The staked Goat

walked two more blocks to the rent-a-car place. The kid who had ”helped” me was there and took a lot of soothing before believing that I really was going to square things for him on the car damage. I told him I’d call him as soon as I had a new place.
    I walked back outside and hailed a cab.
    ”Where to, pal?”
    ”East Fourth Street, South Boston.”
     

Twenty-six
     
     
     
    I RANG HER BUZZER ONCE, WAITED, THEN RANG IT again. The cabbie had been tipped enough not to honk. I heard her steps on the stairs. The door swung open. She was still in her work suit, carrying the towel at her side.
    ”I’m unarmed,” I said, glancing down at my sling.
    She frowned. ”Not funny. Come on up anyway.” She turned. I gestured to the taxi and followed her up the stairs.
    To make conversation, I said, ”How come you’re still in your lawyer clothes?”
    ”In this case, they’re funeral clothes. We buried the Coopers this afternoon.”
    Shit. Where was my mind? I’d never even asked her about them.
    ”Why didn’t you tell me it was today?” I said, an unwarranted whine creeping into my voice.
    She turned, looked at me with a poker face. ”I figured you had other things on your mind.”
    She turned away and opened the door for us.
    ”Drink?” she asked as we entered the kitchen.
    ”Thanks. Screwdriver, light on the vodka.”
    I went into the living room. The arm was starting to throb, the last painkiller from the hospital wearing off. I dug out a vial of pills the nurse had given me. I thumbed it open with my left hand and rolled one out into my right palm. Nancy appeared with our drinks.
    ”Controlled substance?” she asked, but she wasn’t in a mood to joke, and it didn’t sound quite right.
    I took the pill from my right palm, tossed it into my mouth, and choked a little on the booze with which I chased it.
    ”Are you all right?”
    I nodded as I coughed. ”Just awk... ward with the... left hand. I usually...”
    She kneeled down and put her hand on my knee. She waited out my coughing.
    ”Awkward is about how I feel right now, too.”
    I started to talk but she wagged her head and drove on quietly.
    ”You did something yesterday. I’m sure the Globe screwed up the details, but I have a pretty good idea what happened. I thought about going to the hospital, but I had one dealing with Chief Kyle in the past, and... So anyway, I called the hospital instead, and a nurse assured me you were doing fine. I stayed away from Murphy because I was afraid he’d figure it out.”
    ”He did, but... well, it’s not O.K. with him, but he understands.”
    Her eyes welled up with tears but she kept them from her voice. ”He ‘understands’! I wish I could, but I... I can’t. Not really. I see the vendetta stuff all the time, John, from cafeteria brawls in schools that end up in knifings to the big boys, the no-hands and no-teeth level. What scares me is that it changes the people in ways they can’t change back. It hardens them, John. It also never ends. There’s always—”
    I put my fingers on her lips. ”This one’s over, Nancy. Finished. The guy was basically a loner. A psycho. No family, probably not even a friend.”
    She shook her head and my fingers away. ”You can’t ever be sure and even then... oh shit! I pictured this like a jury opening and it’s coming out all wrong, all tangled up.” She sniffled and resumed. ”Even if you’re right, there’s still the... the...”
    ”The fact that I set someone up to be killed.”
    ”Yes.”
    ”And then killed him?”
    She lowered her face to my knee and cried noiselessly, dipping her head haltingly.
    I stroked her hair very lightly with my fingernails and spoke very softly. ”Nancy, I don’t like having to say this, but please listen. The man I killed was scum. He murdered a string of people before Al, and he tortured and mutilated him first. He left an unemployed woman in Pittsburgh with a three-year-old and a hopeless mortgage situation. And he was smart enough and quick enough to kill me or blow the country before our revered legal system could have begun to make him pay, in dollars or anything else, for what he did.”
    Nancy looked up at me. ”But you’re not...”
    ”God, or a judge, or authorized by anybody to square accounts. Absolutely right. But Al was my friend, and the man I killed had wronged him. Do you see?”
    She gnawed her lip. ”I know what your words mean, but...”
    ”But what?”
    ”But I don’t see how this is