I texted back:

  Will do. Thanks. Love you too

  When I looked up, Whit was standing at the end of the hall, just in front of the big kitchen table. "What's wrong. What happened?" He was drying his hands with a towel.

  "I lied to you."

  "I figured as much," he said, not sounding angry at all which was a relief.

  There was no easy way to do this, so I ripped off the bandage. "Gregory is dead."

  Whit pressed his lips together and just nodded.

  "He was murdered. My guess is—"

  "Yeah, well, I don't care about your guess."

  "I understand."

  "Do you?" He was glaring at me. "Do you understand, Eddie?"

  "Not really, no. I've never—"

  "No, you haven't. So don't give me any New Age bullshit about how no one really dies."

  I just watched him. He was angry. That was good. That was better than sleeping his grief away.

  "What?" he asked.

  "What?"

  "What are you doing? You're humoring me, aren't you? Poor Whit. He's a real-live orphan now, isn't he?" He threw the towel on the floor. "Get out."

  "What?"

  "Get out. Go to a hotel. Go back home. Leave me here. I don't want to do this anymore."

  He's mad at me because... That was me trying to remember why I shouldn't take any of this personally. He was mad at me because... Well... I had no fucking clue.

  "Get out, Eddie." He took one menacing step forward.

  I pulled my lower lip into my mouth and waited.

  "Get out!"

  I just stared. I'd like to say that I was holding my ground. I'd like to say that I was not taking any of what he was saying personally. But, in truth, my heart was breaking. Somehow, someway, I knew he was trying to hurt me as much as he was hurting. It didn't remove the pain, but it made sense. And making sense was all I had right then.

  "Well?"

  "Well, what?" I asked as the tears came.

  "Are you just going to stand there and make me throw you out?" He moved forward one more step.

  I didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything. Every single thing in my life that had ever gone wrong was suddenly right in front of me. Money—trillions of dollars—couldn't make Whit feel better or help me help him. All we had was each other to work through the pain and the grief and the anger. It was his pain and grief and anger, of course. I was collateral damage, right at that moment.

  And that pissed me off. "How dare you," I hissed.

  That genuinely surprised him. He stepped back.

  "How fucking dare you treat me like I'm..." I was ramping up into full rage. It wouldn't last long, but it would be red-hot while it lasted. "Like I'm some sorta employee of yours that you can tell to go away?"

  In the time it had taken for me to say those few words, he'd found his footing and was back in his own anger. "I don't want to do this anymore, Eddie. It's too hard and it's too painful and I hate what—" He stopped.

  "Hate what?" My rage was all gone. Now I just felt sad for Whit and for what he was saying.

  "Never mind."

  We stared at each other for a long moment. Finally, he quietly said, "I can't believe you lied to me."

  "I'm sorry. I wanted to make sure Mark and I were right."

  "Right about what?"

  "He saw Gregory standing next to me while we were waiting outside on the street."

  "He did?" Whit's voice was suddenly small and soft.

  I nodded. I wanted to move towards him, but I could feel several ghostly hands holding me back. I wasn't being restrained as much as I was being advised. And I got it immediately. He wasn't ready for me to get closer. Not yet.

  Whit leaned against the door frame. "What happened?"

  I wasn't sure which thing he was asking about so I decided to tell him about how Mark and I got to the office and how Buster had suddenly appeared to help.

  "Buster?"

  I nodded.

  "How was he?"

  I tried not to smile when I replied. "Still dead."

  A flicker of laughter passed over Whit's lips and then was gone. "Did you do the same thing you did with him...?" He frowned a little. "When was that?"

  "Three years ago last Monday night."

  "A lifetime ago, in other words."

  "Yeah." I smiled a little.

  He smiled back. A little.

  "Anyway, it was different."

  "How?"

  "Well, with Buster, it was all about him posing in the mirror."

  Whit crossed his arms. "Oh, right."

  "And, as we remember, he was preparing to—" I grinned.

  "What?"

  "I told Mark that he was preparing to jack off."

  Whit shook his head. "He already had. Remember? You told me you could smell it."

  I nodded. "Now I remember. Yeah."

  His eyes widened a little. "Please tell me you're not about to mention something similar with Gregory."

  "I'm not. The keyword with Buster was 'randy'. He was randy. With Gregory, it was all about dignity."

  Several emotions passed over Whit's face in quick succession. "Dignity? He's a thug and a murderer."

  "I know. Mario pointed that out to me as soon as I mentioned it."

  Whit nodded and then looked down at the floor. "Dignity?"

  "Yeah. Also, Mark says that without his scar, he looks really handsome."

  Whit glanced up. "Seriously?"

  "You'll have to ask him. All I saw was him on the ground..." I wiped a tear away.

  That did it.

  Whatever barrier was keeping Whit and me standing ten or fifteen feet from each other suddenly broke into a million pieces.

  He walked towards me and I towards him.

  We met in the middle, and he wrapped his arms around me. "Son, can you forgive me?" He gulped.

  "It's OK, Whit. It's all OK."

