By A Spider's Thread

Chapter Twenty-three

TESS MADE A GAME OF TRACKING DOWN THE FOUR local felons that Mark Rubin had met through his volunteer work, deriving a peculiarly Baltimorean pleasure in structuring the most efficient route through the chaotic city. Uncle Donald, glorying in his ability to get confidential information, had procured the men's workplaces from Parole and Probation, which simplified things. Katzen was on the edge of downtown, Russell in downtown proper. She would then swing into SoWeBo, the southwest Baltimore neighborhood whose dilapidated row houses were more likely to evoke Soweto than SoHo, and end the day in southeast Baltimore, close to her own office. If she timed it right, she'd make Cross Street Market for lunch, pick up some fresh Utz potato chips, hot from the fryer, and still have time for a late-afternoon dog walk and coffee break.

"Good-bye," she called to the dogs, as she headed out. "I'm off on the Jewish-losers tour of Baltimore."

She would come to regret that joke, private as it was, before the morning was through.

Daniel Katzen-burglar and beater of old ladies-had found gainful employment as a security guard, at no less a place than the Beacon-Light. If such a man worked for any other employer, it probably would have sparked a five-part investigative series on the Blight's front pages. But in the newspaper's own lobby, an ex-felon with a gun was no cause for alarm. Tess wondered if Katzen had lied about his background or if the newspaper's management reasoned that Katzen's willingness to hit women in moments of stress would come in handy should its unions strike.

"You need a pass to go upstairs," Katzen informed Tess before she even had a chance to introduce herself and state her business.

"I don't want to go upstairs," she said, not bothering to tell him that she had been sneaking in and out of the Beacon-Light for years, using a former employee's swipe card. "I'm here to see you. Do you remember a man named Mark Rubin?"

"No."

"Let me provide some context. Seder dinners, monthly prayer sessions, baruch ata Adonai."

"Hebrew school? There mighta been a Rubin in my class."

"Bars, electronic fences, guard towers-"

"Hey." Katzen glanced around the lobby, although there was no one there to overhear. "No need to screw with me like that. Okay, yeah, I remember Mark Rubin from you-know-where. So what?"

"What about Rubin's wife? Or his father-in-law, Boris Petrovich?"

"Boris was his father-in-law?" If Katzen was playing dumb, he was exceptionally good at it. "That dirty old Russian? Man, I hope his daughter had money. Because if she looked like her old man, she was definitely a two-bagger."

"She's not a two-bagger," Tess assured him. "She's gorgeous. And missing."

"Yeah?" He patted his pockets. "Well, I'm clean. Gorgeous, huh? Go figure. But then, Rubin was rich. A rich guy can always get a girl. Women are all about money. Like you, I bet you wouldn't go out with a guy like me because I'm a security guard."

"I wouldn't go out with a guy like you because you break into houses and beat up old women."

"That's what I used to do," Katzen said, wounded. "I'm a changed man. I even got a pardon."

Assuming he was telling the truth-a tricky assumption-then Katzen had come by his right to carry a firearm legitimately. But Tess wasn't convinced that Katzen knew the difference between a pardon and the mere end of parole.

"No thanks. What about Natalie Rubin?"

"Who?"

"Rubin's wife."

"The dirty Russian's daughter?"

"Never mind." Katzen's mind seemed to be on a loop, and a very short one at that. Tess left the newspaper building, convinced that Katzen was far too dumb to play dumb so effectively.

Scott Russell wasn't dumb, far from it. But the wiry forty-something man she met for coffee was simply another dead end, using Tess's time to try to pressure her into buying stocks. He was a junior executive at a discount brokerage house, working on commission, and he spoke of the market as if it were a kind of religion, a mystical force that would transform one's life if one surrendered to it completely. Tess was sure he had once spoken of aluminum siding with the same fervent certitude, and that he would probably find other gods and goods to worship throughout his working life. She bade him good-bye as quickly as possible, taking a card and promising to give serious thought to pharmaceutical stocks.

