“What can I get you?” the bartender asked, appearing out of the gloom.
Kennedy said mechanically, “Whisky sour. Canadian Club, if you have it.” His gaze never left Jason’s face.
“You good?” the bartender asked Jason.
“I’ll have another.” And a headache chaser. But whatever. In vino veritas.
The bartender departed. Kennedy said, “Why in God’s name wouldn’t you tell me Kyser had contacted you? How long has that been going on?”
“Since October. He sent me a card for Halloween—”
“A card for—! Who the hell sends Halloween cards?”
“—which was fairly innocuous. And he sent me a birthday card. So he’s not exactly stalking me.”
“The hell he’s not.” Kennedy’s face was tight with an emotion Jason couldn’t quite categorize. Probably because it wasn’t an expression Kennedy wore very often. Alarm? Anxiety? Aghastity?
Was there such a word? There was clearly such an emotion, and it was not reassuring. Especially as Jason had been trying to convince himself the communications from Kyser were nothing to be worried about. “Well, if he is, it’s long distance. He’s in Virginia now. That’s your home turf.”
“I don’t understand why you waited until now to tell me this.” Kennedy seemed genuinely troubled.
“I meant to tell you about the Halloween card the next time you called. But we didn’t talk until Christmas. To be honest, I’d forgotten about it by then.”
Kennedy’s mouth opened, but the bartender arrived with their drinks.
“Jesus Christ,” Kennedy muttered. He downed half his drink in one scowling swallow.
“I’m not thrilled either, but he’s on the other side of the country—usually—and there’s nothing threatening in the cards. You said yourself he wasn’t part of our case in Massachusetts. It’s not a crime to be strange.”
“Tell me you kept the cards.”
“Of course.”
“I want to see them.”
“I’m happy for you to see them. But honestly, I don’t want to think about Kyser tonight.” Jason leaned back in his chair and tilted the beer bottle to his lips.
Kennedy gave a little disbelieving shake of his head, sat back in his own chair, and shook the ice in his glass like he wondered where the rest of his drink had gone.
The jukebox was playing a duet between James Taylor and Mark Knopfler. “Sailing to Philadelphia.”
It was my fate from birth
To make my mark upon the earth
That was Kennedy all right. A big man with big things to do. No room and no time for anything else. But if Jason gave in and looked across the table, he knew Kennedy would be watching him with that somber, brooding stare as though Jason had presented a problem Kennedy just couldn’t quite solve.
Well, that made two of them. There were questions Jason would have liked to ask Kennedy too: Did they ever catch the guy who killed Ethan? Is it just me you won’t sleep with, or are you still enjoying sex with non-friends? Do I just look sort of like Ethan, or do I remind you of him in other ways? Do you not see the Catch-22 of trying to hang on to a friendship with someone you’re afraid you already care too much for?
But he kept his thoughts to himself. He didn’t want Kennedy to walk out.
Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was the subliminal messaging of several love songs in a row. The tension between them began to ease, the mood lightened.
Jason looked across at Kennedy and said, “All that’s missing is a girl in a fish tank.”
Kennedy smiled faintly, moved his head in assent.
For a minute or two they listened to the music and drank. Kennedy’s mouth twisted in reluctant amusement. “Did you really tell O’Neill you wouldn’t break out of that crypt because the window was so valuable?”