TEN

For Livia’s sake, Howard Saint had agreed to have a priest at the grave. It made no difference to him one way or the other, just as it had made no difference to him whether or not the boys had been baptized, or attended church at all. All that talk about the ways of God being a mystery, about the Lord taking back his own, if it gave Livia some sense of comfort, fine.

He planned to find comfort elsewhere.

Exactly where, he expected to discover very soon. Any minute now, in fact.

“Mr. Saint?”

Dante stood in front of him, holding out a shovel.

Saint realized Father Cusmano had finished talking, had, in fact, stepped back from the grave and was now looking in his direction expectantly.

Saint carefully unhooked his arm from Livia’s. As he did so, John pulled his mother closer, to support her.

Saint took the shovel from Dante. He scooped up a spadeful of the black earth piled next to his son’s grave and dropped it onto the polished mahogany of Bobby Saint’s coffin.

It struck him then, for the first time in the last couple days. His boy was dead, his body cold inside that wooden box right there, soon to be food for the worms.

Saint trembled with rage.

He dropped the shovel on the ground and looked up. Some of what he was feeling must have shown on his face. Father Cusmano flinched and took a step back.

Saint spun on his heel, took Livia’s arm, and without a word, led his family down the hill, past the crowd of mourners lined up twenty deep around the grave, past the line of limousines along the cemetery drive, back to their own waiting car.

Lincoln and Cutter held the doors as the three of them climbed inside, Livia in the middle.

“I’ve changed my mind, Howard. I want to go home,” his wife said.

Saint nodded. There was a memorial luncheon planned at Casablanca, but if Livia didn’t want to go, she didn’t have to go.

“John,” he said, turning to his son, “you can represent us there—can’t you?”

“Sure, Pop. I’ll do it.”

Saint leaned forward, about to tap on the window glass to give Dante instructions, when he sensed a car pulling up alongside them.

He turned and saw Quentin Glass climbing out of the newly arrived vehicle’s passenger door, a thick manila envelope in his hand.

Saint rolled down his window. Glass tossed the envelope in his lap.

“From our Mr. Weeks. He apologized profusely for taking so long.”

Saint opened the envelope and pulled out two files. The first had printed across it: