Epilogue

Sunday morning after breakfast, Eric and Helen sat on the couch watching politicians lie to the both the press and the nation. David lay in his father’s lap and Hiroshi had found room to tuck himself in next to Helen. She professed to like the dog, and Eric, too, was beginning to realize that Hiroshi was only a big friendly puppy, not a wild slavering beast.

Katherine emerged from her den. “David and I are going to Mother and Dad’s later,” she told Eric. “Why don’t you both come with us?”

“I don’t even know who you’re talking about.” His parents weren’t people he associated with. He pointed his head back at the television screen. “Why can’t these damn people in Congress drop their antagonisms in the name of party and do something in the name of the country,” he said.

“We should send in a couple of Ranger units to D.C.,” suggested Helen, who had been an Air Force lieutenant, whereas Eric had been a Ranger.

“Ed is going to take us over,” Katherine went on pointedly, a small grin appearing, which she seemed to fight against.

“Ed?” asked Eric. Aki’s parrot, Mister Ed? This was a curve from left field.

“Ed Haliburt. The Larchmont police? He’s divorced. Two kids.” The grin won out.

Eric had gotten one thing right, after all. Hard to believe. “What about Kitani?”

“I don’t know of any rule saying I can’t go out with two men at the same time,” she asserted, pleased with herself.

The house phone rang and getting up to answer gave Eric an excuse to avoid responding. Two men at once? His sister?

The caller was Michelle, breathless and practically in tears. “If you want to talk to your son,” Eric told her, “he’s right here.”

“I can’t at this minute. I’m very upset. Tony’s in town. I don’t know what to do.”

“Call the sheriff.”

“Eric, Janelle is hysterical. I’ve never seen her like this.”

“She’s a sweet little girl. Send here up here and my fiancé and I will raise her. That’s all I can do,” Eric said. “But I mean it. That poor little thing is tied up in knots. She’s a sensitive kid. You’re not giving her the childhood she deserves.”

“Can you come down just this one more time? I’m begging you. For the children’s sake.”

He moved wrong and his hip retaliated, a nice reminder. “I can’t do it, Michelle. I got shot about ten days ago and I’m taking it sort of easy. But mostly it wouldn’t be fair to my fiancé.”

“Fiancé? I didn’t know that. You’re kind of a dirty dog, aren’t you, Eric, taking advantage of me and all the time you were actually engaged.”

He was flabbergasted. That was hardly the spin he would have put on recent events. “Would you like to speak to David?” he asked again, quietly.

“Eric, not now. I’ll call back when things get straightened out. I’m afraid my father’s going to have a heart attack over this.” She hung up, leaving him standing there, twisting with anxiety. How could he ignore her cry for help—really? He chewed the inside of his lip.

The phone rang again and by then he’d decided to tell her he would fly right down, but the caller was one of the Westlake security people, asking for Helen. Didn’t they have her cell number? Or maybe she had turned off her phone. Did everyone know she was spending so much time here with him?

She got on the phone and he sat back down on the couch. He’d call Michelle as soon as Helen got off. He changed the station to a kid’s show on Nick. David sat up to watch. David couldn’t understand much more than he could understand the debate over this and that of politics, but he seemed to like the tone of it a whole heck of a lot better. So did Eric.

Helen came over and placed herself in the empty spot on Eric’s lap. He put his arms around her. “Ryan was drunk as a skunk at work this morning,” she said. “One of the vice presidents came in and found him lying in the hall passed out. With his wife’s consent, they hauled him off to a rehab unit.”

“That’s for the best,” Eric said. He wasn’t overly sympathetic, not because Ryan was a drunk, but because he hadn’t treated Eric with much consideration. Oh, yeah, Ryan had choked Eric and tried to kill him and crash the car.

“He’s entitled to rehabilitate and come back,” Helen went on.

“But he might not come back, and you want his job,” guessed Eric.

“Not really. I’m only starting to get the hang of my own work. I was thinking of you. It’s what you’ve really been looking for. Anyway, if you came over tomorrow and talked to Dr. Sommers, I bet he could get you an appointment to the position on a temporary basis. If that’s what you want.”

He nearly said he was thinking of flying down to Georgia to help Michelle out, but he realized he would be blowing it with Helen by telling her that. And he would be losing a chance of at least a couple of months of employment, or however long it took to rehabilitate an alcoholic nowadays. The experience as security director pro tem would look good on his resume. Mostly, he just didn’t want to be a schnook, a guy easy to manipulate. And not to mention his hip or his deep-down weariness.

“Security director is a step down from being an engineer,” he told her. “But I never could figure out how to get into my computer-aided design program, anyway.”

By Monday at ten, he was setting up in Ryan’s office. He limped down the corridor without his cane, into his old department.

“Hi,” said Chet. “Sorry you got fired. What are you planning on doing now?”

“I’m in line for an astronaut training program,” Eric told him. “They want an engineer for the spot. Of course, NASA’s been making a lot of mistakes lately, so I’m nervous. In the meantime, I left a few things in my cubicle. I want to bring them into my new office.”

“Your new office?”

“Down the hall. I’m going to head up security for a few weeks while Terry Ryan is away. Dr. Sommers felt sorry for me. That’s the kind of place Westlake is. If you can’t make it at one thing, they’ll try you at another. Come and say hi when you get a chance.” He removed a few items from his old desk and limped back out. Chet’s mouth was open; Eric noticed as he passed.