The Oracle Year(77)

“That has to make you the largest charitable donor in history. Why?”

The Oracle smiled.

“What the fuck am I going to do with fourteen billion dollars that I can’t do with nine? It didn’t seem right to take all that good fortune and not do something for other people.”

The Oracle reached up under his sunglasses, careful not to knock them off, and rubbed at his eyes.

“Also,” he said, “I’m trying to make up for killing twelve people when this whole thing started.”

Leigh’s reporter’s instincts lit up, even as her disappointment in what the Oracle was turning out to be deepened.

“. . . what?” she managed.

“You remember the Lucky Corner Massacre?”

“Of course,” Leigh said cautiously. “It was huge news. Last year. Like eight months ago.”

“I did that.”

Leigh thought for a moment, trying to remember the details.

“But wasn’t it just a bodega robbery that went bad over on Ninth? A couple of patrol cops walked into the store while it was happening. I don’t remember exactly how it played out, but . . .”

“The bad guys saw the cops and started shooting,” the Oracle said, his voice dull.

“First, the owner of the deli—his name was Han-Woo Park,” the Oracle went on. “Then one of the patrolmen. Officer Leonard Esposito. His partner made it out of the store and called for backup, and it turned into a hostage situation. SWAT had to go in, eventually. The kids who were robbing the store weren’t interested in negotiating. They’d already made their minds up to go out as street legends, have songs written about them.”

“How can you know that? Did you know them?”

“I bought transcripts of the negotiator’s conversations with them.”

“Is that legal?”

The Oracle shrugged.

“Anyway,” he continued, “the cops went in after a few hours, and it all went to shit. Twelve people. The thieves—they were just kids, only sixteen. Robert Washington and Adewale Deluta. Customers—Andy Singer, Maria Lucia Sanchez, Barry Anderson, Chantal L’Green, Amanda Sumner, Jim Roundsman, and Peter Roundsman. He was eight. And another officer, Jerry Shaugnessy.”

Leigh thought this over.

“You weren’t there,” she said, finally. “Were you?”

“I was standing outside the Lucky Corner with the rest of the crowd, behind the police cordon, waiting.”

“Then how . . . ?”

“Why do you think those cops went into that store in the first place, Leigh? I told them to. One of the first predictions I dreamed was about the Lucky Corner. Back then, I didn’t understand the rules. I was trying to figure out whether the predictions had to happen, or if they could be changed.”

“Can they?” Leigh broke in.

“No,” the Oracle said, one short word, like a vault door closing.

They were both silent for a moment.

“I wanted to stop it,” he went on. “I thought, you know, why would I have been given these predictions if I couldn’t do something about them? It just . . . made sense. I called 911 and said I’d overheard the two thieves planning to rob the deli. That’s why the cops went in the store, and that’s how the whole thing started.”

“You can’t hold yourself responsible,” Leigh said.

“You sure? If I hadn’t called the cops, those kids would just have taken their money and left. Because of my action, what I did, trying to be a goddamn superhero, all those people are dead.”

Leigh hadn’t typed anything for a few minutes. She watched the Oracle. He was emotional, upset. He wasn’t lying—and honestly, about causing the death of twelve people—why would he?

The Oracle stood up and walked over to the window. He stared out in silence. She was getting such a sense of weight from him, of a burden he could never set down. It radiated out from behind the sunglasses and the stupid wig, a haze of sad dignity.

He turned away from the window, returning to his seat.

“Look. I didn’t just ask you here to tell you about myself,” the Oracle said. “I wasn’t originally planning to talk about this, but there’s something else—something I think the world needs to know. Get ready to take this down. It’s important to get the details right.”

Leigh put her hands on the keyboard. She leaned forward on the couch, watching the Oracle’s face, feeling the gigantic change her life was about to undergo looming over her like a tsunami.

“Go ahead. I’m listening.”

The door to the room burst open with a gigantic crash, the locks shattering as the screws pulled out of the doorframe. A large circular dent could be seen in the center of the outside of the door as it smashed open and bounced off the inner wall of the room. A man dressed in black coveralls, holding a metal tube with handles attached to either side of it, stepped back from the destroyed door.

The Oracle bounded up from his chair. His knees jolted the coffee table, and the pitcher of water spilled, along with the ice bucket and the pot of coffee. Liquid soaked the tray and dripped over the sides of the table.

Leigh inadvertently slapped the laptop closed, clutching it to her chest like some sort of wholly inadequate combination of shield and prized possession.