Author: Carillo, Charlie
Date: 2012-01-30T15:00:00+00:00

FOUND MONEY

A novel by Charlie Carillo

CHAPTER ONE

On her twenty-fifth birthday Diane Farley had to use her lunch hour - which was actually only fifty minutes - to find a shop near the school that sold boys’ underwear, and that was only half the challenge. She also had to match the brand and the size, based on the strip of waistband that had been torn from seven year old Stanley Delgado’s underpants during a schoolyard Atomic Wedgie.

An Atomic Wedgie, the boy had tearfully explained to his stunned teacher, was when a kid grabbed the back of your underpants and pulled it up so hard that the waistband got torn off.

Diane was horrified. Stanley was small and slim and unusually articulate. She had noticed him walking funny when the bell rang for lunch, knock-kneed and hunched over, and called him to her desk while the rest of the class went to the cafeteria.

She had to pry it out of him. He was walking funny because it was the only way to hold up what was left of his underpants. He told her about the wedgie but refused to name names. If growing up in the South Bronx had taught Stanley anything, it was that ratting anyone out was just about the worst thing you could do.

“Don’t tell me who did it, Stanley,” Diane said gently. “Just tell me why he did it.”

“They.”

“All right, they. Why did they do it?”

Stanley hesitated, fighting back tears. “Because I suck at softball. Keep strikin’ out.”

It didn’t make sense to Diane. She’d seen Stanley running around in the schoolyard, and he seemed strong and swift, wiry but well-coordinated. He was obviously a smart kid, but his grades were so-so.

Then it hit her - just a hunch, but the best of teachers always played their hunches.

Diane told Stanley to eat his bag lunch in the classroom, while she went out in search of a clothing shop.

She felt eyes following her on the street. She was used to it. Diane had shoulder-length chestnut hair and big brown eyes, and her rimless eyeglasses did not detract even slightly from the kind of beauty that made men who passed her on the street think about the places they’d like to take her, distant white-sand beaches where she’d take the eyeglasses off last.

Diane lucked out, finding a discount clothing shop just two blocks from the school, one of those places where the manager sat atop a tall ladder to keep an eye out for shoplifters. A clerk was able to match the brand of Stanley’s underwear to the pathetic strip of waistband Diane had taken along. The strip didn’t include the tag with the size but Diane guessed that Stanley would need the smallest size they sold.

She had to buy a three-pack of Jockey briefs because they weren’t sold singly. She was using her own money, but that was okay. Real teaching was all about going out on a limb when you had to. The South Bronx was not known for its trees, but its educational system was full of limbs like Stanley Delgado.

She made it back in twenty minutes. Stanley was sitting quietly at his desk, his lunch untouched. Without a word he accepted a pair of new briefs and went to the bathroom to change. Diane hid the remaining two pairs in her bottom desk drawer, in case there were further Atomic Wedgies.

Stanley was back in minutes, walking normally.

“Do they fit okay, Stanley?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What did you do with the old pair?”

“Flushed it.”

“Stanley. You shouldn’t have done that. You could clog the pipes.”

“Fuck the pipes.”

It always startled her when children used vulgarity, and Diane suddenly realized how much trouble she could be in for sticking her neck out this far. Suppose the pipes clogged, and the toilet overflowed? Suppose they found the torn underwear in the overflow, and started asking questions? Suppose they found out about Diane running out on school time to buy underpants for a seven year old boy, a boy she’d left all alone in the classroom?

And what sort of teacher buys underpants for a student on the sly? Good God, she could wind up facing child molestation charges!

She shook her head to clear it of these thoughts, forced herself to focus.

“Stanley,” she began, “I want to try something.”

She went to the front of the room, turned and touched the rubber tip of a stick pointer against the capital letter "P" above the blackboard. Like the rest of the letters of the alphabet, it was printed in red on a rectangular piece of cardboard.

"Stanley. Tell me what letter this is."

"I'm thinkin.' "

His sneakered feet were flat on the floor but his knees were trembling. Something was wrong.

Diane tapped the pointer against the letter. "Come on, now. What letter is this?"

The boy sighed. “I don’t know.”

Diane went to the boy, took off her glasses and handed them to him. “Try it with these.”

He hesitated before putting on the glasses. They were too wide for his head but at least the lenses were in front of his eyes. Diane returned to the blackboard and pointed at the same letter.

"It's a `P,' " the boy replied.

“Correct.”

She pointed at another letter.

"Is that a `G' ?"

“It certainly is.”

“Man, it looks clear!”

“There's nothing wrong with you, Stanley. You’re a little farsighted, just like me. You need eyeglasses."

The boy's face darkened. "Everybody'll make fun of me."

"Think so?" Diane took her glasses back from Stanley and put them on. At twenty-five she still looked like a campus coed, the kind of girl who'd paint a protest sign or harbor a political fugitive at a moment's notice.

"I wear glasses," Diane said. "Do people make fun of me?"

"No, Mizz Farley."

"So why would they make fun of you?"

The boy swallowed. " 'Cause I'm little."

Diane scrunched down to sit in the little seat beside Stanley's. "Tell you what, Stanley. We'll be in this together, you and I. If anyone makes fun of you, just come to me."

The boy squared his bony shoulders. "I ain't squealin'!"

"Of course you're not. No names. Just tell me what they say, and we'll talk about how to deal with it, okay?"

Stanley looked uncertain, but he'd blinked back his tears and no new ones replaced them.

"No squealin' ?"

"No squealing. Deal?"

Diane extended her hand for a shake, which the boy accepted.

"You're a good lady, Mizz Farley."

Now Diane felt tears spring to her own eyes, and made an act out of adjusting her glasses to hide them.

"Stanley, as long as we're talking about things, you should know that I'm Mrs. Farley. Not Mizz Farley."

"Ain't you a feminist?"

Diane was startled. It never occurred to her that the child might be saying "Ms." She'd always thought Stanley and some of the other kids were using a lazy-drawl version of "Miss."

"I go by Mrs. Farley," she said calmly.

"You got a husband, huh? What’s he do?”

"He's a commodities trader."

"So he makes lots of money, huh?"

Sometimes the shyest kids asked the boldest questions. "Business isn't as good as it used to be, Stanley," Diane said, but in truth business was better than ever for Artie Farley. Somehow, some way, in the midst of the crumbling economy, Artie was following his gut and making all the right choices.

"Wish I could make some money," the boy murmured.

"Money isn't everything, Stanley."

"Yeah. But it's nice to have when you want stuff."

She sighed. "Well, I'll tell you. If you want money, you need a good job. If you want a good job, you need a good education. And to get a good education, you have to be able to read. So. Now do you see why it's important that you get eyeglasses, so you can see the blackboard?"

"Yes, Miss-us Farley."

"Good. You can go to the cafeteria now.”

He grabbed his bag lunch and headed for the door. He stopped there and pointed at Diane Farley’s face with a trembling finger.

“I owe you one,” said a dead-serious Stanley Delgado. Then he was gone.

Diane’s heart soared. She went to her desk and began writing a note to Stanley's parents, delicately explaining that their son needed an eye exam.

Tricky. You had to let the parents know their boy needed help, without making them feel they'd been negligent. Do it wrong, and they'd ignore your advice, out of spite.

And of course she couldn’t mention the Atomic Wedgie. It was a wire-walk, all right.

How had Stanley gone through three years of schooling without anybody detecting this problem? How much humiliation had he endured in silence, fearing the worst without even knowing what it could be?

But there was a sweet flip side to it. Stanley's whole life was ahead of him. Now, at least, he'd be able to see. He was a bright kid. He'd catch up in a hurry. And without Diane, none of it would be happening.

A gooey, gulpy feeling engulfed her. This was teaching. This was what it was all about. She couldn't have asked for a better gift than this on her birthday.

She could hardly wait to tell her husband about it that night...but at the same time, she dreaded telling him. Lately, her better half seemed especially preoccupied with his work, and only half-listened to anything she had to say.

And she was dreading the way he was going to celebrate her birthday. Artie loved surprises as much as she hated surprises, and he’d been dropping hints for weeks that her big “quarter of a century” bash was going to be special.

She sighed, crumpled up the letter she’d been writing to Stanley’s parents and started composing another one.

The Atomic Wedgie drama was all the surprise she needed today. Just the thought of what her husband might have planned for the big “two-five” had her stomach jumping.

CHAPTER TWO

ARTIE Farley had a hunch. He bought gold that morning and ignored the panic of his fellow traders as the price of precious metals began to drop.

“Hang in there,” Artie murmured to himself. “Something’ll happen...”

And it did. Just before two in the afternoon, a high-ranking member of the Japanese government dropped dead. Nobody could really explain why, but traumatic events involving leading politicians made the price of precious metals skyrocket, the way freezes in Florida sent the price of orange juice over the moon.

The Japanese guy’s death triggered a flutter of metals trading, and the price of gold began to climb. At the closing bell Artie Farley cashed out the gold he’d owned for less than five hours, having cleared nearly twenty thousand dollars for the day.

Twenty thousand bucks. More than his own father had ever made for a year’s labor. More than his father had paid for the Levittown house Artie had grown up in.

One day’s work.

Artie couldn’t help laughing out loud at his good fortune. True-blue Wall Streeters looked down on commodities as a crude way to make a buck, but Artie didn't care. He enjoyed thinking of himself as a cab driver in the midst of all those chauffeurs. Sharp turns and pedal-to-the-metal aggression - that's what getting rich was all about. And his hunch about gold had certainly proven his point.

“You lucky fuck,” said a fellow trader.

“Skill,” Artie insisted.

“Yeah, right, Farley. You’d have lost your ass if that Nip hadn’t croaked.”

Artie spread his arms in mock humility. “I’m the man,” he deadpanned. “Do you think I like being the man? Know how tough it is to be right all the time?”

He turned and left before the man could lift a hand and flip him the bird. Five minutes later Artie was in a rented car, roaring toward The Bronx to surprise his wife by picking her up at school for the very first time.

He looked at himself in the rear-view mirror. Not bad for a 25-year-old office worker. Trips to the gym had kept his waist narrow, his shoulders brawny. He still had a full head of floppy dark blond hair, twinkling sea-blue eyes, and a crooked, bad-boy grin that got him out of a lot of jams.

He actually pointed at his own reflection. "She's going to love this," Artie assured himself. "She is absolutely going to love it."

Of course, his hunches weren’t always right. The year before, Artie had turned Diane’s birthday celebration into a total fiasco by renting out a roller-skating rink, stocking it with champagne and inviting fifty of their friends to a private party that resulted in four head injuries and a broken arm, all alcohol-related. Some of those people were still in litigation with the rink.

Artie cringed at the memory of it. Wheels and champagne. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t the smartest combination in the world, but he’d meant well. He always meant well. He went for the grand sweep, time after time, and sometimes it didn’t work.

“It’ll work this time,” Artie said out loud as he crossed into The Bronx. “No way she won’t like this surprise.”

Minutes later Artie was parked outside Diane's school, watching the exit door like a cop on a stakeout, wondering if this was the only exit, and beyond that wondering why his wife would want to teach school in a shitty neighborhood like this. Chalk it up to her idealism. In a way, Artie told himself, it wasn't a bad combination. She'd save the human race, while he made the fortune. The best of both worlds.

There she was, leaving the school with a book bag over her shoulder. Artie actually tingled at the sight of her, the way he had the first time he'd laid eyes on her on campus, all those years ago. He tapped the horn twice.

"Di! Hey, Di! Over here!"

Startled by the sight of him, Diane stood still a moment before walking to the car.

"Artie? What are you doing here?"

"Glad to see me, baby?"

"Why do you have a car?"

"It's a rental. Get in."

"Artie - "

"Would you just get in, before somebody takes the hubcaps?"

Diane obeyed, and Artie took off as if they'd just knocked over a bank. He reached over and squeezed her knee.

"Happy birthday, sweetheart. Are you having a good birthday?"

"Artie. Where are we going?"

"It's a surprise."

"Oh, Artie, no!”

“You're just going to have to trust me."

"Why?"

"Because I'm driving, and you're my hostage."

"Great."

“Hey, if nothing else, I saved you from a ride on the subway.”

They rode downtown faster than Diane cared to go, but she kept quiet about it. She stared out the passenger window like a sulking child being whisked to summer camp against her will.

"Kids know it was your birthday today?"

"No."

"Should've told them the day before. They'd have brought you cards."

Diane shook her head. "You can't do that, Artie. The kids who didn't bring me cards would have felt terrible."

"They should feel terrible. You can't stop and get your teacher a card? What's the big deal?"

Diane sighed without sound, a trick she'd taught herself lately. "Had one good thing happen today, though."

"Yeah? What was that?"

Diane took a deep, here-goes breath. "This one boy has had trouble at school all year long. I found out he needs glasses. I think he'll be all right from here on. His name is Stanley."

"Yeah? Good for you. Good for Stanley."

“I had to sneak out and buy underpants for him today. Some kids had given him something called an Atomic Wedgie. They - ”

“ - tore his waistband right off the underpants,” Artie chuckled, finishing the sentence. “Yeah, I gave an Atomic Wedgie or two in my time.”

Diane was shocked. “You gave them?”

Artie nodded. “Would you rather I’d received them, Di?”

“I’d rather they hadn’t happened at all!”

“Wedgies are a fact of life for boys, Di. Accept it. You give them, or you get them, but there it is.”

Diane felt her heart sink, and scolded herself for even telling Artie about it.

"How was work today?" she forced herself to ask.

“Not bad. We made a killing on gold."

“A killing?”

Artie shrugged, forced himself to act casual. “About twenty grand.”

Diane’s eyes widened. “You made twenty thousand dollars today?”

“No, Di. We made twenty thousand dollars today. Plus whatever you earned as a teacher. Us. You and me.”

Diane sighed. “I’m sorry I’m cranky, Artie. It’s just that I know you have something crazy planned, and I’m not sure I can take it.”

“Diane, I promise you this’ll be your least crazy birthday celebration ever. Okay?”

“We missed our exit, Artie.”

He grinned at her. “No, we didn’t.”

Diane’s eyes widened. “Oh, God, Artie, where are you taking me?”

He didn’t answer. Minutes later he steered the car onto the ramp leading to the Brooklyn Bridge.

"You're taking me to Brooklyn?!"

"Looks that way.”

Diane felt her belly flutter as they rode over the gray waters of the East River. Feeling dizzy, she looked up at the towers of the bridge, every bit as majestic as they'd ever been described.

"They dump bodies off this thing, Di."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You know, bodies. Mafia murder victims. They bob up in the springtime, when the water warms up."

"You're making that up."

"Am I?"

"Why are we going to Brooklyn, Artie?"

"Trust me, would you?"

Fifteen minutes later they were cruising the tree-lined streets of Park Slope. Diane had been to Brooklyn exactly once, for a party in this very neighborhood thrown by one of her fellow teachers. Artie, she recalled, had to be dragged to that party, and checked his watch every five minutes while they were there...

"Pretty, huh?"

"Yes, it's pretty. But what are we doing here?"

"Can't a guy take his wife for a drive on her birthday?"

Artie suddenly pulled the car into a parking space and cut the motor. He had a funny grin on his face, and she didn't like it even slightly.

"Let's take a little walk," he suggested.

Artie jumped out of the car and actually trotted around to her side to open the door for her, like a true gentleman. Then, an even stranger thing happened - Artie took her hand as they walked down the street.

He wasn't a hand-holder. When they walked together he usually plunged ahead, like a prizefighter eager to answer the bell for the next round. Artie had to stagger his natural pace considerably to walk side by side with his wife, whose walking pace was something like the lope of a well-fed cougar...slinky and sexy, but maddening to anyone in anything of a hurry.

And there was nothing natural about Artie's hand-holding. His fingers twitched, and every few seconds he felt obliged to squeeze Diane's hand, as if to remind her that he was still there.

"Can we speed it up just a little, Di?"

"Speed it up to get where?"

Artie stopped abruptly in response, looked his wife in the eye and then seemed to notice the two-story brownstone building behind her for the first time. He pointed at it.

"Nice house, isn't it?"

Diane turned for a look. It was a classic Brooklyn brownstone, the kind with the stoop you see kids bouncing balls against in black-and-white movies.

"Sure," Diane said agreeably, "it's nice."

"You like it?"

"Artie, I said I did."

"Yeah, but do you really like it?"

"I really, really like it. Okay?"

A funny look came to Artie Farley's face. "Good," he announced, dangling a freshly-cut set of house keys from his finger. "Because it's yours.”

CHAPTER THREE

IT was as if Diane had suddenly been cold-cocked from behind. Her knees literally bent, and she felt her hand reach out for the little wrought-iron gate that protected a patch of lawn that was barely bigger than a bath mat.

Her fence. Her lawn, if Artie was to be believed. And he was. Her husband was many things, but he was not a bullshitter.

"You bought this house," Diane deadpanned.

"I bought this house for you," he gently corrected. "Happy birthday, sweetheart. You are now a homeowner."

He took the keys she'd not reached for and pressed them into her palm.

"Artie," she breathed, as it his name would be the final spoken word of her life.

He took her by the elbow. "Come on. Let's check it out."

Numbly, dumbly, she climbed the steps to the dark wooden front door. Artie took the keys from her to open both locks, and they were inside.

The place was empty, the wide oak plank floors scarred here and there by ancient spills, scrapes, and the dark marks left by the legs of furniture. The floor creaked as Artie walked across it, arms spread wide.

"The living room, Diane. Your living room."

He lifted her in a bear hug and whirled her in a full circle. She clung to him hard, more out of shock than anything else, and when he set her down she had to stand with her hands on her knees, seeking her balance.

"You bought a house."

"That's right."

"Artie..." Where could she start? "My God. How could you do such a thing?"

"Lots of planning, that's how. Sneaking around with real estate agents." He grinned. "Admit it, you were a little suspicious. Thought I had a girlfriend on the side, huh? Well, I didn't. You're relieved, right?"

Relief was the last thing Diane was feeling. Her head was swimming....

"You bought a house without even talking to me about it," she whispered in wonder.

Artie shrugged. "How could it be a surprise if I talked to you about it?"

"Yes, but Artie. Artie."

"I know. I'm out of my mind. Come on, let's look at the upstairs."

In the fading light of day Artie took Diane from bedroom to bedroom, each of which had walls of faded green, the green of a doctor's waiting office. There were three in all, and the last one they looked at made Artie laugh out loud.

"This was the old lady's room, I guess. Old Italian lady. A widow, lived here something like sixty years. See what she left behind?"

It was a wooden crucifix with a tarnished bronze Christ, nailed to the wall. Artie went to pry it off, and when at last it came loose a ghostly cross of unfaded paint remained on the wall.

"Forgive me, oh Lord," Artie murmured mockingly to the cross. "Gonna have to hit these walls with two or three coats of paint. I'm figurin' eggshell white for everything. Forget this gloomy green. Brighten the whole place up. What do you think?"

"Oh! Oh you mean, I actually get to have an opinion about something?"

Artie's face fell. "Don't be like that, sweetheart."

"Don't be like that? You go off and buy a house without a word to me, and....what did it cost, by the way?"

"It's a gift. You don't ask about the price of a gift!"

"How much, Artie? How much?"

He sighed. "Seven hundred and fifty."

"Mother of God."

"I put down half."

Diane was shocked. "You had half the money?!"

"I had a huge year. I'm going to have an even bigger year. Like I said, I made twenty grand today.”

He spread his arms. "Look at all this room, Diane! We both grew up in houses! That apartment-dwelling crap is not for us, and I know you don't like the suburbs, so a brownstone in Brooklyn seemed like...I don’t know...the perfect gift for you.”

Diane put her hands in her face and wept. Artie smoothed his hair back, blew out his cheeks. Another fucking fiasco, maybe even worse than the roller rink mess. He hung his head.

“I’m sorry, sweetie. I had an impulse, and I followed it. Thought you’d be pleased.”

Diane wiped her eyes. "I'm just...overwhelmed."

A glimmer of hope. Artie hesitated, twisted the crucifix in his hands. "We're fifteen minutes from midtown on the train. It's nothing. In a lot of ways it's closer to living in town than actually living in town."

"Is that so?"

"Hey, another thing - we have a yard! Holy shit, how could I forget to show you the yard?!"

He grabbed her hand and led her out the back door, to a small patch of grass where a magnolia tree was just beginning to bud.

"Huh?" he asked, striding across the yard as if it were a wheat field in Kansas. "How about this, huh? Be a nice place to sit at the end of the day, wouldn't it?" Artie tilted his face to the sky and took a deep breath.

"Little bit of air and light makes all the difference. Sit out here with a glass of wine..." He sighed, and Diane was startled to see his eyes fill with tears. He kicked his toe into the ground, like a Little League baseball player who's just struck out.

"Anyway. I thought you'd like it."

"Oh, Artie." She went to him, took him in her arms. "It's not that I don't."

"We'll sell it. Be easy to get rid of it. Hey, this is a hot neighborhood. Might even make a few bucks on the deal. I know it's gone up in value, just since I closed on it."

A mourning dove landed in the magnolia tree, its wings making a whispery sound. Diane watched the bird balance itself on the bouncy branch, then cock its head to look Diane right in the eye.

A sign from above? She wasn't the kind of person who believed in such things, but she shocked herself with her next words, which were, "Don't sell it."

He broke the embrace and held her at arms' length. "You mean it?"

"Sure, I mean it. Let's give it a try."

Artie licked his lips. "Wouldn't be a half-bad place to bring up a kid," he ventured.

Diane swallowed. "Do you mean that?"

"Yeah, I mean it. I'm as ready as I can be." He took her in his arms again, put his lips to her ear. "I love you, Diane. What do you say we make a baby?

She murmured something Artie couldn't hear.

"What'd you say, baby?"

"I said okay."

It was amazing how fast things happened, once they started happening. Within weeks they'd given up their Greenwich Village studio apartment and made the move to Brooklyn, Artie at the wheel of a rented U-Haul as they made their way over the Brooklyn Bridge on a rainy spring day.

Not until they'd reached the middle of the bridge did Diane suddenly plunge her face into her hands and begin bawling, as if she'd just been told her parents had been killed. Artie reached over and patted her knee, like a coach assuring a benched player that he'd soon be back in the game.

"Hey. Hey. What's this all about?"

Diane blew her nose. "I'll be all right."

"Come on, tell me."

Diane hesitated. The U-Haul cleared the center of the bridge, and Diane felt the inevitability of her future as the van began the downward plunge into Brooklyn.

"I'm just wondering."

"About what?"

"About what kind of a mother I'll be."

"The greatest."

"Oh, Artie."

"I'm serious, here! You will be a fantastic mother."

She hated that word. It was a Wall Street word, an over-the-top word, and it seemed to her that his language was peppered with more and more words like this. Fantastic. Awesome...

Nothing was ever just good, including lovemaking, and it still stuck in her gut that on the night of her birthday, Artie had rolled off her and pronounced the experience "outstanding." She half-expected him to high-five her before dropping off into his post-ejaculatory slumber...

He patted her knee again, this time to get her attention. "Hey. You hear what I said?"

"Yes, Artie."

"Want me to tell you why you'll be a fantastic mother?"

She did not reply.

"Well, I'll tell you anyway. One, you're at your physical peak. All those years of yoga, plus you've been careful about your diet...two, you're the perfect age. Not too young, not too old. And three, you've got patience, a lot of patience."

That last one stunned her. She looked at her husband, almost in wonder. "Do you really think I'm patient?"

"You kidding? You're with kids all day long, and they don't drive you nuts. I could never do that. Plus, you live with me. If that's not the acid test for patience, I'd like to know what is."

He smiled. It was the smile she'd seen on the face of the man she'd met on campus, the boy who'd casually asked her out for coffee and later confessed that he'd worked up his courage for a week and practiced in the mirror before finally doing it.

