. Either that, or he was going to get the Sentinel to pull out all the stops, really run you ragged, and force you to quit.”
“Charlie knew about all that before you did,” Michael said. “He knew about it for years. He knew about a lot of it without asking. Charlie was a very interesting man, Eamon.”
“Yeah, well. Anyone who starts in a tenement and ends up with a billion dollars is going to be interesting. Anyone with a billion dollars is interesting. They can’t avoid it.”
“Maybe not. Tell me about this Demarkian person. Do you think he’s intelligent?”
“Very. He makes me nervous.”
“I’m going to have dinner with him tonight. At the Four Seasons restaurant. He’s buying. It’s been years since I was in the Four Seasons. Do you know what the Cardinal told him? Does the Cardinal think I killed Charlie van Straadt?”
Eamon considered this. “Yes,” he said at last, “I think he does. I think the Cardinal is looking for a way to cover it up.”
“That’s interesting.” Michael nodded. “Yes, I can see that. How does he explain it to himself?”
“He hasn’t explained it to me,” Eamon said, “but I’d guess it goes like this. Michael Pride is brilliant but obviously mentally unbalanced. Mental imbalance is the only way to explain his sexual behavior. Therefore—”
“A sin is not a sin without full knowledge and consent of the will,” Michael recited. “Yes, I see. Well, if you ever get the chance, tell your Cardinal from me that if I had killed Charlie van Straadt, I would have done it quite deliberately. In spite of what may seem to be evidence to the contrary, I do not lose control of myself.”