“Now you tell Mrs. Hanover,” he said to Addis, “that I’ve been praying for her and for the boy, okay?”

“I will,” Addis said.

“And she should do whatever’s in the heart. I been listening to the radio, so I know what’s happening there.”

“I’ll tell her, Mr. Pearson.”

Pearson started crying. He wiped his face with his sleeve.

“See, Mr. Addis, I told you,” he said. “I’ll go do this inside. You got to get going.”

Pearson walked away.

Rudd didn’t say anything to Addis until they were back on the state highway. She asked how he had first discovered Pearson and his angels.

“During the campaign,” he said. “After … after the primaries. Heard about him from the guys on the gubernatorial staff. I asked Margaret if the story was for real. She said she and Bob had been out here a few times, when campaigning. So when I had the chance I came to see it for myself.”

“Who’d you come with?”

You always know what to ask.

He had come with the deputy press secretary. They had slept together that night, when they returned to New Orleans. She had been the first woman he had made love to after splitting up with Rudd.

“A few people from the press office,” he lied.

“And why did you bring me there?”

“I thought you’d like to see it.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

Rudd was silent for a few minutes.

“Damnit, Nick. You’re always two places at once. Always operating on more than one level. I’m not even sure if you can see it.”

He knew what she meant.

“God, did I hate you,” she said.

“For what?”

“For being you and for not being you … For making me decide.”

“Making you decide what?”

He steered the car on to the interstate and kept his eyes straight ahead.

“Between you and my … Oh, what the hell does it matter?”

She sounded like she was crying. He didn’t want to look.

“You know,” he said, “sometimes I think that maybe, maybe you were right about …”

He was edging toward it. Tell her or not? He knew they were both thinking about that conversation and the execution of a man neither of them ever met.

“I know, I know, I know,” she said. “That’s what makes it so god-damn awful and sad. Don’t you see that? Don’t you?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

But he knew.

“Oh, forget it. We should’ve hashed this all out years ago. It doesn’t matter now. It really doesn’t. Really. I called you up after the assassination because I felt bad. Not only for that, but because I, I—”

“Never returned my calls?”

“Yeah—and never gave you the chance.”

“For what?”

“To be mad at me. To tell me you were.”