The Genius

He is not looking in Victor’s direction but Victor sinks into the shadows along the fence. He comes to the front gate. He rarely goes beyond. Sometimes they take them on outings. Once they went to watch a baseball game, and another time they went to see a circus. They went on buses.

The front gate is locked. He climbs over the fence and falls into the bushes, cutting his arm. He leaves a trail of drops as he walks along the road. He takes off one sock and ties it around his arm. Then he puts his shoe back on and continues walking.

Freddy lives in a town called Yonkers. Victor found it in the atlas. But he doesn’t know what direction to go in. He walks for hours, until the foot missing the sock begins to blister. He unties the bloody sock. It is crusty. The cut hurts but it isn’t bleeding anymore. He puts the sock back on his foot and keeps walking until he crosses over a bridge. It is pitch-black and muggy. He takes note of the stars. He sees many strange and attractive things but he has no time to waste, he has someplace to go.

As the sky brightens some trucks drive past. He sees houses, shops, and parked cars. He smells bread baking and his stomach hurts. A boy rides a bicycle with a basket full of newspapers. Victor sees a man sleeping in a car. Victor knocks on the window and the man twitches. He wipes the fog off the windows and squints out at Victor. Then he cranks the window down.

Victor says Bus station.

The man points. That way. Then he sees Victor’s arm. Whoa there pal.

Victor says Thank you and walks away.

The bus to Yonkers does not depart until eight fifteen, so after he buys his ticket he sits in the station and waits. The clock says six forty-five. Victor counts his money. He has twenty-two dollars and nineteen cents left. Some of the money he saved up over the years, gifts from the man with the moustache. Some of it is money that Mrs. Greene sent on his birthday. He is glad he spent it on a ticket to see Freddy. For the first time in months he feels alive. Hunger rushes into him like a wild dog. Across the street is a store where people are eating. The sign says Pip’s. Victor leaves the station and crosses the street and goes inside and sits down. People read from a

piece of paper to a woman and she brings them food. She comes to see him. She stares at his arm.

Golly. What happened to you?

He says nothing.

She gives him a funny look. What’ll it be.

He does not know what to say.

Listen kid, I don’t have all morning.

He picks up the piece of paper and points.

You want steak for breakfast?

He senses that he has made a mistake. He points again.

Coming right up.

The woman brings him a bowl of oatmeal. He stares at it, poking it with his spoon. He does not eat a bite. Nearby two men sit down and say to the woman Bacon and eggs. When Victor smells their food he regrets.

What’s the matter?

He looks at the woman.

No good?

He points to the other booth.

The woman shrugs. You want me to leave that?

He pushes the bowl away. She takes it and comes back with bacon and eggs.

He has never tasted anything like it. He savors every bite. The bacon is too greasy but the eggs remind him of Freddy’s mouth. He eats them and asks for another plate of just eggs. She brings it to him. He asks for a third.

Golly we’re hungry.

Midway through his fourth plate of eggs he remembers the bus. He hurries out without paying and runs across the street. The woman shouts at him.

In the station he asks the man for the bus to Yonkers.

The one left. There’s another this afternoon.

Victor sits on the bench and puts his head in his hands. He has made a terrible mistake. He is as stupid as they said. When lunchtime comes he is too

afraid to go back across the street. He wishes Freddy was there to help him. He counts his money, he still has twenty-two dollars and nineteen cents.

That’s him.

A policeman and Dr. Worthe are there along with some people from the home. They take him. He fights. They put him in the van and he falls asleep.

He wakes up in the quiet room. He tries to get out of bed but he is tied. He shouts and they come in and he falls asleep again.

The next time he wakes up Dr. Worthe is sitting at his bedside.

What are we going to do with you my boy.

He spends a long time in that room and then they let him go back to his regular room. His roommates say Welcome back Twitter.

He runs away again. They took his money so he cannot take a bus. He will hitchhike. Freddy told him about hitchhiking and one of his classmates said once he hitchhiked to Miami and back. Victor walks to the highway and sticks out his thumb. The first car that pulls up is a police car. Victor runs. He jumps off the side of the road and hides in a barn. They find him and bring him back. They give him shots and pills and shocks. They put him in the room. He does not try to run away anymore.

TIME PASSES.

Victor is nineteen and Freddy comes back. Victor cries with happiness. His prayers have been answered.

See says Freddy. Told you.

Victor discontinues his map, which he has been drawing whenever he isn’t too sleepy from drugs. Life is fine again. He and Freddy go to the attic, they go for walks on the grounds and find quiet places where they can hide themselves and cling to each other in the leaves. Freddy is always very gentle except sometimes he scratches Victor’s thighs with his nails. It hurts and he bleeds but he doesn’t mind.

Freddy says Next time they ain’t sending me here no more. Next time they want to put me in the pen.

The days fly by. Victor is twenty. He is twenty-one and twenty-two and twenty-three. They take a picture and in that picture Freddy stands next to him. The photographer says Say cheese. Then he is twenty-five and things change.

Dr. Worthe says You have a visitor Victor.

Victor has never seen this man before. His name is Mr. Wexler. He does not look much older than Victor but he has a tie and a suit and dark eyes and a sagging face and he sees Victor and says Oh brother.

Mr. Wexler asks Victor questions about the home. He seems unhappy with how Victor is being treated. Dr. Worthe keeps apologizing. Mr. Wex-ler keeps saying It’s over now.

Victor doesn’t like the sound of that. He has heard that before and he does not want anything to be over.

Dr. Worthe tells Victor that he will miss him. You’ve been here a long time my boy. I wish you the best.

Victor does not want to go. He tells Dr. Worthe but Dr. Worthe says Mr. Wexler will take care of you.

Victor does not want to be taken care of. He is already taken care of. He has his room and the eaves and his drawings and the library and Freddy, he has Freddy, who was taken away from him but given back. Much worse than losing someone you love is losing them twice. God is playing tricks. Victor hates Him. Still he prays to Him. He says the rosary. He bargains. If You will let me stay. Then I will. If You will bring him with me. Then I will. If You change Your mind. Then I will.

They take him on a fall morning. All through the ride Victor stares out the window at piles of burning leaves. Sometimes he cries. When the car slows he wants to jump out. The only thing that stops him is what Freddy said to him before he left. Don’t worry Vic. I’ll get out of here and I’ll come stay with you. You’ll see. Don’t act up and give yourself more problems.

Victor cannot imagine how things will ever get better, they feel so awful. But he believes in Freddy and Freddy said to do as the man told.

Mr. Wexler’s name is Tony. He rides in the car with Victor. He says that they are going to New York City. They drive and drive. Outside the trees are orange and gold but Victor sees only their shapes, their forked ends and their delicate spindles. He wishes he could show them to Freddy. He will draw them so he can show Freddy later. He will have to get some paper. He hopes they have paper in New York City.

New York City roars. Victor has never seen anything like it in his whole life. He sees buildings the size of mountains and streets filled with cars filled with people. He sees bright neon signs. He sees Negroes. He sees boys hitting a ball with a broomstick. He sees men with hard hats. A train disappears into the earth. Tony says Have you ever been on a train? Victor has suspicions about Tony; Tony talks to him like he is a child. But he is not a child. He understands. He understands that he is stupid and he always has. That is what makes him different from a child. He wants to tell Tony but he cannot find the words.

Over a bridge they go. Tony says This is Queens. There are men in blue coats. There are yellow and black cars that look like beetles. They drive down a busy street full of people walking, pulling carts behind them filled with paper bags. Men stand on the sidewalk smoking. The streets ooze steam. Victor is overwhelmed. He remembers the town from when he was a boy; he remembers Albany from the time he ran away; but neither of those places is as impressive as New York City.

They turn from the busy street and up a little hill past a park with children on swings. They come to some tall brick buildings. There are many of them, splitting the bright blue sky. Tony says Here’s your new place.

Victor cannot imagine a house so big. It is bigger than the dormitory, a hundred times bigger. He worries. He does not want a house so big. But then he sees other people going in and out. Maybe it is actually a dormitory. He can’t figure things out. Too many things are happening at once. He wants to lie down and put his head in Freddy’s lap. Freddy understands. Freddy could explain.

Tony leads him through a maze. The buildings are so high they bend inward, like they want to kiss. Victor feels lost. He wants a map. He wants his drawings. He asks for them but Tony doesn’t understand. He tells Victor that they’ll bring up his suitcases later. But what about the box in the library. He tries to explain. Tony says If you left something we’ll call Dr. Worthe and get it back. But Victor is not comforted.

Tony shows Victor a sign that says CARNELIAN. This is where you will live. Victor knows what carnelian is, he read about it in the almanac. Tony opens the door for Victor. Inside Tony pushes a button on the wall and a door slides open like a magic mouth. Victor has never seen it before. He is scared and amazed.

Come on says Tony. Unless you want to walk eleven flights.

The doors shut, chomp. The floor presses up and his feet feel heavy. Then a bell rings and the mouth opens and Tony says All-righty.

The hall is quiet, it has carpet and white paint on the walls. Here we go. Tony opens a door for Victor. The room inside is as big as his room in the dormitory but instead of four beds there is one. There is a potted flower on the windowsill and a flat metal plate plugged into the wall. There is a sink and a toilet. It is peaceful and clean. You can see the bridge from here. Tony points out the window. Isn’t this better?

Better than what? Victor gazes down at the ground far below. The people look like peppergrains.

You’ll be happy here. There’s the phone. When you need something you can call me. This is my number. I’ll be by to check on you. If you need something you can ask. Here’s some money. I’ll send some more every few weeks. You’ll be very comfortable, I promise. Is there anything you need? Are you hungry?

They go back in the mouth and Victor observes how to use it. He is learning all the time.

At the store which is called a restaurant Victor asks for eggs. Tony drinks coffee. The woman brings them everything and Victor eats. The eggs taste delicious.

This must be quite an adjustment for you. Tony waits and looks at him. Then he says We’re going to make up for everything. You’re free to do whatever you want. You can go outside, you can go to the museum or to the park. You can go to the baseball game. You can have anything you want.

Victor asks for another plate of eggs.

As much as you like. Tony sips his coffee. There’s shops nearby. What do you need?