She buried her face in his shoulder. "I love you, Artie," she said, eyes tightly shut. It wasn't the truth, but it wasn't a lie, either. It was the foggy, muddy bog in between.

The words thrilled him, filled him with triumph. He knew he'd hear them if he had faith in his plan, and he was right. Yes! He stroked her hair as he guided the U-Haul onto Atlantic Avenue. "I know you do," came his cocky reply.

Diane felt as if she'd been standing under a warm shower that had suddenly gone cold. The fog grew thicker, and her feet sank up to her ankles in the bog. Wall Street Artie was back in full force, just like that. Maybe he'd never really been gone. Maybe he knew that smile of his had the same effect on her as it did on his hesitant commodities clients who needed that one last push before they could trust him with their money.

Or maybe she was simply losing her mind, a little bit at a time.

CHAPTER FOUR

ARTIE did the grunt work, carrying the heaviest stuff from the U-Haul and turning to Diane for help only when he couldn't handle a piece of furniture alone. He let her carry lamps and pillows, but not much more. The delicate china treatment was starting to annoy Diane.

"Artie. You've got to let me help."

They were in their living room, where Artie had mashed his fingers setting down a huge TV set. Swearing and cupping his wounded hand under his arm, Artie shook his head.

"Stick to the light stuff, Di. Last thing you need now is to strain yourself."

"Why are you so worried about it?"

Artie swallowed, and she could have sworn she saw a rare blush tinge his already ruddy complexion. "Because you could be. You know..."

"What could I be?"

"Pregnant."

"Oh for God's sake!" She laughed out loud. "Artie, even if I'm pregnant, I can carry things."

"Things, sure. But not huge things."

"I won't try to carry huge things."

Artie hesitated. "Think you are?"

"Pregnant? I don't know. I doubt it."

His eyebrows arched. "Why do you doubt it? Something wrong?"

Diane's heart fluttered as Artie searched her face for clues. He went to her, held her cheeks in both hands.

"Artie, you're squeezing me!"

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing!" She grabbed him by the wrists, pulled his hands away. "It just takes time. You can't expect to get me on the first shot."

"Why not?"

She rolled her eyes. "Artie, this isn't Wall Street, okay? This is biology. Bodies do what they do, on their own schedules. You've got to be patient."

She kissed his cheek, a gesture that did nothing to wipe the look of concern from his face.

"Maybe we should take vitamins," Artie said. "Think we should take vitamins?"

"Maybe we should get the rest of the stuff from the van before the neighborhood kids steal it."

"Maybe you're right."

"It's nice to hear you admit it, every once in a while.”

They went to work in earnest, sprucing up the house. Artie took two weeks off from his job, a break that coincided with Diane's Easter vacation. Before Artie had sprung this big surprise, they'd made tentative plans for a trip to the Cayman Islands...but how could they do that now, with a house to fix up?

They were driving home from a local Brooklyn mall, their van filled with paint supplies. Diane stared out the window at the Verranzano-Narrows Bridge. She'd been quiet, these past few days. Artie poked her in the ribs.

"You all right?"

"I'm all right."

"No, you're not. What's wrong? You thinking about the Cayman Islands?"

"No."

"Say the word, and I'll re-book the trip. The house can wait. I'll just do it a little bit at a time on weekends."

"Artie. I do not want to go to the Cayman Islands."

"Well what is it, then?"

Diane hesitated. "I miss Manhattan."

"Aw, honey. Come on. We can breathe a little out here. Did you notice the size of the trees on our block? Know how great it'll look when the leaves are all the way out?"

She shook her head in wonder. "I liked Greenwich Village.”

"A rathole that looked out on an airshaft. Good riddance to it."

“It had character."

"Aw, come on. Character, bullshit. Look at us, now. We have an upstairs and a downstairs. Birds sing in the morning. Should I go on?"

"Artie, I'm sorry."

"What's eating you? Don't you love me anymore? Is that it?" Artie put his hand over his mouth in mock horror. "Oh, my God, she doesn't love me anymore!"

She rolled her eyes. "Artie, please."

"Well tell me what's bugging you, already."

"It's just that this is a big move. I'm still a little jumpy about it."

"Give it time. Trust me, our home is going to be wonderful. The smartest thing we ever did was to buy in Brooklyn."

"We?"

"All right, me. The smartest thing I ever did was to buy a house in Brooklyn. The smartest thing you ever did was to go along with it."

He gave her knee an encouraging pat. "What should we eat tonight, Di? Little Chinese takeout? What do you think?"

She shrugged. "I don't know...there's that Mexican place I've been wanting to try, too."

"Chinese," Artie said. "I'm feelin' more like Chinese. All right? We'll save the Mexican for another night."

"Okay."

"Good. See? There's always a little something to look forward to."

Artie gripped the steering wheel, stretched his shoulders. Every now and then, out of the blue, it dawned on him that he was a homeowner. Sometimes he got so gulpy with pride he wanted to stop strangers on the street, just to tell them about it.

Where to begin? The house cried for work at every turn - parquet floors begging to be sanded, walls parched for paint. Artie had done this kind of work to pay for college, and explained how it was best to labor from the ceiling down, leaving the floors for last. That way, you didn't sweat over the paint you dripped.

The first project was the upstairs bedrooms, three in all. He showed Diane how to scrape away old paint and apply filler to the cracks. In no time at all she was into it, and Artie felt the surge of warmth that comes with marital moments such as these: I really do know my wife...

He showed her how to apply the second coat of filler after the first coat had dried and shrunk, and when the time came to paint he was smart enough to let Diane apply the first strokes of Eggshell White to the dingy walls. Again, she was delighted, as he knew she would be. Artie himself attended to the annoying paint jobs such as the windows and the wood trim, leaving Diane to savor the satisfaction of whitening wide patches of wall space with a roller.

"I figure the old lady's room works best as the nursery," Artie said. "It's right next to our room, so we can hear the baby."

Diane sighed. "I wish you'd stop talking about the baby until I actually get pregnant."

"Why? It's gonna happen, babe. No doubt about that."

She tossed her roller into the paint pan, sending a splash of paint on the floor. "Don't call me 'babe' like that."

"Don't call you 'babe’? This is a new one!"

"It's just the way you said it. Like I'm part of some sure-thing deal you're throwing together. You make me feel like I'm not even here."

"Diane - "

"I'm here, okay? I'm a part of this process. This isn't something that's going to happen because you will it to happen, Artie."

Her voice quaked, her lips quivered. Artie put down his paintbrush. "Just trying to be a little optimistic, here."

"I know you are. I'm sorry." She went to his outstretched arms.

"I'm sorry," Artie said. "I get all worked up, that's all. I'm just very excited about everything that's happening."

"I know you are."

"You're excited too, aren't you?"

"Of course I am, Artie. You know I am."

He stroked her hair. "Know what's funny to me? The old lady lived here all these years, and she didn't even take the big bedroom for herself. Why do you think that is?"

Diane shrugged. "Maybe she had a fight with her husband, a long time ago. So she moved out of his bed, and into the smaller room. Nailed a crucifix to the wall, and called it home."

Artie held her tighter. "That'll never happen to us, will it?"

"Of course not, Artie."

"No way, right? No way in the world?"

"Artie. Shhhh. We're both tired. Come downstairs, I'll make us some hot chocolate."

It took them a week to finish the upstairs, and when they moved downstairs Artie suddenly had a new idea for the next project as he stared at the living room ceiling.

"Hey. What do you say we tear the ceiling down?"

"What?!"

"I never noticed before. This is a drop ceiling. Watch."

Artie took a broomstick and pushed the handle end against a square tile above. It lifted clean of its metal bracket, and Artie wiggled the broomstick to make the tile fall to the floor. It broke like a crumbcake, topped on its long-hidden side by an inch of black, furry dust.

"Oh my God, Artie, that is gross!"

"Yeah, but look. Look up here." He beamed a flashlight into the overhead gap. "See that? It's a pressed tin ceiling!"

It was true. Two feet above where the tile had rested was the dusty surface of an ancient tin ceiling, streaked with rust marks. To Artie, it was like coming upon a jewel-laden tomb in a pyramid.

"Holy shit, honey, just look at it!"

Diane stared straight up, her face impassive. "You really want to take down this whole ceiling?"

"Are you kidding? Number one, it opens up the room. And number two, it's friggin' beautiful!"

Diane pursed her lips. "They must have covered it up for a reason."

"Yeah. They were idiots. Too lazy to paint the tin."

Diane sighed. "No way we get done in two weeks, if we stop to do this."

"So I'll work longer than two weeks. I got the time coming. Trust me, it'll be worth it."

"You use up more time now, you won't have any for our canoe trip this summer."

"Diane. Listen to me. This is important. You ride a canoe down a river, it's over and done with. We'll be staring at this ceiling for the next fifty years. Either we'll love it, or we'll hate it. Me personally, I'd like to love it. Okay? What do you say?"

She rubbed her face with both hands and sighed. "It's really going to be a mess, Artie. I just don't know."

"Well I know. But we have to wear masks for this work, because these old tiles are asbestos. Where'd you put the masks?"

Diane fetched them, and within minutes she found herself stationed beneath Artie, who stood on a ladder passing down the ceiling tiles, one by one. Diane slipped them straight into large black plastic garbage bags, trying hard to keep the dirt coatings from spilling.

It was a losing battle. Soon her mask was as black as a bandit's, and the floor was coated with a fine layer of sooty dirt that danced in swirls with the household breezes.

In an hour Artie had half the ceiling removed. A skeletal metal frame remained where the tiles had been, and the more Artie saw of the ceiling, the harder a time he was having trying to keep up a cheerful front.

Oh boy. It was going to take a lot more than wire brushes and fresh paint to bring this tin ceiling back. Here and there patches of it hung down raggedly, as if tiny meteorites had crashed through from above. How was he supposed to fix that? What the hell would it cost to bring in a tinsmith? Diane was right. The ceiling had been covered for a reason.

And the really bad thing was, she wasn't rubbing it in. Dutiful as a Girl Scout, she continued to accept the tiles from Artie and shove them into garbage bags.

"It's gonna work out," he blurted when three-quarters of the ceiling was gone.

"I didn't say a word, Artie."

"Yeah, but I know what you were thinking."

"That's a little unfair, considering that I'll probably get cancer from this spontaneous little project of yours."

"The mask'll protect you."

Funny, she thought, how a man who at first worried about letting her lift anything was now indifferent to the idea of her sucking toxic particles down into her lungs.

"You just have an answer for everything, don't you, Artie?"

He glared at her. "You want me to stop? All right, start passing the tiles back up. I'll put it all back."

"You know it's too late for that. Most of them broke in the bags."

"They weren't broken when I passed them to you."

Her shoulders slumped. "Aw, Artie. I'm too tired for this."

"Yeah? Well, I'm just getting my second wind."

Rather than ease the next tile out, Artie socked it with his fist.

Diane turned away to avoid a faceful of asbestos chunks, and with her eyes still closed she heard a metallic crash of something far heavier than a ceiling tile at her feet. Artie stood stupidly on the ladder, dazed and embarrassed by his own behavior. They both stared at what had fallen - a dull gray metal box, caked with dust.

"What the hell is that?"

"Gee, Artie, you don't know? We've come across a situation at which you're not an expert?"

Ignoring her, Artie descended the ladder and picked up the thing, which was the size of a good-sized fishing tackle box. It wasn't particularly heavy, but it felt fully packed.

He found a rag and wiped it off. The word PECHTER'S was etched into the lid, in bubbly raised letters.

Diane picked bits of asbestos tile from her hair. "Nice of you to shower me with this stuff, Artie."

"I'm sorry, all right?"

"Oh, that's okay. They say carcinogens are good for the hair."

"This box is locked tight."

"Punch it. That seems to work for you."

He looked at her. "Diane. I did apologize, didn't I? Now could you get the screwdriver?"

She did as she was asked, shaking her hair clean coming and going.

"Wear a hat from now on," Artie murmured, and then he sat on the floor and began working the edges of the box with the tool. The thing was stubborn, but at last the lid came loose. The hinges opened with a rusty squeak, and suddenly they both felt faint.

"Holy shit," Artie murmured.

"My God," Diane added.

It was cash, nothing but cash - two deep rows of it, five bills wide. Packet after packet of twenty dollar bills, each held together by brittle red rubber bands. Money from the sky.

CHAPTER FIVE

NIGHT was falling. Artie looked out the living room windows, bare of curtains. Anyone looking in from the street could see this scenario as if it were on a movie screen.

"Let's take it upstairs," he said softly, and Diane followed him to their bedroom. He dumped the cash out on the floor, the ancient rubber bands crumbling upon impact. Diane had already fetched pads and pens. They sat facing each other on the floor. Artie shoved half the cash her way.

"Start counting."

It took them ten minutes to do it, and when it was done they did it again. Both times, the total was the same - $162,520, all in twenty dollar bills, none of them minted after 1970.

“Jesus,” Artie breathed. “This money’s been up there more than thirty years! What a waste! It could’ve been half a million by now, invested right. But it’s been dead all this time.”

Diane brought a fistful of bills to her nose, spread them like a fan and smelled them as if they were a bouquet of roses. “Well,” she said, “it’s alive now.”

Night had fallen all the way. They stared at each other in the light from the bare bulb that burned in the ceiling. Both resembled raccoons, their eyes encircled with dirt.

Diane shuffled the bills into a neat stack and set it down with the others. "I guess the first question is, whose is it?"

Artie snorted. "Whose was it, you mean."

"I do?"

"Oh, yeah. Because it's ours now, Di."

"Hang on, now, Artie. We've got to talk about this."

"Talk? About what? Jesus Christ! A fortune just fell out of our ceiling! Our ceiling, Diane. We bought the house, remember? Everything that's in it belongs to us."

"Oh, Artie! When did you become an estate lawyer?"

"The second that box hit the floor.”

"Maybe the money belonged to the old Italian lady."

"Old lady Rivioli? Please."

Old lady Rivioli's real name was Carmela Rivioli, a steamfitter’s widow who'd lived in the house for more than fifty years. One of her grandsons had put the house on the market soon after she died.

"Maybe she didn't trust banks," Diane said. "That's an extremely common thing for first-generation Italian Americans."

Artie rolled his eyes. "You really believe that, Di? You think a widow on a pension managed to sock away this much money?"

"I don't know."

"You think an old Italian lady got up on a ladder week after week to make deposits in the ceiling?"

"I don't know."

"Do you honestly believe - "

"Artie." She held her hands out, palms up. "Shut up. Please. Let's just take it slowly. First things first, all right?"

He was quiet for a moment. "You're right. First things first. And the first thing here is, we need to store this money someplace else." He tried to wiggle the lid back onto the tin box, but it was too crooked to close properly. "Man, I tore the hell out of this thing."

He went downstairs and returned with a fistful of fresh rubber bands and a shoebox eerily similar in size to the tin box. Like a bank clerk, he rubber banded and stowed the money as if he did it every day of his life.

"You're scaring me, Artie," Diane blurted.

He laughed out loud. "Don't be scared, Di. It's just money." He held up two fistfuls of cash. "I deal in sums like this every day. Only difference is, I never actually hold it in my hands.” He couldn’t help giggling. “Got to admit, it feels great."

Diane watched in fascination. "Where could it possibly have come from?"

"I have no idea. All I can promise you is, it's dirty."

"Dirty?"

“Shit, yeah. Somebody broke the law to get this dough. Maybe a couple of laws. You don't stick it in the ceiling if you made it on the up and up."

He stuffed the rest of the cash into the shoebox, put the lid on it and pushed it across the floor to his wife.

"You want to hold it?"

"No, I don't want to hold it. Do you think it would thrill me just to hold it?"

"It sure thrills me."

"Artie, I don't like how you're behaving."

"What exactly is bothering you? A hundred and sixty-two grand just fell into our laps. How would you like me to behave? Is there a normal way to behave in a situation like this?"

Diane hesitated. "I guess not."

"Maybe it's not ours, but it is in our possession. So what's our next step?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure. We can't just leave it in the house."

"Maybe we can. It's been safe in this house for a very long time. Nobody's looking for it here, that's for damn sure."

They stared at each other, then at the box. Diane lifted the lid, as if to see if maybe the money had vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.

"Hold it," Artie urged. Go on, just hold it. Like you'd hold a baby."

Diane gave in, resting the box on her lap. The cash put a gentle pressure on her thighs, which had a wonderfully calming effect. Ancient currency odors drifted to her nose, not at all unpleasant...

"How about a safe deposit box?"

Artie nodded. "Sounds good. We'll do it first thing in the morning. I'll stick it in the back of the closet, for tonight."

She watched him do it. Some time in the midst of all this, a bright April moon had risen. Diane was bathed in its light as he closed the closet door and turned to her.

"You as horny as I am?" Artie asked.

"Yeah."

"I doubt that..."

They went at each other as if the missiles were in the air, so filthy with dust and grime that when they were through, the bedsheets looked as if they'd been dragged through mud. Diane fell asleep as if she'd been conked with a mallet, but Artie lay awake in wonder at the passion they'd just shared, the kind of passion they hadn't really had since the early days of their courtship. This was nothing like the nutritious, let's-make-a-baby sex they'd been having lately. This was the real deal.

Breathing hard, Artie gently stroked his wife's bare shoulders. Got to get back to that feeling, he told himself. Got to make it the way it was when it was all brand new...

"Hey, Artie."

Her voice startled him. "Thought you were asleep."

"You're the one who falls asleep."

"Not tonight, baby."

"Artie. I'm excited about the money."

"Good. Me too."

"Can you spend bills if they're this old?"

"I don't see why not."

"We'll have to find out for sure."

"Know what? I think that was the one."

"What are you talking about?"

"You know. I sent my best swimmers in there. Won't be long before the fastest one hits the egg."

Diane sighed. "Just let it happen, Artie."

"I am, I am. I won't get cocky about it."

"Great choice of words."

"I thought so."

She took his hand, gave it a squeeze. "Listen, Artie. We'll never really know where that money came from. And you're right. It's definitely dirty, whatever it is."

"Hallelujah! We agree on something."

"So that means it's ours, whether we like it or not."

"Correct, Mrs. Farley. But listen to me, now. We have got to be careful."

"I know, I know."

"We start buying stuff we can't afford, and the IRS has a funny way of taking an interest in the situation."

"I know that. Don't you think I know that?"

"No offense, but you’re a schoolteacher. Money isn't exactly your game."

"Are we going to have this conversation again?"

"All I'm saying is, you're an idealist. When it comes to dollars and cents you're a little bit out of your league."

She sat up and pushed herself away from him. "I get paid for what I do. I'm not a charity case."

"Honey, honey. I know these things. You're molding young minds. It's maybe the most important thing in the world, but it's not a money game." He tapped himself on his bare chest. "My game's a money game. It's brutal and maybe it doesn't help society much, but it is my game."

In the darkness, it was hard for him to tell if his wife was smiling or smirking. "You Tarzan, huh?"

"Yeah, something like that....Jane horny again?" He reached for her, but she slipped from his grasp and headed for the bathroom.

"Jane need a shower," she said over her shoulder. "Smell like Cheetah."

Artie showered next, and when he returned to bed she was asleep on fresh sheets, her mouth open like a child who's been overcome by drowsiness in the midst of a surprise. Artie listened to her breathe for a few minutes before getting up and taking out the box.

In the moonlight the money looked gray, and he could have sworn the many faces of Andrew Jackson were scowling at him for having disturbed their long, deep slumber in the ceiling. He held the open box to his nose and breathed deeply, as if it contained Cuban cigars.

Old money. He'd heard the term a million times in his life, but this was the first time it applied literally. There were no two ways about it - Artie Farley of Levittown, Long Island had come into old money.

"Had to take another look, huh?"

She was perched at his shoulder like an owl.

"Jesus, honey, you scared me half to death."

"Did you lock the doors downstairs?"

"They're locked, they're locked!"

"I'm thinking maybe a safe deposit box isn't such a good idea."

Artie's shoulders slumped. "You got a better idea?"

"I don't know. You're Mr. Money. You tell me."

"What's wrong with a safe deposit box?"

"Well. It puts us on record, right?"

Artie shrugged. "Yes and no. They don't ever have to know what's in the box, unless..."

"Unless what?"

Artie sighed. "If the holder of the box dies, the IRS sends an agent to be there when it's opened."

Diane's eyes widened. "Hang on, now. What if it's in both our names?"

Artie shrugged. "I'm not sure how that works."

"Well, I think we want to be sure, don't we?"

"Diane, I swear to God, you're giving me the creeps. What is it you want to do?"

She reached out to stroke his cheek. "For the time being, let's keep it where it's been safe all along. Right in this house. As you said, nobody's looking for it here, right?"

Artie swallowed. "Ceiling's not there anymore."

"I'm sure we can come up with another good place. Come on."

"Now?!"

"Yes, Artie, now. Let's not kid ourselves. Nobody's getting to sleep until that money is safely stashed somewhere."

In a semi-stupor, Artie followed his wife down the cellar stairs. For as long as he'd known her, he'd taken a private pleasure in the delicacy of her vocabulary. He'd sooner expect her to punch out a nun than use a word like "stashed," but that was the word she'd used, all right...

Diane felt around for the pull string that lit the cellar and gave it a tug. There wasn't much down there besides an oil burner and a water heater. She prowled around like a panther on the hunt, the box tucked under her arm.

"We should've worn shoes," Artie muttered.

"Bingo!" she exclaimed, patting a fuse box. The thing was long dead since the installation of a new one upstairs. Its black metal door pulled open easily, and the box of cash fit perfectly inside its gutted interior.

"Great place, no?"

"It will be," Artie said. He ran upstairs and returned with a Phillips head screwdriver and a handful of screws. In five minutes the money was inside the fuse box, and its door was screwed tightly shut.

"All right?" he asked. "Can we go to bed now?"

"Yeah, Artie. Let's go to bed."

They climbed the stairs with their arms around each other's waists and slid beneath the sheets like pre-schoolers eager for their afternoon nap. Before falling asleep, Artie had a tickle of a notion that never quite blossomed into a thought. But if it had blossomed, it would have been this: Maybe I never should have touched that damn ceiling...

CHAPTER SIX

TWO days later, a weary man named Richie Fasanella was rolling up the burglar-proof gate that protected his candy shop. The rusty squeal it made every time Richie pulled it up or down went right through him.

Maybe it kept burglars out, but nothing kept local kids from spray-painting their messages on it in the middle of the night. RAOUL SUCKS was the latest one, in big red letters that made the surrounding messages seem old and faded. In another time, Richie might have taken the trouble to scrub the gate clean, but that time was long gone.

He unlocked the shop and turned on the lights, and his morning's work was pretty much done. A far cry from the way things used to be.

For one thing, he no longer made ice cream sodas - the way kids were nowadays, the last thing you wanted to do was encourage them to stay in the store. This meant he no longer carried ice cream or other dairy products, and that was okay, too. You didn't worry about spoilage when all you carried were bottled soft drinks, and Richie didn't want to worry about spoilage. He didn't want to worry about much of anything, beyond turning enough of a profit to stay alive.

Packaged candy, magazines, bottled sodas and minor medications. That was pretty much it these days at the Fasanella & Son Sweet Shop. Richie didn't even bother carrying the daily newspapers anymore, a fact that would certainly have broken his old man's heart. The elder Fasanella, rest his soul, had believed in newspapers with all his considerable heart and soul. Get 'em in to buy the paper, he used to say, and they'll stay to buy more. Of course, it was that kind of a place back then, when his parents were alive, the kind of place where the customers liked to linger. It bustled with people they knew, and the children of people they knew...children for whom his mother and father were delighted to make an egg cream, or build a chocolate sundae...