By 11:30 a.m., when Tess rang the doorbell at a converted garage on Poppleton Street, her heart was harder than the pharaoh's. The ring went unanswered at first. She checked the address for Mickey Harvey, then leaned on the bell again.

"Coming," a man's soft voice finally answered, followed by slow, careful footsteps. "Sorry, I couldn't hear you over the sander."

Mickey Harvey looked more like a living ghost man an actual man-gray eyes, gray hair, and gray complexion.

"I'm Tess Monaghan," she said. "I work for a man named Mark Rubin."

He smiled, the first man to show instant recognition at the name. "How is Mark? I haven't thought about him in years. He was very helpful to me, during my time… inside."

Inside. They all said "inside." It was more truism than euphemism, Tess decided. Serving time was something that most people could never understand, so these former inmates used a word that rendered the experience at once vague and definitive.

"You're not an engineer anymore."

He laughed, a rusty chuckle that sounded as if it didn't get out much. "What was your first clue? No, I've had this woodworking business for five years now. I do custom-builts. Money's not as good as it was when everybody was rich on paper, but I'm making ends meet."

"It's nice," Tess said, "when your avocation can become your business."

"Avocation? I'm not sure I'd call it that. Time was, I couldn't hammer a nail in straight. My ex is shocked. She always says, 'I couldn't get you to change a lightbulb when we were married, and now look at you, building armoires.' You know that old joke, right? How many Jewish boys does it take to change a lightbulb?"

"How many?" Tess responded dutifully.

Mickey Harvey made an incredulous face. "They have to be changed?"

Tess didn't have to fake her laugh, but she juiced it a little.

"So how did you end up being a Jewish carpenter?"

"I entered a vocational program while I was in a halfway house, began wood-shop courses more as occupational therapy than anything else. I don't drink anymore."

The last was offered almost as a reflexive confession. Society might be through punishing Mickey Harvey, but he was a long way from being ready to stop punishing himself.

"I'm talking to men who knew Mark through the Jessup program because his wife has disappeared, taking his children with her. Her father, who was in the program, claims to have some damaging information about her, but he won't tell us what it is. I'm just looking for any lead I can find."

He shook his head. "I wish I knew something, but I didn't even know Mark had a wife. Who was her dad?"

"Petrovich."

"Oh, yeah. I guess I knew he had a daughter, but he never told me that she was married to Mark. I was in a different cell block, though. I only saw those guys when the Tribe got together." Another twisted smile, another rusty laugh. "That's what I called it. The Tribe. And even the Tribe, small as it was, had cliques."

Tess wasn't surprised. The need to divide and subdivide was instinctive to humans, and there was no stratum of society it didn't affect. "How did the Tribe"-she used the word gingerly, not sure if she had a right to do so-"divide itself?"

"Russell and Kirsch were two peas in a pod. Katzen hung with this old dude, Yitzhak Wasserstein, who was doing a long sentence for killing a woman. Boris and Amos were buddy-buddy. Thick as thieves, as the saying goes."

"So you were the odd man out."

"Yeah, I guess I was."

"Did the men like Mark?"

"They didn't like anybody. But they didn't have any reason to dislike him. The volunteers were just another fact of life. I thought Mark was a good guy. I'm sorry his wife left him."

"I didn't say she left. I said she disappeared."

She thought the slip might be significant, but Mickey Harvey just waved the distinction away with a swipe of his hand. "But that's what women do, right? They leave. Yeah, I knew guys who cracked up their marriages, had affairs, bullied their wives. I even knew guys who convinced themselves that they wanted some other woman, only to find out that marriage is marriage is marriage. But usually it's the women who leave."

"Men leave, too, you know." Tess's heat surprised even her.

"At any rate, my wife left me. And the thing is, she left after I got out. You see, she could take being married to a guy inside. That was theoretical. Plus, she got lots of points for that. Oh, Wendy, you're so brave. Oh, Wendy, you're so good. But when I came home, I was a reality again, a guy who had killed a child and run away, destroyed every chance I had in life, and my family's along with it. That she couldn't take."