Victor thinks. He says Paper.

There’s a store right up the way. They’re probably closed at this hour but I’ll show you the way and you can go buy whatever you’d like, I’ll give you some extra money. Do you want some dessert?

They walk to the store. In the street a man sells peanuts from a cart. The smell is wonderful and Victor’s mouth waters. He wants some peanuts but he doesn’t want to interrupt Tony, who is talking about all the possibilities Victor has open to him. Victor notes the location of the peanut vendor. He notes places that look interesting. He draws a map in his head. He can write it down later.

The stationery store is closed, but in the window Victor sees appealing stacks of paper and pencils. He does not know how much money Tony gave him but he hopes it will be enough.

They walk around the neighborhood. Tony shows him where to buy food. It is getting dark and cold and Victor shivers. Tony says You need a new coat.

After that they walk home. Victor goes to the wrong door and Tony says No, that’s not ours. Then Victor understands that the house is like a dormitory, after all. He feels disappointed. He had wanted to see the other rooms.

Tony brings him to the correct room. Victor memorizes the way as best he can. Tomorrow he wants to get pencils and paper and pens and some envelopes so he can write to Freddy.

Are you going to be all right here tonight?

He nods.

I’ll be back tomorrow. In the meantime you call me if you need anything.

Victor is alone. He looks out the window and thinks about Freddy. He takes the clothing out of his suitcase and puts it neatly in the bureau. He fills a cup with water and drinks. He is very thirsty so he drinks some more.

Then he gets undressed and lies down on the bed. He thinks about Freddy. He touches his privates and then he falls asleep.

Usually his eyes open at sunrise. But the next morning he keeps sleeping until pounding at the door wakes him. He stands up and puts on his pants and his shirt just as a key turns in the lock. It is Tony. He looks worried and he is breathing hard.

You didn’t answer the door.

Victor says nothing.

Are you all right?

Victor nods.

You can’t frighten me like that Victor.

Victor does not know what he did to frighten Tony.

Under one arm Tony holds a folded coat. Here.

Victor puts on the coat. Its sleeves go past his fingertips.

We’ll have to fix that. Have you eaten anything?

They go back to the restaurant. Victor eats eggs. Tony drinks coffee.

I see you like eggs.

Victor does not talk with his mouth full; Mrs. Green taught him. He nods.

You can learn to make eggs at home. That way you can have them whenever you want. Should we teach you?

Tony teaches Victor how to use the hotplate. They make eggs that do not taste as good as the eggs at the restaurant but Victor does not want to be rude. He says Thank you. But he is impatient because he wants to get to the paper store before it closes. He does not want to wait another day.

When you’re done you wash the pan. Did they teach you how to do that?

Yes.

But Tony insists on standing there and watching while Victor does it. Good job he says like Victor is a child. Victor decides he cannot trust Tony. After Tony leaves Victor runs to the store.

In the beginning Tony comes often. He comes with gifts or money or to

say hello. He takes Victor to a doctor and the doctor says Cough. Tony takes Victor for clothing and shoes, things that Victor doesn’t want. He tells Victor about the interesting things to see in New York City. He takes Victor to see the Statue of Liberty. He takes him to the Museum of Natural History and to the park in Flushing. Victor says Thank you but inside he wishes he could stay at home with his drawings and the quiet and the view of the bridge. Outside there is too much honking, too much banging; it hurts Victor’s head and makes him want to shut his eyes. He endures the trips with Tony because he has made a new bargain with God. If he suffers enough, he can bring Freddy sooner. So says nothing; he welcomes the loneliness he feels.

Soon it grows too cold to go outside. Tony comes less often. He says I want you to be independent. Instead he calls on the phone. Their conversations are short. Hello and Hello and Is there anything you need and No thank you.

One time he cannot open his door. There are two locks and you have to turn them in the opposite directions. Though he tries and tries the door will not open. Maybe he went to the wrong room. But no, it is the right one, he remembers the number. He does not know what to do. Finally he gets the locks and goes inside and sits on the bed, so scared that he cannot stop shaking all night long.

But most of the time he is okay. Sometimes he sees other people in the hallway. They look at him strangely. He walks around the neighborhood. He buys pencils and paper. He buys some pens and markers and discovers that he likes those, too. The man behind the counter offers to sell him paints or drawing pads. Victor says No thank you. He likes the paper that comes in huge bunches. He buys five bunches and the man asks if he’s writing a book. On the way to and from the store he always stops to buy peanuts.

He goes to the restaurant. He wants to understand why his eggs taste different from the eggs at the restaurant, and so he sits at the counter where he watches the chefs with the paper caps, their foreheads dripping with sweat as they chop onions. He sees that they put milk in the eggs. So he buys some milk and tries to make eggs for himself. But the eggs burn and after a few days the milk stinks. He flushes it down the toilet. He will go to the restaurant instead.

Every two weeks a letter comes from Tony. The man at the front gate gives it to him. Inside is some money. He uses the money to buy what he needs but he has most of it left over. The money grows. He saves it up.

He sends letters to Freddy. He sends drawings. He draws the bridge and the water. He draws birds and flowers. Freddy never writes back but Victor knows that his efforts are not wasted. He can tell the moment Freddy gets a letter, no matter how far away. He hears the envelope tear open in his mind.

The seasons change. Since Mrs. Greene no longer sends him books he buys a new one and writes down the weather. He writes down everything so that he can tell Freddy when Freddy comes. He will say Here is what I saw while I waited for you. He prays. He goes to church. He bargains and confesses. A long time passes. Then one day the man at the gate hands him two envelopes. One is the cream-colored paper Tony uses; the other is flimsy and bluish. Victor tears it open.

Dear Vic. I’m coming.

Victor is excited. He decides to buy Freddy a gift. He takes his money and goes to a store. There he stands for a long time, thinking about what Freddy likes. Freddy liked sometimes to throw glass bottles against the trees and listen to them break. What else? Thinking about what to buy Freddy is the most difficult thing he has ever done. The man in the shop says May I help you sir?

Victor says A gift.

The man shows Victor ladies’ gloves, handmirrors. He shows Victor some scarves. Victor leaves without buying anything.

For days he wanders around the neighborhood, looking in the shop windows. He is very nervous because he doesn’t know when Freddy is coming, he didn’t say anything in the letter. He has to find a gift as soon as possible; he wants to be at his apartment when Freddy arrives. He goes from one store to another, running through them, ignoring the shopkeepers when they try to talk to him. He has almost settled on a woolen hat when he sees the best thing yet: a horse made of gold and silver. It glints, its head thrown back with nobility. Victor asks the man for the price. The man looks distrustful. A hundred and fifty dollars he says. Victor pays him and takes the horse and leaves.

When Freddy comes, he whistles. Would you look at this. He sets down his suitcase and walks to the window. Victor is trembling. He wants to reach out and touch Freddy but he does not dare. Holy Toledo Vic. You got it made. He winks at Victor and a spasm travels through Victor’s groin.

They said you got a rich cousin or something. You never told me about no rich cousin. What else he get you, you got a car?

Victor shakes his head.

Well still. I think you’re a lucky son of a bitch. And lucky me too huh? He laughs. What you look like that for Vic? Huh? You miss me? C’mere. Let me see. Christ amighty you got a hard-on. Freddy laughs. What a fuckin thing is that.

Victor is happier than he has been in his whole life. Every moment he suffered was worth it. He has his own room, he has food and paper and he has Freddy. In the morning he wakes up and watches Freddy’s chest going up and down. Freddy has light hair on his chest, Victor’s is heavy and black. Sometimes he draws Freddy sleeping. Sometimes Freddy turns over or wakes up and then the drawing is incomplete. When he wakes up he tells Victor to put his mouth on his privates. Sometimes in the middle of the night he wants that too and he wakes Victor up and tells him to get going. Victor doesn’t mind. He is in love.

TIME PASSES. Freddy stays with Victor although he doesn’t stay every night. Sometimes he disappears for two or three days at a time and Victor gets worried. He prays and bargains. Or then sometimes Freddy goes for a week at a time, a month at a time, and Victor plunges into the worst despair he has ever known, worse than before, because now he knows happiness. Freddy refuses to explain where he goes or to warn Victor first. He is there and then he is gone. Victor comes home from the park where he has been drawing trees or from the restaurant or from the shop where he buys bread to make sandwiches for lunch and the apartment is quiet, a quiet different from when Freddy steps out to take a walk or to buy a bottle of beer or whiskey. Then Victor loses his mind. He swears the way he ought not to, he rips the pillows and breaks cups. When it is over he is tired and there is a mess and still no Freddy. Then Victor begins to bargain. He begins to pray.

Whatsit matter where I go? I always come back. The fuck do you care. Stop asking me, you’re getting on my fucking nerves. You can be a real pain in the ass you know that? When Freddy’s voice sounds this way Victor is frightened. He does not want to make Freddy unhappy. He would gladly cut off his own hands and feet to please Freddy. He would cut off his balls.

Look at this. It’s pathetic. Freddy picks up a pillowcase with a dark oily smudge where Victor puts his head every night. Do some fucking laundry.

Victor doesn’t know how to do laundry. Freddy takes him to the Laundromat. You put a nickel in, you put the soap in. Now you don’t have to live like an animal. Freddy laughs. The sound makes Victor’s heart grow. But another part of him doesn’t know what to feel. On the one hand he wants Freddy to smile; on the other hand, he was just feeling so low about himself that he now has a hard time feeling happy. He is all ajumbled, as Mrs. Greene used to say. Now that they live together all the time—sleeping in the same bed, sharing their meals, breathing the same air for most of the day—Victor sees things about Freddy that he didn’t see before. The way his moods change. Long angry speeches. Then compliments dropping out of the clear blue sky. Victor does not understand. He tries to think of another gift to give Freddy. That will make him happy.

Also Freddy refuses to go to church. Victor cannot convince him. He goes alone and prays for the both of them.

Time passes. The seasons dance. Things change. Freddy comes and goes. Victor lives and dies. The strain hurts him. He wants Freddy to stay and never leave. Days become nights become days and Victor’s eyes blur.

Stop crying. Stop it.

Victor cannot stop.