Hesitantly, Richie pulled on the tarnished brass spout that used to deliver seltzer water. It was long disconnected, but for a heartbeat Richie could have sworn the thing made a hissing sound. Impossible, of course. It was just a squeak, the first time the spout had been touched in more than a decade.

Richie turned away from the sound as if it pained him physically, and caught sight of his reflection in the sooty front window. His cheeks were starting to sag, and his belly bulged over the waist of his jeans. He was balding at the crown. The sad brown eyes that looked back at him were the eyes of a zoo animal who no longer noticed the bars of his cage. In a few weeks he'd be fifty, and he looked every minute of it.

Jesus, if the old man was around to see how everything had fallen apart, he'd be so ashamed...but then again, there was so much more to be ashamed of than a candy store gone to seed...

The door opened, and in came a cadaverous man in a loose salt-and-pepper winter coat that flapped when he walked. He carried a large paper sack, which he set on the floor as he seated his bony hams on a stool at the counter.

"These things ain't comfortable no more," he announced. "Padding's shot."

"You want comfort, Spoony, go home to your mother's couch."

“Is that any way to talk to a customer?”

“Customers buy things.”

They went through conversations like this almost every day. They'd known each other all their lives. Spoony got that name because he ate everything with a spoon, disdaining other cutlery. He wasn't quite right in the head, and hadn't been ever since his mother had dropped him on his head while changing the infant Spoony's diaper.

At least that's what the old-timers around the neighborhood believed. Spoony got as far as the sixth grade before leaving school for good, to nobody's consternation. Since then, he'd pretty much spent his time prowling the streets, combing garbage pails and junkyards in search of gold. He lived with his ancient parents, each of whom still blamed the other ("You shouldn't have dropped him" - "Yeah? You shoulda caught him!") for their only child's mental state. What they failed to realize was that through it all, they'd managed to bring up that rarity of rarities...a truly happy person.

"Put the radio on," Spoony said.

Richie pointed at the ceiling. "Marion's still asleep."

"Yeah? What's she, sick?"

Richie shook his head. "She's tired. Worked a four to midnight."

"Why don't you marry that girl?"

"Why don't you get a date?"

Spoony placed a dignified hand to his chest. "I'm a confirmed bachelor."

"Still beatin' 'em off with a stick, eh, Spoons?"

"Why don't you marry that girl?" Spoony persisted.

"What do you care whether I get married or not?"

"I'd get to wear my tux."

Richie's eyes widened. "Since when you got a tux?"

Spoony leaned forward in excitement. "Found it in a dumpster on Atlantic Avenue."

"You found a tuxedo."

Spoony nodded. "In a garment bag, it was. Thirty-eight long. A little loose, but it fits. It's powder blue."

"Powder blue?!"

"Also, there's a rip in the seat, but my mother can patch it."

"She's got a powder blue patch?"

"It don't have to match exactly, Rich. I ain't particular. So come on, marry Marion so I can wear it."

Richie had to smile. 'It's tempting, Spoons, but I'm gonna pass."

"Ahh, you're no fun no more, Rich. I don't know what that girl sees in you."

"Tell you the truth, neither do I."

Richie set out coffee cups and poured hot water over instant powder for himself and his friend.

"You ain't got no milk, Richie."

"I got the powdered stuff."

"That's shit."

"True, but it keeps."

"I can't believe you ain't got milk."

"You want milk, bring it with you."

"Ahh, I brung somethin' better'n milk." He patted the bag at his ankles. What with the recent influx of Yuppies buying houses and gutting them, Spoony's business was brisk. There was a lot to pick over in all those huge green dumpsters, and he often came home at night coated in plaster dust. People threw out perfectly good chairs, lamps, even TV sets. Spoony's room was stacked high with the stuff, and when he hoisted the paper bag to the counter Richie wasn't enthused.

Whatever Spoony had in there, he could do without seeing it. Once it was a cuckoo clock with the damn bird missing. Another time, a radio shaped like a hula dancer, missing at least half its necessary wiring.

"Oh you're gonna like this, my friend."

"What do you want, a fuckin' drum roll? Open the bag already."

Like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat Spoony yanked the treasure from the bag and set it before Richie, who felt the coffee go sour in his mouth. Gingerly he reached for the gray metal box and ran his fingertips over the word PECHTER'S, like a blind man reading Braille.

A suddenly solemn Spoony sipped his coffee, clenching the mug in two trembling hands.

"All these years, huh, Richie? All these years, and there it is."

Artie and Diane were sitting at the kitchen table, solemnly picking over a takeout Mexican meal. They'd barely spoken about the money in the days since they'd found it. And they were barely speaking at all on this evening because of Artie's obsession with pregnancy.

That was the word Diane had used to describe it, and Artie didn't like it at all.

"I'm not obsessing!" he insisted. "I just want to know!"

He held out a box with an early pregnancy detection kit in it.

"Oh for God's sake, Artie!"

"Just pee in a cup. Is that so much to ask? I'll do the rest."

"It's a waste of time."

"Humor me."

"You know what, Artie? You're not very good at being off from work. That's what this is all about. All that competitive energy has nowhere to go. The day goes by and you haven't beaten the socks off of anybody, so you have to create your own game. And the name of the game is, Knock Up Your Wife."

"That's not true."

"What's the full story here, Artie? Do you have a pregnancy bet going with one of your Wall Street buddies?"

"Are you nuts?!"

"No, no, you can tell me. I'll bet I know. You and some other young shark bet each other on who can impregnate his wife the fastest. Right? Loser buys the beer?"

Artie ripped open the box, pulled out a little cup and handed it to Diane. "Humor me," he repeated.

It was easier just to go along. And so Diane peed in the cup and left it on the bathroom sink for Artie, who performed the test and returned to his wife with a long face.

"Negative."

"Of course it's negative. Pass the guacamole, would you?"

"I just don't get it."

"Nothing's wrong. You're rushing things. Eat something."

"Maybe this kit's defective."

"Yes, that's right, Artie. Why don't you run out and get another kit, and I'll pee into another cup, and we'll go through this again and again until we get it right."

The doorbell rang. Artie remained seated, staring at the negative test results.

"I'll get it," Diane said. "Maybe it's the stork."

Diane looked through the peephole to see a heavyset man in a brown leather jacket. He stood there looking down at his shoes, like a meter reader who doesn't expect to find anyone home. Then she noticed the paper bag tucked under his arm. He rang the bell again.

“Let him in, already!”

“Artie. I don’t like this.”

"Who the hell is it?"

“I have no idea.”

Artie stuffed all the pregnancy kit materials deep into a garbage bag before going to the door and opening it.

Richie Fasanella seemed almost sorry that they’d answered his knock. He looked at the couple and cleared his throat. "Sorry to disturb you,” he began. “I'm a neighbor of yours. Live a few blocks from here."

"Uh-huh," Artie said.

"I’m wonderin’ if I could talk to you about something."

"A neighborhood matter?"

"Yeah. Good way of puttin' it. A neighborhood matter. Can I come in?"

And before Artie could give permission Richie was inside, sniffing new paint. His gaze drifted to the ceiling.

"Wow," he murmured. "You're gonna restore that old tin ceiling? Pretty ambitious."

Artie swallowed. "More ambitious than I meant to be, actually."

"Yeah, I hear you. Once you start, there's no turnin' back, huh?" He chuckled. "Old lady Rivioli, she wasn't too big on upkeep."

Artie's jaws tightened. "You knew her?"

"Oh, sure. Knew her grandsons. Kind of a funny family. High-strung people, if you know what I mean. Good cooks, though." He chuckled. "Bet I ate a hundred meals in this house. My mother, she didn't cook much. Not your typical Italian mother. She was too busy workin' to put in much stove time."

"You know, Mister..."

"Fasanella, Richie Fasanella. Call me Richie."

"I'm Artie Farley. My wife, Diane." Richie shoved the bag under his left arm so he could shake hands with both of them.

"Mr. Fasanella," Artie said, "the truth is, we're kind of tired, here. Would you mind if we did this another time?"

"Thing of it is, I would." He took the bag, pulled out the battered metal box and held it out to the couple. "See, we just gotta talk about this thing, here."

Artie and Diane stared at the box. Richie noticed they were suddenly holding hands.

"Friend o' mine found it in your dumpster out there. He's sort of the neighborhood scavenger...truth is, I've been lookin' for this box for a long, long time."

Diane swallowed with difficulty, smoothed back her hair. "It's just a metal box. We never wanted it, obviously. We threw it out."

Richie sighed. "Lady, I'm the last man in the world to speak disrespectfully to a woman, but you must think I'm pretty fuckin' stupid."

Artie took a step closer to Richie. "That's my wife you're speaking to, Mr. Fasanella," he said evenly.

Richie held his ground, feet flat on the floor. "That's right," he gently agreed. "She's your wife, this is my box and the contents are missing. See, the issue here is the contents. We just gotta talk about the contents."

"There are no contents," Artie said.

"Maybe not now, but believe me, there were. Could we sit somewhere? You got a kitchen table and chairs yet? Because we could go and talk at my house if you'd rather."

Artie breathed a little more easily. Richie's willingness to leave the house, the very place he certainly expected the money to be stashed, somehow made him seem more like a man of reason. Now, suddenly, it seemed unlikely he'd be carrying a gun, or a knife.

Artie was just drawing breath to say they'd come with him to his house when Diane spoke first.

"We'll talk here," she said. “Anything any of us has to say, we'll say it here and now. Let's go to the kitchen."

CHAPTER SEVEN

DIANE cleared the Mexican food from the kitchen table and made coffee. She set out a plate of Oreo cookies and poured the coffee. They all sat down.

Richie sipped his coffee. "May I ask what you paid for this house?"

"Seven hundred and fifty," Artie said, and despite the situation he couldn't help feeling a tingle of pride.

Richie shook his head. "Thirty years ago, you could've had it for twenty-five. I guess with a monthly nut like yours that box came in pretty handy, huh?"

Artie swallowed. "I really don't know what you mean."

Richie set his cup down almost daintily on its saucer. “Let's quit playin' around." He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his fleshy face. "There was a hundred and fifty grand in that box, give or take ten grand. Go on, now, tell me I'm wrong and I'll leave."

"You're wrong," Artie said.

"Well, I lied. I ain't leavin.' "

Artie folded his arms across his chest. "The box was empty."

"That so?" Richie put the box on the table, shoved it temptingly toward Diane.

"Smell it, lady," he urged. "It smells like money. No smell in the world like it. So. Come on. Where'd you put it?"

Diane arched her back. "We didn't put it anywhere. We never had it."

"And if we did," Artie chimed in, "how would you know how much money it was, anyway?"

Richie pulled the box back close and gently drummed his fingers on its lid. "Because," he said, "I'm the guy who stole it."

All at once, it felt to Artie as if everything in the room had changed - the light, the air, and even the floorboards under his feet seemed to have a new density. He felt his stomach sink the way it did when he was a kid, perched on the end of the high-dive board.

"You stole it," Artie deadpanned.

Richie nodded almost humbly, as a retired athlete might upon being reminded of his heroics on the ballfield.

"Long time ago," he said softly. "Spent eleven years in jail for that box."

His chair creaked as he leaned back. "So you see I'm not a fugitive. I just want what I got comin'."

Diane and Artie stared in wonder at this stranger, the very first person they were meeting from the area. An ex-con. Welcome to the neighborhood.

Richie chuckled. "I'm shocking you folks. I'm sorry. You seem like nice people. I'll answer any questions you got, if you answer one for me - where the hell was the money? I gotta figure it was in the cellar, or the ceiling. Seein' how you've removed the drop ceiling, I'm gonna guess it was the ceiling."

Diane nodded, almost imperceptibly.

"The box was in the ceiling," Artie chimed in. "Again, we don't know anything about any money."

Richie cocked his head like a curious bird. "Beg your pardon?"

"Like I said. The box was empty."

Artie said it so plainly, so convincingly that even Diane almost believed him. This was her husband, she realized, the man who day in and day out put everything he had into his beliefs...and made money. Big money. At long last, she was starting to understand why he was on the way to becoming a rich man. It was an act of will.

It was an act that was not working on Richie Fasanella.

The big Italian gripped the edges of the kitchen table with both hands. “Please don’t treat me like an idiot. I’d rather you just told me you refuse to share it.”

Diane sat up straight. "Share it?"

"Diane," Artie murmured, but she ignored him.

Richie nodded, spread his arms. "Hey, I'm not a hog. Without you people, who knows how long that money woulda stayed up there? Or if anybody ever woulda found it?" He set his large hands flat on the table, fingers spread wide.

"Half for me, half for you. Right? So we're talkin' seventy-five thousand apiece, roughly. Not a bad payoff all around."

Nobody said anything. At last, Diane cleared her throat.

"I could call the police."

Richie shook his his head. "No, you couldn't, lady. You call 'em and say what, exactly? There's a man demanding money from you, money you found in the ceiling?”

He sat forward, his big belly lapping over on the table. "They'll want to know things, especially when I get talkin.' And I would, see, 'cause right now I got nothin' to lose, but you? You stand to lose a fortune to the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association. You want all that money going to coffee and powdered doughnuts for cops, that's your choice. Me, I figure we're all better off if we share it."

They both watched as Richie unscrewed an Oreo and scraped off the white filling with his top teeth, the way a child would. He sucked his teeth clean, offered a smile.

"It's only fair. I did eleven years for that money. The insurance company made good on the theft. Way I see it, everybody's been paid in full except me. And even now, I ain't demandin' payment in full. Like I said, I'll go for half." He noisily crunched the rest of the cookie.

"A third," Diane blurted.

Artie felt his belly sink. Now she'd done it. He watched Richie's eyebrows arch in happy surprise. Then he grinned, showing chocolate-covered teeth.

"So you’re admitting you’ve got the money, huh?”

"A third," Diane echoed.

"I see. So you're saying roughly fifty grand for me, is that about right?"

"A third," Diane said yet again. "A three-way split. Can I make it any clearer? We're being straight with you about the money."

"Yeah, well, it took you a while."

Diane didn't dare look at Artie, but she could feel his malevolent gaze, twin laser beams burning into her profile. "We had to be sure of things ourselves," she said evenly.

"Oh yeah? What are you sure of now that you weren't sure of before?"

"I'm sure that you're a thief."

Richie put his head back and laughed out loud. "Good one, lady."

Artie couldn't keep quiet any longer. "Would have been nice if you and I had a chance to discuss this in private, Diane," he sputtered.

She rolled her eyes and gestured at Richie. "Do you think he was going to let us out of his sight?"

"Oh, I would have," Richie said. "I still would. You two want to go upstairs and talk it over, I'll wait here."

"Not much point now," Artie said.

"Yes there is," Diane said. "Come on, Artie. Mr. Fasanella, we'll be back."

He hoisted his coffee cup, took another Oreo. "I’ll be here.”

They climbed the stairs as if they were ascending the hangman's scaffold. They went into their bedroom and sat side by side on the bed, not touching.

“Close the door,” Artie all but whispered. Diane did as she was told and sat down again beside him.

“He didn’t live in this house,” Diane said. “How the hell did his money wind up in our ceiling?”

Artie ignored the question. It was irrelevant. It had nothing to do with the current situation.

Diane couldn’t stand the silence. "Say it," she said to the floor.

"You blew it. You just...plain...fucking....blew it."

It would have been easier, Diane realized, if Artie were screaming and yelling, or busting up furniture. This carefully controlled fury was as terrifying as the measured crawl of a rattlesnake.

"I'm sorry you feel that way, Artie," she whispered at last.

"We could have bluffed him, but you caved."

She blinked back tears. "If you say so, Artie."

Artie squeezed his hands together, as if to keep himself from throwing a punch. "Why'd you throw the box out like that, where anybody could find it?"

"Why not? It was garbage! You put garbage in a dumpster! How was I supposed to know there are people who dig through dumpsters in this crazy neighborhood?!"

She clapped a hand over her mouth, aware of how loud she'd been. When she trusted herself to speak softly, she dropped her hand. "He knew," she whispered. "Let's face it, he knew it all the way, just from the look on our faces. We're legitimate people. We can't hide anything."

"He knew nothing 'til you told him. Nothing. Nada. Zip."

"All right, all right! It's my fault!” Her voice broke and tears spilled down her cheeks. “Are you happy now? I’m taking all the blame for this!”

"Stop crying, Diane."

"What can I say? The thing is done. I can’t undo it."

"Just stop crying. It's over. It's done. Finito."

Diane wiped her eyes. "I hate it when you do that," she murmured. “Throwing in a foreign word here and there. Nada. Finito."

Artie snorted. "Okay, Di. Let's turn this around from Diane Fucks Up A Fortune to Artie's Shitty Vocabulary. Feel better now? Huh? Feel superior?!"

"Ohhhh....."

Diane flopped on her back. "Artie, there's no point in prolonging this. Let's pay him his third and get him the hell out of our house."

"Hang on, hang on. I didn't hear him agree to a third. Last I heard, he wants half."

"He'll go for a third, believe me."

"Yeah? Okay, we give him a third. What's to keep him from coming back tomorrow for another third, and the day after that for the third third?"

"He won't."

"Why not?"

"Because the money won't be here. It'll be in a safe deposit box, where we should have put it the day we found it."

"As I recall, you came up with that idea, and then vetoed it."

"Yes, I did. And I was wrong. This Fasanella character only has power while the money's in this house. Once we take it away, his power is gone."

"Is that so?"

"Trust me, Artie. We give him a third now, and he's out of our lives."

She actually winked at Artie, something he'd never seen her do. Artie picked up a pillow and punched it.

"I could have bluffed this guy," he snarled. "Man, he'd have walked out of here without a nickel."

"Artie, Artie, you're so full of bravado right now it doesn't even occur to you how dangerous this man is."

"That guy?" Artie laughed out loud. "I eat guys like him for breakfast every day at work!"

"No, Artie, you don't. He's a criminal. The guys you eat for breakfast talk tough, but they're afraid to ride the subway at night. This is a whole other level of toughness."

"You calling me a wimp?"

"I'm calling you an extremely over-excited male who very understandably doesn't want to part with one-third of a fortune. But that's what we've got to do, Artie. It's the only way. Right?"

Too stunned to answer or even nod, Artie Farley merely stared at his wife.

"Good," she said brightly. "Now let's go and get this over with."

She rose to leave, but Artie caught her by the wrist. "You know, you're cold," he blurted, astonishing himself with his own words.

Diane breathed hard in response, her nostrils flaring. "What can I say? The situation calls for it. I'm learning late. This is business, right? You're always reminding me that I know nothing about business. Well, maybe at last I'm learning. And it sure turned out to be an expensive lesson."

She yanked free of his grip. "Let's do this thing," she said, leading the way downstairs.

Richie had not budged from the table. Diane and Artie sat to join him. From a drawer in the kitchen, she'd picked up a pen and paper.

"Resolve anything up there, kids?"

Diane nodded. "We'll give up a third. Deal?"

Richie sighed. "The other way of lookin' at it is that I'm givin' up two-thirds."

"A third," Diane said. "Take it or leave it."

Richie looked at Artie, gestured at Diane. "Guess she's in charge here, huh?"

Artie's nostrils flared. "Hey, pal. You and I know you don't deserve dick. It's only my big-hearted wife here who's looking out for you. If I don't let her give you this gift, I'll never hear the end of it."

"It's not a gift," Diane said evenly. "It's just the right thing to do." She swallowed before adding, "And by the way, you're not letting me do anything."

"Fine, fine, whatever."

Richie's shoulders slumped, ever so slightly. He leaned back and stared at the ceiling. "You both know that half is closer to fair."

"A third," Diane said flatly. "That's the deal."

Richie rubbed his stubbly chin. "How much is it, exactly?"

"A hundred and sixty two thousand, five hundred and twenty."

"Whoa! I was close, huh? Pretty damn close." He shrugged, puffed out his cheeks and exhaled deeply. "What the hell. You're as greedy as I am desperate. A third it is."

He put his hand out to shake with Diane, who ignored it, already busy with calculations on the paper. He turned to Artie and the two of them shook hands, briefly and awkwardly.

"I'll tell you what," Richie said. "I won't even ask to count it. Hell, nobody would make up a figure like one sixty two, five twenty." Richie turned to Diane. "I can do it in my head. It's fifty-four thousand apiece, with five hundred and twenty left over. Which I'll take."

Artie held up his hand. "Look, now, Fasanella - "

"It's not for me. It's for my friend Spoony, who discovered the box in your dumpster. Call it a finder's fee."

"Spoony," Diane echoed.

"Yeah. He also found a tuxedo the other day on Atlantic Avenue. Says it fits pretty good. Anyway, he deserves those few leftover bucks. Fair's fair." He wagged a finger at them. "And remember, I ain't troubling you with a re-count. I think that's pretty sporting of me."

"What the hell," Diane said. "Take it."

Artie stared at her in shock. "Diane, he's only doing this to stick it to us!"

"It's five hundred and twenty dollars, Artie. It's hardly worth the aggravation."

"We're already parting with fifty-four grand!" He turned to Richie. "You want to give your buddy a tip, man, you take it out of your end!"

"That ain't how I see it," Richie said calmly.

A blood vessel bulged in Artie's throat. "We're not idiots here, Fasanella. You want to make fools out of us."

"Nope. I just want my friend to have what he deserves."

They glared at each other, eyeball to eyeball, until Diane broke Artie's gaze by squeezing his hand.

"Artie. It's over. We give him the extra few dollars, and he's out of our lives forever."

"Listen to the woman, Artie, she makes good sense."

The blood vessel in Artie's neck receded. He nodded, almost imperceptibly. "All right, all right. Fuck it."

Richie exhaled and rolled his head from side to side, like a man who's just put down a piano. They could hear his neckbones crack, and when at last he sat forward again he was visibly relaxed.

"Well then, that's it." He smacked his hands together. "Give me what I got comin', and I'm gone."

Diane was startled. "You just want to walk out of here with it?"

He chuckled. "What am I gonna do, take a check? Stick it in a plastic bag and I'll carry it home like groceries. On second thought, better make it a double-bag."

Diane rose from her seat. "It's downstairs. It'll take me a few minutes to get it out."

"I'll do it," Artie said.

"No." Diane pushed down on his shoulder to keep him seated. "You stay here with our guest. I'd rather not be alone with Mr. Fasanella."

Diane turned and walked, but not toward the cellar steps.

"Where are you going?" Artie asked.

"I left the screwdriver upstairs. Also, I need my jacket. It's freezing in that cellar."

A minute later she came back down in a bulky jacket, wielding the screwdriver like a dagger. She thumped noisily downstairs, slamming the cellar door behind her.

The men were alone, looking at each other.

“Some night,” Richie offered.

“Yeah.”

Artie couldn’t sit still. He got up, brought the coffee pot to the table and filled their cups. Doubts pelted his brain about the way they'd handled things. He knew, he just knew, that they could have bluffed the fat Italian right out of his socks...but rock-bottom, he was relieved. Now, at least, they knew where the money had come from, and they were doing the right thing. It was almost like refusing to cheat on their taxes by surrendering a third of the fortune. Just about what Uncle Sam would have taken, had the money been on the record...

It was as if Richie could read his mind. He hoisted his coffee cup as if he were making a toast. "You did good, you kids. You’re doin’ the right thing."

Now, suddenly, with everything resolved, the mood had changed. They were boxers in the locker room after fifteen vicious rounds, embarrassed by the aftermath of such an intimate conflict.

Artie shrugged. "Kinda hard to know what to do, in a situation like this."

"Ain't it, though?" Richie patted himself on his wide belly. "But in the end, your gut tells you what to do."

"Told my wife, is what you mean. I didn't want to give up a penny.

