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former husband, a disgraced hero.
    An innocent man? Perhaps, but then so many made the same claim …
    With luck, though, nobody would even remember his name. It would make whatever was to come a little easier. In the meantime, he would find the man named Charlie Parker, and tell him his tale. Among his possessions was a newspaper article concerning the apprehension of Roger Ormsby, a man who had thrived on torment. Parker had found him, and would understand that others like him existed.
    A prison van pulled up, and he got in. It would take him to the Rockland Ferry Terminal, and from there he could hop a Concord Coach bus to Portland. They’d given him $50 and a bus ticket upon release, and he had another $240 that he’d earned in the workshops. He didn’t speak to the officers in the van, and they did not speak to him. He had been a model prisoner, but it didn’t matter. They knew the crime of which he had been convicted, and they distrusted and disliked him for it.
    He regarded the falling of leaves as they drove, like all the dead days descending.
    From the parking lot, three men in a clean Chevy pickup watched him go. They and their kind had taken almost everything from the prisoner. He had just one thing left, and soon they would take that, too.
    They pulled out of the lot and passed the van on the road, not even glancing in its direction, before driving on to Rockland, where they parked by the terminal off Main Street, and there they waited.
    The van pulled up and disgorged its passenger. He walked to a pay phone and made a call, then bought himself coffee and a cookie while he waited for the bus to arrive. When it came, he got on board, and they shadowed him all the way to Portland. One of them went inside to watch for his arrival, where the ex-prisoner was greeted by a very large man in a very large suit that was still too small for him, who took his bag and escorted him to a black Mercedes sedan.
    The tracker returned to the Chevy.
    ‘The lawyer,’ he said.
    ‘He looks like a clown,’ came the reply from the man in the backseat. He had red hair and a feral aspect, like a creature frozen in the process of transformation from human to animal.
    ‘If he is, he’s a clever one.’
    Only the driver remained silent. He had not seen the fallen hero since the trial, and was surprised by how much he loathed him, and by his desire for him to suffer even more than he already had.
    Together the lawyer and the ex-con drove to a mixed-income property on Congress Street, not far from Longfellow Square, which was roughly divided between private tenants and those supported by the Portland Housing Authority. They went inside, and the lawyer was alone when he emerged twenty minutes later.
    ‘He’s fallen far,’ said the feral man.
    ‘He’s still falling,’ said the tracker. ‘He just doesn’t know it.’
    Only now did the driver speak.
    ‘Oh, I think he does.’
    They drove off. They knew where to find him, and could take him anytime. They would wait a little longer – a couple of days, but no more than that – just in case the opportunity presented itself to inflict fresh miseries upon him, or life chose to do it for them.
    When they finally came for him, he might even be grateful.

8
    S AC Edgar Ross of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s New York field office arrived at Blue Smoke on East Twenty-Seventh Street shortly after seven that same evening. He had been running behind schedule all day, and was surprised that he was only half an hour late stepping through the door of the restaurant. He spotted Conrad Holt sitting at the packed bar, half-interested in the playoff game showing on the big TV screen, and moved through the post-work crowd to join him.
    ‘Thanks for keeping a seat for me,’ said Ross.
    The deputy director gestured with his Bloody Mary at the masses thronging the bar.
    ‘What did you expect me to do, put my purse on it? I might just be able to order you a drink, now that you’ve got here