You’re worse than a broad sometimes. What the hell is wrong with you. I swear to God I ought to knock hell out of you sometimes and you’d get what I mean. You shut your goddamned mouth. Goddammit I will split and you have no idea how fast. I ain’t got to stay here one more minute. I got plenty of people I can go see. You think you’re the only one I know? Fat fucking chance. You got no idea. You can be really stupid sometimes you know that? How the hell are you so thick. You don’t know a thing about the world, you don’t know about things happening two feet in front of you. You just sit there like a chimp doodling. Don’t gimme no pictures, I don’t want any fucking pictures. You really piss me off. You’re pissing me off right now. I swear one day I’m going to bash your fucking face in. Give me that fucking thing. Give it back.

Victor throws the bottle out the window. It sails to the earth and explodes.

Oh now I’m going to get you. I’m going to get you for that. You’re nothing, if I threw you out the window you’d be a stain on the sidewalk they’d clean you up faster than pigeon shit. You think that’s a wiseguy thing to do, I wasn’t halfway done with that you son of a bitch. Freddy pins Victor’s arms down with his knees. He opens his fly and his privates fall out. Victor tries to put his mouth on the tip but Freddy slaps him. Don’t you fucking touch it. Don’t you fucking try. Freddy pulls on his privates and says Fuck, fuck. Then Victor is wet. Freddy relaxes, the blood leaves his face. He says All right.

Victor is twenty-seven. It is the week of the Fourth of July, and a summer rainstorm has caused the bunting to run, red and white and blue in the gutters. Victor stands at the window. Freddy has been gone for two days. Victor no longer tries to predict when Freddy will come back, and as rain streaks the glass he prepares himself for a long and lonesome stretch.

The key turns in the door. Freddy stands there dripping. Gimme a towel.

For the next few days Freddy is quieter than usual. He lies on the bed most of the day. Victor thinks it might be the heat, the rain makes the heat worse. He has the weather all written down. He keeps track of every day. He started and he does not intend to stop, it helps him separate one day from another.

The rain lets up. Freddy sits up in bed. I’m going out.

An hour and a half later he returns with newspapers. Victor watches as Freddy reads them. He turns pages impatiently, then throws the paper down and goes to sleep.

The next day he goes out again and comes home with the papers. This time he stops on one page and says Well shit.

Victor looks at the paper. There is a picture of a boy. His name is Henry Strong. He has short spiky hair. He looks sort of like a squirrel.

Freddy says I guess he wasn’t too strong after all huh? Then he laughs. He looks at the window. It’s raining. I think it’ll keep up.

Victor nods.

Freddy sighs deeply, stretches, and lies down.

Victor keeps the picture of the boy.

A month later Freddy comes home with another newspaper. Victor tries to look but Freddy pushes him and says Don’t read over my shoulder. Victor doesn’t know what the problem is but he obeys. The next morning when Freddy is sleeping Victor goes to look. He sees another boy named Eddie Cardinale. Victor keeps that picture, too.

Summer turns to fall and then to winter. In those months Freddy sometimes brings back papers and Victor reads them. In San Francisco somebody has killed a woman. In Hanoi they drop bombs. Freddy is often in strange moods. He goes out late at night and walks around for hours, returning as the sun comes up over the brick buildings. Often Victor hears him leave and cannot fall back asleep. He sits at the window until he sees Freddy’s shape crossing the courtyard. Only then does Victor close his eyes.

He wants to follow Freddy on these walks but he does not dare. He can imagine what Freddy would say. Get back in there. Get back you piece of shit. Freddy’s moods make him use bad language, and he does not notice the deep dents he puts in Victor’s heart. If anything Victor’s sadness makes Freddy angrier. Victor does not have the words to describe what is happening between them. But things have changed. He misses the old days when they lay together for hours and Freddy talked to him about things he’d done, tricks he’d pulled and would pull. Now Victor sees that his body repulses Freddy. He stops trying to touch Freddy, and when Freddy shifts around in the bed and splays his legs greedily across the mattress Victor rolls out and sleeps on the floor.

You dumb piece of shit. You worthless son of a bitch.

Freddy’s voice becomes Victor’s own, a voice that Victor carries around with him all the time. It tells Victor that he is stupid and it tells him when he is doing something wrong, which is all the time. Though this voice says things that hurt Victor, he still prefers it to silence.

One night Freddy comes home with another man. He is short and has big red lips. Look at what I drug in. Freddy laughs like a horse and the man takes off Freddy’s shirt. They begin kissing and Victor sits on the edge of the bed, feeling hot. The man gets on his knees and opens Freddy’s pants. Freddy moans. Victor does not watch. The man leaves and Freddy is angry. Whassa matter. Something wrong with me? You got a problem you fuckin faggot? He slaps Victor and then he laughs. He falls on the bed and Victor tucks a pillow behind his head.

A FEW WEEKS LATER Freddy comes home in a rare good mood. He holds up a can of oatmeal. Remember this? We used to eat this shit for breakfast every day. I can’t believe how much of that I ate. Well let’s have it for old time’s sake huh?

Victor hates oatmeal as much as he hates anything in the world; but he loves Freddy more, and so he and Freddy use the hotplate to make oatmeal for breakfast. This happens for a week. Then Freddy says You know what I can’t stand this shit. He throws the can out and they don’t eat any more oatmeal.

Soon afterward Freddy comes home with another newspaper. He shows Victor a picture of a boy with light blond hair and a square nose. His name is Alexander Jendrzejewski, a name that makes Victor’s head hurt to look at it.

Time passes. Freddy comes and goes, Victor lives and dies. Twice more Freddy shows Victor pictures. Victor keeps them all. He wants to ask Freddy what they mean but he understands that they are a gift, they are special and that to ask is to spoil the surprise. He feels jealous of the boys.

Freddy spends a lot of time talking about them and about the weather. Who are they? Victor wants to know. But he does not ask.

One day Freddy says I need money.

Victor goes to the box where he keeps the money Tony sends him. He has spent so little that by now he has a bunch as big as his fist. He gives it all to Freddy, who says Christ amighty.

Freddy never comes back. One month passes, two months, six months, a year, two. Victor begs, he pleads, he confesses. He hurts himself. He moans and prays and bargains. If You will, then I will. Time passes. Loneliness settles on him like dust. He is so lonely that he reaches for the phone.

Tony Wexler.

Victor says nothing.

Hello?

Victor hangs up.

Then he makes his most daring offer yet. If You will, then I will. He shakes hands with God and then he takes all his drawings, box by box, down to the basement, where he feeds them into the incinerator. He cries as he does it but he does it all the same. Everything he has drawn in five years goes into the fire until there is nothing left. He takes the elevator to his room and waits for God to fulfill His end of the deal.

But Freddy does not come.

Victor feels lost. He does not eat. He does not leave the apartment. He grows ill. He has dreams, he sees Freddy getting on a bus and driving away. In the dreams Freddy will not look at him. Victor wakes up wet from head to toe. He has the same dream every night for three weeks, and at the end he rises up and takes a shower. He goes to the restaurant. He has eleven dollars left in his pants pocket that he forgot to give to Freddy. He eats slowly, his stomach aches. With the remaining money he goes back to the store and buys a lot of new paper and some new markers and pencils. He carries everything back to his apartment. It is difficult because he is so weak. But he does it and then he sits down and begins to draw himself a new map.

22

f I m still writing a detective story—and I’m not so sure that I am—I believe that we’ve come to the part of the book where I tie up all the loose ends and reassure you that justice was served. Those of you expecting a bang-up finish might be a little disappointed with me. I apologize. You haven’t read this far without the right to expect some sort of fireworks. I wish this final chapter had more guns and explosions; I wish there was a knife fight. I actually thought about making something up. That’s how eager I am to please. I’m no novelist, but I could probably spin together an action-packed conclusion. Although—seriously—knowing what you know about me, can you see me rolling through the dirt, both barrels blazing? I didn’t think so.

The bottom line is, while I’ll do my best to keep you entertained, I’m writing this to get down the unvarnished truth, and even if I’ve summarized, I haven’t flat-out lied.

Now, if I’m keeping track of my story—and really, you have no idea how difficult this is, keeping everything straight—there are several outstanding questions. There’s the question of who jumped me and stole my drawings, if not Kristjana. There’s the question of how Marilyn and I turned out, what happened to Sam and me, the question of Frederick Gudrais, and finally there’s the question of Victor Cracke. Let’s go one by one, and let’s start with our killer.

f I’m

HE HAD A RECORD, and not a short one.

“Assault, assault, animal cruelty, loitering, indecency, public drunkenness, sodomy, assault.” Sam looked at me. “That’s just the early work.”

“Before he fell under Monet’s influence.”

She smiled sweetly. “You’re a twit, you know that?”

“Where is he now?”

“His last conviction was in”—flipping pages—”1981. Aggravated sexual assault. He served six of a twelve-year sentence. Well, that’s a crying shame. These days they’d take a DNA sample, it’d be mandatory. I guess he’s either slowed down in the last twenty years or gotten smarter… . But it’s academic. First let’s find out if he’s even alive. I have a last known address for him out on Staten Island, and the name of his parole officer.”

In his most recent mug shot, Gudrais was smiling mightily, a five-hundred-watt leer that would have creeped me out even if I hadn’t known who he was. His date of birth was May 11, 1938, which made him over forty in the photo, yet his skin was surprisingly smooth, like he’d never worried about anything in his life. We scanned the image and sent it to James Jarvis, who once again confirmed that we had the right man.

When we spoke to Gudrais’s parole officer, she jumped to his defense, swearing up and down that Freddy had been out of trouble for years, that he was employed and living quietly right where his record indicated. She also told us something surprising: Gudrais had a daughter.

“My understanding of the situation is they aren’t on too good terms,” said the PO.

At this point, I assumed we would go storming in like gangbusters. Sam was far more circumspect. To begin with, there was nothing we could do with Jarvis’s testimony. At that time, New York had a five-year statute of limitations on rape—one of the shortest in the country and a justifiable source of outrage for feminists, who would manage to get the law changed the following year. But when Sam started building the case, she was forced to admit to Jarvis that he had no recourse; his portion of it was closed and buried. I had an idea that we could call him as a character witness—an anti-character witness, really—but she said that whatever he offered would likely be thrown out as immaterial or speculative.