Richie nodded. "You don't like to lose, do you?"

"Does anybody?"

"No. But some of us get used to it."

"Getting used to losing is what makes you a loser."

"You're probably right about that. On the other hand, you're pretty young. Talk to me when you're fifty."

"I doubt very much that we'll be in touch when I turn fifty."

"You're probably right about that, too." He sipped his coffee. "You plannin' on havin' children?"

What a conversation to be having, in the wake of what had just happened! But Artie saw no reason not to answer the man.

"That's why we moved from Manhattan," he said. "We're trying for a kid right now, as a matter of fact."

"Good luck to you. And be glad you got a strong woman like her. Mothers gotta be tough. She'll be a good one."

Artie stood. "Excuse me a minute. I'm going to go down and help her. See, I screwed the money into an old fuse box down there, and I probably screwed it in too tight.”

But before Artie could open the cellar door it suddenly blew open, and a gust of wind went through the kitchen.

Artie was confused. The burly Italian was not.

His face suddenly went gray and a wracking cough shook him to his shoes. He set his cup down and struggled to his feet.

Artie rushed over and pounded his back. Maybe a bit of a cookie had gone down the wrong pipe, or maybe he was having a heart attack....

A heart attack! What if he died here in the kitchen? They'd save fifty-four thousand dollars, but they'd have a corpse to deal with. Jesus Christ!

But it was no heart attack. Richie's back arched with a surge of strength. He opened his mouth as if to speak the final words of his life and growled, "Your wife's gone!"

Artie's spine tingled. "No, no. She's having trouble with the screws. Come on, come with me, we'll both help her."

“She’s gone, man!”

Artie led the way down the cellar steps, an unfamiliar breeze puffing against his face. It came from the open basement window, which led to the yard behind the house. Also gaping wide open was the empty fuse box.

Losing height...Artie sensed he was getting shorter, and then realized he'd sunk to his knees on the chilly dirt floor. From this position it was a short trip to the floor itself, which Artie Farley hit face-first in a dead faint.

CHAPTER EIGHT

WHEN he came to he was lying on the living room floor, a makeshift pillow made from Richie's rolled-up jacket behind his head. His first clear thought was that the guy had carried him all the way up here, an impressive feat. He blinked at Richie, squatting at his side. The big man's bare arms twitched with muscle.

"You've been out about ten minutes."

Artie's hand reached for his tender nose, which felt as bulbous as a Christmas tree ornament.

"Yeah, you landed right on your honker. Bleedin' stopped, though. I guess you ain't fakin.' "

"Faking?"

"What I mean is, you wouldn't take a header like that just for show. You weren't in on it with her, is what I'm sayin.' "

“In on it?”

“Artie. She just took off with our money.”

“Our money?”

“Yours and mine, buddy.”

Artie dimly realized that this stranger had just turned them into partners. He shook his head, and even this slight motion made his head throb. "No," he said. "She just...went a little nuts.”

Richie hesitated. "Hate to disagree with you, but that woman is about as far from nuts as they come. This was probably the sanest thing she ever did."

Artie struggled to sit up. "You don't know her, Mister."

Richie shrugged. "Maybe you're right. But I’m thinkin’ you don't know her, either. Lie back down."

Artie obeyed, and was startled when Richie set a cool wet washcloth on his forehead. "Did you try to catch her?"

Richie nodded. "Couldn't squeeze through that window. Ran out front and looked around, but no sign of her....Hey, that Ford Explorer out front - is that your car?"

"Yeah."

"Only car you got?"

"Yeah."

"Damn, she’s good. She knows she'd be easier to catch if she was in a car."

"How do you figure?"

"We report it as stolen. Car's in your name, I bet."

"Yeah..."

"So, she'd be a car thief, technically. Among other things."

Artie swallowed. "I could never do that to her."

"Do that to her? Jesus, that's a funny way of lookin' at it."

"And anyway, we can't go to the police. You said so yourself."

Richie sighed. “She knows that, too. You married a smart one, kid.”

"A smart one," Artie murmured, staring straight up into the cavernous ceiling he'd insisted upon exposing. He'd asked for it, all right, and Jesus, was he getting it now...

Richie smacked the floor hard with his hand. "Shit! I had a feeling, a funny feeling, and I ignored it. Like her going up to get a jacket before she went downstairs, you know? And on top of that, she looked all bulky around her belly. She's a skinny girl, your wife, so why the hell's she all of a sudden lookin' chubby? I gotta figure she had a bag, or maybe a knapsack under there."

"What for?"

"What for. How hard did you hit that floor, man?" Richie sighed before continuing in a gentler tone. "Somethin' to carry the money in. Right now she's probably walkin' down the street with a knapsack on her back, like a college student bringin' her laundry home on a weekend visit. Not a crook in the world would think she had a fortune in there."

Artie hid his face in his hands and began sobbing. Richie gave his shoulder a few awkward pats.

"Hey, come on. It happens."

"She'll call. I know she'll call."

"Yeah? When?"

"Any minute."

Artie struggled to sit up, catching the washcloth as it fell from his forehead. He took out his cell phone and checked it for messages. Nothing. He rang Diane’s number and was immediately diverted to voice mail.

“Diane, call me,” he said. “I’m still with Mr. Fasanella.”

Richie leaned close to Artie. “She won’t call.”

“Fuck you.”

"Think about it. If she wanted you in on her scheme, don't you think she'd have said somethin' to you upstairs, where I couldn't hear?"

"Maybe she figured if she told me her plan, I wouldn't be able to keep it from you. So she couldn't tell me."

"Yeah? So what's her next move?"

"She's just...buying time." Artie squinted, as if he were trying to see Diane in the distant hills of his mind. "She's away from here, that's the main thing, and she's got the money. She's protecting it for both of us."

"Yeah? That's your theory?"

Artie had no answer.

"Because I have to tell you, pal," Richie said, "that if a person wants to protect their money, runnin' off into the streets of Brooklyn at night with a sack full of cash ain't exactly banking at its best."

Artie wiped sweat from his forehead. "She'll call. All I have to do is sit tight."

"You sit tight, and you'll be sitting for the rest of your life."

Artie stared at Richie in wonder. "She's my wife," he said plainly. "We're trying to have a baby. She belongs here. She's got to come back."

Richie's eyes widened. "You actually believe that?"

Like a fighter who's taken an eight count, Artie slowly got up. Richie stood ready to catch him, but Artie was all right. He planted his feet wide for balance and sucked a deep breath through clenched teeth before turning to Richie.

"I don't know what I believe anymore. I swear to God, I don't know."

Richie startled Artie by putting his arm across his shoulders for a momentary squeeze. "Like it or not, we're in this together. Now go wash your face. We'll get some fresh coffee in you and figure out our next move."

When Artie was through washing up he was startled to find that Richie already had the coffee going. It was as if this stranger had lived in the house all his life. Richie handed him a knotted plastic bag, heavy with ice cubes.

"Ice that nose, or you'll turn into Bozo the Clown."

Artie did as he was told, savoring the numbness. Almost casually Richie asked, "She got a passport?"

"Oh, come on, man!"

"Better see if it's still there."

He kept the ice bag pressed to his nose as he went up to the bedroom and found Diane's passport rubber banded together with his at the back of the top bureau drawer. He returned to the kitchen with this news.

"Great," Richie said. "Already we eliminate six continents from our search area."

"Your search area."

"What's that?"

"I'm not searching for her. I'm waiting for her to come back."

"Oh, you're back to that theory?"

"I never left it."

Richie sighed as he poured coffee. "Go ahead, now, sit down and drink it black. Gotta get your edge back."

Artie tossed the ice bag in the sink and sipped the coffee, the steam making his tender nose run. Richie poured himself a cup and sat across from Artie, his own weariness evident in the puffy pouches under his eyes.

"All right," he began. "Where'd she go?"

"I don't know."

"We'll go back a little bit. She been actin' funny since you found the money?"

"No...maybe...shit, I don't know. How the hell would anybody act if a fortune fell out of their ceiling?"

"Happy would be my guess."

"She's been nervous lately, anyway. New house and everything. Plus, we've been trying to have a baby. I guess it's all a little overwhelming."

"She didn't want to move to Brooklyn, did she?"

Artie arched his back. "What makes you say that?"

"Her face. Brooklyn’s a step backwards for a woman like that. She's got that Manhattan look to her, all the way. Brooklyn's like a petting zoo to her. Come here once a year, gawk at the people, run the hell home."

"You got it wrong. She was happy here. She liked the yard, the trees - "

"Aw, come on. That how you sold her on Brooklyn? A yard and trees? What is she, a friggin’ botanist?"

Artie got to his feet and felt his shoulders swell, like the hood of an angry cobra. "Listen, pal. For your information, I bought her this house for her birthday. It was a surprise."

Richie's eyes widened. "She never laid eyes on this house, and you just went out and bought it?!"

"That's right. I bought it for her."

Richie chuckled. More to himself than to Artie, he murmured, "No wonder this poor girl ran."

Artie felt his fists clench. "How dare you say that, man."

"You cannot do what you did and expect it to work. No way in the world."

"Why not?"

" 'Cause you didn't buy her a house at all. You bought her a life sentence without parole, and she had nothin' to say about it."

Through tight teeth Artie said, "She loved this house."

Richie shook his head. "You loved it. For the rest o' your life you get to poke your wife in the ribs at parties and say, 'Tell 'em about how I surprised you with the house.' It's a great story. Very romantic."

"Goddam right it's romantic!"

"From your end, sure. But turn it around. Put yourself in her shoes. Let's say she makes a pile o' money, and she buys you a house. No conversation, no nothin'. Just boom, here's your new house, honey, we're movin'. How would you feel about that?"

"Grateful."

"The hell you would. You'd feel like she'd cut your nuts off with a dull axe." Richie hesitated. "You'd know she was up to somethin'."

Artie's heart pounded so hard it scared him. "I wasn't up to anything when I bought this house. It was an act of..."

"Of what? Go on, say it."

Artie cleared his throat. "Love."

To his surprise, Richie didn't laugh. "Maybe," he allowed. "Maybe. But you know what else it was? It was an act of desperation. You were out to change somethin' you knew was goin' bad, and it blew up in your face."

Artie held up an instructive forefinger. "Take my advice, and don't even think about becoming a shrink."

"This ain't psychiatry. This is shit you figure out over a cup o' cold coffee. Mind if I heat this?"

Without waiting for permission, Richie went to the stove. Artie squeezed the bridge of his nose, shut his eyes.

"This whole mess came right out of the blue," he said, more to himself than to Richie, who returned to the table with a steaming cup. Artie was startled to feel the man patting the back of his hand.

"Nothin' comes right out of the blue, my friend. Especially a $162,000 heist."

They were both quiet. In the distance, a police siren wailed. Artie dimly wondered if maybe somebody had attacked Diane - killed her and made off with the knapsack. That'd be a great story for the local tabloids! BLONDE BEAUTY BEARING BIG BUCKS BUTCHERED BY BROOKLYN BUMS...

"Huh?"

Richie rolled his eyes. "I said, when did you find the money, anyway?"

"Few days ago."

"Who found it?"

"We both did...well, I guess I did, really. It was my idea to take down the drop ceiling. The box fell right at her feet."

"But you found it," Richie said. "It was your idea to take the ceiling down."

Artie shrugged. "Yeah..."

Richie rubbed his hands together. "Okay, now we're gettin' somewhere. See, she figured you'd claim it all for your own.”

"Oh, no, no, no. Total bullshit. What's mine is ours, all the way."

Richie cocked his head. "Car ain't in her name."

"We've shared everything, ever since we got married."

"Where'd you go on your honeymoon?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Just tell me, please."

"Vegas."

"Whose idea was that?"

Artie swallowed. "We both wanted Vegas."

Richie forced a chuckle. "That woman? Please. She wants Vegas like I want needlepoint lessons. She wants Vegas like she wants Brooklyn...where'd she want to go? Come on, tell me."

Artie took a swallow of coffee. "Paris, okay?"

"Hmmm. Paris, France." Richie held one hand out to his side, palm up. "Las Vegas, Nevada." He did the same thing with his other hand and made see-saw balancing motions. "Paris, Vegas, Paris, Vegas...very similar places, when you get down to it."

"Hey, I paid for the fucking honeymoon."

Artie was shocked by his own words. A grinning Richie lifted his cup and took a long, leisurely I-rest-my-case sip.

"Slight correction," he said. "You thought you paid for it. Actually, you're payin' for it right now."

Artie sputtered, "You don't know her. You don't know us."

"Let me ask you this - when you order take-out food, who gets to choose?"

"We choose together."

"Yeah? If you want Chinese and she wants somethin' else, who gets their way?"

Artie stared at the man. It was as if he'd been eavesdropping on them on their way back from that shopping mall the other day...

"We compromise," Artie said at last. "One night my way, one night hers."

"In that order, am I right?"

Artie sighed. "Aren't we supposed to be figuring out where she went? I don't see how this is helping."

"I'm just tryin' to see how far apart you two were. We can't know where she went unless you know who she is. And so far, you ain't doin' so well."

The house phone rang, jangling both men as if it were a fire alarm.

"What did I tell you?" Artie said. "Huh?"

"Don't gloat yet. Answer it."

Artie answered the phone on the third ring, eyes tight shut. "Hello?"

"Arthur? Why haven't you called?"

Artie's shoulders sagged. "Hello, Mah, how are you?"

"Well, I'm alive."

"I'm glad."

"Are you all right? You sound funny."

“I'm fine, Mah. Just a little tired from all the work on the house."

"When am I going to see this house? Could you at least take a picture of it and send it to me?"

"Mah, please."

"Or maybe you could sketch it for me. You were very good in art class, remember?"

"Mah, I swear to God, I'll bring you out here real soon. It's just that it's a wreck right now. Wouldn't want you to get the wrong impression."

"You sound funny."

"You already told me that. Like I said, I'm just tired. We're both tired."

"If you need help, I can help."

"We got it covered, Mah."

Silence. Then, "Next week he's gone twenty years."

"I know, Mah."

"You'll come with me to the cemetery, won't you?"

"Of course I will."

"It's a big anniversary."

"We'll go to lunch after, Mah, like always. I swear."

"You don't have to swear."

"Mah, let me call you in a couple of days."

"God forbid we should speak to each other two days in a row."

"Mah, I swear to God, I have to get back to work, here. I love you. I'll call you." He hung up and turned to Richie.

"My mother."

"I gathered."

"She lives out on Long Island. She gets lonely."

Richie pointed at a framed photograph on the wall near the refrigerator.

"That her?"

"How'd you guess?"

"Ain't much of a guess. She looks like you. So does the guy."

"My father."

Artie got up, took the picture off the wall and brought it to the table. "I hang this up first, wherever we live. Makes a place feel like home right away. For me, anyway."

It was a photograph brimming with promise - a delicately pretty girl on a beach with her brawny husband, his tanned arms enveloping her from behind, their eyes alive with innumerable good times.

"Strong-lookin' guy."

"Yeah. He worked construction his whole life. Got killed in an accident on the job when I was little."

"That's tough."

"Yeah. He was great. Everybody loved him, especially my mom."

"She never remarried?"

Artie couldn’t believe the conversation had taken this turn. One minute this brute was demanding Artie’s money, the next he was asking about his widowed mother’s love life.

But in some strange way, it felt good to be talking about it.

"She never even went on a date, far as I know,” Artie replied. He wiped his finger across the picture frame's surface. "Look at this. We just moved here, and already it's dusty."

"Takin' down the ceiling’s a dusty job."

Artie busied himself cleaning the picture with a napkin.

"You her only kid?"

"Yeah."

"She doesn't think much of your wife, does she?"

It hit Artie like a punch in the gut. "Of course she likes her. How can you say that?"

"She didn't send her regards, did she? I didn't hear you say 'I'll tell her' or 'I will.' "

"That doesn't mean anything." Artie got up and hung the photo back on the wall. "That doesn't mean one fucking thing."

"If you say so, chief. Now listen." He tapped himself on the chest. "I'm going to look for my money. I think we should look together. You in, or you out?"

"How could you possibly do it without me?"

"I have no fuckin' idea, but believe me, I'll find it. Not as fast as I would with your help, but I'll find it. I've been robbed. You've been robbed, too. Now you gonna wait for a phone that ain't gonna ring, or are we partners?"

A solitary tear crawled down Artie’s face. He took one more look at his silent cell phone.

"Partners," he breathed.

Richie respected the solemnity of the decision and gave it a moment's silence. "All right," he said softly. "Sit down, now, we've got some figuring to do."

Artie obeyed. Richie rubbed his face and took a deep breath, like a climber at the base of the Matterhorn.

"Okay, so, we start out with the idea that she's travelin' on foot. She's got unlimited assets, but she's on foot. Where does she go? Manhattan, maybe?"

Artie shrugged. "It's possible."

"She got a lot of friends there?"

"Not really. A few."

"She got one really close friend? A girlfriend she tells everything to?"

Artie felt his scalp tingle. "That'd be Jessica." Artie began dialing his cell phone, but Richie caught him by the hand and shut it off.

"Whoa, whoa, not that way. Might as well fire a warning shot. We just show up, okay? This Jessica broad live in a doorman building?"

Artie shook his head. "Walk-up in the East Village."

"Beautiful. Get your car keys. Let's go. Hey, let me take a leak first, all this coffee's goin' right through me."

Artie pointed. "The bathroom's - "

"Hey, I know where it is. Like I said, I must've eaten a hundred meals in this house. That Old Lady Rivioli, she sure could cook."

CHAPTER NINE

FIVE minutes later they were riding down Atlantic Avenue toward the Brooklyn Bridge, Artie gripping the steering wheel tightly enough to feel his pulse in his palms. Richie patted his knee.

"Doin' all right, kid?" He sounded like a fight manager comforting a boxer after a rough round.

Artie nodded. "I'm okay."

“Slow down, here. Wanna show you something."

Artie slowed the car to a crawl. Richie pointed at a large yellow brick building which had clearly been refurbished in the past year or so. A green awning out in front said THE MILLSTONE ARMS, in a pompous gold script.

"Condos," Richie said. "I hear they're askin’ a hundred and fifty for a one-bedroom. Can you believe that?"

"Why'd you want me to see this?"

"Used to be a bakery called Pechter's. You know. The place I robbed." He chuckled. "Get a load of this Millstone Arms bullshit. Like they ever used a millstone to grind the wheat!"

Artie took a last look at the building before hitting the gas. "Brings back tender memories for you, I imagine."

"Yeah, that's the place that put me through college, so to speak. Eleven years of college." He sat back and closed his eyes, a dim smile on his lips.

"God, how good it used to smell around here. Rainy days, especially. Nothin' like a rainy day at a bakery. Dampness had a way of keepin' the bread smells from floatin' away...never got sick of that smell, the whole time I worked there. I knew guys who worked at the old Maxwell House factory over in Hoboken, and they got sick of that coffee smell. But bread you don't get sick of."

Artie was surprised. "You worked at the place you robbed?"

"Hell, yeah. Four years."

"So it was an inside job."

Richie couldn't help chuckling. "Yeah, Sherlock. An inside job. Love it when civilians talk crime."

Artie made the turn onto the bridge ramp. "So what went wrong?"

“Stupid plan. I was in way over my head."

"You got the money, though."

"True, that's true. But see, Artie, that's the thing right there. Everybody thinks that when you get the money, the crime is over. Truth is, that's when your problems begin. Until you're home, in bed, under the blanket, with the cops runnin' off in the opposite direction, you have not...accomplished...shit."

He let his head fall, like an old man on a porch recalling the dumbest deed of his life. "The cops know that. That's why they always have time to stop for doughnuts. Criminals just don't get it. If I ever wrote a book about how to be a criminal, I'd stress the things to do after the robbery."

"Given your track record, I'm not sure you're the guy to write that book."

"You're probably right. Truth is, there are very few real criminals around. Most crimes are committed by honest people who get into a jam and wonder what it'd be like to go for it, just once. And once is all they get.”

“How the hell did the money get in my ceiling?”

“Maybe I’ll tell you some day. Right now, I’m a little more concerned with where it is now.”

They rode in silence for a moment, a silence Richie broke with a sad sigh.

“God, ain’t this is a beautiful bridge?” he asked. “Feel like I’m enterin’ a church, every time I cross this thing.”

“You go to town much?”

“Nah. Fact is, last time the town came to me."

"How do you mean?"

"Nine-Eleven. Wind was blowin' toward Brooklyn that day. Had the dust all over my windows."

"I got you beat. I was in the fucking cloud."

"No shit?"

"I worked in the trade center, man. Commodities.”

"Jesus! Think you were gonna die?"

“Nah. I knew I’d get out. Just started running and kept on going.”

Richie stared at Artie’s face, noticing it had gone damp with sweat.

“What else?” Richie ventured.

Artie wiped his face with his sleeve. “What do you mean, what else?”

“You’re nervous. You’re sweating. There’s something you ain’t tellin’ me.”

“Did you see the news that day, Richie? The two towers collapsed. Three thousand people died. It’s not what you’d call a tender memory. I don’t really like talking about it.”

“So we won’t talk about it.”

They crossed under the first of the bridge’s towers. Artie swerved to get around a car that wasn’t going fast enough to please him.

“Anyway,” he said, “that's when I realized I was living my life all wrong, and had to make some changes."

"Like what?"

"Like moving out of Manhattan."

Richie nodded. "So you buy the Rivioli house, and you make a fresh start."

"Something like that."

“And all you need now is a baby.”

Artie nodded. “That’s another thing. Diane might be upset because she's not getting pregnant. We've been trying like crazy, and it's just not happening. She doesn't like to fail, my wife. She could have flipped out over that."

Richie opened his mouth to speak, changed his mind, closed his mouth.

Artie licked his lips and sighed. “What I don’t get is, how the hell did Diane get the money out of that old fuse box so fast? I'm telling you, I screwed that thing in tight, man. Nine screws, deep in the wood. She was out that window in no time."

Now Richie had to speak. "Pretty obvious, no? She loosened the screws ahead o' time."

“Bullshit!”

“I’m tellin’ you.”

"When could she have done that? Until she went down to the cellar, the three of us were never apart!"

"Artie, Artie. Get it through your head. This getaway was planned long before I came into your lives. I was just an unexpected speed bump.”

Artie swallowed. He’d gone pale and his gut hurt, as if his stomach were trying to eat his liver. "So why'd she put up such a fight about giving up a third instead of half? If she was going to make off with all the money, why not agree to anything you wanted?"

"Because then we would have been like friends, and friends stick together, which means the three of us go down to the cellar for the money. Which would have totally fucked up her getaway. The way she did it, she acts all pissed off at surrenderin' part of the money. She's got an attitude, and neither of us want to be near her when she goes to get the money. See? She buys herself those coupla minutes she needed alone, and she's gone. You think about it, it was only a coupla minutes."

Richie couldn’t help smiling. “Give her credit. It was a beautiful performance.”

Artie shook his head. "She'd never."

"Never what?"

"Plan anything like that. She doesn't have the head for it.”

Richie sat back and sighed. "I got news for you, Artie - your wife is smart. Betcha they'd never have caught her if she'd robbed the bakery. What's she do, anyway?"

"Teaches second grade."

"A schoolteacher! Jesus, no wonder."

"No wonder what?"

"No wonder she feels entitled to the money, that's what. Bet she feels underpaid, am I right? Like nobody really appreciates what she does?"

“Hey. I know how hard she works."

Richie's eyes narrowed. "You like listenin' to her stories about school, or do you endure them? Not as exciting as your Wall Street war stories, are they?”

Artie shrugged. "We don't talk much about our work."

"Oh, that's bad. You're Yuppies. You're at work all day long. If you don't talk about work, what the hell else is there to talk about?"