  He took a deep breath. "I—"

  From somewhere in the kitchen, his phone started ringing. The ringtone was ripped from "Be My Valentine," a Ukrainian tune sung in English by Svetlana Loboda. It had been entered in the Eurovision contest in 2009. For some reason, Oksana loved it, a fact that always made Viktor laugh whenever the subject came up. There was some in-joke about the song or the singer that neither Whit nor I had ever been able to figure out.

  "Does she know?" he asked as the song played.

  "Mother was going to tell her once I told her you knew. Maybe she heard about it some other way."

  He kissed me on the forehead, let me go, and then ran into the kitchen.

  "He loved you both very much." That was Oksana. At her insistence, Whit had put the phone on speaker. We were standing next to each other in the kitchen.

  "I know," replied Whit.

  "Like I, he had three sons."

  I nodded.

  Whit said, "Eddie knows."

  "You really are the head of the family, now, Eddie."

  That was something Gregory had told me when we last saw him back at Thanksgiving. I respected the idea of a male head of the family even though, in practice, I thought it was ridiculous that I would be that person. To be polite, I said, "That's an honor."

  She snorted a little in the phone. "You marry a Ukrainian, you become a Ukrainian. It is not an honor. I think it is an obligation. You must arrange the funeral as head of the family."

  I looked up at Whit and shrugged.

  He sidestepped that matter for the time being by asking the question that was on my mind. "How did you find out? We were just about to call you. As far as we know, the police are not admitting they found his body."

  "It is Ukraine, Vasil. Gregory was a very respected man. There will be no news of his death, I think. But I still know people in the government, my son. I am coming to France. We will have funeral there."

  Whit grinned down at me.

  "Good idea," I said.

  "We cannot go Kyiv," she added.

  "No, of course not."

  "You should call embassy in Paris," she said. "Inform them of funeral."

  "I will."

  "Vasil?"

  "Yes?"

  "You are sad?"

  Whit looked at me for a long moment. "Yes," he replied, but not meaning it.

  That threw me for a loop. It was as if something I'd known for a very long time but hadn't understood was suddenly clear. I looked up at him, wondering if what I was thinking could possibly be true.

  "Eddie?"

  "Yes?"

  "You are sad?"

  "Yes."

  "Are you?" asked Whit.

  "I am..." She sighed. "My life with Gregory was very confused and difficult." She sighed again. "I will miss him, yes. I am sad for his children, yes." She sighed one more time. "But the father of his children—of my children... This man... He died long ago. His face reminded me of this often."

  I nodded. The scar on his face was a warning. It told everyone to beware of how dangerous he was. Even Gregory had admitted as much.

  Once we were off the phone, I texted my mother to let her know that both Whit and Oksana knew. I was about to text Russ and Billy and ask them to come over so we could talk about the funeral when I realized I needed to talk to Whit first. "Cowboy?"

  He was texting Viktor, asking him to call as soon as he could. Oksana had asked Whit to let Viktor know. "Yes?"

  "We need to talk about something."

  He nodded. "I know. Hold on." He leaned into me. "Almost done."

  I looked at the brick floor as I waited. I'd never gotten a good look at it and wondered if it was the original floor or not. If it was, then it was sitting on top of wood since the Turkish bath was below us. When the house had been built, I doubted there was such a thing as a concrete floor back then. Then I began to wonder if the brick was thin and not—

  "Yes, little bear?"

  I looked up at him. "Whit?"

  "Yes?"

  I opened my mouth to speak and then I closed it.

  "What?"

  "This is hard for me to say."

  "Are you still mad at me about earlier?" He sounded worried.

  "No. But..." I put my hand under his arm.

  "But what?"

  "I don't know how to ask you about this."

  "Just ask."

  I took a deep breath. "When Pastor Bobby died and when Sandra died and now that Gregory is dead..."

  He stiffened. His whole body went rigid, and he pulled away from me a little. I wondered if he knew what I was about to say.

  "Whit?"

  "Yes?"

  "What would you do if I were to drop dead?" That was a truly awful question, but it was the only way I knew to get to where I was trying to go.

  "I'd do what Carter did when Nick died." He paused. "I mean, I know Carter killed Nick."

  "He euthanized him."

  "Yes. And I know he committed suicide after he did that."

  "Yes."

  "I'd do the same thing. When you leave, I'm outta here. I've thought about this a lot."

  I looked up at him. "Do you have a plan?" I knew Whit and I knew the answer.

  "Yes. I'm not going to tell you what it is, but yes, I do have a plan."

  I nodded.

  "And what would you do if I dropped dead?"

  "The same thing. I've thought about it too."

  "I know you, little bear. You don't have a plan, do you?"

  "Of course, not."

  He leaned against me again. It was as if that was reassuring to him. "Why are you asking me about this?"

  "You've been pretending to be sad about Pastor Bobby, Sandra, and Gregory, haven't you? You never needed to process your daddy's death because there was nothing to process, right?"

  He froze.

  "I don't think you're psychotic or sociopathic, Whit. I think you know what I know. That death is not the end. That was why you said what you said earlier about the New Age thing."

  He nodded. "You're right. I know it's true, but what I was angry about was that you would be feeling sorry for me. I hate that."

  "I know."

  He frowned a little. "You do?"