“So then what good is it?”

“It’s good for convincing some important people to get on board with this.”

Staten Island gets a bad rap. In its defense, I would like to point out that the Verrazano is actually quite beautiful, my candidate for the most attractive of all the borough bridges. In certain lights, from certain angles, it resembles the Golden Gate, which is high praise indeed. And if you set aside the landfills and strip malls, a reasonable portion of the island itself is pastoral: quaint brick homes, baseball fields limned in hoarfrost; a Rockwellian vision of Real America. I remarked upon this to Sam, busy angling the heating vents behind the steering wheel to dry-roast her fingers.

“It’s Staten Island,” she replied.

Last week of February, half past six on the morning of a vicious cold snap, winter’s final twist of the knife. The sun rose on neighborhoods shaking themselves awake. Scarved children waited for schoolbuses. A few joggers tried bravely to keep their footing on icy sidewalks. Windshields needed scraping; dog urine polka-dotted lawns. We headed first to the main police station, near the ferry terminal, where we were met by a lieutenant who shook hands with Sam and said that he knew her dad and was sorry. She nodded politely, though I saw her holding herself in place. That she could still get upset five months later probably comes as no surprise to most people who have lost a parent; but it made me aware of how little sanctity I had in my life.

They gave us an unmarked car and a cop named Jordan Stuckey, and the three of us drove to the neighborhood where Gudrais lived, at the southeastern edge of the island. Gray sand fronted the gray, windswept Atlantic. Along the beach ran a picket fence, most of it rotted or torsioned into oblivion. The local architecture consisted of bungalows. To me, it evoked Breezy Point. Sensing that Sam felt the same shiver of similarity, and that it bothered her, I withheld comment.

At seven thirty A.M. we parked outside a squat apartment building and left the heat running. I had been relegated to the backseat, and as a result had to content myself with secondhand reports from Stuckey, who used a pair of binoculars to keep watch on Gudrais’s front door.

It was a waiting game. Acording to his PO, Gudrais worked at a bicycle shop a mile and a quarter up the road, where he fixed broken chains and so forth. Once arrested, he could be forced to give a DNA sample, but in rather a catch-22, we had to have something tangible on him in order to arrest him in the first place. Since the law allowed us to collect whatever he discarded, we hoped that one such item—a cigarette butt, a coffee cup, a tissue—would yield a usable profile. The important thing, Sam said, was maintaining the chain of custody in order to demonstrate that the DNA belonged to Gudrais and not someone else.

By eight thirty, all our coffee was gone. Sam, looking through the binoculars, said, “He looks good for his age.”

“Let me see.”

“Don’t pull.”

I let go of her elbow.

“I think he dyes his hair,” she said. Maliciously, she handed the binoculars to Stuckey, who said in his rumbling baritone, “He’s not just the president, he’s a member.”

“Excuse me,” I said from the backseat. “Hello?”

“Keep your pants on,” Sam said.

I sat back with an angry grunt. From what I had been able to see, Gudrais was tall. He walked at a brisk clip, and although the heavy coat he wore made it impossible to draw firm conclusions, he seemed well proportioned. The tail of a bright blue scarf flew out behind him as he bent into the wind.

“I guess he walks to work,” said Stuckey.

“In the snow,” Sam said. “Uphill both ways.”

We followed at a distance, Sam on the binoculars as Stuckey crept forward, pulling over when necessary. Gudrais mostly kept his hands in his pockets, according to Sam, who gave me the play-by-play of his twenty-two-minute commute. It was incredibly stultifying: “Now he’s pulling his coat closer. Now he’s cricking his neck. Now he’s looking across the street. Oooh, there’s a sneeze.” She was rooting for him to have a cold, to blow his nose and chuck away the tissue, preferably onto the sidewalk. But other than that first sneeze, he appeared the picture of health, and by the time he arrived at work and disappeared inside, we had gotten exactly nothing.

The morning crept by.

“He might go out for lunch.”

They brought in pizza.

Midway through the afternoon, he stepped out and started across the street before changing his mind and going back to work.

“This is really boring,” I said.

“Yup.”

On his walk home, Gudrais stopped at a corner market, emerging with a single plastic bag. He went straight to his apartment, and we saw the light of a TV come on.

Sam handed me the binoculars. “Knock yourself out.”

“Thanks so much.”

That was how the next day went, too. If you need to reexperience it, I recommend that you go back two pages and read the foregoing.

At the end of our second day of surveillance we lingered outside his building, I on the binoculars, Sam and Stuckey trying to figure out an easier way.

“Friday’s trash day.”

“That might be our best bet.”

“Mm.”

“At least we get tomorrow off.”

“You know what, though. I think—”

“Guys,” I said.

“I think maybe—”

“Guys. He’s coming out again.”

The binoculars once again were taken away from me. I swore, but Sam was too busy watching Gudrais lope over to the bus stop.

“All right,” she said. “Now we’re talking.”

We tailed the bus up Hylan Boulevard, past Great Kills Park to New Dorp. Gudrais got off and walked three blocks to Mill Road and the movie theater. As soon as he went inside we hurried to the ticket booth, where a blank-faced teenager sat snapping gum. Sam asked for three tickets to whatever the man had bought tickets for, please.

“Thirty dollars.”

Sam said, “I really hope he picked something good.”

I had to laugh when we got back three adults for the five thirty showing of Because ofWinn-Dixie.

As we passed the concession stand, I spotted Gudrais at the back of the line, and a jolt of excitement cut through me. It took a concerted effort not to turn and stare at him, or to tackle him right then and there. For a brief moment, I felt intensely possessive of him, as though, having lost Victor Cracke as a medium, I could now vent my creative will through the manipulation and capture of a pedophile. Rage and vengeance, tempered with victory, the thrill of knowing something he did not. It was not a simple emotion, but the best word I can come up with is zealotry. He was mine and I knew it.

And then, just as suddenly as it had come, the feeling passed out of me, replaced by disgust. This night wasn’t performance art. It was real. He was real. This place—an overheated multiplex—the unglamorous chase— Sam—these things were real. The auditorium was packed with real kids, and I saw the look on Sam’s face, and her thoughts jumped into my head. Freddy Gudrais’s choice of movie wasn’t whimsical or random. It was appallingly true to form. He was here for the crowd. He was as real as he had ever been, real enough to put his hands around someone’s throat. I sobered up and did my best to put myself aside.

We wanted to keep an eye on him, so the three of us spread out: I in back, Stuckey toward the middle, and Sam down near the front-left exit. It was an imperfect solution but it would have to do. Our primary goal was still to get Gudrais to relax and enjoy his soda.

He came in as the ads ended and the theater began to darken, and I saw his shape glide into an empty row on the right side of the theater—closest to me. He was slightly behind me, which made it hard for me to look at him without being obvious. I tried to pace myself, glancing back and then away. When he was out of my sight I imagined all sorts of horrible possibilities. Old black-and-white photos of mangled bodies kept filling up my mind.

The movie was a big hit. There was laughter; there were tears. I can’t relay the plot because I spent most of its 106 minutes checking my watch, waiting for permission to look back. Gudrais gradually sank down into his seat, until all I could see was the top of his head, his hair so black and glossy with pomade that it reflected the screen’s shifting blues and whites. Rationally I knew that I wasn’t doing a thing; I couldn’t really see him, his hands, anything other than that crescent of hair. But I hoped that my presence would somehow radiate out and encircle the families sitting around him.

The credits rolled; I looked back; he was gone. I waited until I saw Stuckey stand, and then all three of us went up the aisle.

As we’d hoped, he had been a bad citizen, leaving behind a wax cup full of melting ice and an empty container of popcorn with a napkin crumpled inside. Sam let out a happy yelp. Stuckey went out to the car and came back with a forensics kit. He put on gloves and crouched down and began to put things in bags. Then he stopped and sniffed near the popcorn container. He tweezed out the napkin. “Boy oh boy.”

“What.”

“Smell that?”

I detected corn and salt and artificial butter, but above all something evocative of an overused swimming pool, equal parts sweat and chlorine.

“That,” said Stuckey, “is semen.”

BY THAT SUMMER I had long given up on my stolen artwork, and so I was pleasantly surprised to get a call from Detective Trueg.

“Well,” he said, “we found your stuff.”

“Where?”

“eBay.”

Trueg couldn’t take all the credit, he confessed. Since his second son went off to school, his wife had had too much free time on her hands; in her boredom, she had become something of an auction junkie. Tired of her blowing money on Smurf mugs and secondhand pashminas, Trueg had put her to work, giving her copies of missing art and telling her to be on the lookout. Just between us, he considered this nothing more than a way to make her feel useful and to prevent her from buying crap. In three years she had never found anything. But lo and behold, she had unearthed some suspiciously Crackean work indexed under Art > Drawings > Contemporary (1950-now).

The seller’s handle was pps2764 and he was in New York, New York. The rotating photo gallery showed a half dozen drawings along with assorted close-ups.

Five original drawings by famous artist VICTOR CRACKE. The pages go together. [One of the close-ups displayed a seam between two drawings.] Cracke’s work inhabits the shadowland between Expressionism and abstraction, yet this is no mere recapitulation of shopworn modernisms, rather a deliberate act of stylistic bricolage that incorporates the most striking elements of Pop and contemporary figuration.

The paragraph continued on in this dreary vein, concluding,

I have more of these for sale if you are interested.

What bothered me most about the description was not its wordiness or its limp bunches of artspeak. What bothered me most is that I had written it. With the exception of the first two and the last sentences, the text had been lifted verbatim from the catalogue copy I’d written for Victor’s show.

Also insulting was the price being asked. So far only one person had expressed enough interest to bid, and, as there were only six hours left on the auction, his offer of $150 looked like it would carry the day.

On the bright side, anyone could Buy It Now for $500.

I decided that it would be better not to tell Kevin Hollister about this.

Trueg said, “The first thing I’d like to do is get ahold of the drawings and confirm that they’re for real.”

“And that Kristjana didn’t draw them.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what I mean. It would be pretty dumb of her to keep making copies, though. She sounded pretty scared the last time we talked to her.”

I said that I didn’t think she would stoop to eBay to promote herself.