"Fixing up our house! Starting a family!"

"No, no, Artie. Those are things to do. I'm talkin' about things to talk about. If you can't talk, everything else is bullshit."

"Our life together was....not....bullshit."

Richie shifted in his seat to face Artie's profile.

"I bet you treat her like her job is some kind of a hobby, no? The kinda thing a woman does so she can tell everybody she had a career before she became a mother?"

Artie shook his head. "I respect her work. She's dedicated."

"Ohh, that makes it even worse. Dedicated people give you that money-doesn't-matter bullshit, and look what happens the first time they get their hands on it!"

Artie looked Richie in the eye. "I want you to stop passing judgment on my wife."

"Hey. I call it like I see it. I'm sorry if you're offended."

"What is it you do for a living, now that you no longer make license plates?"

"Hey, good one! Haven't heard a good license plate joke in a long time."

"Seriously, do you have a job?"

"Run a candy store. Followin' in my old man's footsteps, which incidentally take me from the apartment upstairs to the store downstairs."

"Sounds fascinating."

Richie shrugged. "Saves a fortune in shoe leather...any way your wife’s got a guy on the side? Sorry to be so direct, but the clock is ticking.”

Artie unclenched his teeth and swallowed before answering. "No way. If she was unhappy with me, that's one thing. But I know she doesn't have somebody else."

"Artie, Artie. Nobody can know that for sure."

They were off the bridge, now, riding past City Hall. Artie pulled over at the first place he could. His hands were shaking. He squeezed them together to calm himself

"You listen to me," Artie said through quivering lips. "My wife is no whore."

"Hey. Easy."

Artie hesitated, then leaned closer to Richie, as if there were somebody in the back of the car he didn't want hearing this.

"We made love the other night like we used to in the old days. Know what I'm saying? I mean, we went at each other like high school kids parked in a car. Okay? All right?" He sat back, felt the cold of his sweaty back pressing against his shirt. "So if you're going to sit there and analyze my marriage, please factor this recent event into the equation."

Richie gave the revelation a moment of silence before asking, "This was before or after you found the money?"

Artie swallowed. "After. The night of, as a matter of fact. It's pretty exciting to have a fortune fall out of your ceiling."

“Especially for her.”

“Why?”

Richie sighed. "Let's face it, Artie. In your work, that kind of money is not such a big deal. You do your job right, you'll be makin' four times that much in a year, am I right?"

"What's your point?"

"Point is, it was exciting for her, 'cause it's the kind of cash that can change her life. Ain't no schoolteacher ever gonna see a score like that."

They stared at each other. "You didn't hear a thing I said," Artie all but growled. "Did you hear me tell you how we made love the other night?"

"I heard."

"It was wild, man. Absolutely wild."

"That was your farewell fuck, my friend."

Artie jerked away from Richie as if he'd been poked with a cattle prod, his head knocking against the car door. Tears sprang to his eyes as he rubbed his injured skull.

"Sorry," Richie all but whispered. "See, it's sort of like your last meal before they strap you into the electric chair. You get whatever you want, because in the end, you get nothin'."

"Nothing? Nothing? We were trying to have a kid, you fucking thug! We were trying to build a future!"

Richie's face darkened. "You wanna see the future?" he asked. "I got the future right here."

He slid his hand inside his jacket pocket, and Artie felt his stomach turn to water. Good Christ Almighty, the guy was packing a gun. This was it, the end of his life....

But no. Richie Fasanella pulled out not a gun, but a pale blue tube of some kind, which he held out in his open palm.

"Found this in the medicine cabinet, when I used your bathroom," he said softly. "Wasn't gonna show it to you unless you forced me."

Artie took the tube and read the writing on it. Odorless. Tasteless. Spermicide.

"What can I say?" Richie said, almost apologetically. "I'm a nosy guy. This was on your wife's side of the cabinet. Husbands never go near the wife's side of the medicine cabinet. Ever notice that?"

Artie's trembling hand held the tube tightly.

"All that negotiatin' we did before gave me a headache," Richie explained. "Hunted around for some aspirin, and I found this. Thought it was a funny thing to find in a house where the people are buildin' a nest for the stork."

Artie shook his head. "This means nothing. When we packed to move, she probably just chucked it in a bag with the rest of her stuff."

"Yeah, except look at the price tag on it. That's from a pharmacy on Garfield Place, a few blocks from the Rivioli house. So I gotta ask myself, what's a woman who's tryin' to get pregnant doin' with a spermicide her husband can't smell or taste?"

With a dull plopping sound the tube burst open in Artie's clenched fist, the clear, thick gel dripping from both ends. Richie gave him a handkerchief to wipe up the mess. Artie chucked the tube and the handkerchief out the car window and spanked his hands together before wiping them on his shirt.

"Jesus Christ!"

"Cheer up. Least you know you ain't firin' blanks."

"I am such an asshole."

"No, you're not. You're just a guy. Ninety-nine out of a hundred guys'd have found out the same way."

"I'm an asshole," Artie insisted. "Please don't contradict me." He went to put the car in gear, but Richie caught his wrist.

"Let's just sit here a few minutes. Want me to drive?"

"Fuck you."

"All right, you drive. But breathe first. Breathe.”

They sat in absolute silence for five minutes as the tears flowed freely down Artie's face.

"A farewell fuck, huh? Thanks for putting it so sweetly."

Richie nodded. "Sorry. For what it's worth, I speak from experience. Now come on, Artie, pull yourself together and let's go see this broad in the East Village."

CHAPTER TEN

Artie and Richie walked east on Tenth Street, having left the car parked on First Avenue.

"Where's this broad live?"

"Between B and C."

"She a teacher, too, God help us?"

Artie shook his head. "Legal Aid lawyer."

Richie chuckled. "Had one of them appointed to help me after my big caper."

"Any good?"

"Oh, yeah. Kinda guy wore off-white shirts so's he could get two, three days’ wear out of 'em. A real legal eagle. Knew I was fucked the minute he opened his briefcase and I saw his lunch bag. Any lawyer brings his lunch to work is gonna lose. The jury smells peanut butter and Ring-Dings on your lawyer's breath, you ain't got a prayer."

"Well, Jessica's not like that. Her family's loaded."

"So what the hell's she doin' in Alphabet City?"

"Living the part. You know. This way she's neighbors with the kind of people she defends."

"Oh boy. Another crusader."

Artie shrugged. "Monday to Friday, nine to five. Evenings and weekends, she ducks into a phone booth and becomes the Rich Bitch." Artie waved his hand in dismissal. "Another year or two, she'll hook up with a corporate firm. Gig she has now looks good on the resume, in case she ever wants to go into politics. Same reason she used to do volunteer work in soup kitchens."

Richie laughed out loud. "Must be nice to wear a halo. But if that's what you want, it sure helps to have rich parents."

Artie stopped suddenly, pulled out his cell phone. "Let me check my messages."

"I don't understand cell phones. You don't get one minute to yourself. Who the fuck wants to be reachable every second of the day? You might as well walk around with a parole officer."

"Remind me not to get you a cell phone for your birthday."

"Hey, what can I tell you? You're lookin' at probably the last guy in Brooklyn who still has a rotary dial phone."

"Jesus Christ."

"I shit you not. Big and black and heavy. Never broke down on me, not once."

Artie clicked his phone shut. “Nothing.”

They walked on in silence, Artie deep in thought.

"Say it," Richie said.

"Say what?"

"Whatever's on your mind."

"This you don't want to hear."

"Try me."

Artie hesitated. "I'm thinking about my sperm cells, if you really want to know."

"I'm not surprised."

"Floods of them, armies of them, millions of them heading for what I believed to be a friendly destination. "And instead, there's been this...mass murder going on that I knew nothing about." He stopped and looked at Richie. "How could I not know?"

Richie shrugged. "Odorless and tasteless. The chemistry gets more and more sophisticated every day."

"That's not what I'm talking about."

Richie grabbed his shoulder, spun him to face him. "Listen to me, buddy. You’re just a male, and the smartest male in the world believes what he wants to believe when he's in love. Clues don't matter, nothin' matters. You got tricked by a spermicide. Another guy tells himself the late-night phone calls are wrong numbers. And somebody else blames it all on P.M.S. You get me? It's all funhouse mirrors, any way you look at it. But at least you're out of the fuckin' funhouse now. That's a big thing, a very big thing."

"You're a misogynist."

"What's that?"

"A woman-hater."

"Horseshit. I love women. I also love the truth, and what I'm givin' you here is the cold-shit truth. So stop torturin' yourself and let's go see this broad, see what she's got in store for us."

They walked another block before Artie back-stepped to the curb and pointed at the top floor of a crumbling brownstone. The lights were on.

"That's it up there. She's got half the floor to herself."

"We gotta buzz? Be better if we can just walk up, especially if she's got a fire escape back there."

They climbed the steps to the front door, which opened with ease. The door beyond the mailboxes was locked. Richie put his hand out.

"Gimme a credit card."

"For what?"

"To open the door. Come on."

"Use one of yours!"

"I'm a cash kinda guy...come on, gimme a card, you'll get it right back."

Artie passed over his gold Amex card. In one swift, blunt motion Richie jimmied the lock, and Artie was leading the way up the bare wooden steps. He'd already reached the top and begun knocking on the door while a winded Richie was all but staggering up the final flight.

"Jessica?" Artie called out. "You in there, Jessica?"

"Who's that?"

"Artie Farley."

A brief silence. "Diane's Artie?"

"Yeah, yeah. Can you let me in?"

"How'd you get up here?"

"Door was open."

A snapping of locks and chains, and the door swung open onto a huge living space. Bookcases lined the walls, and Persian area rugs dotted the gleaming parquet floor. It was as if a Fifth Avenue penthouse had been airlifted to Alphabet City.

Jessica stood there barefooted, in jeans and a floppy wool sweater. Reddish-brown curls tumbled down her shoulders. She had lovely almond-shaped brown eyes, but there was a scowl to Jessica's face, as if she'd spent her entire adult life sending waiters back to the kitchen with improperly cooked meals. The scowl, Artie thought, robbed her of her one shot at true beauty. Whenever Diane spent time with this woman she seemed to come home with the same scowl, as if it were contagious...

She toasted Artie elaborately with a half-empty glass of Chardonnay. "Well, well. A surprise visit from the wilds of Brooklyn."

As if on cue, a hard-breathing Richie appeared at the word "Brooklyn." Jessica did her best not to seem alarmed.

"Hello," he said, with a proper politeness that stunned Artie. "I'm Richard Fasanella."

Jessica stared baldly at the aging Italian, who leaned over, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.

"Where's Diane?" she finally asked.

"Come on, Jessica." Artie stepped boldly into her home. "She's here, isn't she? This is where she said she'd be. Diane!" He went straight to the window off the fire escape, Jessica hard on his heels. The window was locked.

"Guess she didn't go out this way, huh?"

"Artie! What do you think you're doing?!"

"Jess, there's no sense bullshitting around. You and me never liked each other, and that's fine, but this is important. She hiding in the bathroom?"

Jessica's gasped. Her hand went to her throat, then covered her mouth, but not before Artie caught the trace of a smile on her lips.

"Oh my God. She left you!"

"No. Wrong. We had a fight, and I figured she came here."

"Uh-huh. So you tell me she told you she was coming here, just to bluff me."

"I gave it a shot."

"Those bullying tactics of yours have a way of backfiring, have you noticed?"

"Mind if I check the bathroom?"

Jessica made an elaborate sweeping motion with her free hand. "Be my guest. And if you use it, please set the lid down when you're through."

Artie walked off to check it out. Jessica turned to see Richie standing like a well-trained pet just inside the open front door.

"Can I get you a glass of wine?”

"No thanks, ma'am."

"Who are you, anyway?"

"Friend of Artie's."

"From Wall Street?"

"Just the street.”

Before Jessica could say anything Artie was back from his search of the bathroom, as well as the bedroom.

"She's not here," he said to Richie.

He nodded, shrugged. "I'll wait out in front." Without a word of farewell to Jessica he turned and left, his footsteps heavy on the stairs. Jessica closed the door after him.

"Where'd you get that guy from, Rent-A-Goon?"

"Nice talk from a liberal lawyer. Where's Diane? You have any idea?"

"She walked out on you."

"Yes, she did, counselor. And I think you have a pretty good idea of where she went."

Jessica sipped her wine. "All I know is, she was unhappy."

"Really."

"Not just with you, Artie. Her life in general."

"You want to tell me a little bit about it? You've got to know some things, after all those nights the two of you spent up here swimming around in Lake Chardonnay."

Jessica narrowed her eyes. "You were always jealous of our time together."

"Oh, for God's sake, Jessica. Every time a guy dumped you, you called up crying, and she was here 'til dawn. The way your love life goes, it made for quite a few lonely nights for me."

Jessica went to the refrigerator, took out a wine bottle and filled her glass. "You want some?"

"What was she so unhappy about?"

Jessica hesitated. "This probably won't come as a big surprise to you, but she did not want to move to Brooklyn."

"Yeah? Did she tell you about our new house? She tell you how beautiful it is?"

"Mostly, Artie, she was too stunned by that ridiculous stunt of yours to tell me much of anything."

"It was no stunt. It was an act of love."

"Love? Oh, Artie, it was so obvious what you were doing! Tearing her away from her life, away from people like me! As if that could help your marriage!"

Artie forced himself to chuckle. "You're jealous, Jess."

"Jealous?"

"Yeah. Because you know that no guy's ever going to buy you a house."

She swilled some wine. "You're probably right, Artie. With my luck, I'll probably lose half of some house I'll pay for to an ex-husband, but you know something? I'd prefer that to what happened to Diane. If some guy ever does buy me a house, I hope to God he's the kind of guy who might want to consult with me about where we're going to set down roots. Not some control-freak lunatic who wants to call the shots for my entire life."

Artie felt his blood surge. "Control freak, huh?"

"Yes. Yes. You didn't buy her a house, you bought her a cage. Whisk her away and fill her with babies. My God, next thing you'd want to start buying her clothes. Dress her up like a Barbie doll."

"I always thought you were just selfish, Jess, but now I see you're also a vicious bitch."

"Artie, face it. You didn't let the woman breathe. You followed her around at parties like you were her parole officer. The second any man tried to talk to her, you were in between them."

"Bullshit!"

"I saw it a million times. You couldn't relax, so you made sure she couldn't relax."

Artie pointed at her with a trembling finger. "Jessica, you don't know me, and you don't know her."

"Her I know," Jessica calmly replied. "Well enough to be not one bit surprised by what's happened. She's gone, man. Face it. Accept it."

Artie thought he could hear his own heart breaking. He shut his eyes. "She got a guy?"

"Nobody I know about."

"You swear?"

"Artie, I swear I don't know. She never mentioned anybody. But then again, she's very private. Even I might not know some things."

When he opened his eyes Artie was startled to feel they were wet with tears, which he blinked back. His rage faded, to be replaced by embarrassment.

"Sorry I barged in on you like this."

"Hey." Jessica waved it off. "Don't worry about it."

He shuffled to the door, Jessica at his side.

"You never liked me, Artie?"

"Huh?"

"What you said, when you first barged in here. That we never liked each other. Because I've always liked you."

"Yeah?"

Just like that she reached around the back of his neck and pulled him close for a kiss that mashed his loose lips against his teeth.

She pulled back, giggling. "Come on, baby, pucker up."

Artie grabbed her by the shoulders and held her at arms' length. "Are you crazy? I don't play like that!"

"You might as well start learning."

She reached for him again, but he maintained an arms-length grip on her shoulders.

"Jess. No."

"Wow," Jessica said. "I see she managed to pack at least one thing to take along before she split."

"What's that?"

"Your balls."

Artie smacked her across the face, sending Jessica straight to the floor, ass first. The wine glass flew from her hand and shattered on the floor.

Artie squatted at her side, more shocked than she was. "Oh my God, Jessica, I'm sorry!"

She sat up and rubbed her cheek, an odd smile on her face. "That's all right. Not the first time that's happened to me."

"What can I say? What can I do?"

"Say nothing, and get the fuck out of my house."

He all but flew down the stairs.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

They walked west, to the Gray’s Papaya hot dog joint at Eighth Street and Sixth Avenue, where Richie had two dogs with red onions, sauerkraut and mustard, while Artie took tentative sips from a cup of something claiming to be a life-giving papaya drink. Richie gobbled his first dog in three bites and muffled a belch. They both stood with the rest of the customers at the stainless steel counter facing Sixth Avenue, breathing the greasy air.

“It ain’t a Coney Island dog,” Richie decided, “but it’ll do.

Artie sighed. "I cannot believe I hit a woman. I've never done anything like that in my entire life."

"She upset you. That's the worst thing any woman can say to a man, what she said to you. That's why you snapped. They make cracks about our twins, they're playin' with fire. She was askin' for it."

"That still doesn't make it right."

"Artie. It's over. She'll live. Have a dog.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“This could be a long night. Ought to get some grease in you.”

“I ate just before...”

Artie couldn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to. Before my wife ran off.

He rubbed his face, shook his head. "Richie. I knocked her down."

Richie waved it away. "The little bit o' time I was up there, I could tell she's a drama queen. Bet my lungs she took a fake fall. She land on her ass?"

"Yeah."

"Then it was a fakeroo."

"This isn't funny."

Richie shook his head. "You're such a good boy. All your life you've been holdin' doors open for women, and buyin' 'em flowers, and lightin' their cigarettes, right? You always picked up the check and you never put your hands where they didn't want 'em, right?"

Artie swallowed. "I'd like to think I always treated them right."

"Yeah, well, you should listen to me when I tell you you're just a little too good for your own good. You finally did something out of line, and what was it? You smacked a smart-ass broad who said a nasty thing. That don't stack up against a wife runnin' off with a sack fulla money, believe me. So live with it. You hear me? Live with it."

Artie hesitated. "Funny thing is, she gave me one hell of a kiss just before I smacked her."

Richie laughed out loud. "Holy Christ."

"Just grabbed me and did it."

Richie shrugged. "Makes sense. The ol' best friend's husband routine. She's heard a million stories about you from your wife, she can't help being curious. Some of the shit your wife complained about might be the kind of thing that turns Jessica on."

"God forbid."

"You're a money guy. Lotta women like that."

"Jessica's got her own money."

"It ain't always about the money. It's that you're a good hunter. You're out there every day slaughterin' lions and tigers, while guys like me are gatherin' nuts and berries. Who the hell wants a berry-picker?"

"For what it's worth, she said Diane and I didn't connect."

"That her talkin', or Diane talkin'?"

"She's quoting Diane. She also said Diane never wanted to move to Brooklyn."

Richie tapped himself on the chest. "That particular theory you already heard from me."

Artie banged his fist on the stainless steel shelf, jolting the hot dog eaters.

"Hey!"

"Funny how a man finds out his wife can't stand him, isn't it? Other people have to tell him! God forbid his own wife should say a word to him about it!"

"Lower your voice."

"Fucking women!"

"I said, lower...your...voice."

Artie did as he was told, training his gaze on the Sixth Avenue foot traffic as if he expected his wife to breeze past, the knapsack full of cash on her back.

A thin man with a short graying beard and rimless glasses was staring at Artie from the Eighth Street side of Gray’s, careful not to get mustard on his beard as he nibbled on his hot dog. Richie noticed him first.

“Hey, Artie. There’s a chickenhawk here who’s in love with you.” Richie jerked his chin in the man’s direction. Artie turned to look at the man. Instead of looking away, the man sheepishly approached Artie on sandalled feet.

“Excuse me, sir,” he began in a gentle voice, “but aren’t you the Face of Nine-Eleven?”

Artie sighed, nodded, shrugged.

“I knew it!” the man said. “Didn’t mean to be rude, I just...had a feeling it was you. Great going, by the way.”

He extended a hand, and after a moment’s hesitation Artie shook it.

“Didn’t really do much,” Artie said. “The press has a way of exaggerating things.”

“You saved that woman’s life, didn’t you?”

“Well, she probably would have made it without me.”

“Yeah, right! Spoken like a true hero.” The bearded man patted Artie’s shoulder and left Gray’s Papaya, not wanting to ruin a perfect encounter by milking it.

Richie finished his second dog, crumpled the paper plate into a ball and pegged it into a garbage pail ten feet away.

“The fuck was that all about?”

“I’ll tell you in the car. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Where to?”

“Back to Brooklyn, I guess.”

They’d reached the car before Artie finally spoke up.

“There was this picture taken of me on Nine-Eleven that became...sort of famous,” Artie began. “Just one of those things. I was running through the dust cloud when I saw this woman lying on the sidewalk. Picked her up and carried her to the river. Some photographer from the Daily News took a picture of us - “

“Whoa, whoa, stop, I know this picture!” Richie interrupted. “Her head’s back, and her hair’s hangin’, and the two o’ you are as white as ghosts!”

“Right. Anyway, the picture won some prizes, and then they did a spread about me called “The Face of Nine-Eleven” in New York Magazine.” He shrugged. “So once in a while, I get recognized.”

“Don’t seem happy about it.”

“Wasn’t in the mood for it tonight, that’s all.”

Richie forced a belch, made a bitter face in its aftermath. “The Face of Nine-Eleven,” he murmured. “I’m ridin’ around with the Face of Nine-Eleven.”

“Give it a rest, would you?”

“Only question now is - what happened to the Face’s wife? Where’d the Face’s two-faced wife go?”

Artie sighed. He put his hands on the hood of the car and leaned forward, head hanging heavy, like a suspect waiting to be frisked.

"Think of other times she's been upset," Richie said softly. "Think hard..."

Artie lifted his head. "This probably isn't worth much, but she had this cat she really loved. And when it died, she went and spent the night at her parents' house."

Richie sat up straight. "Where do they live?"

"They're up in Westchester."

"That's our next stop."

"You think?"

“You got a better idea?”

Artie handed him the car keys. “You drive, Richie.”

Richie got behind the wheel and started the car. Before pulling out he handed Artie his Amex platinum card.

"Hey. What the hell?"

"I used it to get that door open before, remember? You ran right past me up those stairs. Never even asked for your card back. See what happens when you panic?"

CHAPTER TWELVE

THEY tooled up the West Side Highway, Richie sipping a take-out coffee, Artie noisily chewing a double-wad of Wrigley's Spearmint.

"Bet you used to smoke."

Artie looked at him. "How'd you know?"

"You chew like an ex-smoker. Like you're tryin' to kill the gum."

"Pack a day, until two years ago.”

"How'd you quit? The Patch?"

"No. Just stopped. Realized I wanted to be a father, and I'd have to be strong for my kids."

"You're shittin' me."

"Why would I kid about it?"

Richie shook his head. "You really are too good to be true. Cleanin' up your act for children who ain't even born yet."

"What's so strange about that?"

"Artie." Richie chuckled. "Know how it worked in my neighborhood, when I was your age? A guy knocked a girl up. He married her. Then they spent the next forty years fightin' about whose turn it was to take down the garbage."

"That's pretty sad."

"And on top o' that, nobody gave up smokin', or any other bad habits. The kids grew up breathin' cigarette smoke and turnin' the TV up loud, so they could hear it over the yelling."

"That's not a life I'd ever want."

"Yeah, well, it's good then that all your plannin' and discipline paid off so nicely, huh, Face? Because otherwise we might be, you know, drivin' around in the dark, lookin' for your wife and a hundred and sixty-two grand."

Artie knew how much Italians liked hanging nicknames on people. “Please lay off the ‘Face’ stuff,” he said. “I took enough ribbing when that story ran in the magazine.”

“Price of fame, my friend, price of fame. But okay, I’ll lay off.”

Artie sighed. "Suddenly, I want a smoke. What the hell. You got a cigarette on you, by any chance?"

