He drives out on a Saturday. It takes forty minutes from Fishtown to Marcus Tate's house in Haddon Heights — across the bridge, south on the highway, then the suburban streets that become quiet in the particular way of neighborhoods that decided, decades ago, to leave the city's noise on the other side of the river.
Marcus is in the backyard when Gideon arrives. He is throwing a ball for two of the three dogs — a retriever mix and something that looks like it was assembled from the leftover parts of three breeds — while the third, an old beagle with a graying muzzle, sits beside Marcus's chair with the dignity of an animal that has earned its rest.
"You eat?" Marcus says, without looking up from the retriever.
"On the way."
"You're lying."
"I had half a granola bar."
"That's not eating." He throws the ball again. "There's stuff inside. Help yourself."
Gideon goes in and makes a sandwich from things in Marcus's refrigerator that are well-stocked in the way of someone who cooks properly — actual ingredients, nothing processed, bread from a bakery not a bag. He eats it standing at the kitchen counter. He makes coffee. He brings two mugs outside.
Marcus takes the mug without comment. They sit in the backyard in the February cold, which is cold enough to require coats but not cold enough to require moving inside, and they watch the dogs run.
"The activity settled down," Marcus says. "The Kelley inquiry is closed — medical examiner went with natural causes. The FBI request didn't go anywhere visible."
"Donahue is not the kind of person who shows where he's going."
"No." Marcus is quiet for a moment. "You being careful?"
"Yes."
Marcus looks at him. He has a face that has seen thirty years of what people do to each other, and it has not made him cold — it has made him careful, which is a different thing. He looks at Gideon the way he has always looked at him: without expectation, without judgment, with the specific kind of attention that says I see you and I am not running.
"Careful like you used to be?" he says. "Or careful like you're getting better at telling yourself you are?"
Gideon holds his coffee. The dogs are doing something incomprehensible and enthusiastic at the far end of the yard. The old beagle watches them with serene contempt.
"I'm careful," Gideon says.
Marcus nods. He looks back at the yard. "Good," he says.
The word carries more weight than it sounds like.
They sit in the yard until the coffee is gone.