"You probably changed, too, more than either one of you could anticipate. Even change for the good can disrupt a relationship."

"Yeah, I changed. I got better. I got sober. But the big change was, I stopped making sixty thousand a year. She was remarried within a year, to some attorney. So I guess I know what my wife really loved about me."

"I'm… sorry." She thought it was what he wanted to hear.

"Me, too. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I can't help Mark Rubin out. I'm sorry I can't help myself. I'm sorry I have two kids I don't see enough. I'm sorry for everything. But do you think I can ever be sorry enough for the parents of the kid I killed?"

It was an unanswerable question, and Mickey Harvey seemed to realize this. He gave an embarrassed smile and moved the conversation to safer ground.

"Hey, tell Mark I go to temple now. Not regular, every week, but I belong to a temple, and I don't miss the High Holidays. My youngest was bar mitzvahed last month. It was a big party. His stepfather paid for it."

She started to apologize yet again. "I'm… I'm-"

"Don't. I hear it too much. I say it too much. But it doesn't change anything. And you know what? If you find Mark's wife, that won't change anything either. Trust me, it's the one thing no one can fix. Hey, want to see what I'm making?"

Tess recognized the offer as his attempt to behave normally, to ape the superficial style more suitable to an encounter between two strangers. "Sure."

He led her to the back of his workshop. A small bookshelf stood on a dropcloth. Tess didn't recognize the wood-mahogany? Cherry? Something reddish and complicated, with a swirling grain. The design was simple, but she could tell it was a simplicity born of long hours.

"Hand-pegged," Mickey Harvey said, running his fingers lightly over the top. "It's for my son. His grandparents-my parents-bought him a set of The History of Civilization for his bar mitzvah, and I'm building this to hold them. He'll have it all his life. He'll give it to his sons, who will pass it on to their sons. I've given him something that no one else can."

"You also gave him life. Don't forget that."

"But I took another child's. You know, that's my biggest fear. That God will take my kid, an eye for an eye. Sometimes I think I should kill myself, just to even the score, keep Benjamin safe."

"I don't think it works that way." Tess was almost frightened for this man, stranger though he was, needful for him to believe in his future.

"But if it did, I would. You have kids?" She shook her head. "Then you can't really understand. Here's the worst thing." He lowered his voice, as if an omniscient God couldn't hear whispers. "If I had to choose between my kid and another kid, if God came to me and said I could have my life to live over-I could choose not to do what I did, but I'd have to give him Benjamin-I wouldn't think twice."

"You mean…?"

"I mean I'd do it all over again, make all the same fucking miserable mistakes to save my kid's life. Oh, sure, I'd try to cheat, find a loophole. That's what we all do when we bargain, whether it's with God or the devil. I'd take the deal, and then I'd try to wiggle out of it. And if I couldn't undo what I did, at the very least I'd stay there. I wouldn't run away again. I'd stay at the scene, take the Breathalyzer. I wasn't drunk, you know. And I wasn't even entirely at fault. I just was worried that I'd blow too high and that would be it for my job. For my fucking job. This time I'd help the parents get that little boy out of the car and hold him in my arms."

"I should go." She knew that the words sounded abrupt, even uncaring, but they were true. She should go. The longer Mickey Harvey spoke, the further he seemed to retreat into his own taunting memory. This conversation couldn't be good for him.

"Sure, I understand, you're a working girl. Hey-" He fished into the pocket of his painter's pants, pulled out a card. Tess gave him one of hers in exchange, just to be polite. She doubted Mickey Harvey had anything more to tell her. "If you need any woodworking. My ex is always telling me I have to learn to network. It's funny about exes. They know you, but they're not invested in you anymore, so they can be really honest. Know what I mean?"

Tess didn't, but she nodded her head anyway. Agreement was a small enough gift to give to Mickey Harvey, and he seemed grateful for it.