  "You've told me as much several times. And you know I feel the same way."

  He nodded but didn't say anything for a long moment. Then: "That death is not the end is the only conclusion I can come up with, to be honest." His words were rushed. "I don't believe there's a heaven like the Baptists talk about or even the Catholics. I don't believe there's nothing—that this is all there is. These ghosts you talk to, and that Mark sees. I mean..."

  I pulled him close. "Exactly."

  "What about you?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "When your father died back in '01, Susan told me you were really upset."

  I sucked in my breath. "I wasn't, though. I was shocked. I was shocked that he was gone and what that meant to the family, which is weird because of how weird this whole Ukrainian head-of-the-family thing is to me but that was a lot of what I was thinking about."

  "Did you cry?"

  "I did but, now that I think about it, I'm not sure what I was crying about. It's weird. I mean, I know Daddy is right here, with us, as I'm talking about him. And I know I can talk to him anytime I want. And I went through a period of time in '08 and '09 when he was talking to me a lot. He was oddly chatty compared to how he was when he was alive."

  "You told me that before."

  "But since then, I've never been affected by other people dying. Not like I was with him. And that was all about the shock of his being gone even though we knew he was dying."

  "But has anyone as close to you as he was... Has anyone died?"

  "Well, you know about Roger in the summer of 2020. You were there when I found out he'd died. And, in a lot of ways, I was closer to him than I ever was to my father."

  "That burst of joy..."

  "We were in the pool when that happened. Remember?"

  "And you didn't cry."

  I nodded. "No, I didn't. But remember? I got on the phone with all those guys I hadn't talked to in a long time."

  "I remember. I was jealous."

  I looked up at him. "You were?"

  He nodded and then kissed me on the top of my head. "I've been absolutely terrified about talking to you about this ever since Daddy passed away. I was afraid you would think I was some sort of monster."

  "I get that. You're really the only person I've ever told about how I felt when my daddy died."

  "You don't think I'm a psychopath?"

  "No." I pulled my arm away so I could face him and put my arms around his waist and bury my head in his sweater.

  He wrapped his arms around my shoulders.

  "That was another part of what made you so angry earlier, wasn't it?"

  He stiffened a little before relaxing with a deep sigh. "That and the idea that you would feel sorry for me. And, if I'm honest, the fact that I thought you were lying to me to protect me. You never, ever need to do that."

  "I know that now, Whit. And the same goes with me. You never need to protect me from anything."

  He kissed my forehead. "Good, because there's something I need to tell you."

  Even though he couldn't see me, I rolled my eyes because I knew he was about to make a joke about something. "What?"

  "Would you please brush your teeth after lunch? When dinner rolls around, I get skittish of what's going on inside your mouth there."

  I rolled my eyes again as I replied, "I will." In a flat tone, I added, "Thank you for telling me."

  "You're welcome. Is there something I need to know?"

  "No. You're perfect."

  "But that can be annoying."

  I just laughed. "Exactly. Your perfection annoys the fuck out of me."

  "I'm sorry."

  I pulled back and looked up at him. "Oh, never mind. I forgot."

  "What?"

  "Your schnozzle. It's the most perfectly imperfect nose ever."

  He grinned at me. "I love you so much, Eddie Smith."

  "I love you, too."

  18. On the way to the restaurant

  Driving west on quai des Célestins

  75004 Paris

  France

  Saturday, February 19, 2022

  3:03 p.m. CET

  I asked, "Do you have a backup restaurant on your list?"

  Russ, who was sitting next to me in the back of the Peugeot as we drove by the Seine, said, "No. Arthur? Care to explain?"

  The white guy in the passenger seat turned around and grinned at me. His name was Arthur Tarasenko and he worked out of the La Défense office. He had light and fluffy chestnut hair that he made no apparent attempt to comb or hold in place with product. His pale blue eyes crinkled as he said, "The owner—his name is Edward Bondarchuk—he has a loan from your father-in-law and is hoping you will pay it off."

  "Really?"

  He nodded. As he did, some wisps of hair floated around his head. "Yes. I hear that he will offer to cater the memorial as a gift."

  "A gift with strings," said Russ. "He owes Gregory just under a hundred thousand euro." He quickly added, "I mean, that's how much he owes Maxim."

  "Easy enough."

  Russ stared at me for a long moment. "Payments made to a mob boss are not exactly tax-deductible."

  "I'm sure someone in San Francisco or here in Paris will know how to take care of it."

  Russ shrugged.

  I reached over and squeezed his arm. "Your inner Secret Service agent is screaming right now, isn't he?"

  "You have no idea."

  Looking at Arthur, I asked, "How's the food?"

  He offered a chef's kiss. "Better than my mother and my grandmother. They make the best varenyky." He grinned. "You'll love them."

  "What's varenyky?"

  Nair Abakar, the Black man behind the wheel, made a tsk-tsk sound as Arthur's eyes widened. "You are Ukrainian and you do not know?"

  I rolled my eyes. "I'm American and mostly English with some German and French thrown in."

  Arthur waved that away. "Doesn't matter. You marry Ukrainian, you are Ukrainian." He looked over at Nair and said, "Is this true, my love?"

 

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