Richie shook his head. "Quit after I got out of prison."

The very word made Artie's blood tingle. For a little while, he'd actually forgotten that the man in his car was an ex-con. He looked at Richie's profile. Sure, he looked sinister, but who wouldn't in the dim light of the highway? Who wouldn't?

"Yeah, I got fucked."

The words startled Artie. "Excuse me?"

"In prison. I got fucked in prison. Figured that's what you were wondering about, so I told you."

Artie felt himself trembling. It was exactly what he'd been wondering. "Actually," he lied, "I was just going to ask you what prison was like."

Richie nodded. "That's what everybody asks. But that's not what they want to know. They want to know what it's like to get raped. Thought I'd save a little time and cut to the chase. The answer is, it's pretty bad."

"I'm sorry."

"Me, too. Hey, it coulda been worse. When it happened to me you didn't have this AIDS bullshit to worry about. You bled a little, you cried a little. But eventually, you got better."

Artie shook his head. "Eleven years of it."

"Nah. More like six months. After that, they left me alone."

"Why?"

"Because I killed a guy."

It was as if the van suddenly had wings instead of wheels. Artie literally felt as if he were floating.

"You killed a man," he breathed. "You actually killed a man."

"Yeah. Truth be told, it's an overrated experience."

Artie kept his eyes on the road and his mouth shut. Anything this man wanted to tell him would come without prompting. It was like hoping for rain to fall, and by the time they reached the Bronx border, it did.

"Funny thing," Richie began. "You're twenty years old, and all of a sudden you're in jail. You wear their clothes, you eat their food...you're in a dream, but it ain't your dream. It's their dream. The old queens, dreamin' of a new young butt."

He startled Artie by giving him a little pat on the thigh. "I was cute then, believe it or not. Had all my hair. Skinny like you. They didn't waste time. Got me on the first night, three of 'em."

Artie's heart was hammering. He murmured, "I don't know how you lived through that."

Richie nodded. "I used to wonder that myself. But the truth is, it's a lot harder to die than you think it is. In a situation like that, death would be a privilege. Problem is, your body hangs on even when your head wants to pack it in."

He chuckled, a sound that was more like a growl. "They weren't gonna kill me with what they were doin,' and I wasn't gonna kill myself. So somethin' else had to happen to change things."

Richie leaned back in his seat, hands low on the steering wheel. It was almost as if he were recalling a favorite fishing trip.

"Surprise was the key element. I wasn't gonna outmuscle any of 'em, especially the biggest one. Huge black guy named Malcolm. Six-two, maybe two-forty. Total psychopath. Used to show me pictures of his kids before he had me there in the laundry room. Like maybe I'd think he was a devoted father, and like him a little bit."

"Jesus."

"Then, when he wanted me, he had this little trick. He taped a picture of his wife to my back for inspiration."

"Oh, my God."

"Tape was the nice way. You put up a fuss, ol' Malcolm'd use a thumbtack."

"Jesus Christ!"

"To this day I won't sell thumbtacks in my store."

Artie swallowed, held up a hand. "You don't have to tell me any more."

"Yes, I do. Nothin' worse than hearin' half a story. I'll make it quick. I had this plastic hairbrush. Every night, I rubbed the handle on the floor a million times to sharpen it up. Took forever, but I got it sharp."

A funny look came to Richie's face, the marriage of a smile and a frown. "Malcolm had gotten real relaxed with me over time. In his head we're a couple, you know? And no matter how fucked up any couple is, there's always gonna be a little vulnerability. Just a little. Just enough so he wouldn't even dream of checkin' to see what I got hidden in my shirt."

Richie drained the rest of his coffee, crumpled up the cup. "His mistake. I'm on my knees the way he likes me. He's got one hand on my back and the other reachin' for his tool, and that's my moment. I spin around and stick it right up under here."

He startled Artie by poking him just under the sternum.

"Straight into the heart," he said, a hint of pride in his voice. "I had one shot to get it right, and baby, I nailed it like a bullfighter. He went down without a whimper. Bled like a fire hose."

"My God."

"Tell you the truth, I'm not sure God was in the laundry room that night. Pulled my brush out of him, washed it off and went back to my cell."

"You washed the brush?!"

"Hey, I'm in the laundry room. There's soap, there's water...why not?"

"You never got caught?"

"Caught? I'm already in jail."

"Come on! You know what I mean!"

Richie sighed. "Like I told you, Malcolm was a fucking psycho. The guards woulda high-fived each other over his death, if people were high-fivin' back then. They asked a few questions, and let it go. But they knew what happened. Everybody knew. That was the whole point."

Richie chuckled, tapped himself on the chest. "So now, I'm the top psycho around. I'm someone to avoid. They avoided me the rest of the way."

Artie licked his lips. "No guilt?"

"Guilt? Over a piece of garbage like Malcolm? Please."

"What was he in for?"

"You name it. Rape, murder, armed robbery...plenty of other stuff he never got arrested for, you can bet your ass on that. Artie, trust me when I tell you the human race was not diminished in the least by this man's death. He had nothin' to offer but pain. His own family didn't come to claim the body. Good fuckin' riddance." Richie chuckled. "Want to laugh? I dug the hole for his coffin."

"Good God."

"Coincidence. Just happened to be my turn for cemetery duty. Happiest day's work I ever did." Richie hesitated. "Wanna know about my final farewell to Malcolm?"

"Jesus, there's more?!"

"You don't have to hear it."

"Tell me."

Richie said, "I lifted the coffin lid and pissed on his body."

Artie fought a faint flutter of nausea before saying, "Nice touch."

"Yep. Then I closed the lid, climbed out of the hole and covered that motherfucker with dirt. Cost me three packs o' Lucky Strikes to get the guard to look the other way while I relieved myself....hey, that's how this conversation began, ain't it? We were talkin' about cigarettes, and how we both quit. Good. Good. Gives us a little somethin' in common, huh?"

Artie looked over at the car riding alongside his. A man with a neatly trimmed beard was driving, making imploring gestures with his hand as he conversed with the woman beside him. What could they have been talking about? A movie they'd seen, or how tasty the vinaigrette dressing was at a restaurant they'd been to? Normal stuff, people stuff...nothing like the tales being told in his car...

"And to answer your next question, no."

"No what?"

"I declined Malcolm's throne, so to speak, even though I'd earned it. Just happy to jerk myself off."

Artie shook his head. "All that time?"

Richie shrugged. "It can be a beautiful thing. It's all on your own terms, and you have lots of time for your reading."

Artie hesitated. "I never could have survived it."

"Nobody can, Artie, until they're there. When it's right in your face, you'd be amazed at what you can do."

Richie swept his arm across the dark landscape. "Out here, you turn to the police for help. In there, you turn to yourself. It ain't a bad lesson, findin' out how badly you want to live. Hell of a way to find out, but like my old man used to say, education is expensive."

He chuckled. "Know what the worst part of the whole thing was? Worryin' that the guards might catch me sharpenin' the brush, and confiscate it." Richie actually shuddered. "Woulda set my plan back another six months, maybe a year."

"Why did you save the brush?"

Richie shrugged. "Guess I figured I might need it again. Stuffed it in my mattress. Still in there when I got paroled. Maybe the next guy put it to good use."

"You'd have been in big trouble if they'd found it."

"Nah. Almost everybody in there had some kinda weapon stuck in their mattress. Like I said, I washed it off. They couldn't have proven shit. Weren't doin' all these fancy DNA tests back then, you know. Blood was blood. Hey, look at this. We're in the woods."

It was true. Trees bordered the highway on either side of the road. They were out of the city, and entering Westchester County.

"We're not far now," Artie said. "How should we do this? We both go to the door, or me first?"

"What's the house like? Big yard, big driveway?"

"No. Little yard in front, houses on either side of it."

Richie sighed. "Let me get a look at the place, and we'll figure it out. Don't park right in front. And when you make the turn onto their block, kill the headlights. No sense announcing our arrival."

He patted Artie's knee. "By the way, I still like them."

Artie was puzzled. "Who?"

"Girls. That was the last thing you were wondering about me. Even after all I went through in prison, I most definitely still like girls. The only problem comes with them likin' me."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

IT was a small, mean-looking house with cedar shingles faded dark brown, almost black. The little lawn was patchy with crabgrass, and the mailbox out front sagged slightly on its pole. This was the result of a drunken turn into the driveway by Diane's father, Professor Frederick Miller.

The Miller home might not have looked so shabby if it were far out in the country, but it happened to be bordered by immaculately neat houses on either side, houses owned by people who felt their teeth clench every time they looked out their windows at the Miller place. It was the curse of the suburbs. All it took was one slob to screw up the whole block.

As instructed, Artie had parked a few houses away from it. Chin in hand, Richie studied the place as if he were a pool player lining up a tricky shot.

"They got a back door?"

"Yeah."

"Hmmm...they, ah, ain't exactly gonna win the blue ribbon from Better Homes and Gardens, are they?"

Artie nodded. "It's always been like that. Her old man's not a handy guy."

"What the hell does he do?"

"Teaches literature. He's also writing a book about Herman Melville. Supposedly, anyway. He can't seem to finish it. Been working on it since Diane was a kid."

"What about the mother?"

"Philosophy professor. She's actually written a couple of books."

Richie's eyes widened. "She's published, and he ain't? Whoa. That pretty much cuts his nuts off, wouldn't you say?"

"I don't know. They seem to get along. They probably don't even notice the place is a wreck."

Richie hesitated. "They like you?"

Artie shrugged. "He's always been pretty nice to me. She's a little cold, though. Not cold, exactly. It's more like she's doing you a big favor listening to you, when she could be reading or writing instead."

"Lovely."

"Deep down, they both probably think I'm pretty crude."

" 'Cause you make money."

"Yeah."

"How dare you," Richie said, his voice deep with mock disgust. "How fucking dare you out-earn geniuses like them."

Artie couldn't help chuckling. "That's about the size of it."

"Guess they weren’t exactly overjoyed when you went and moved their daughter to Brooklyn, huh?"

"I really don't know. They aren't the kind of people who get worked up very easily. I'm not sure they've ever even been to Brooklyn."

"It ain't likely."

"Maybe one or two trips to the Brooklyn Academy of Music, but that'd be it."

"I never saw 'em there, and I have season tickets."

"You do?"

"Artie, anybody ever tell you you're just a little bit gullible?"

Richie turned to stare at the house. "No wonder your wife became a teacher. What else could she do? These are her fuckin' role models. She gets the martyr gene from both sides, plus half the year off. Summer vacations, Christmas vacations, Easter vacations, Martin Luther King Day...not a bad deal, if you can stand the kids."

The silhouette of a man went past the drawn shade.

"Somebody's home," Richie said. "All right. My gut feeling is, you should go in alone."

"You going to wait here?"

Richie shook his head. "I'm gonna go around back. Keep an eye out for any sudden exits."

Artie swallowed. "Just don't hurt her, okay? Promise me you won't hurt her."

"You got my word. I'll just catch her and bring her back inside." He reached for the door handle. "Let me go first," he said, and before Artie could object the big man walked briskly to the rear of the Miller home, where he squatted behind an overgrown rhododendron bush.

What would happen if a neighborhood patrolman happened to cruise by and catch sight of the heavy Italian in the glare of his searchlight? Artie forced himself not to think about it as he reached the front door and rang the bell.

Whoever was on the other side was having a hell of a time fumbling with the lock. Even before the door swung open Artie knew it had to be his father-in-law, half in the bag.

Frederick Miller always looked as if he'd just walked in out of a windstorm. His thick gray hair was cowlicky in back, and though his clothes were decent they were always a little askew - tie off at an angle, shirt bunchy around the paunchy waist. He always wore loafers which were scuffed in front and at the sides, as if he wore them to play soccer in the street.

Which he didn't. Professor Miller was by far the most sedentary man in the neighborhood. His loafers looked as bad as they did because they'd never tasted shoe polish, in five years of continuous wear.

The man peered through rimless glasses at Artie, a glass of scotch in hand. His watery eyes were big and brown....Diane's eyes, Artie noticed for the first time.

"Yes?"

"Hey, Fred. How you doing?"

The professor squinted at him. "Arthur? Is that you, Arthur?"

"Yeah." Artie stepped inside. "Sorry to drop in on you like this without calling."

"Don't be silly. Mi casa es su casa." He looked over Artie's shoulder. "Where's Diane?"

Artie's heart sank. He forced himself to be calm. This could be a trick. He remembered the guy once talking about his days as an actor, back at Yale.

"You really don't know?" Artie blurted.

Frederick belched, scowling at the sour taste. "I assumed she was with you in Brrrrrooklyn, bemoaning the departure of the Dodgers." He chuckled. "You see, there? I have heard of the late, great Brooklyn Dodger baseball team, Arthur. Jackie Robinson! Carl Furillo! I'm not quite the stuffed shirt you believe me to be!"

Artie strode boldly into the center of the living room. "Is she here? Was she here? Be straight with me."

The professor seemed genuinely puzzled. "Are you trying to tell me she's run off?"

Artie said nothing. It was obvious the old boozer wasn't lying, wasn't hiding his daughter. He gestured at a battered wing chair, spilling scotch as he did.

"Ohhh, Arthur. Sit down, Arthur."

Artie obeyed. The house was quiet, save for the faint sound of classical music coming from unseen speakers. This was how it always was at his in-laws' house - soft music playing all the time, the kind of thing you'd expect to hear in a second-hand bookstore, which was pretty much what their home looked like. Everywhere you looked were shelves bursting with books, so many that the overflow was piled in stacks on the floors.

It had always been messy, but now it was downright shabby. The sour smell of dead cocktails permeated the air, and here and there were ancient paper cartons that once held take-out Chinese food. Artie felt a funny crunch underfoot, and when he looked down he saw it was a McDonald's Big Mac container.

Frederick sat across from him on a dusty couch. "May I offer you a drink?"

"Don't be a host, Fred. Just please tell me whatever you know about where Diane may have gone."

He spread his arms wide. "I haven't the foggiest idea."

"She never talked about leaving me?"

"Not to me, Arthur. It pains me to admit it, but in truth, my daughter and I were never very close. Pity."

There was a remoteness to his words, as if he were speaking about someone else's problem. That trip on the Mayflower had certainly toughened up his ancestors, an icy strength those WASPS had apparently passed along to their descendants.

A spark of something resembling concern came to his eyes. "I say, Arthur - are you quite sure nothing terrible has happened to her?"

"Nothing terrible happened to her, Fred. She ran off."

"I'm sorry, Arthur."

"The hell you are."

"Honestly, I am. And frankly it hurts me to think you don't believe me."

The professor sipped his drink and leaned back, a motion that caused a mountain of New Yorker magazines to topple in an avalanche across the floor. If Frederick noticed, he didn't let on.

"What the hell's going on here, Fred? This place is even worse than usual!"

"Ah, yes. A bit untidy, isn't it?"

"Hey, where's Rosemary?"

Frederick sighed. "Well, Arthur, the truth of the matter is, you are not alone in the world of abandonment."

Artie literally gulped. "She left you?"

"Oh, not completely. She's on holiday with the great new love of her life. A rather nice person named Sally."

A stunned Artie watched the professor pour himself a hefty drink. He took a sip, pursed his lips, looked at his son-in-law. "Forgive me. Would you care for a drink? Did I offer you one already?"

"Fred. I'm sorry."

He waved a heavy hand. "Oh, think nothing of it. Our marriage has been a frozen tundra for centuries, now. Of course, what else could it be when it turns out that you're not even the correct sex for your wife?"

His bushy eyebrows perked up. "We remain good friends, actually. I expect we'll continue to live here together. No reason not to. She's writing a book that'll take at least a year to finish, and anything as dramatic as moving to a new home would disrupt her routine. Rosemary adores routine. Except, of course, sexually. Are you sure you don't want a drink?"

Artie got to his feet. "I've got to go, Fred."

"Ah, yes. You've got a wife of your own to track down, haven't you? I'll walk you to the door."

The professor startled Artie by putting an arm across his shoulders. It was the closest thing to affection he'd ever experienced from this man.

"I just want you to know that I always liked you, Arthur."

A strange surge of emotion made Artie tingle. "You did?"

"Oh, yes. In a way, I always felt sorry for you."

"Me? Why?"

"Perhaps because you were so damned happy on your wedding day."

Artie felt small beads of sweat break out on his brow, which the professor noticed.

"Yes," the professor continued, as if the beads of perspiration confirmed his own thoughts. "You know exactly what I'm talking about, don't you?"

"I don't know what I know anymore, Fred."

"Well then, allow me to tell you what I know. You pursued my daughter with a passion I'd never seen in any of her boyfriends. You bombarded her with flowers. Grand gestures. Jewelry. You overwhelmed her, young man, and when at last she agreed to marry you, you couldn't quite believe it. Could you?"

Artie cleared his throat. "No. I guess not. Not really."

"Hmmm. And that state of disbelief was all over your face on your wedding day, along with a look of incredulous joy."

Terrified to ask, but unable not to, Artie said, "What look was on her face that day?"

The professor sighed. "This might hurt you."

"Hurt me."

The old boozer sighed. "The look of a woman who'd been worn down by a strong man's passion. A look of....oh, hell. There's no other way to put it, Arthur. It was a look of surrender to a worthier opponent."

He gave Artie a fawning smile, the kind of smile he might have given a hapless student while returning an exam with a failing grade. "You simply wore her down, young man."

"So you're saying she never loved me."

"No. I'm saying I never knew my daughter well enough to know how she really feels about anything. How pitiful is that, eh? Maybe she did love you. Maybe not. All I know for sure is, your feelings for each other were far from balanced."

He took his arm off Artie's shoulders. "Diane is not an easy person. She’s existed in a state of resentment ever since the family fortunes...”

Frederick lowered his eyes, couldn’t finish the sentence.

“What fortunes, Fred?”

The old man sighed, sipped his drink and cleared his throat before looking Artie in the eye.

“Diane was lined up to attend Yale University, as yours truly did. But that year, the family stock portfolio took what you’d have to call...a swan dive. I took a gamble on the internet stock boom, just in time for the boom to go bust.”

He forced a chuckle. “So you see, Diane had to make do with a state university education, mingling with the likes...”

Frederick caught himself, too late. He blinked watery eyes at Artie.

“The likes of me,” Artie said.

The old professor nodded in reluctant agreement. “We no longer have much money, but somehow we maintain our snobbishness,” Frederick said, almost cheerfully. “Odd, isn’t it? On top of that, Diane inherited her mother's dissatisfaction with the way things are. Or perhaps that's just a female thing, eh? What do we know? What the bloody hell do we creatures with cocks and balls know? We're screwed if we stick it in, and we're fucked if we keep it out."

Artie opened the door. Frederick extended his hand for a shake, and pulled Artie close.

"By the way, Arthur, do you know what love is? Because as it happens, I do."

"I'm listening."

The professor cleared his throat. "Love," he said, "is the absence of destruction."

Artie waited for more. "That's it?"

"Completely. Find someone who isn't trying to destroy you. That's the person with whom you can find happiness. To Rosemary and Sally!" He hoisted his glass in a mock toast. "Together on a beach somewhere, not destroying each other. It is indeed a beautiful thing, though as an unhappy by-product of this otherwise splendid arrangement I must confess that I do feel myself disappearing, day by day, a few molecules at a time."

He forced a smile, showing brown, blunt teeth. "Oh well. Fortunately I'm fat, so it'll take a bit of time before I vanish. Good night, Arthur. Good luck trying to find my daughter. Though why you'd want to at this point is a bit puzzling to me." He pulled the door closed.

Artie returned to the van to find Richie already in it.

"Got bored waitin' on the lawn. Figured if she didn't run out after five minutes, she wasn't around."

"You figured right. Slide over.”

“You wanna drive?”

“I want to drive.”

Artie got in and rested his forehead on the steering wheel.

"All this time I'm out here, not one person went by," Richie marveled. "Jesus Christ, where is everybody? Doesn't anybody take a walk around here?"

Artie lifted his head. "It's the suburbs. They're all inside, watching cable."

"What's with you? Something happen in there?"

Artie started the car. "My father-in-law's alone in there, half-bombed. Turns out his wife's left him. She's on a beach somewhere with her girlfriend."

Richie stared at him. "This is some family you married into."

"Can't argue with you there."

"And the funny thing is, until tonight, you probably thought you were marryin' up, am I right? Like you were a social climber to even dream of bein' part of a wonderful family like this?"

"My father-in-law set me straight. Diane never loved me."

"He said that?"

"Not in so many words, but that's the gist of it."

"You believe him?

"I don't know. He's got nothing to lose by lying to me, the poor bastard.”

They sat in silence, staring out the windishield and listening to the chirping of a million crickets. At last Artie turned to Richie. "So what's our next move?"

"I say we go back to Brooklyn and figure it out. What do you say?"

"I can't think of anything better to do." Artie eased away from the curb and headed for the highway. They rode in silence for a few miles, a silence Richie couldn't resist breaking.

"God damn. The professor's wife's got a girlfriend. Funny thing for a guy like him, huh? All these years he's tryin' to figure out what the white whale's all about, and it turns out he's the one who never really got the harpoon in her."

Artie stared at Richie, appalled and amazed by his words.

"Don't look at me like that," Richie said. "I read 'Moby Dick.' Lotta time to read in prison, and we had a damn good library."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

ARTIE drove like a man possessed, with the pedal to the metal all the way to Brooklyn. Richie didn’t want to get killed, so he tried to engage Artie in conversation.

“What the hell’s the big deal about your wife not going to Yale?”

Artie turned to him as if emerging from a trance. “What?”

“Yale University. What’s the big deal about that?”

“It’s an Ivy League school.”

“What’s that mean, anyway? The buildings got ivy on the walls, or what?”

“I really don’t know. You go to an Ivy League school, you get a jump on everybody else. You mix with people from around the world. You make connections. You go to State University at Oneonta, you mix with New York kids looking for a discount education.”

Richie shrugged. “Same books at both schools though, right? Same subjects?”

“Probably.”

“So what the fuck’s the difference where you go to college?”

“I told you - connections.”

“Fuck connections.”

“Richie. Let it go.”

“That where you met her, Oneonta?”

“That’s where I met her.”

Artie had calmed down a little. They were back at the house in less than an hour, and parked in the same spot they'd vacated right out front.

"Holy shit," Richie said. "I don't remember you leavin' any lights on. Did you leave any lights on?"

"No."

"Well, they're on now."

It was true. A light burned in the bedroom, and another was on downstairs.

Artie felt a wild stab of hope. "She's back!"

"Maybe. More likely she was here and gone."

"Bullshit! She's home to stay! You were wrong about her, all of you!" He turned to Richie, his eyes glistening with tears of joy. "See? She just flipped out for a little while, that's all. Come on, let's go in. Everything's fine. You'll get your money now, all right?"

"Artie, don't get too - "

"Stop! Shut up!" Artie screamed. He held a warning finger an inch from Richie's nose. "Don't you jinx this on me, now. She's inside, waiting for us, you hear me?"

Richie knew he was willing it to be true, like a faith healer. He gently pushed the finger aside. "All right. If you say so."

"I say so. Now let me go first."

Artie approached the front door hesitantly, like a man fearing he's about to be picked off by a sniper. He worked the key gingerly, turned the doorknob slowly and tiptoed inside.

"Diane? Sweetheart, are you here? Don't be afraid!"

Nothing. He crept upstairs to the bedroom, where the door was wide open.

A pile of clothing Diane obviously hadn't wanted was on the floor by the open closet door. Richie followed Artie upstairs and saw him standing there, his chin to his chest and his eyes closed, like a man saying a prayer at a gravesite.

"Remember I said before that I was an asshole?" Artie said to the floor. Well, revise that. I'm not just an asshole. I'm now officially the world's biggest asshole."

