Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3) by Gary Ross (100 best novels of all time txt) 📗

her to have a modest cash gift and I want to make a donation in her name to the women’s law clinic. I’m also leaving a cash gift to her daughter Alaila. Most actresses in New York need money to make ends meet.” His finger moved down the page. “Also, I’ve set up an account to help Eddie, should it become necessary. If the idiots driving the DC bus can’t figure out DACA, the money is in his private defense fund until it runs dry. If DACA is settled, the money can be used to reunite him with his family. If his people are deceased or unreachable, it’s his to spend as he wants.”

I scanned a few more lines. “Generous,” I said.

“My personal possessions, including my books, films, art, and music, should be given away to friends, sold, or donated, whatever you think is appropriate.”

Bobby had hundreds of films on disc and tape, hundreds of audio recordings on LPs and CDs, over two thousand books on shelves so high they required a rolling library ladder, and at least eight original paintings. Selling them or choosing which friend got what in an age of streaming music and movies, digital books and posters, would be a nightmare. Donating everything would be complex and time-consuming. Maybe if we hired estate specialists…

But my godfather’s gaze pulled me back from my thoughts. “My rare books are to go to the Central Library downtown.” His eyes seemed to brighten. “Their Rare Bookroom is one of the finest special collections I’ve ever seen—Twain’s original Huck Finn manuscript, Shakespeare’s First Folio, a complete first Audubon, first printings of pivotal science texts, early atlases, illuminated manuscripts, a 600-volume anti-slavery collection. Do you have any idea what a fine library we have?”

“I do,” I said, smiling. Growing up in Bobby’s orbit and often visiting libraries with him, I couldn’t help but know the value of the system long before he began to serve on its board.

“Finally,” he said, “I have smaller bequests for groups and causes I support. NAACP. Urban League. Public education funds. Women’s shelters. Adoption assistance. Literacy programs. A few others.” He sat back and looked at me. “Sorry to make you go through all this, but you’re the one I talk to about things like this. Sorry, too, I lost it for a bit.”

“That’s okay.”

After a few seconds, he smiled. “I know I can’t save the whole world but I can make a sliver or two of it less ugly.”

“You’re a good man, Bobby,” I said. “A better man than I’ll ever be.”

“No, Gideon,” he said. “I’m a calculating man in search of a cold balance, of righting the scales on my own terms.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Pre-emptive atonement. Doing something good before I may have to do something bad. Something I may even enjoy, God help me.” Elbows on the table, he leaned forward, lowering his voice. “No, this won’t kill the monster I’ve seen, but it might bring a spoonful of justice to a moment. Maybe response in the moment is a kind of radiation treatment to help stop the spread of the cancer that produces the monster.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“I’m talking about metastasis,” he said. “It’s easy to say we shouldn’t let hate change us, but it does. So I’m talking about that change, about being ready for it, about finding the strength and inner peace to do what must be done with it in that moment. To stop the spread of hatred. The interfaith services I’ve gone to these past few years? They always had armed security, people like you who know somebody has to bear the burden of protecting others, with lethal force if necessary. We civilians have to bear some of the burden ourselves.” His usual silky tenor became as cold and sharp as a scalpel left in a freezer. “The next time thugs attack me and say there’s still room in the Jew oven for ragheads, fags, and niggers like me, they better kill me because I will damn sure kill at least one of them.”

8

One afternoon the following week I accompanied Bobby to the next interagency conference planning meeting. He had missed two during his recuperation and was eager to resume his share of the work. When I insisted on tagging along, he did not object. Nor did he suggest attire more like the new gray suit he wore when I slipped my black denim jacket over my shoulder holster. Knowing he might have done so under other circumstances, I was prepared to tell him I did not wish to blend in. I wanted to look like a bodyguard, like someone tough enough to carry and too short-fused to tolerate disruption. But there was no need to explain.

The Alliance for Public Progress rented a suite of offices on the fifteenth floor of a downtown building overlooking Canalside. The meeting was held in a rectangular boardroom with a long table surrounded by mesh-backed office chairs. The room had a floor-to-ceiling window for an exterior wall, frosted glass in the upper half of the corridor wall, an abstract painting on the wall at either end, and plastic shell chairs for overflow seating. After those already there gathered around Bobby to welcome him back with hugs and handshakes, I sat in a shell chair in a far corner and opened my pocket notebook as if I were going to keep the minutes. As the well-dressed participants took their seats, Catherine Cathcart stared at me as if trying to remember where she had seen me before. I smiled. She smiled back but the confusion was still there, even as the balding man I recognized as her grandson William helped her into a chair.

Having spoken with Rory Gramm the day before, I had got an emailed list of those expected to attend and would match faces to the names already in my notebook. After each name was enough space for me to jot down any information worth following up. Of course, I had already begun