Trueg laughed. “Bear in mind also that it might be a third party. Can you think of anyone else we should be talking to?”

I almost suggested that he call Jocko Steinberger. But that wasn’t his style. He was more the self-pitying type. There were, of course, plenty of other people angry at me, and plenty of those people could draw—not as well as Kristjana, but at this point I made myself no guarantees. “You really think there might be another forger?”

“Did you think there’d be a first?”

I admitted that he had a point.

“Let’s say we check him out and he seems to be for real, enough that we want to get to know him a little better. We make contact with him, make it sound like we’re interested in buying a lot more, get to him that way. Failing that, we can go after his account information, although that’ll take longer, cause we’ve got to go through the legal channels.” He paused. “I hope you realize how lucky this is. Most of what we go after we don’t find, ever. You really oughta thank the god of your choosing that this guy is such an idiot.”

I offered to Buy It Now.

“Don’t bother,” he said. “That bid is me.”

THE PARTY THAT SHOWED UP at Freddy Gudrais’s door on a late May afternoon included two uniformed Staten Island cops, Sam, detective Richard Soto, and—way in the background—me. I had been allowed to go along for the ride, although it had taken a lot of strenuous lobbying. Nobody wanted an art dealer interfering, it seemed—Sam included.

“It’s not safe,” she’d said.

“What’s unsafe about it?”

“We’re dealing with unknowns.”

“But what, specifically, are you worried about.”

She didn’t answer me. Perhaps I should have known then that something was different, that her silence marked the beginning of a new phase of the investigation. At the time I was too excited by the prospect of an arrest to understand that the professionals had begun to take over and that I was slowly being shut out.

THE LOCK TURNED and the door whined and there he was: a skinny old man in a billowing workshirt, his cheeks sunken and unshaven, one gnarled hand on the edge of the door and the other on the jamb, his left thumbnail nearly gone, replaced by a clump of scar tissue. Close-up, he appeared less well preserved. He looked us up and down. Then he smiled, and the change it brought over him was remarkable. He spoke like we were a group of old friends, fishing buddies or a reunited bowling team.

He said, “Am I gonna need my coat?”

Soto said, “That depends on how easily you get cold.”

The cops followed Gudrais into the apartment, which was dim and overheated. Sam and Soto and I stepped inside, lingering near the door, as though to go any farther would be to poison ourselves with his air. A television sat opposite a folding chair. On the floor was a tray with a chipped mug and dozens of coffee rings. It was a sad room.

As they led him out, Gudrais said, “I’ll prolly die first. Ever think of that?”

Sam said, “Next time I have a drink, Freddy, I’ll drink to your continued health.”

MARILYN AND I DIDN’T SPEAK for several months following her return from Europe. She made herself so busy with work that it was impossible to get her on the phone, or, at least, impossible for me. I’m sure that relevant people had no difficulty getting through. After sending her that first couple of e-mails, I decided that my prodding was worsening things. She was not afraid to make demands. If she wanted to hear an apology, she’d let me know.

Late that summer—about two weeks after the Gudrais trial hit the papers, deep into a heat wave—my cell phone rang. “Please hold for Marilyn Wooten,” said the voice on the other end. That’s what they do when the president calls you.

It was an inopportune moment for her to invite me to lunch: I was standing in the middle of the gallery, my sleeves rolled up, overseeing the installation of a menacing eight-foot sculpture of a bag of organic lettuce. I wanted to request a postponement, but I understood that if I didn’t go now I might never see her again.

Nat had grown into autonomy nicely; lately, in fact, he had begun to chafe under my authority. I put him in charge, hopped in the shower, and taxied to an uptown brasserie, one of the old haunts, far from Chelsea and the possibility of running into anyone.

I got out of the cab feeling drugged, my shower having done little except prime me to sweat again. Marilyn of course was coiffed and polished and dry and svelte and smooth. She kissed me on the cheek and I bathed momentarily in sandalwood and jasmine. I told her I was happy to see her looking good. I was. I could feel happy for her because I no longer desired her—missed her—loved her—you choose. The point is: it was so far gone as to evoke a sense of nostalgia.

For the better part of an hour, we talked about who was up, who was down, the latest scandale. As always, she provided most of the fodder. I served as her foil, stippling the narrative with nods and commentary. I hadn’t been making the rounds, and so I had a hard time keeping up with her. Between stories she downed a steak and pommes frites; over dessert she lit a cigarette that the waiter imperiously commanded her to extinguish. She snorted and ground the butt out on her breadplate.

“Congratulations,” she said.

I looked at her.

“On solving your mystery.”

I shrugged. “Thanks.”

“Why didn’t he just plead guilty?”

“I think he thought they would take pity on him because of his age.”

She snickered. “Clearly his lawyer forgot that we live in a youth-worshipping culture. Did you go to the trial?”

“All ten days.”

“Really? Then why didn’t I read about you?”

“I was in the audience.”

“They didn’t call you to the stand?”

“They didn’t need to,” I said. “Actually, my name never came up.”

“Not once?”

“Not once.”

“Well,” she said. “That’s a shame.”

I shrugged. “It is what it is.”

“You don’t get some sort of municipal commendation.”

“Apparently not.”

“Then I guess you’ll have to settle for the satisfaction of a job well done.”

I nodded.

“Personally, I never found that worth very much. Was it interesting, at least?”

“It was mostly very technical.”

“Oh gawd. That’s not interesting at all.”

“Not especially,” I said. Here I lied to her, not out of malice but because I knew that what I considered interesting would likely set her eyes spinning. But I’d learned some very interesting things, to me anyway. I learned that Freddy Gudrais wore a size-eleven shoe, the same size as the cast taken from the scene of Alex Jendrzejewski’s abduction. I learned that shortly after the final murder, the murder of Abie Kahn, Freddy Gudrais had been arrested on an unrelated charge; I learned that he had served four years, and that he’d earned his release about eighteen months before the assault on James Jarvis. I learned that our partial fingerprint was intact enough to yield a match, and that your average juror finds DNA evidence remarkably convincing.

I learned that following a brief second prison stint in the mid-70s,

Freddy Gudrais had fathered a child. Right around the time I was born, in fact. I found it interesting to note the appearance in court of a tight-lipped, lank-haired woman clutching a Naugahyde purse. She looked considerably like Freddy Gudrais, same pointed chin and wide mouth; aside from the press and me, she was the only person to come every day. Several times Gudrais looked back at her, but her expression never changed, and when they announced his conviction on four counts of homicide, one count not guilty, she stood up and walked out.

One thing that did not emerge at trial—or at any point, for that matter—was the true nature of Victor and Freddy’s acquaintance. Soto questioned Freddy about it. He had to consider the possibility, for instance, that Victor had aided and abetted. All Freddy would say is, “I ain’t seen him in years.” Another time he mentioned offhand that he had bought a car with money Victor had given him. Soto asked why Victor had given him money. And Freddy, who never seemed to get upset, not even when the gavel came down, laughed and said, “Cause I asked for it.”

These were things that interested me, but they would not interest Marilyn. We all have our private causes, and it’s the job of the person who loves you to pretend to care. Marilyn wasn’t that person anymore.

I said, “It wasn’t like you see on TV.”

“Mm. And the lawyer? She’s well?”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“I’m glad you’re glad.”

She smiled. “I’m not going to get into a bowing match with you, darlin.”

“We’re going to Ireland sometime in the fall.”

She recommended a hotel in Dublin and told me to use her name.

“Thank you.”

“I hope you have a wonderful time.”

I nodded.

She said, “I’m going on vacation, too, you know.”

“I thought you’d already taken a vacation.”

“A vacation that long demands another vacation. A brief one, anyhow. Kevin and I are going to Vail for a week.”

Now it was my turn to smile. “Just the two of you?”

“Well, he does have a fairly large posse. But yes, I suppose that at certain key moments we will be alone together.”

I couldn’t help myself: I started to laugh.

“Be nice,” she said. Then she began to laugh as well. We laughed and laughed and I handed her the remainder of my strawberry zabaglione, which she polished off in three bites. Then she lit another cigarette. “I’ve decided to take on Kristjana.”

I looked at her.

She shrugged. “It was at Kevin’s request.”

“I didn’t realize they were acquainted.”

“Oh yes. She’s been working for him for a while now.”

“Working how.”

“You know, his Great Paintings thing?” She spoke through smoke: “After Jaime Acosta-Blanca skipped town Kevin had to find someone else and I suggested her. He asked her to make some copies of the Cracke drawings and what she did impressed him, so he hired her. Apparently they’ve grown quite close. I think he might have fucked her, actually … But. That’s neither here nor there.”

I said, “Kristjana’s a lesbian.”

“Says you. Anyhow it’s all very cordial.”

“Madam. “The waiter was strangling on rage, leaning over the table and goggling at her half-finished cigarette. “Please. “

“We’ll take the check,” she said, handing him her credit card and waving him away. As he stormed off, she took a last drag and dropped the smoldering remains into her water glass. She sighed. “They’re ruining my city, Ethan.”

“I didn’t realize they’d given you the keys.”

“Honey,” she said. “I make the keys.”

DETECTIVE TRUEG spent more than three months establishing a rapport with pps2764 in New York, New York, and by that November they had him in custody.

“Sometimes we get our man,” he said. “You know a Mr. Patrick Shaughnessy?”

It took me a moment to place the name. “From Muller Courts?”

“The very same.”

“But he’s the superintendent,” I said, as though that made a difference.

“You should of seen the look on his face when I badged him. Whoo, he looked like he swallowed a sack of rats. At first he claimed he got the drawings from somebody else. Pretty soon, though, he’s saying, all right, it was him, but—hey—after all, he was taking back what rightfully belonged to him. He says you ripped him off cause he had the drawings first. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tries to come at you with a lawsuit.”

Sure enough, a few weeks later a process server showed up at the gallery. I called Sam, who offered to recommend a real lawyer.

TRAVEL AND ITS ATTENDANT STRESSES provide a good litmus test for the viability of a relationship, and so I suppose it’s no surprise that shortly after we got back from Dublin, Samantha and I split up. Apparently my narcissism finally wore her down. Among other things, she told me that I was lost and that I needed to get ahold of who I was.