Richie shook his head. "How do you like this," he said, half in wonder, half in admiration. "You gotta admit, this was pretty fuckin' good."

"I'm glad you can appreciate it." Artie kicked the clothing back into the closet, a deed that left him even angrier than he'd been.

"Hey, hey. Calm down. This ain't helpin.' Just take a moment to appreciate the thinkin' that went into this." Richie had to chuckle. "See, she knew we'd do what we did, go flyin’ outta here into Manhattan. Probably went to the diner around the corner and had herself a burger and fries. Came back here, saw the van was gone, and took her time packin.' "

He actually laughed out loud. "Mother of God, this girl is good. She hasn't panicked once. No wonder she's frustrated with a teacher's salary. She was meant for much, much better things. This is a smart one you married, Artie, make no mistake about that."

Artie didn't want to hear it. He slammed the closet door shut.

Richie hesitated. "Do me a favor. Take another look at that place where you keep your passports."

Artie swallowed. With a shaking hand he opened the top drawer on his side of the bureau. This time, only his passport was in there.

"Gone?"

"Hers is."

"Ohhh, shit. Now we're back to six continents."

"A note," Artie blurted. "Maybe she left a note downstairs."

He thundered down to the kitchen, but it was exactly as he and Richie had left it before departing for Westchester - coffee cups and the half-eaten plate of cookies on the table. Richie appeared a minute later.

"Nothin'."

"Right."

"Knew there wouldn't be a note. What the hell's she gonna say? That she's sorry? She's not sorry. Come on, come on. Let's sit."

They sat in stony silence for five minutes, a silence Richie broke.

"Well," he began, "it's not much, but for what it's worth, it was decent of her not to swipe your passport."

“Decent.”

"No, I mean it. She could have taken it. Woulda made sense for her to take it. Because if by some miracle you'd figured out where she went, you wouldn'ta been able to chase her until you got a new one. Coupla days, minimum."

"She's all heart."

"Artie. Make more coffee. We gotta kick it up a notch. She's way ahead of us now."

Artie made it twice as strong as he usually made it. They grimaced as they sipped.

"One thing's for sure - she's got a car now," Richie said. "She ain't luggin' suitcases around on foot." He narrowed his eyes. "Or maybe she called a car service and went straight to the airport."

Artie swallowed. "Should we go to the airport?"

Richie shook his head. "Nah. That's a long shot. Which airport? Which terminal? Once we get there where do we look, where do we go?"

"Air France," Artie said. "I mean, that'd be my guess. Paris. The trip we never took."

Richie thought it over. "No," he finally said, tapping the table top with his forefinger. "She's stayin' in this country, at least for a little while. And come to think of it, it ain't likely she'd get on a plane. No way she can risk goin' through security with all that cash. Wherever she went, at least she ain't in the air."

He closed his eyes and put his hands to his temples, as if to conjure up a vision of Diane's whereabouts. "Way I figure it, she rented a car on Atlantic Avenue and hit the road. Question is, which road did she take?"

Artie's sigh sounded almost like a sob. "I wish I knew."

Richie noticed a stack of mail on top of the refrigerator. "You been here long enough to get a phone bill?"

Artie shrugged. "I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"Diane took care of the bills."

"Those them, up on the refrigerator?"

Richie got up and brought the letters back to the table. One by one he tossed them aside, like a boy discarding unwanted baseball cards: A pack of coupons, a gas bill, a stock options letter from Artie's company....

"Bingo!" He held up a bill from Verizon, winked at Artie and tore it open.

"No offense, Richie, but that’s my phone
bill you're pawing through."

But Richie was already examining it as if it were an ancient scroll from a pharoah's tomb. His eyes widened.

"Here!" He tapped the itemized section of the bill. "Right here." He showed Artie the page, pinpointing one line with a thick forefinger.

"See? A 518 call." The finger slid down the bill. "Another 518 call. And look at this one - a thirty-nine minute call, all to the same number. You been callin' anybody in upstate New York?"

Artie shook his head. Already he could feel his blood darkening with his worst suspicions....

"It's always the same number, too," Richie murmured. "Ends in a double-O, so it's probably a main number...Jesus, look at this one, a ninety-four minute call!"

Artie hesitated. "I know what it is. It's the switchboard at the college we went to. You call the main number, and they switch you through."

"Yeah? She got a close friend up there?"

"I don't know."

Richie moved closer to Artie, the squeak of his chair scraping the floor like the pained cry of a small mammal.

"Yes, you do, my friend," Richie said gently. "You've been straight with me so far. This is no time to start lyin'. Who's she callin'?"

Artie blinked back tears, cleared his throat to take the quake out of his voice. "Gotta be this teacher she had when we were up there. Her favorite teacher."

"You remember his name?"

"I remember his name, all right."

Richie waited, but all Artie could do was sit there and let the tears flow. It was a silent cry, the kind of weeping that happens in church, and Richie respectfully let it go for a few minutes before patting Artie on the shoulder.

"I'm gonna run home for a minute and throw a coupla things in a bag. You do the same thing, and then we're off. Where's the name o’ that college again?"

Artie wiped his eyes. "Oneonta."

"Oneonta. Well, then, we're off to Oneonta. Shame we didn't know about this when we were at your in-laws' place, huh? Woulda been that much closer. Now we gotta back-track. Ah, well, what the hell you gonna do?"

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

DIANE Farley sat in the corner booth of a diner just ten blocks from her Brooklyn house, waiting to be served. She knew she was taking a risk by not hitting the road right away, but there was no choice. Her stomach was sour with acid and she knew she'd be too sick to drive if she didn't eat something.

At last a sleepy-eyed young waiter with greasy hair and a sprinkle of acne across his forehead came by for her order.

"A grilled cheese sandwich and a glass of milk, please."

"Fries with that?"

"No, thank you."

"That's it?"

"Yes, thank you."

He shuffled off to the kitchen as if her refusal to order fries had offended him personally. From where she sat, Diane could see the little green compact car she'd just rented, parked right outside.

And what a mess that had been - running all the way to the car rental place with a knapsack full of cash, only to realize that she'd left her driver's license back at the house!

Oh boy. She had to risk going back, hoping that Artie and the fat Italian had gone chasing after her...and damn if the two of them weren't climbing into the van just as she turned the corner!

She ducked behind a mailbox, squatting there as Artie started up the van and roared away. Her shirt was soaked through with sweat. She knew they had to be off on a wild goose chase to Manhattan, and waited a good five minutes before coming out from behind the mailbox. You never know. Sometimes people forget something and come right back...

How much time before they returned? An hour? Two hours? Either way, it made sense to hurry. She felt like a burglar going into her own house, and took just five minutes to find her driver's license and throw a bunch of clothes into a small suitcase. And while she was at it, she grabbed her passport.

She lugged it all back to the car rental place, where the options were a compact car or a full-sized Buick. She went for the compact. The clerk, a local youth, sped through the paperwork.

"Return date?"

Diane swallowed. "About a week."

"Bringin' it back here?"

“I'm not sure."

The clerk's eyes narrowed. "Well what's your plan, here?"

Good question, Diane thought. 'I'll probably drop it off someplace upstate. Is that do-able?"

The clerk's laugh was more like a snicker. "You can do it, if that's what you mean. Do-able. That's a good one. Is that really a word, lady, or what?"

"It's a word, all right."

She locked the suitcase in the trunk and hit the road. But she'd hardly travelled three blocks before her body literally jack-knifed at the wheel, as if she'd been jabbed in the belly with an ice pick. The stomach acid felt as if it were percolating in there.

She pulled over and parked in the first spot she could find, which happened to be right in front of the diner. It was almost like a sign from above: Eat something before you go...

So here she sat, still in Brooklyn. Unbelievable! She wondered if she might be jinxed, if things were just going to keep happening to prevent her from leaving this strange place. If somebody stole the battery from her car, if somebody grabbed her knapsack and ran - if, if, if...

Only now did she notice that this diner was really low-rent, its windows grimy with grease from hamburgers fried long ago. And the customers seemed to be stoop-shouldered, as if they'd all just gotten bad biopsies. She wedged the knapsack full of money between her hip and the booth's inner wall.

In their wildest dreams, could any of these sorry-looking people have guessed what she had in her knapsack? The thought made her giggle, a sound that turned into a sob. She put her hand over her mouth, forced herself to calm down.

"Easy," she said out loud. "Just take it easy."

Up until this moment, she had never stolen so much as a stick of chewing gum. With this one wild deed, she had pole-vaulted over to the other side of the law.

Or had she? Who exactly was she stealing from? Artie? No, not Artie. He could keep the house he'd bought for her, thank you very much. It was worth a lot more than the money in the sack, and she'd make no claim on it.

The big Italian? Was she stealing from him? Not really. That man was a thief, and you can't steal from a thief...or can you?

"I'm not stealing," she blurted, just as the sleepy-eyed waiter happened to be passing. He stopped and turned to her.

"What ain't you stealin' ?"

Startled, she looked the kid in the eye. "I beg your pardon?"

"You said, 'I'm not stealing.' What are you talkin' about?"

Her hand instinctively reached to clutch the knapsack. At the same time, she realized this kid was a bit of a dim-wit. He had to be the owner's son or nephew, because nobody else would have hired him.

"I'm not stealing anything," she said calmly.

The kid narrowed his eyes at her. "You take my tip money from the last customer?"

"What?!"

"Guy who sat there before you didn't leave me nothin.' You take it?"

Diane shook her head. "There was nothing on the table."

"You sure?"

"I swear, there was nothing."

He stared at her, then gradually began nodding in what appeared to be agreement. "Ahh, I believe you. That guy never leaves me nothin.' Says I always fuck up his order." His face went red. "Excuse my mouth, ma'am."

"That's all right."

His face scrunched up in apparent concentration. "Grilled cheese sandwich and a glass o' milk, right?"

"Yes."

"You really oughta have fries with that. We make good fries."

"All right, I will."

The kid's face brightened. "I'll be back in a few minutes." He shuffled off to the kitchen.

Diane rubbed her eyes. How did this always happen? She was an intelligent woman, but somehow, she always wound up doing and getting things she didn't really want, starting with her marriage, and ending with a side of fries.

"No more," she said aloud, and this time the customers from three booths away turned to look at her. She looked away in embarrassment. She was turning into a crazy lady, broadcasting her thoughts at top volume. The kid set a glass of milk before her. "He's still makin' the grilled cheese."

"That's okay."

"He says I didn't order it before, but I did. The cook's kinda deaf. It ain't my fault."

"I understand."

Customers who looked and behaved like Diane Farley rarely darkened the door to this diner, and the waiter knew it better than anyone. He gazed at her in frank wonder, as if she were an exotic zoo animal on temporary loan to this lousy little diner.

"My name's Martin," he blurted.

"Hello, Martin."

A surge of embarrassment sent the kid back to the kitchen. Diane took a long drink of the milk, and the relief was almost instantaneous as it cooled and coated her stomach.

And now, she surprised herself with the last thing in the world she expected to feel on this night. It was pride - pride for the sheer mechanics of the way she'd gone down to that cellar and made off with the money. God Almighty, it had happened less than an hour ago, yet it felt like a distant but vivid memory.

She could hear the murmur of Richie and Artie's voices overhead...a couple of roosters, trying to out-strut each other. But the big Italian was obviously no dummy. He'd given her a funny look before she disappeared downstairs. She knew she had very little time to work.

The fuse box popped open easily because Diane had indeed gone down earlier and loosened the screws, just to take the money out and look at it. She'd done it several times, in fact, widening the screw holes a little more each time, until the screws came in and out like push-pins. The mere sight of all that cash calmed her soul with the promise of possibilities.

What was her grand plan? The truth was, she had no grand plan. Not yet. But the sight of the money gave her relief, and it was good to be in the cellar if only to get away from Artie.

He was relentless. That was the only word for it.

Ever since he'd pulled this here's-a-house, let's-make-a-baby deal, he was pure misery to be around. He'd robbed her of the one thing they had left, and only Diane knew it. The thing was time...the time to try and make things better.

Suddenly, there was no more time. Artie was a man on a mission, a mission to breed, and she was just a passenger in his rocket ship...a passenger without so much as a porthole to look out...

And then came the moment, the exact moment, that she fell completely out of love with him, about a week before they found the money. Artie was waiting in bed, and she'd just emerged from the shower. He looked at her and clapped his hands twice, like a man summoning his dog.

"Come on," he said. "Let's go."

There was a pinging in her chest, and she knew exactly what it was. It was the final thread of feeling she had for this man, snapping like a kite string in a hurricane wind.

That was it. It was over, and just look at him lying there, with absolutely no idea of what had just happened! How could he not know? How could a man so alive and so smart be oblivious to the sound of her soul sealing up against him, now and forever? He'd have to be told, and she'd have to tell him, but first things first - and the first thing was to wipe out Artie's sperm cells before they could get anywhere near her eggs.

She told him she had a headache. He punched the pillow, moaning about the wasted opportunity. Steeling herself, she took him in her mouth and brought him off, knowing this at least would put him into a deep sleep...so deep, she could lie beside him for the rest of the night and weep without being heard.

Time...she needed time to figure things out, and the only way to buy time was to make sure she didn't get pregnant. The next morning she went out and got the spermicide, weeping as she paid the clerk and hurried home with it, weeping as she applied it...the only time she was too numb to weep was while Artie was actually on top of her, going about his insemination attempts with all the efficiency and romance of a jackhammer.

Except, of course, for the Farewell Fuck, as Richie Fasanella would so poetically term it. They were both different during that one, alive and alert as they hadn't been in years, but not for the same reason. Artie was saying hello, and Diane was saying goodbye.

"Hey, Martin, you fuckin' idiot, come over here."

The loud words jolted Diane, who watched the hapless waiter hurry over to a chubby, unshaven customer at a nearby booth. The customer was holding up his bill between two finicky fingers.

"Look here." He pointed. "Is this a seven or a nine?"

Martin squinted at it. "I can't tell," he admitted.

"Yeah? Well I'm makin' it a seven, dummy."

He grabbed the pen from Martin's shirt pocket, scrawled a clear "7" over Martin's fuzzy one and tossed the pen on the table, followed by a quarter.

"There's your tip. Fuckin' moron." He went to pay the cashier.

Martin swallowed hard, turned to Diane. "My sevens look like nines," he said. "I can't help it."

The teacher in Diane couldn't ignore the problem.

"Come here," she said. "Let me show you something."

The waiter obeyed. Diane took his pen and pad and made a seven with a horizontal slash through its vertical line. "See that?" she said. "That's a seven. You make that little slash, and you'll never mix up your sevens and nines again."

"No kiddin'? That's a seven?"

"Yes. That's how they do it in Europe."

"Cool! You been to Europe?"

She nodded. "When I was a little girl, my parents took me on a trip to Italy."

"Was it good?"

"It was wonderful."

"Shit. I ain't never been nowhere."

"Someday you'll travel."

"You think?"

"Sure. If you really want to, you will." She forced a smile, tapped the waiter's pad. "You make your sevens like this from now on, and you won't have any problems. Go ahead, try it."

Martin took the pen and made a few practice sevens.

"There you go," Diane said. "Now you've got it."

"Lady, you're smart."

"Not very, I'm afraid."

"Are you married?"

The question startled Diane. "Yes, I am."

Martin nodded, his face heavy with disappointment. "Figures. He's a lucky guy."

"I don't know about that, Martin. Could you bring me my grilled cheese now?"

"Yeah. Oh, jeez, I forgot to ask for the fries."

"Oh, I didn't want them anyway. Just the grilled cheese."

Martin went to get it. Diane shut her eyes and stretched with a yawn that left her rib cage sore on both sides. That was puzzling, until she realized she'd scraped herself on the sides of the cellar window, squeezing her way into that little back yard. That was the dividing line of her life, she realized. One side of that window was her old life - the other side, the new...

When she opened her eyes the grilled cheese sandwich was before her. She picked up half of it and brought it to her mouth, and as soon as she took a bite her tears were flowing.

Martin rushed over. "What's wrong, lady?"

"Nothing," Diane replied. "It's just fine."

"You want more milk?"

"No, thank you. Please just leave me alone." Martin went away.

Grilled cheese. What in the world had made her order grilled cheese? She hadn't craved grilled cheese since she was in college. Back then, it was her favorite food for fueling her way through term papers and all-night study sessions.

That was it...a term paper. She'd just begun seeing Artie Farley, and begged off a date with him because she had to finish writing a term paper. He didn't seem happy about it, but said he understood.

It got to be three in the morning, and Diane's was the only light burning in the whole dormitory. She was dizzy, almost woozy, and nothing in the world would have brought her back around better than a grilled cheese sandwich.

A tap at her door...she thought she'd imagined it, until she heard it again. She got up from the typewriter and went to the door, which had no keyhole.

"Who's there?"

"It's Artie."

She opened the door and there he stood, holding a hot grilled cheese sandwich on a plate.

"Room service, ma'am."

She was astonished, delighted, overwhelmed. "Where'd you get that at this hour?"

"Broke into the chem lab and made it over a Bunsen burner."

"You did what?!"

"Cooked it in the chem lab. It was easy. Hope I didn't use too much butter. I'm no great cook, you know. See?" He held up his hand. "Burned my thumb. Stupid, huh?"

He giggled, this Artie she first knew - ten pounds lighter, far less certain of himself, his hand trembling as he held the plate. "Come on, take it, I need my beauty sleep." He handed over the sandwich, kissed her on the forehead. "Eat up and hit those keys, genius. See you tomorrow."

Diane startled him by grabbing his hand and kissing his burned thumb. "Tomorrow," she echoed...

Nothing had ever tasted better to Diane than that sandwich, and it dawned on her that this might be a man she could love. Who else would have done such a thing? That was the Artie Farley she first knew, the crazy, restless guy whose manic energy was a magic carpet ride to adventures she couldn't have dreamed of. He could turn a walk in the park into an event.

What had happened to that guy? Money had happened to him. Money, plain and simple...

And now, what had happened to her? The same thing. Money, a ton of it, more than she could make in four years as a teacher, before taxes. She'd always heard that money made people crazy, and now here she'd gone and proven it was true. In the wink of an eye she'd gone from being a highly-educated teacher to a chick on the lam, chasing a dream that hadn't yet jelled....a dream that was mostly a scheme.

She had to call him. If she called him, it would all become a little more real.

The diner was so old, it actually had a phone booth with a hinged door. She had her cell phone but she wanted the privacy of the booth, so she lugged the knapsack in there, propped it between her feet and dialed the number on her cell. He answered on the third ring.

"Hi. It's Diane."

"Diane!"

"Something's happened. I'm on my way up there, right now."

"Now?"

"Is that all right?"

"Is it all right? It's wonderful!"

"Are you sure?"

"I'm absolutely sure. What happened?"

"I'll tell you when I get there."

"Just tell me that you're all right."

She hesitated. "Actually, I'm scared to death," she said. "But I'm doing this thing. I am doing this thing."

She clicked the phone shut, lugged the knapsack back to her booth and gobbled her grilled cheese sandwich. She pushed the plate aside and tossed a ten dollar bill on the table. At last, poor Martin would have a decent tip. She hurried out to her car and started it up.

A pounding on the driver’s side window. It was Martin. She rolled down the window.

"Hey, lady. Don't you want no change?"

"No, no, Martin. That's for you. Sorry I had to hurry out. I've got a long trip ahead."

"You all right?"

"I will be, Martin. I've really got to get going."

"Thanks for showin' me how to make a seven. Oh, yeah. Here." He pushed the knapsack through the window and onto Diane's lap.

"You forgot your knapsack. Jeez, it's heavy. Whadda you got in there, rocks?"

“Just some clothes.”

She waved goodbye, rolled up the window, put the car in drive and headed down Atlantic Avenue. She was shaking. She gripped the steering wheel, shook her head to clear it. She’d nearly given that kid a $162,000 tip for a grilled cheese sandwich.

“Concentrate,” she mumbled out loud. “For God’s sake, concentrate.”

As she rode onto the Brooklyn Bridge she was jolted by the ringing of her cell phone. She knew who it was. She had no intention of answering it. She guided the car to the far right lane and rolled her window down once again. She gripped the cell phone in her left hand.

Diane Farley had played intramural basketball back at Oneonta, and was famed for her left-handed hook shot. She stuck her arm out the window and used the same hook-shot motion to toss the cell phone over the top of the car, between two support cables and into the East River, far below.

` “Two points,” she said out loud. It calmed her to be rid of the phone. She stopped shaking. Artie couldn’t get to her, now. Nobody could. It wasn’t a bad feeling.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

She'd been home for fifteen minutes when he came through the door. It was the first time she'd ever come back to these three small rooms over the store without Richie around.

She sat at the kitchen table with her white-stockinged feet up on another chair, her kicked-off white shoes on the floor like a pair of mugging victims.

"Hey."

"Hey yourself."

She hoisted her bottle of beer. Marion Kelly didn't believe in glasses, at least not for beer. One of her brothers had once told her you got a better kick from the brew when you sucked it from a bottle, and that was good enough for her. She took a long, well-deserved swallow, wiped her mouth with the back of a freckled hand. A toss of her red mane of hair, a sigh, a smile.

"You're late for my foot rub, buddy."

She lifted her feet so Richie could sit in the chair opposite her. He took her feet in his lap and began massaging them. Marion let out a low moan of pleasure as he squeezed her arches to the very boundary that separates pleasure from pain. They were broad feet, callused heavily at the heels and on the big toes, the feet of a 48-year-old woman who earned her money standing up.

"God, you're good at this."

"I hadda be good at somethin'."

"What's wrong?"

"With what?"

"Your hands are different. They're shaking."

"Nothin's wrong."

"Richie. You weren't here when I got home." She pointed to the window sill, at a droopy green potted fern she'd picked up at a flea market. "I'd sooner expect
that plant to be out than you. Come on, now, tell me."

He gave her feet a final squeeze. "I gotta take a little trip."

Marion sat up straight but left her feet on his lap. She couldn't have been more surprised if he'd told her he'd be flying to the moon.

"A trip."

"Yeah. A little one."

She pulled her feet from his lap, set them flat on the floor, rested her elbows on the table. Richie noticed a slash of red dots across the left breast of her uniform. He
knew how they'd gotten there without asking, as he'd seen it before. A patient had ripped an intravenous tube from his or her arm in the emergency room at Methodist Hospital, and sent a spray of blood toward Marion as she struggled to restrain him.

They'd met in the emergency room, six months earlier. Richie had slashed the palm of his left hand while slitting open a box of Tootsie Rolls and needed eight stitches to
close the wound. Marion was there to assist as a young doctor did the stitching. She would later tell Richie that it was his boyish bravery she first found attractive - the
way he sat as still as a stone even though he was drenched in a cold sweat that Marion blotted from his forehead, and the flutter in the deep breaths Richie took to fight the nausea that welled up in his throat every time he felt the pull of the needle through his flesh.

When it was over they went out for coffee, at Marion's insistence. She'd been a widow for three years at this point and this was the first time she'd taken an interest in any
man since the death of her own husband, a retired cop who'd suffered a fatal heart attack in the arms of a hooker.

"Why me?" Richie asked her in the cozy darkness of his bedroom the first time they slept together.

"You have nice eyes," she replied. "And you were so brave when they stitched you up."

"Brave? I almost puked."

"But you didn't."

By the time Richie's hand was healed Marion was living with this man whose habits were as regular as the pendulum of a Swiss clock. He opened the store, he sat in the store,
he closed the store.

And suddenly, he was taking a trip.

"A trip to where?"

Richie rubbed his meaty face. "I can't exactly tell you."

"Why not?"

"I'll be back tomorrow night."

"From where?"

"From the trip."

