“What I want,” Best said, “is that nothing should happen to AUSA Diaz, do you understand me? What I want is for that predator Schrader to not be able to bribe or bully or God knows what his way out of justice. That is what I want. And I’m not particularly concerned about how. So if you know more than you’re letting on here, and of course you do, that’s fine. By now I’m used to it. I just want to know we’re on the same page.”
For a moment, Livia was taken aback. Had she misread Best’s intentions? Was this . . . détente?
“I . . . want those things, too.”
Best nodded. “Then do what you do, Livia. I don’t need to know the details.” She paused, then added, “And maybe I don’t want to.”
chapter
twenty-three
DELILAH
Delilah was with John in Little Red Door, a bar they liked in the Marais. Like so many things in their life these days, it was a compromise, though not a bad one. They spent part of the year in Kamakura, and part in Paris. They frequented places that were lively, for her, and more serene, for him. She preferred dinner late, so evenings out often began with a cocktail on the earlier side. Which was fine because early meant uncrowded, and uncrowded meant a seat facing the entrance—one of the areas about which she knew John would never compromise, not even for her.
But facing the door was fine. It was no more than common sense, really. The other habits—the ones that had been gradually waning—were much more extreme. The insistence on varying routes and times. Never making a reservation. Always reconnoitering the exterior of a place before going in—and then doing a thorough scan inside, as well. There were still vestiges that would occasionally reappear, moments when the old John would seem to startle awake before realizing that all was well and it was safe to return to sleep. And while she knew that some of his newfound demeanor was an organic consequence of increasing distance from the life—obsolete reflexes growing dull from lack of stimulation, old neural pathways being rerouted, replaced, rewired by new ones—she also understood that some of it was deliberate. A thing he did for her.
Of course, she could make an argument that he owed her. He had wanted out of the life before she had been ready, when she was still in the grip of a one-way allegiance to her birth country, Israel, and her employer, Mossad. He had given her an ultimatum that backfired. And out of stupid male pride had disappeared from her life for years afterward, before finally coming to his senses and crawling back.
He took a sip of his drink, something called a madre de dios. Watching him in profile, she felt a wave of affection. She knew she could be difficult with him. Partly because he put up with it. Once, she’d told him she recognized the dynamic, that she was grateful for how he had learned to stay cool even when she was running hot. He had laughed and told her it was all about survival. She’d mock-punched him for that. And, then, more seriously, he had told her it was something called amaeru.
“Which is what?” she had asked.
“A kind of . . . relationship glue. All humans have it, but it’s more central in Japan. Which is why they gave it a name.”
She was intrigued. John rarely talked about the Japanese half of his heritage, and when he did, it was always as they, never we. Though in fairness, he never talked about America as we, either.
“All right,” she had said. “Tell me about this glue.”
“It’s . . . when you want to test whether someone really cares about you. And foster that caring, too. You behave a little selfishly. Even childishly. And the other person puts up with it. Because he loves you.”
“Is this your way of telling me that I’m selfish and childish?”
He had smiled at that. “Or that I love you.”
She glanced around the bar. She cherished this place—the exposed stone-and-brick walls, the eclectic upholstered seating, the subdued lighting. The feeling of being here with this man she loved. This thing they had, which he had once called a nation of two.