When my anger subsided I saw that she was on to something. My life had grown somewhat diffuse, aside from our relationship and the case. When both of those had gone I was left with work and little else.

I struggled to get back in the game. For a long time I’d been inventing excuses to stay away, with the result that all my artists were now furious with me. After Jocko’s defection several more had followed suit. I couldn’t recruit new ones, because the best steered clear of me, having been warned that I could and would desert them at a moment’s notice. I spent hours on the phone and over expensive meals trying to restore my hobbled reputation, but by New Year’s 2006 I was down to a roster of seven, and quite honestly not my best.

If I learned one thing in my years selling art—if Marilyn taught me nothing else—it’s that there’s no time like the present. Real estate having caught fire, the price I could get for my space bordered on obscene. I helped Ruby and Nat find new jobs; then I paid them each a year’s salary plus bonus and put out the word that I was leaving the business.

“To do what?” people asked. I didn’t have an answer for them. I tried to be philosophical. I said that I had run a gallery for nearly five years; my time was up; without knowing what I meant, I told people that I was moving on. I didn’t want to reflect. Other than money in the bank, I had a hard time saying what I had to show for myself. I suppose that’s something. Marilyn might say that it’s everything. You can’t argue with her. Anyone can see how happy she is.

I’LL END AS I BEGAN: with a confession: I am not now, nor have I ever been, nor will I ever be, a genius. Odds are, neither are you. I feel obligated to point this out, both because it has taken me a while to understand my own limitations and because these days we’ve gotten the idea into our heads that every person has infinite potential. The briefest spell of sober reflection reveals this to be a gentle lie, designed to cradle those with low self-esteem.

Ordinariness is nothing to be ashamed of. It carries no moral weight. I don’t believe that geniuses are worth more in some cosmic Blue Book. They are worthy of more attention, of course, because they’re so rare—one in a million, or rarer. What that means for the rest of us is that someone has to be the first of the remaining 999,999 souls; and the higher up you are, the closer you come to genius’s vantage point.

To pursue that—to clamber up—to stretch out fingertips in the hopes of grazing the surface—can you imagine a more uniquely modern aspiration? A better metaphor for our oversaturated era than the desire to be president of the fan club? The hero for the age is Boswell.

I was not exempt. I was a devotee of genius; I was drawn to it; and if I had a talent, it was that I could pick genius out of a pile. I built a career out of that talent, and in doing so I came to believe that I might myself achieve genius. I believed that, whether genius lives well or poorly, it lives more deeply. That was what I saw in Victor Cracke’s art. That was what I desired. That was what I sought by proxy, what I thought I could have, what I never will.

I NEVER FOUND HIM. Before we ended, Samantha suggested that I continue looking, and with time on my hands, I began to toy with the idea. But I didn’t follow up. I left the drawings in storage until the fees started to seem onerous. With nowhere else to put them, I had them delivered back to Muller Courts, telling myself that this was a stopgap, and that I didn’t intend to pay the rent on his apartment indefinitely. But I might. I might leave them just the way they are.

At an age when most Manhattan boys of a certain class were primarily interested in lobbing water balloons from the balconies of their parents’ high-rise apartments, David Muller could be found most afternoons sitting in the capacious living room of the house on Fifth, quietly reading The Wall Street Journal and jogging his ankle triple time to a ticking clock. He didn’t have mischievous urges, or at least, he had nobody to scheme with. If you discounted the maids and the manservants, the violin teacher and the French tutor, the barber and the tailor and the elocutionist—and you would have to discount them; they weren’t paid to throw water balloons—then he was alone, all the time. He has always been alone. That solitude made him the man he is today.

His parents’ decision (it was his mother’s decision, strictly speaking) to homeschool him until fourteen has never seemed to him wrong, not per se, although it depends on what you mean by wrong. His education was indisputably top-notch: a physicist to teach him physics; figure-drawing from the dean of the National Academy. If the goal of education is to educate, then Bertha chose wisely, as proven by the fact that by the time he began formal schooling, he was far enough ahead of his peers to skip not one or two but three grades, high school beginning and ending with his senior year. They might have been better off not sending him at all, as that year proved a miserable one, full of solitary walks between classrooms, lunchtimes spent reading. What did his mother suppose would happen? Did she suppose he would emerge with a stable of friends? Fourteen and eighteen are lifetimes apart; and boys are not like girls. Girls form friendships readily and discard them as conditions require. The friendship of boys is slow, suspicious, and eternal. By the time David arrived on the scene, everybody knew everybody, who they could trust and who was a gyp, who was good for a dollar and who would put the make on your girl. With all roles taken, none remained for the small, shy interloper who came to school in a limousine—not even that of dedicated outcast. He was invisible.

Perhaps she meant in her strange way to teach him a lesson, one that few people learn, and then only on their deathbeds: you can be surrounded by people and still be alone. Loneliness is man’s fundamental state. Created alone, he dies alone; and what comes between is at best a palliative. If her instruction was cruel, we cannot fault her; she taught from experience and believed in her own lessons. Rather than rage against what can’t be changed, David has chosen to see his childhood as the crucible that gave him strength.

At Harvard he did not do much better. For much of his freshman year, he spoke to no one. He spoke to professors and to deans, yes; but were professors and deans going to shoot pool with him or punch him for the Porc? No. Roommates might have helped but he had none. The building he lived in, named for his family, had a suite on the third floor that belonged entirely to him. His parents seemed to think that having one’s own room was a luxury, but David hated it. He hated, too, the “man” they sent to mind him. The man’s name was Gilbert, and he lived in the second bedroom, in what should have been David’s roommate’s room. Gilbert accompanied David everywhere: to class, where he would slouch unobtrusively at the back of the room; to the dining hall, where he would carry David’s tray for him. Normal conversation was impossible, even at the Widener checkout desk, where the clerk’s eyes would drift over David’s shoulder to gawk at the silent shadow with the fedora.

The first winter nearly killed him. Mummified in cashmere, he shuttled to and from class, hoping Gilbert would magically evaporate. Desperate for human contact, terrified of it all the same, David took to strolling Mount Auburn in the evenings, pausing outside the finals clubs to listen to their jazz and laughter.

Once in a fit of madness he decided to knock. As the door opened, before he could run away, he suddenly understood the humiliation he was about to bring on himself. He saw for a brief and clear and terrible instant what the person on the other side of the threshold would see: a barely pubescent boy in a necktie, and some creepy son of a bitch standing right behind him. They would think he was somebody’s little brother. They would think he was a Boy Scout selling commemorative stamps. He wanted to flee but the light came spilling out and he caught a glimpse of all that he could not have: a room with plush furniture and a half-dozen undergraduates with their jackets off and their sleeves pushed back and another five of them playing poker and cigar smoke and powdery Radcliffe coeds draped over the sofas and girlish peals of delight and a whirling phonograph and paintings of old ships hung askew and glasses of beer and shoes kicked off and carpets rolled up and steps that led to somewhere mysterious and dark and off-limits even to his imagination.

The fellow who answered the door seemed less concerned with David than with Gilbert, whom he evidently took for a police officer or a member of the administration. He began to ask what the idea was, every time they tried to have a good time somebody had to come trample all over it, wasn’t there any such thing as a private party anymore. At the sound of his voice, David snapped to and walked away, drawing Gilbert like a duckling and leaving the boy in the middle of his tirade, which came to an abrupt conclusion with a shout of, “That’s right.”

Without math he might have been a goner. He was good at it; its clarity redeemed and soothed him. Plus, all the other students were the tiniest bit off, enough to assure him that he was far from the college’s most outstanding freak. He discovered that he wasn’t the only one his age. In Introduction to Higher Geometry there was a boy named, bizarrely, Gilbert—no relation—who had a lisp and who lived with his parents, commuting from Newton on the bus. In Potential Theory there was a heavy-lidded boy in horn-rimmed glasses who was, by all appearances, on his own. He and David orbited each other for most of the semester, a formal introduction coming in April when the boy plopped down in the next seat and offered David peanuts from a small wax-paper pack. He said his name was Tony.

THANK GOD FOR HORMONES. His voice leveled out by the middle of his sophomore year; he put on his father’s inches and his great-uncle’s muscles; his beard started to come in—more heavily than he liked; it became something of a pain in the neck—and, importantly, Gilbert got the boot. David and Tony got thick as thieves, both of them taking up squash, Tony eventually rising to become captain of the Lowell House team. David played with a chamber orchestra and Tony would come sit in the front row. They huddled together at the Game; they ate together in the dining hall. Eventually they did get punched: David by both the Porc and the Fly, Tony by the Fly alone, which effectively made David’s decision for him. They even had a few dates. Like finals clubs, once girls figured out that David Muller was David Muller of those Mullers, they warmed up to him pretty fast. He tested their mettle by insisting that they bring along someone for Tony. That cleared out roughly half the potential applicants: after learning that they would have to convince some poor girlfriend to spend the evening making conversation with a not-especially-rich eighteen-year-old math-prodigy Jew, a lot of girls found themselves busy with unanticipated homework.

Ironic, because when those double dates did come off, it was not unusual for both girls to end up talking to Tony. He was a natural-born charmer. David, on the other hand, preferred to sit back and reap the fringe benefits.

After graduation Tony went off to Princeton for his Ph.D. David went back to New York to work for his father. Before parting, David asked if Tony didn’t eventually want to come back to the city. The Wexlers lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where she kept house and he was an actuary. One of the first things the boys had learned about each other was that they’d grown up less than three miles apart.

“We’ll see,” said Tony. He wanted to be a professor. And why not? He had all the makings of a young academic; his senior tutor had referred to him as “one of the finest minds of our century.” Even David couldn’t keep up. He had to work problems out, whereas Tony would look down at the page and hear the answer shouting at him.

They wrote a few times a week. David wanted to know what Princeton was like; had Tony met Einstein? Tony replied that there were trees and that his general impression of the great man was that he needed a haircut. They saw each other when Tony came home to visit, which happened less frequently as he sank further into his research. Once David took the train out and they had a weekend like old times. Tony said that girls were easier when you were a graduate student; too bad there weren’t more of them around. Campus could feel like a monastery.

David withheld comment. In those days, he had no shortage of social engagements. His mother, apparently panicked that she had starved him for friends, had been throwing parties virtually every weekend in an effort to find him a wife. This, he had come to understand, was his mother’s fatal flaw, her belief in the quick fix. Ignorant of history, heedless of consequences, she could see nothing but the problem currently occupying her mind; and the smaller that problem was, the more it grew to fill her obsession. David knew from observing his father that the best course of action was silent assent. If she wanted him to be out and about, so be it.

In 1951 Tony received a tenure-track appointment; that same year he served as best man at David’s first wedding, a role he would play at the next one, six years later. The third time around, David told Tony that he was bad luck, and besides, little Edgar was nine years old and man enough to do the job.

TONY SAID, “I WANT OUT.”

“Just like that.”

“It’s a terrible life. Susan is going out of her mind. All she does is read magazines, and she’s going bonkers for kids.”

“Then have a kid.”

“You say that like that hasn’t occurred to me.”

“You could adopt.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“What, then.”

“Give me a job.” Tony sat back in the big leather armchair, crossed his legs, laced his fingers across his stomach. The waiter came by and deposited their drinks, both of which sat untouched, melting ice ruining perfectly good scotch.

Tony said, “I’ve been passed over twice now.”

“You’re thirty-two.”

Tony shook his head. “Trust me, David. Not gonna happen. Not for me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I got it from someone who got it from Tucker.”

David said nothing.

“I’m not about to pick up and move to Wisconsin or Texas,” Tony said. “It’s enough already. You’ve been asking me for years when I was going to come back to New York. Well, here I am. The only thing standing between me there and me here is a job.”

David thought about what it would mean to have Tony working for him. For him? With him. He couldn’t expect him to start at the bottom. “I’ll see if—”

“You’ll see? Come on, David. Just give me a goddamned job.” He bolted down his scotch. “I’ve already tendered my resignation.”

David was surprised. “That’s a hell of a bold thing to do.”

“Well, you’re a hell of a friend,” said Tony.

HE EXPECTED TONY to be bored, but on the contrary: his role as fixer and right-hand man seemed to appeal to a primal part of him, the same cheerful and deferential boy who would concede squash matches to David when total slaughter loomed evident. His assistant professor’s salary no longer a source of frustration, Tony bought a thirteenth-floor triplex apartment on Park, a quarter-mile from the house on Fifth; with their wives, the two of them went to Miami and to Paris. There was a time, after Tony’s divorce and before David met Nadine, when they were both bachelors again, and they spent some exciting weekends in Atlantic City, weekends that left them wrung out and soberly aware of their age.

Gradually Tony assumed responsibility for all the parts of David’s job that David didn’t enjoy doing; and then he came to do the same for the rest of David’s life. It was Tony who did the hiring and the firing. It was Tony who managed the press; it was Tony who picked out a present for Bertha on her sixty-fifth birthday. It was Tony who stood by the graveside when David buried her, and when the terrible surprise came, it was Tony who went to Albany to fetch the secret.

DAVID INSISTED ON AUTONOMY. That, he told Tony, was the root of the problem: his parents had considered Victor unable to fend for himself, when it was precisely the institutionalization that had made him dependent in the first place. He had to learn self-reliance, learn to make his own decisions, to take care of his own shopping and to clean his own apartment. At first, of course, they would check on him. But the goal was to make themselves obsolete. Considering himself a liberator, David unconsciously parroted the era’s Ken Keseyish ethos; extolling the value of living and dying by one’s own choices, he brought the lessons of his searingly lonely childhood to bear on one who, he now realizes, might not have been equipped to handle them. And he chose to ignore the arrangment’s built-in contradiction: declaring Victor independent while supplying his apartment and his income and even a safety net, in the form of Tony Wexler, who had been ordered to stay away once he determined that Victor wasn’t going to starve to death or run naked in the street.

And there was another contradiction, as well: why go to the trouble of pulling Victor out of seclusion—only to hide him away again? In atoning for his parents’ sins, David recapitulated them. For nearly a quarter-century the secret had been a source of shame, the fuel for lies; did he really believe that stashing Victor in Queens would end that cycle? What did he really want, transparency or secrecy?

If, in 1965, you asked David to describe himself, he would have said calm, methodical, the opposite of everything knee-jerk he resented in his mother. But the truth is that in middle age, as he came fully into his wealth, relying more and more on others to handle the nitty-gritty, he had become her son: unable to countenance the notion that his snap judgment might be wrong, unwilling to involve himself in the execution, content to express his will and consider it done. At forty he hated and feared nothing more than “logistics,” and his whole life had contorted to accommodate this fear. If he didn’t want to look someone in the eye and tell them they no longer had a job, he didn’t have to. If he didn’t want to cope with the gymnastics of keeping Victor’s identity a secret—even from the Muller Courts management—who would force him? Tony took care of everything, and Tony never complained. In adopting this modus operandi, David had transformed himself into a kind of minor despot; and although generally his edicts went off without a hitch, he never misstepped as badly as he did with Victor Cracke—unless it was in dealing with his youngest son, the one who wouldn’t fall into line.

HIS FIRST THREE MARRIAGES had been unmitigated disasters, and he had sworn off a fourth when he met Nadine at a charity event. It was 1968; he was twenty-two years her senior, cranky, misanthropic, known among women as a meat grinder. She was bright, splendid, charming—in all ways wrong for him. She actually intimidated him—him, one of the richest men in New York!—and upon introduction, he was deliberately cold. She made a joke about the cause being feted and picked a piece of lint from his lapel, igniting within him a fierce desire that burned until her oncologist admitted that nothing more could be done.

Unaccustomed to failure, David flew her around the world in search of specialists; and though she played along, when she was gone, he tore himself up for having exhausted her. If he had just let her go in peace … He grew surly, snappish, interpreting people’s assurances of eventual recovery as a sign that they didn’t understand how different she’d been. How could he hope to make them see? It’s a feeling no one can contain in words, certainly not David. He didn’t want to explain himself to anyone. He didn’t need to. The best proof of what she’d meant to him, the living proof, was the boy.

HE HAD NOT WANTED MORE CHILDREN, considering them the downfall of his first three marriages. Supposedly a child expanded your capacity for happiness. But David saw happiness as a zero-sum game. Children threw the entire equation out of balance, and worst of all, they remained once the wives had fled, draining his energy, money, and sanity. He had no idea how to talk to them; he felt ridiculous kneeling down and asking questions he knew the answers to. He had been left to raise himself; why couldn’t they do the same? When Amelia or Edgar or Larry wanted something, he told them to put it in writing.

But despite his efforts, they grew up soft. Their mothers spoiled them, and by the time he was called on to be a father, it was too late. The boys became yes-men, unimaginative, unable to do anything except take orders given in a stern voice. He made them vice presidents. Amelia didn’t do much more than garden. It was good that she lived overseas.

He had enough problems. Why add another into the mix?

“I’m too old.”

Nadine said, “I’m not.”

“I’m a lousy father.”

“You’ll be a better one this time.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I’ll help you.”

“I don’t want to be a better father,” he said. “I’m happy being a lousy father.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do.”

“You don’t,” she said.

“Nadine,” he said. “I have enough experience to know that I am not fit to raise children.”

“What are you so afraid of?”

He wasn’t afraid of anything. Fear is what you feel when something bad might happen. He knew for a fact that it would. What he felt was doomed. He had been here before.

“I love you,” she said. “This is what I want. Please don’t argue with me.”

He said nothing.

“Please,” she said.

HE COULDN’T DENY HER FOREVER. All she had to do was stop asking outright.

At her request he tried to be a better father. Take him out, she said. Take him somewhere fun. David didn’t know where to go, and Nadine refused to spoonfeed him. She told him to use his imagination. But at three he had played alone in his room. At three, he had begun to read; he could hold a violin. He had no idea what normal three-year-old children did.

He took him to the office, where he tried to interest him in plastic models of buildings yet to be constructed. He showed him a planned waterfront in Toronto. He showed him two shopping malls in New Jersey. He thought it was going well until his secretary told him that the child was clearly bored to death. At her suggestion David took him instead to the Museum of Natural History. Although he had a seat on the board of directors, he stood in line, like a normal father might, and bought three tickets: one for himself, one for the boy, and one for the nanny who had been tagging along silently all morning. Look, David said to his son. He pointed to a dinosaur skeleton. The boy began to cry. David tried to distract him with other exhibits but the dam had broken. The boy cried; he was inconsolable; he didn’t stop until they’d gotten back to the house on Fifth and David handed him off to his mother, saying, Take him, please.

That was the last time he tried to be a better father.

But motherhood became Nadine, very much, too much, and everything he’d known would happen began to happen. He felt her drift away from him and he was powerless to stop it. Hadn’t he told her? He had; he’d warned her. She hadn’t known any better—but he had, and he had warned her. He should have been more firm. He should have told her to wait five years, see if she still felt the same way, if she still wanted to jeopardize everything.

NADINE BROUGHT LIGHT TO THE HOUSE, and when she was gone, the darkness that returned to reclaim its place—the darkness David had so long lived with, if not happily, then at least uncomplainingly—began to suffocate him. The slightest disturbances brought on crushing migraines, so severe that he had to lie down until they passed. Anything could trigger them. A sudden noise, a piece of bad news. The thought of something stressful.

And the boy, of course. He would not sit still. He threw tantrums. He was stubborn, he was willful; he would persist in ridiculous beliefs even after David had pointed out to him, for the billionth time, their glaring flaws. His superstitions irritated David to the point of anger or worse; sometimes, when the boy was asking about his mother, David would simply ignore him, shielding himself with his newspaper and waiting for the questions to stop. He was too old to maintain the charade. He did not want to talk about imaginary things; real life was bad enough. He would grip his forehead and tell the nanny to take him away, take him away.

The headaches faded with time, but the boy’s behavior only got worse. They would send him to school and within months he would be expelled. He used drugs. He stole. David didn’t want to hear about it; when Tony tried to involve him, he simply said, “Handle it.” The boy was lost, Tony said. He needed a guiding hand. And David replied that they would do nothing to interfere—believing, as always, in the power of the self to create meaning and pave its own road.