Chapter Twenty-four

"DO YOU KNOW WHEN I REALIZED I WAS GOING TO BE A thief when I grew up? When I stole the afikomen." Tan and fit, Larry Kirsch had prematurely silver hair and bright blue eyes, which sparkled with… well, Tess was still trying to determine what accounted for that glint. Since she had arrived at Kirsch's fragrant cigar store, he had been ladling charm over every word. Sometimes the effect was flirtatious and focused, as if she were the most fascinating creature in the world. But his energy lagged at moments, and his patter became perfunctory, as if he didn't want to put out 100 percent for a woman disinclined to pay forty dollars for a cigar. Then he turned it on again, and she was beguiled-almost. He was trying so hard to make sure she liked him that she didn't think she should.

Plus, Tess couldn't quite shake Mickey Harvey's gloom, not even after two bags of fresh-made Utz chips, one crab and one barbecue. She had read mat potato sales were down because of the mania for low-carb diets, and she wanted to help the farmers of the world.

"You're supposed to steal the afikomen," she said, brushing a fleck of salt from the corner of her mouth. "It's part of the Passover ritual. If every afikomen filcher ended up in prison, there wouldn't be any nice Jewish boys left."

"Ah, but I stole the afikomen from the kid who stole the afikomen. You see, I was the best negotiator among my cousins, and I always got more money for it. I hated seeing Adam and Jody give it back so cheap."

"I've seen your record. You weren't in prison for stealing."

"I stole tens of thousands of dollars from my employer to feed my cocaine habit." He laughed at Tess's arched eyebrows. "I know-cocaine was so over by the time I got hooked. A client gave me a little taste, to get me through tax season. By the time April fifteenth arrived, I was a full-fledged addict. Hey, but at least I was ahead of the curve on accounting fraud."

"You served time for possession with intent to distribute."

"Oh, puh-leeze. I wasn't a dealer. I was a pig. I planned on snorting every last bit of that myself. Well, maybe selling a little, just so I could make enough profit to buy more. Anyway, my family made restitution for what I stole, so the theft charge was dropped as part of my plea. But they couldn't make the distribution charge go away. You know what my mother said when she found out I had a cocaine habit? 'At least he doesn't drink, like the goyim.' "

"Where are you getting your material-Portnoy's Complaint?"

"What does an Irish lass named Monaghan know from Portnoy and afikomensi I imagine you reading James Joyce and drinking pints of Guinness in Locust Point bars." He leaned across the counter toward her, making serious eye contact. "I like the freckles, by the way."

Tess smiled enigmatically. She had no intention of telling this garrulous charmer that she was half Jewish. She wasn't convinced Kirsch had kicked all his bad habits, but she had outgrown her bad-boy jones long ago.

"I hate to dredge up your life in prison-"

"Dredge away. It's some of my best material. In fact, it's the centerpiece of my first-date story. Do you think that's why I'm not getting many second dates?"

She let the pass pass. "I'm curious about the group of Jewish prisoners who met back at Jessup, going back more than ten years ago. One prisoner's daughter ended up marrying one of the volunteers, and now she's missing."

"Whose daughter?"

"Boris Petrovich's."

"Ah, yes. The nubile Natalie. I had first crack at her, you know."

Tess didn't like to show surprise-it was a fatal weakness-but she couldn't help being flustered. "Excuse me?"

"Petrovich showed her photo around our cell block, along with one of a friend. I don't remember the friend so well-she was a little coarse. But Natalie. You don't forget a face like that."

"What do you mean by 'first crack'?"

"Boris was pimping her."

"Bullshit. You can't pimp in prison, not to other prisoners."

"Ah, you're not quite as innovative an entrepreneur as our friend Boris. He had a whole fee schedule. You could get letters from her or photos in a variety of garb-or lack thereof. If you were willing to put more money in his account or slide a few more of your privileges his way, he'd offer to get the girls on your visiting list. The prices went up steeply from there, of course."

"Of course?"

"A hand job from a woman costs a lot more in prison than it does on the street. The old law of supply and demand."

"No way." But even as one part of Tess's mind was trying to knock the story down, the more calculating part was seeing how such an arrangement might work for prisoners who weren't in maximum security. She had been close enough to Boris to touch him-not that she would-and the guards had been selective about what they noticed. It had taken Boris's sudden movement to get their attention.

"It's not very private, to be sure. And the guards draw the line at visitors going down on their knees. But groping is within bounds."

"Yeah, but he was her father. What kind of man would do that to his daughter?"

Kirsch shrugged. "A man who knew his daughter was a whore and figured he deserved a piece of whatever she earned. Once a pimp, always a pimp."

"I was told that Petrovich was a thief, who killed a man in a dispute."

"He did a thriving business in stolen goods, sure. But from what I understand-and I'm good at getting information, I'd be a decent private investigator myself-he killed a pimp who tried to take Natalie and her friend away from him. He didn't care if his daughter turned the occasional trick, but he sure as hell expected her to bring her earnings home every night."

"No way," Tess repeated. It was not that she found the information so unfathomable, more that her mind balked at taking this news back to Mark Rubin. Natalie, a teenage whore. And Lana must be the friend in question. The pool of possible traveling companions had just swelled tenfold, a hundredfold, to all Natalie's former tricks, or even her would-be pimp. No, he was dead, if Kirsch was to be trusted, killed by a father who resented the loss of income, as opposed to the loss of his daughter's innocence.

"Well, I have to admit, she opted out of the prison thing early on, stopped coming around at all. But her friend even married a guy. Boris must have gotten a bundle for that."

"One of the guys in the group?"

"Yep. Famous Amos, the world's biggest Jew. I told my mom about Amos, and she said he couldn't possibly be Jewish. But I think that's because he knew how to fix cars, not because of his size."

I was married once, Lana had told Tess, for about six months. No wonder she had found matrimony so dreary. Her groom had been locked up.

"Natalie was last seen in French Lick, Indiana, with a man of medium height and average looks. Dark hair, slender frame."

"Dark hair. Well, that lets me out, unless I was dipping into the Grecian Formula. French Lick, huh? I guess they must be hard-core Larry Bird fans."

Hirsch's unending supply of glib chatter was beginning to wear on Tess. If he was really worried about getting second dates, he should drop the Catskills-style delivery and try a moment or two of simple sincerity.

"Why did you sign up for the men's group anyway?" She couldn't help feeling aggrieved on her uncle's behalf, and Rubin's. They had been trying to do something worthwhile, and the only man who had valued their efforts was Mickey Harvey. Boris Petrovich was pimping, first to his fellow prisoners, then to Mark. The other guys were just passing time. "Everything seems like a big joke to you."

"I admit-at first it was just for the distraction. An Islamic fundamentalist might have signed up for that group, just to vary the routine a little. But I gotta tell you, it helped. Those guys reminded me that I came from a community, and although I had sinned against that community, I could work my way back if I tried."

"The prodigal son."

"No, that's New Testament, your people's gig. The Old Testament isn't quite as big on absolute forgiveness, but I had broken only one commandment. Well, two, because a drug is like a false god. Plus, I did a little coveting on the side."

"What about taking the Lord's name in vain? Keeping the Sabbath?"

"Four, five-the point is, it was good being reminded that I was a Jew. I didn't have a wife, I didn't have kids, and I sure as hell didn't have a career left as an accountant. But I was part of something that was bigger than me, and there was a comfort in that."

"Sounds like you did some twelve-stepping along the way."

"Still do. I catch a meeting once or twice a week. I've got an addictive personality. Then I realized almost everyone has an addictive personality. The trick is to peddle legal ones that don't particularly appeal to you. It came down to this or coffee." He held a cigar up to his nose, inhaling its aroma. "Of course, I'm late to a trend again, just like I was with cocaine. Cigar sales aren't what they used to be, and the Internet is kicking my ass. But I'm doing okay."

"Congratulations. And thank you for your time today."

"So…" He was back to full-bore-charm mode. "You ever date an ex-con? I may have embraced my heritage, but I've never quite lost the shiksa thing."

Tess didn't have the heart to tell him that she was not the goy of his dreams. "I sorta have a boyfriend."

"Sorta?"

"I mean, I have a boyfriend. He's just away right now, tending to some personal business."

"I don't know. Sounds like a Freudian slip to me, as if you'd be willing to not have a boyfriend under the right conditions."

"Yeah, well, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

"Not in this shop, sweetheart. Not in this shop."

Chapter Twenty-five

For once Natalie held her ground and insisted on a motel at the top of their price range, which meant extras such as an indoor pool, a free breakfast buffet, and a coffeemaker in the room. After dinner in the restaurant-another meal that Isaac barely touched-she took the children down to the steamy, overheated pool room, letting them swim in T-shirts and underwear until their fingers were shriveled and their lips almost blue. It turned out that the pool's heater was faulty, so while the air was humid and sultry, the water temperature was colder than the Atlantic Ocean in June. But children never mind cold water, and she had to beg them to get out.

Back in the room, she hustled them into hot showers, surprising them afterward with cups of cocoa and hard little chocolate-chip cookies. The twins drank without comment, but Isaac wrinkled his nose.

"It tastes funny," he complained.

"You're just not used to instant," Natalie told him. "Put some more mini marshmallows in it, and it will taste richer."

Their cocoa gone, she tucked them into the bed farthest from the door. Penina was wearing pull-ups now, an utter defeat, but it was only fair to Efraim and Isaac. Natalie had bought another box of the pull-ups today, spending precious dollars at a discount department store not far from the motel. Married to Mark, she had barely noticed the price of anything. Now money seemed to be the only thing she thought about. Well, one of two things she thought about.

Worn out by the swim, lulled by the chocolate, the children fell asleep within minutes. Zeke, lying on the other bed, watching the television with the sound muted, saw that they were out and nodded at her, removing the phone's handset and dropping it in his pocket.

In the car they started out as they always did, giggling a bit, stroking each other's faces, feeling the glad relief of a moment when nothing was expected of them-no childish complaints or tears, no demands, no work to do, no people to deceive. But Zeke quickly moved ahead, urgent, keen to do what they had to do and get back in the room. He unzipped his pants, pushing Natalie's head down with the usual gentle pressure. But this time she slipped her neck from his hand and slid across the unbroken bench of the front seat, straddling him and positioning his hands so he could feel she was naked beneath her skirt.

"C'mon, baby," he said, trying to force her up and off him, but the steering wheel kept her in place. "We agreed. That has to wait until everything is perfect. A beautiful hotel suite, you in a silk gown. Candles, music. It won't be long now. Be patient."

"I don't want to wait anymore. If you insist on perfect, you're never going to have anything. Nothing is ever perfect. Besides, what's the difference between being in my mouth and being in my-" She paused, not wanting to ruin the mood by saying something too crude. "Between my mouth and between me!"

He was ready, more than ready. She felt the telltale twitch where she held him, as if Zeke's body were arguing with his head. Natalie began kissing him lightly-mouth, eyelids, ears. When he spoke again, his voice was faint, unconvinced.

"The kids-mere's always a chance Isaac will try to make a run for it if we stay out too long. He's always looking for a chance to get away."

"His eyes won't open tonight. I put a little vodka in their cocoa."

"Really?" He put his hand up to her mouth, trying to push her back. She sucked his fingers, but he snatched his hand away and grabbed her chin so she had to look at him. "Where'd you get vodka?"

"At the shopping center, where I bought the cocoa and the pull-ups."

"So you had this all planned."

"I need you, Zeke."

"You have me. Don't you remember anything? Back at Jessup, visiting me? We held hands on the top of the table, not underneath. We held hands and we made our plans, and wasn't that a thousand times better than anything you ever felt before?"

"Yes, but… we're together now. There's no reason to wait anymore." She started to weep. "You don't love me. If you loved me, you would make love to me."

"I love you more than anyone has loved you or ever will. I love you so much that I won't let you treat me like one of the men you used to be with, back when you turned tricks in parking lots just so you'd have enough money to buy makeup and go to the movies."

