“She said she would come back for some of the public functions I’ll need her for. Keep the papers quiet. Not for me. I don’t really care. But Congressman Sweeney keeps hammering Mayor Burton over this Butcher business. Democrats and Republicans, you know how it is. Everybody’s always looking for an angle to bury each other. But I don’t want to be a political liability.”
“Gotta keep up appearances,” Malone said, tone dry. Eliot knew all about appearances, and he juggled that part of the spotlight well, even though he’d never been very political himself. Politics and public service, even in the bureau, was all about appearance. Malone had learned that the images most people presented to the world didn’t reflect reality. Which, for some reason, had his thoughts bouncing back to Dani Flanagan. She had her own methods of getting at the truth.
“Do you think there’s such a thing as a . . . sixth sense?” he asked Eliot abruptly.
Eliot frowned at him, distracted from his marital woes. “Like prescience?”
“Nah. Not foreknowledge. Not that. More like . . . an ability to see things other people can’t. Or maybe see isn’t the right way to describe it either. It’s more like a heightened sense of touch. You hold something and you know . . . where it’s been.” He didn’t know if that was what Dani did, exactly, but he needed to keep it simple.
“I’ve never heard of anything like that before. Although, come to think of it, my mother seemed to always know where I’d been.”
Malone sighed.
“Now what’s this about?”
Malone waved his hand. “Nothing.”
“You seeing things, Mike?” Ness felt his head like he was checking for fever. Malone swatted his hand away, but Eliot was smiling again.
“Not me. No. Though I used to see colors around people when I was younger. Some murky. Some bright. I always thought I was seeing the color of people’s souls.”
“Oh yeah? What color do you think my soul would be?”
“Green. Pea green, with a shot of shit brown,” Malone said without hesitation or inflection.
“Ha!” Ness spat, laughing again.
It was actually the same blue as his eyes. He’d seen it a few times, hovering around Eliot like a shadow. Over the years, he’d glimpsed a few colored halos clinging to various people, but he always looked away.
He looked away again, staring at the window, but he couldn’t let the subject rest. “I guess I’m just trying to decide what I believe and what I don’t, Ness.”
For a moment both men were silent, lost in the conundrum of personal faith.
“Capone had a guy—a numbers guy—who could do sums in his head,” Malone continued, pensive. “Didn’t matter what it was, he could spit it out. He was great at cards too. It wasn’t magic. Wasn’t voodoo. It was just . . . something he could do that the rest of us couldn’t.”
“They called him Count, didn’t they?” Ness asked. “I think I remember him now. But I wouldn’t rule out voodoo. That guy was a bad fella. He mighta made a deal with the devil. I think he’s in the slammer now. I hope so.”
“A deal with the devil, huh? You believe in the devil, Ness?”
“You can’t be in our business and not believe in evil.”
Malone nodded. “I believe in evil.”
“Well, if you believe in evil, you gotta believe in good. Can’t have one without the other.”
“No. I guess not,” Malone said.
Daniela Kos—Dani Flanagan—was not evil. He knew that. So whatever else she was, whatever confusion he was feeling about her abilities, it wasn’t that. The tightness he’d carried in his chest since Dani had fled his room the other day eased with an almost audible pop.
“I gotta get back, Malone,” Ness said, starting the car again. He eased away from the overhang, his eyes on his rearview mirror. “But let’s do this again next week. Same time. Until we figure this thing out.”
Dani was fixing the display in the front window when a black Ford sedan pulled up in front of the house and Malone stepped out. He shut the door without a backward glance, and the car pulled away again without giving her any indication of who was driving it, beyond a felt hat and a male profile. It was the same car Malone had driven away in the week before, and the week before that. Always the same day and roughly the same time. He had kept to himself beyond mealtime, and even then, he hardly said a word. He’d asked that Margaret not tidy his room. He said he’d see to it himself. He left his laundry in a hamper in the hall, and when Margaret was finished with it, she slid a note beneath his door, and he retrieved his things from the laundry room.