IN HIS SEVENTY-SEVENTH YEAR, he had gotten used to his life, gotten used to the idea that his daughter was frivolous, that his first two sons were milquetoasts, that his third was unmanageable and spiteful. He had accepted it all, without regret or remorse. All he wanted to do was live and work and then die.

Then he sat down to lead an afternoon board meeting and pain laced down his arm and the next thing he knew he’d been steamrolled, whisked high above the room, floating eight feet over the table and staring down at his own limp body, the picture of indignity, some half-wit executive trying to give him CPR and breaking his ribs. He tried to protest but no noise came out. Then he closed his eyes and when he opened them the room was full of doctors and nurses and beeping machinery. Tony was there, too. He offered his hand and David took it. His best and only friend, the only person who had never abandoned him. He squeezed as hard as he could. His hardest was not very hard. His heart had shriveled. He could feel it. Whether from disuse or bad living or bad genes, his heart had remodeled itself, permanently.

They could do a lot for a man his age with his condition, a lot more than they had been able to do for Nadine. Within a month he was walking around as though nothing had ever happened. Physically, he was fine, though he constantly felt glum and anxious. Had he been of a different generation, he might have indulged himself in therapy. That was not the Muller way. He called Tony in and said that they were going to make some changes starting now.

HE CALLED UP HIS DAUGHTER, called up his eldest sons. Amelia was baffled but got on a plane. Edgar and Larry came to the house and brought their own children. When everyone had gathered in his office, he told them he wanted them to know that they all meant a great deal to him. Everyone nodded, but they were all looking in different directions: at the

ceiling, at the doodads on the mantel, at the stone carving above the fireplace—anywhere but at him. Nodding into oblivion. Embarrassed by this sudden display of emotion; afraid to offend him. They thought he was going to die, and they wanted to make sure they got their cut.

He said to them, “I’m not going to die.”

Amelia said, “I would hope not.”

When did she start talking like that, in that voice? Who were these people? His children, a bunch of strangers.

Larry said, “We’re glad you’re feeling better, Dad.”

“Yes,” said Edgar.

David said, “Don’t count me out just yet.”

“We won’t.”

“Have any of you talked to your brother?”

No one spoke.

Amelia said, “I saw him last year.”

“You did.”

She nodded. “He came to London for the fair.”

“How is he?” David asked.

“Well, I think.”

“Would you tell him to get over here and see me.”

Amelia looked away. “I can try,” she said softly.

“Tell him. Tell him how bad I look. Exaggerate if you have to.”

Amelia nodded.

But the boy, willful as ever, would not come. David’s blood boiled. He wanted to use a stronger hand. In a rare moment of dissent, Tony said, “He’s a grown man.”

David glared at him. Et tu?

“I’m just saying,” said Tony. “At his age you were running the company. He’s capable of making his own decisions.”

David said nothing.

Tony said, “I went to Queens, like you asked.” “And.”

Tony hesitated. “He’s not good, David.”

“He’s sick?”

“I think so. He can’t keep living there. It’s like a junkyard.” Tony shifted around nervously. “He recognized me.” “Are you sure?” “He called me Mr. Wexler.” David said, “Jesus.” Tony nodded.

David said, “What do you suggest?”

“A nursing home. Someplace where he won’t have to look after himself.” David thought. “I have a better idea.”

HIS SPINE WAS HOOKED. Skin dangled from his arms. When they took him to the doctor, he weighed in at ninety-two pounds. He might have been David’s uncle rather than his nephew. They fed him; they cleaned him up, removed his cataracts, and installed him on the third floor of the house on Fifth, in David’s childhood bedroom.

IN THEIR RUSH TO GET HIM out of the apartment, they neglected to look inside the boxes, which Tony assumed were full of junk. Not until he began receiving voicemails from someone who’d spoken to someone who had talked to someone at the Carnelian unit—some fellow named Shaughnessy—did Tony bother to go down and take a good look. When he did, he called David and, following a lengthy discussion, secured permission to call the Muller Gallery.

VICTOR TOOK TO TV QUICKLY. The constant stream of chatter seemed to comfort him. It didn’t matter what was on: David would find him watching infomercials, whispering to himself and to the people on the screen, whom he clearly preferred to real company. His weight improved, although he still ate only when food was brought to him. David’s attempts to engage him in conversation were silently rebuffed. He did manage to pry out an affinity for checkers. They played once or twice a day, Victor smiling as though remembering a private joke.

WHEN THEY PRINTED THE PIECE in the Times, David brought it in to show him. Victor saw the photograph of his drawings and turned pale. He dropped his bowl of soup. He clutched the page, crumpled it, turned on his side and pulled the blanket over his head, refusing to respond to David’s questions or to come out. For two days he didn’t eat. David, grasping his mistake, made a promise to Victor, one that seemed to reassure him a little. Then David called Tony and told him to get those drawings back at any cost.

THE PAGES WERE OLD AND FRAGILE; they’d been disassembled into individual panels. David stood at the bedside while Victor flipped through them, lingering over a picture of five dancing angels and a rusty star. David asked if Victor was happier now. Instead of answering, Victor got out of bed and limped down across the room to the window overlooking Ninety-second. With difficulty he raised the sash, then took the drawings and, one by one, shredded them out over the sidewalk. It took ten long minutes to get rid of everything, and David had to work not to raise objections. They’d probably be fined for littering. Add a hundred dollars to the two million they’d already spent. But money was just money, and when Victor was done he looked calmer than he ever had. For the first time in weeks he looked David in the face, wheezing slightly as he crawled back into bed and turned on the TV.

THAT ISN’T THE ONLY WAY in which Tony’s plan has proved a disappointment. It has failed altogether at its primary goal. His youngest son never wrote a thank-you card, never called. David supposes that this is fitting. He reaps what he has sown. Born alone, he will die alone.

At least he has Victor. They are, he supposes, two of a kind.

And he has the house on Fifth. In a way, it has been his most constant companion, if not the most genial one. Since inheriting it, David Muller has had four wives, four children, countless domestics, and several lifetimes’ worth of headache, both literal and metaphorical. Drafty as ever, it remains a constant source of aggravation: rust-chewed pipes and falling plaster and windows that never seem to stay clean longer than a few days. Only an overgrown sense of filial loyalty has kept him from turning the place into a museum, and when he’s gone, that’s exactly what he intends to happen.

His doctor likes him to exercise, and so David skips the elevator in favor of the stairs. Three times a day up and down he goes, from the reception rooms and the portrait gallery to the ballroom to Victor’s bedroom and then to his own bedroom, his father’s former suite. He will sometimes stand in the hallway where as a boy he listened to the sound of breaking glass. He never goes to the fifth floor.

TONY SAYS, “ETHAN CALLED.”

David looks up from his paper.

“He wants to come by.”

“When.”

ce-n ť

Tomorrow.

A silence.

David says, “What does he want?”

“He wants to give the rest of the drawings back.”

A silence.

Tony says, “Your guess is as good as mine.”

THE NEXT DAY DAVID RISES EARLY, showers and dresses and walks downstairs to greet his son, who arrives in a taxi and who seems ambivalent. They shake hands, then stand there reading each other. David is about to suggest that they head upstairs to the study when his son asks to have a look at the portrait gallery.

“By all means.”

There is Solomon Muller, smiling kindly. Beside him, his brothers: Adolph with the crooked nose and Simon with the warts and Bernard with the bushy balloons of hair at either side of his head; Papa Walter, looking like he has eaten too much peppery food; and Father, his long, thin body forced out of joint to keep him within the frame. Bertha’s is the only portrait of a Muller woman, and it is slightly bigger than the men’s. There is a spot for David’s own portrait and two panels that remain undedicated. Leading to the awkward and unstated question of where—

Preemptively: “I don’t want one.”

“You might change your mind.”

“T “

I wont.

David looks at his son, who is staring angrily at the blank burled maple, and for the first time, he understands how difficult it must be for him to be here.

As they climb to the second floor, David talks about bringing Nadine to see the house, and what she did when she saw the ballroom.

“She screamed.” He smiles. “She really did.” He opens the door on the vast, dark room, its expanse of unused wood like a frozen sea. Their footsteps echo. Above them the gilt is dumb, and the bandstand seems to be hunkered down and shivering. He really ought to turn up the heat a notch.

He says, “We danced. There was no music but we were going for an hour or more. Your mother was a terrific dancer, did you know that?”

“I didn’t.”

“She was.” Then David has the crazy impulse to grab his son and waltz him around the room, so he says, “Should we talk turkey?”

THE NEGOTIATIONS LAST less than five minutes; his son will not take any money.

“Something, at least; you’ve worked hard, they’re yours—”

“All I did was put them up on the wall.”

“I understand that you feel a sense of—”

“Please don’t argue with me.”

David studies his son, who has grown to look more like Nadine than he ever could have imagined. He could never deny her. And yet he’s had no problem denying his son. He could argue with him now; in fact, he wants to argue with him, wants to show him the error of his ways.

“If that’s what you want.”

“It is.”

“Okay.”

“They’re back at the Courts. Tony can handle it, I presume.”

“Yes.”

“Then that’s that.”

A silence.

David says, “I don’t want to keep you.”

“I don’t have anywhere I need to be.”

A silence.

“In that case,” David says, “there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

THE DOOR IS SLIGHTLY AJAR. David knocks anyway. When they enter, the man in the bed is half asleep, almost invisible beneath two heavy comforters. He sits up a little at the sight of visitors. His eyes are watery; they move and search; but as Ethan steps forward—saying to David a word he has not heard in a long time, in a way David can never remember hearing— asking, Dad?—they begin to focus.

Several people made this book possible by providing information, personal references, or both. Many thanks to Ben Mantell, Jonathan Steinberger, Nicole Klagsbrun, Loretta Howard, Stewart Waltzer, Jes Handley, Catherine Laible, Barbara Peters, Jed Resnick, and Saul Austerlitz.

As always, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Liza Dawson and Chris Pepe. Thanks also to Ivan Held, Amy Brosey, and everyone at Putnam.

Thanks to my parents and siblings.

I could not write anything without the ideas, support, and advice that my wife supplies, selflessly, day after day. Her name belongs on the cover as much as mine.