"You always said you didn't mind, that you wouldn't hold that against me."

"I don't. But what we have has to be different."

"It's different, all right. Are you sure you're not a fag? Is that what happened to you in Terre Haute? You decided you like boys?"

He slapped her, and her tears were heavy enough to make her choke. She tried to get out of the car, but he seized her wrist. She wanted to rake her nails down his face, draw blood, show him that she would never again allow such treatment. Yet she was almost grateful for his hold on her because she honestly didn't know what would happen if he let her go. Her arms might go anywhere, strike anything, and there was no doubt in her mind that she could shatter the windows, the windshield, Zeke's face. Her own rages frightened her and she had tried hard, since the children were born, to control them. Zeke had brought them back. She could never be completely in control when Zeke was around.

"Just like my father," she said between hiccups. "Just like my father, the one thing you said you'd never do."

"You mustn't speak to me like that, ever," he said, holding tight to her wrist. "I can't allow that. Look, you're stressed out, it's understandable. You've been a trouper. All I ask is that you be patient for a few more weeks."

"Weeks? How many weeks? What is it that we have to wait for?"

"Just for some details to be worked out. Trust me. Have I ever lied to you?"

The fact was, he had not. Once, just once, he had withheld something from her, but even that had been from love, for love. Zeke had not trusted her with the information about his federal time at first, fearing that Natalie wouldn't allow herself to love him if she knew. But that wasn't really a lie.

"Have I ever wavered in my love for you? Did I ever give up?"

His voice was pitched low now, husky. This was the voice that had come to her in hundreds of arranged phone calls over the years, collect calls made to Lana's number. The complicated plans and timetables that these conversations had required had been as thrilling as a spy movie to Natalie. It got to the point where her blood would race just looking at a phone.

"When we met, you'd already had sex with dozens and dozens of men. Did those men love you?"

Natalie shook her head.

"For the past ten years, you've been married to a man who thinks he loves you, but he loves a person we made up, you and I. Would Mark Rubin love you as you are, if he knew everything about you? Would he forgive what I've forgiven?"

She rubbed her face against his shirt front, saying no and drying her tears at the same time.

"Who loves you?"

"You do."

"Who will always love you?"

"You, Zeke, you."

"Who do you love?" Almost singing it now. "Who do you love?"

"You, Zeke, you."

It was an old refrain, one repeated in letters and telephone calls.

"Did your mother love you?"

"No."

"Your father?"

"No."

"Does anyone else love you as much as I do?"

She broke the ritual. "The children."

Zeke paused. "Yes, the children. The ones you drugged tonight, so you could come out here and crawl all over me. The children love you, Natalie. But do you love them? Really, truly?"

"Of course I do."

"Don't be so quick. Think about what I'm asking. If you had to choose between me and them, who would you choose, Natalie?"

"Don't ask me that. I could never make that choice."

"I won't, Natalie. But Mark will. He'll never let them be with you and me. And he has all that money, which he'll use to hire lawyers and grind you down. In the end you won't have your children, but you and I will be out whatever cash we've managed to put away. Did that even occur to you?"

"They're mine," she said. "They would be lost without me."

"Well, then, I guess you've made your choice. Them over me."

"I didn't say that."

"Natalie-I'm going to be honest. I'm not sure I can love Mark's children like a father. I think they'd be better off with him, with their real father."

"They like you," she said. And she believed they would, one day, when they were settled. Isaac would come to see how extraordinary Zeke was, and Penina would stop wetting herself, and the twins would give up the gibberish they now spoke most of the time.

"But I'm not their father, and they're not my children. I want my own children. Did you know that? I want my own babies with you." He reached under her skirt, began moving his hand back and forth. She tried to resist it, but their routine was so perfected, so efficient, that it took no more than a minute for him to finish her.

"Okay," he said, signaling that it was her turn to do the same for him. She bent down, her tears still fresh in her mouth, a pulse pounding in her temple. He needed her.