"Richie, please. If you've met someone, just tell me."

"I didn't meet anyone. How the fuck am I gonna meet anyone?"

"People meet people. It happens."

"That's not what happened. But I still can't tell you where I'm goin.' "

She sank low in the chair. "My God, Richie, not another crime. You're no good at it."

He rolled his eyes. "Marion, I'm not pullin' another job, for Christ's sake!"

She knew all about the one and only crime of Richie Fasanella's life. In fact, she knew just about all there was to know about him. Now he was sorry about all he'd told her,
but it was too late for regrets. All they could do was stare at each other until Richie broke the stare with the words, "I gotta pack a bag."

He found a small blue gym bag in the back of his bedroom closet, and when he unzipped it he was startled to see three blue handballs in it, gone chalky with the years.

Handballs! How long had it been since he'd spent a Saturday afternoon at the handball courts? He dumped the balls out and stuffed a t-shirt, a pair of undershorts, socks, and
his toilet kit into it.

When he returned to the kitchen Marion stood with her back to the door, her arms folded across her chest.

"You're blockin' my way? What are you, kiddin' me?"

"Nobody's blocking your way."

He was shocked to see tears in her eyes. "Why you cryin' ?"

"I might not be here when you get back."

"Awww, Marion, gimme a break, here."

"Well, I'm still paying seven hundred a month for my studio apartment. Might as well get some use out of it."

"I told you to give up that apartment."

"No, you didn't."

"I sure did."

"I asked you if I should give up my apartment, and you said it was fine by you."

"Same thing."

"No, it isn't, Richie. It's not even in the same ballpark."

"Marion. I gotta go do this thing."

"You're the only man I ever loved."

It didn't sound like a declaration of feelings to Richie. It sounded more like a goodbye, the final words of a person who's about to be executed.

Richie rubbed his eyes with both hands, as of to wipe away a mirage, but when he was done Marion was still there, staring at him with glistening eyes. He swallowed and said, "I
can't imagine why."

"It's the truth."

"I believe you."

"But you don't love me, Richie."

"Who says I don't?"

"You've never said it."

"I never heard my father say it to my mother, or her to him, but I'm pretty sure they loved each other."

"What is that, some kind of family code? A moratorium on the 'l' word?"

"Marion. If I say it now it won't mean much, will it?"

She let her head drop, reached behind her back and opened the door. "Just go."

He stepped into the hallway and turned to face her, lifting her chin with thumb and forefinger. Her eyes were tightly shut and tears flowed down her cheeks.

"You got blood on you. Squirt some pre-soak on it, I'm doin' laundry tomorrow. All right? You listenin'?" He shook her chin. "Be here when I get back, all right? You gonna be here when I get back?"

"What the hell do you care?"

"I care, God damn it, I care. Heat up the leftover macaroni. Tastes even better the next day.”

He turned and thundered down the stairs, moving faster than he had in years, aware that this bit of domestic turbulence had cost him precious minutes on a chase that might be taking him nowhere anyway.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Diane was sixty miles north of the city when it happened. Something flashed in front of her, crossing the highway. She felt it bump against the front of the car and then she lost control, jamming on the brakes and fighting the steering wheel as she rolled into a ditch.

The car stalled out, and suddenly it was absolutely silent. Diane got out of the car. The moon was bright, and she saw a pair of slender legs twitching twenty yards back. My God, I’ve hit a child...

On quaking legs she made her way toward those twitching legs, and saw that there were four of them. It was a young deer on its back.

“Oh my God, no...”

The deer’s horns were small points, like a pair of pencil stubs. His eyes were wide open and he lay there taking short, shallow breaths. Diane moved closer. A shudder coursed through the deer’s body. Diane knelt down and dared to touch the animal’s side, felt the tremble through its surprisingly rough coat.

Breathing sounds from above. Diane looked up and gasped at the sight of a tall bearded man standing there, staring down at the deer.

He looked as if he’d been born out there in the woods. He wore a wool cap, tattered jeans and a thick flannel shirt. His hair hung to his shoulders and the matted beard reached to the middle of his chest.

Diane stood as the man bent to examine the deer, taking its head in his hands and wobbling it from side to side.

“Neck’s busted.”

He had a deep, hollow voice, the voice of one who went days, maybe weeks without talking. The sound was both soothing and frightening to Diane.

“He ran in front of me,” she said at last.

The man nodded. “That’s how it happens. You probably just winged him. Bet your air bag didn’t even deploy, did it?”

She was stunned that such an apparent savage would know anything about airbags.

“No,” Diane replied, “it didn’t.”

He studied Diane long and hard, as if he’d been shipwrecked on an island and this was the first woman he was seeing in years.

“You alone?”

Diane swallowed. She didn’t want this man to think she was alone. At the same time, she didn’t want to get caught in a lie. In the end, she simply nodded.

The man pulled out a hunting knife and tested its edge with his thumb, all the while staring at Diane. She went weak at the knees and forced herself to stand tall. A wild plan hatched in her head - run back to the car, hand the savage the knapsack, tell him to keep the money and beg for her life.

But before she could speak the man said calmly, “You might want to turn your head, lady.”

Before she could do that he lifted the deer’s chin as if to give it a shave and slashed his throat.

Blood spurted and there was a horrible sound, like a drain backing up. The savage held fast to the deer’s skull as the animal kicked his legs.

Diane staggered to the weeds to vomit. She returned in time to watch the man drag the deer to a nearby tree, where he managed to hang it upside-down from a fork in the branches. Blood flowed from the deer’s throat and a final shiver ran through him. Then the animal was still, hanging and dripping.

The man cleaned his knife by plunging it into the ground several times, then wiping it on the seat of his jeans. He pocketed the knife, clapped his hands together to cleanse them and turned to Diane.

“My name is Derek.”

He said it the way people introduce themselves at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. He extended his hand for a shake. Incredible, there was no blood on it, despite the butchery.

“I’m Diane.”

She shook his hand. The grip was surprisingly gentle.

“Let’s get you back on the road, Diane.”

She followed him to the car. It was stuck in the ditch at a sharp downward angle. Diane got in and was able to start it, but the rear wheels spun when she tried to back it up onto the highway. Derek vanished momentarily into the woods and returned with a short flat plank, which he wedged beneath one of the the rear wheels.

“I’m going to push you,” he told Diane. “Wait for my signal before you hit the gas.”

He braced himself against the front of the car, gave a nod and pushed. The rear wheel gripped the plank and Diane rolled back onto the highway so fast that she had to jam on the brakes.

Derek climbed up onto the highway and approached the driver’s side. Diane reached into the knapsack, pulled out a single bill, rolled down the window and handed it to him.

“Thank you so, so much.”

He examined the bill in the moonlight and let out a low whistle.

“That is one old twenty, ma’am. Where’d you get it?”

Under the circumstances, only the truth would do.

“I...found it.”

“Found money, huh?” He ventured a smile, teeth gleaming yellow. “Well, I know one thing. It can’t be clean.”

“It’s clean, all right.”

Derek shook his head. “One thing I learned on Wall Street - dirty money stays dirty.” He winked at Diane.

She was stunned. “You’re from the city?”

He nodded. “Lived there twenty years. Eighty-sixth and Park. Wife left me, and I pretty much fell apart. So...”

He shrugged, as if to indicate that the rest of his story should be obvious. A man betrayed by the woman he loves is a broken reed for the rest of his life, wandering around in the woods like a wounded animal.

Derek held up the bill. “Got more?”

She couldn’t lie to him, and for some reason she couldn’t hit the gas to get away from him. She could only nod.

“Well, watch how you spend the rest of it, ma’am. Keep it in the dark.” He winked. “Bleed it out, a little at a time, here and there. Don’t make a splash.”

They stared at each other the way strangers who’ve connected do when they know they’ll never see each other again, and that one of them will die first without the other one knowing anything about it.

“Well. Thank you so much for your help, Derek.”

He pocketed the ancient bill. “Don’t really need money out here, but if I get a sack of salt I can cure that whole deer. Last me a couple of weeks.”

In the distance a car was approaching. Derek shied away from the oncoming headlights, like a vampire fearing the approach of dawn.

“Drive safe, Diane. Put your high beams on the next few miles. That’ll give the deer a little bit of warning.”

Before she could reply he was gone. The approaching car whizzed past Diane and was two red tail lights in the distance before she could catch her breath, click on her high beams, put the car in drive and continue on her mission.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Artie paced back and forth outside his house until at last he saw Richie approaching, bag in hand.

“What the hell took you?”

“Had a little fight with my girlfriend.”

“You have a girlfriend?”

“What are you, shocked?”

“You never mentioned her.”

“We know each other three hours, Artie. It’s not like we went to prison together.”

“What’s her name?”

“The hell is it to you?”

“You asked a million questions about Diane!”

` “Yeah, well, if Marion ever steals a hundred and sixty large from you, feel free to ask me anything you want.”

“Marion, huh?”

“Ahh, get in the car.”

Without discussing the matter it was understood that Richie would do the driving, that Artie’s nerves were too shattered to handle the long trip. Richie got behind the wheel and tossed his bag onto the back seat. Artie tossed his own bag beside Richie’s before buckling himself in.

“Hey Face, you smell good.”

“You promised you wouldn’t call me that.”

“Sorry. That was the last one. But you do smell good.”

Artie rolled his eyes. “I needed a shower, all right? I’d been working on my damn house all day before you dropped by.”

“Shaved too, huh?”

“Hey, with everything I did, I was still ready to go before you.”

“All I said was, you smell good. It’s good you took a shower! Shower and a shave’ll improve your mood, no matter what you’re goin’ through.”

“You learn that in prison?”

“Nah. You want to improve your mood in prison, shower’s the last place you go.”

Richie started the van, looked at his watch. “It’s a little after ten. I figure we’re there by two. You know where this fucker lives?”

“Somewhere on campus. I don’t know exactly where.”

“Can we get on campus in the middle of the night?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, we’ll find him. Don’t worry about that, we’ll find him.” Richie eased away from the curb. “And even if we don’t, I’m about to make one of my mother’s dreams come true, rest her soul.”

Artie gave him a puzzled look. Richie smiled. “I’m finally goin’ to college.”

Artie couldn’t even manage a grin. They sat in stony silence, a silence Artie didn’t break until they were twenty miles north of the city.

“I’ll fucking kill him.”

Richie nodded, as if he’d been waiting to hear those exact words. “Before you start shooting, keep your pants on. This could turn out to be a wild goose chase.”

“No,” Artie said, his voice trembling. “This is no goose chase. It’s him. I know it’s him. It can’t be anybody but Duncan McLaverty.”

Richie couldn’t help laughing. “Duncan McLaverty?”

“Great name, huh?”

“Sounds like the St. Patrick’s Day special at McDonald’s.”

“Oh, he’s special, all right. He’s real special.”

“Tell me about him.”

“Not now.”

“Artie, I could use the conversation. I get drowsy on long drives. Come on. Dun-can Mc-Lav-er-ty. Let’s hear it.”

They whizzed past a dead racoon on the roadside, its body flattened, its teeth clenched in a final grimace of agony. The sight of the pathetic creature was just the prompting Artie needed.

“He’s this poet,” Artie began.

Duncan McLaverty certainly looked the part. He had a tall, lean body that would have been termed consumptive fifty years earlier. When Artie and Diane were students at Oneonta, Duncan McLaverty was the hands-down Big Man On Campus.

Cascades of brown curls tumbled down his neck and his wide, sensitive brow. His chin was right out of the comic books, the kind of chin Captain America jutted toward his enemies before wiping them out, and his eyes were twin balls of green ice...the eyes of a man who saw things the rest of us didn’t even know existed.

Maybe the only physical trait you could fault him for was his Adam’s Apple, a bulky thing that peeked out over turtleneck collars when Duncan gave poetry readings. People in the audience were always telling him to speak up, as he had a gentle voice that tended to fade out toward the ends of his sentences. Diane sat rapt at every one of his readings while Artie, the dutiful date, had to be dragged there to endure Duncan’s tortured recitations.

He was only twenty-four when he hit the literary world with a splash. “Bog Without Pity” was a collection of poems about his impoverished childhood in Ireland. He wrote them late at night in a rented room in Hell’s Kitchen, after working long shifts as a waiter at an Italian restaurant.

Without the restaurant job, there would have been no book. An alcoholic editor from a major publishing house dined there once a week and struck up a friendship with the young waiter, who shyly showed him his work. It was one of those rare cosmic clicks, a combination of good luck and good work, and suddenly it was all there for this young man who’d never had more than a hundred dollars in his pocket.

The New York Times gave the book a rave review, he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and thanks to his good looks Duncan even found himself on the morning talk shows, where his shy, tortured soul seduced a million female viewers. They ran out and bought “Bog Without Pity” and for a brief time it became the rarest of literary rarities - a book of poems that hit the bestseller list.

It was during this wave of excitement that Duncan was hired as an associate professor to teach poetry at Oneonta, and for the first time in his life he was on a medical plan. He was given a light schedule, of course. For the most part, Duncan McLaverty was the school’s show pony, the one who’d write the books that would help put the school on the map.

It didn’t happen. Duncan McLaverty needed anonymity and no expectations to produce his best work, conditions that were now gone. Written in the glaring light of fame, his new poems lacked the punch of the old ones. The New York Times absolutely murdered “Looking Back At The Bog.”

But that was all right. Duncan shook off the punch, and declared in an uncharacteristic burst of bravado that he was now writing a novel, a novel that would show everyone exactly how it was supposed to be done.

And that’s just about when Artie and Diane became his students. She was a spirited education major thrilled to be in McLaverty’s class, while Artie was a business major taking the easiest course he could find to fill out an elective requirement.

Maybe the bored smirk on Artie’s face contributed to the C-minus final grade McLaverty gave him. Certainly Diane’s gaze of worship didn’t hurt on her path to an A. As McLaverty paced the classroom aisles, Diane imagined good old “Mac” (as he urged his favorite students to call him) pounding away on his Olivetti each night. He’d show them all that his early promise was no fluke....

Thin arms spread wide as he made passionate points about poetry, McLaverty looked to Diane as if he might actually achieve flight - half-poet, half-condor, soaring high over the campus...

One day after a McLaverty class Artie stunned Diane by asking her out for coffee. She accepted the invitation, if only to get a few things off her chest about the way Artie did nothing to hide his disdain for Mac’s course.

Artie cheerfully admitted she was right, that he was there for an easy three credits, that to him the entire experience - and the teacher himself - were pure bullshit.

Her ears literally went red with rage, but she didn’t get up and storm away. Instead, she pulled her chair closer. There was something about Artie’s willful ignorance in the face of artistic beauty that aroused her. Maybe it was because she’d never known anyone like this. Compared to her parents, Artie Farley was a caveman.

But at the same time he had this amazing confidence, and damn if he wasn’t funny....

Coffee turned into dinner, and then drinks at the local rathskellar, and that night they made love as if they were both going to the electric chair in the morning. It was just one of those things that worked. From that moment on, they were a couple - the go-go business major and his sensitive, poetic girlfriend, a textbook case of opposites attracting.

And what a wedding proposal he made! He worked it out to happen at a college football pep rally, a rally attended by just about everybody on campus. In the midst of the madness the solemn-voiced announcer asked everyone to please turn their attention to the scoreboard for an important message.

Preceded by a drum roll, the words crawled across the giant screen:

DIANE...WILL YOU MARRY ME?

A spotlight hit their faces. Diane sat in slack-jawed wonder as Artie fell to one knee and held out a diamond ring.

She couldn’t even speak. She managed a faint nod. They embraced, and the entire crowd cheered their lungs out, with the exception of Duncan McLaverty.

“That was the best part,” Artie told Richie. “The look in McLaverty’s face when I proposed to her. I saw him. He turned gray, I swear to God.”

“The best part should have been the way you felt about her.”

“Oh, balls, man, you know what I mean.”

“Sounds to me you did this grandstand proposal just to stick it to the poet.”

“That’s not why I did it.”

“You just said it was the best part.”

“I only mean that I enjoyed it.”

“It’s a miracle he gave you a C-minus. I’m surprised he didn’t flunk you.”

“He tried. He shit all over my final exam, this poetry interpretation bullshit. Like there’s a right way and a wrong way to interpret a poem, right?”

“There isn’t a right way and a wrong way?”

“It’s all opinions. He tried to give my opinions an F. Had to fight to have it bumped to a C.”

“Minus.”

“Yeah, okay, C-minus. Jesus, Richie, when you get something between your teeth you don’t let go, do you?”

“It’s funny how you always go with the same technique.”

“What?”

“The proposal, in front of all those people. The way you bought her the house.”

“What are you saying?”

“You never give her a chance to say ‘no.’ “

Artie’s teeth clenched. “Bullshit.”

“You lay it all out for her, and she either has to go along or feel like a fool. Who wants to feel like a fool?”

“What do I owe you for this session, doctor?”

“Yeah, well, if I charged you, you’d listen to me.”

“She’d have accepted my proposal under any conditions.”

“I guess you gotta believe that.”

“What about you and Marion?”

Richie’s hands clenched the steering wheel. “What about us?”

“How’d you meet?”

“I don’t want to bore you.”

“What’s she do?”

“Nurse.”

“So she’s probably as deep and dark as you, huh? Dealing with sick people, confronting death all day long.”

“No. Days, she sleeps. She works nights. We don’t see all that much of each other.”

“Are you in love with this woman?”

“Next question.”

Artie stewed for a few silent miles. “Feels funny to be going back to the campus. Haven’t been there since Homecoming Weekend, two years ago.”

“What the fuck is that?”

“It’s where the alumni visit the campus.”

“Why?”

“Parties, a football game. You know.”

“Hell’s the point?”

Artie shrugged. “It’s fun. You’ve heard of fun.”

“Never understood all that Joe College bullshit. Bad enough you spend four years wavin’ pom-poms. Then you go back for more?”

“Haven’t you ever heard of school spirit?”

“Artie. It’s pretty stupid stuff.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s fun. You hook up with your old classmates, see how everybody’s doing - “

“See how much better you’re doin’ than they are, is what you mean.” Richie chuckled. “Come on, buddy. You’re a shark. You keep score. It’s what you do.”

“What’s wrong with keeping score?”

“Keeps you from being in love.”

Artie laughed out loud. “The shit you come up with!”

“Scorekeepers have to win. Knocks everything else aside. And the people they sleep with can always tell. They’re just another notch on the belt.”

“Bull-shit.”

“Is it? Whose wife are we chasin’, here?”

“Fuck you.”

“Make your peace with it, Artie. Sharks aren’t sheep. If you’re a shark, be a shark. If you’re a sheep, be a sheep.”

“Yeah? Which one are you?”

“Well, I ain’t a shark. But I also know that a sheep is an aggressive, ambitious creature, compared to whatever the fuck I’ve turned into.”

“You’re pretty ambitious tonight.”

“I get that way when a hundred and sixty-two large is on the line.” Richie hesitated. “This Homecoming Weekend bullshit. Diane didn’t want to go, did she?”

Artie’s silence was an answer.

“Figures. How ‘bout that? You drag her up here against her will, and she bangs the poet. That’s pretty much how it happened, no?”

Artie’s blood pounded in his ears. “I never used to wonder. But I do now.”

“She go off by herself a lot that weekend?”

Artie shrugged. “Guess so. She had her crowd, I had mine. But we slept together both nights.”

“You have sex?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Sure you do. Men remember every time they ever got laid, especially when they travel. Bad sign for a husband if he doesn’t get laid in a hotel. No excuses. No dishes to wash, clean sheets, loads of towels, a “Do Not Disturb” sign - ”

“We didn’t have sex, all right?”

“She fall asleep early?”

Artie thought about it. He felt his heart weep, but not his eyes. “Both nights.”

They were silent for the next half mile. “That’s when it really changed for us,” Artie blurted. “All of a sudden we were doing it once a week, once a month...and real mechanical, you know? Like it was something we both needed, and we might as well get it from each other.”

Richie sighed. “The old cauliflower fuck.”

“Jesus, what’s that?”

“Like you’re stickin’ it in a raw cauliflower. Can’t get through it without a lube. Makes you feel like a rapist.”

Artie stared at him in wonder. “How do you know?”

“What, I was born last night? Things go wrong in a marriage, this is what happens. I had the same misery with my own wife.”

Artie was thunderstruck. “You were married?”

“Not for long, but I was.”

“She still around?”

“Nope. Heard she died of liver cancer, ‘bout three years ago.”

“You heard?”

“We weren’t exactly close after we parted. Or while we were married, come to think of it.”

“She divorced you, huh?”

Richie nodded. “ ‘Bout a year after they sent me away. Not much point in waitin’ for a guy who was lookin’ at the kinda time I was lookin’ at.”

“She must have been pretty pissed off about what you did.”

Richie rubbed his chin, rustly with stubble. “Disappointed is more like it. The heist was her idea.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Richie looked at the gas gage. “Oughta fill up soon,” he murmured. “Next station we see.”

“Your wife planned the crime?!”

Richie nodded. “Start to finish. If everything had gone right, they never would have caught me.” He couldn’t help chuckling. “And in case you wondered, those are the words of every criminal who ever got nailed.”

Francesca DeMarco was not the kind of woman who believed that scrimping and saving for the things you wanted in life was the best way to go.

She might have been the most beautiful woman who ever worked at Pechter’s, but that wasn’t saying much. Most of the bakery’s female employees were ageing, overweight women in hairnets who spent their days in a round-shouldered hunch over mounds of dough. There was no dental plan, so missing teeth remained missing, and it always seemed to young Richie that most of them had a hairy mole somewhere - on the cheek, the elbow, the neck. Look hard enough and you’d find it...

Then one day he happened to see her working on the the dinner roll line, and his heart jumped. Francesca had huge brown eyes and a wide brow. Her long, lean neck in the midst of all those thick throats made her look like a swan in a pond brimming with bullfrogs. Small, delicate hands expertly shaped lumps of dough into rolls, which she stacked on greased metal sheets.

Richie was working on the sliced bread line. He knew he’d see her during the 10:30 break, and worked up his courage to ask her to join him for a cup of coffee. To his shock, she accepted.

Smudged with flour, they sat in the cafeteria and sipped the bitter brew from the coffee machine. It wouldn’t occur to Richie until after they were married that their courtship was pretty much based on his ability to listen to Francesca complain. In Francesca’s eyes, her life had taken a permanent downward turn when she was just five years old.

She’d fallen off her bike and broken her nose. Her parents were too poor to take her for good medical care, so the nose was set by a city doctor. This, according to Francesca, resulted in a permanent bend that killed her chances of ever becoming a model.

“Look at me,” she said, pointing at the center of her face. “Picture me without this bent nose. I could have made it, don’t you think?”

Richie shrugged. “I don’t know anything about the modeling business.”

“Well I do. Believe me, I could have made a nice living. Then maybe an acting career. One thing leads to another, know what I mean?”

“I guess.”

Richie didn’t think the nose looked bad at all but he never got a chance to mention this because Francesca was off on other things, such as the singing and piano lessons she never had. Bad luck, bad luck all around. And here she now was, nineteen years old and stuck working in a bakery.

She sighed. “It would have been easier if I’d been born ugly. But I wasn’t. I know what it’s like to have been pretty. It’s a terrible thing to lose.”

“You’re pretty now.”

“Not pretty enough.”

“For what?”

She looked at him as if he were an idiot. “For all the things I’ve been telling you about. Weren’t you listening?”

Before Richie could answer Francesca was off again.

“This place is a prison,” she announced, gesturing at the walls. “A place where dreams go to die.”

“Come on, Francesca. They treat us all right.”

“Are you saying you like it here?”

“It’s not so bad. My parents put in eighteen hours a day at the candy store. Now that’s a prison. We’re here eight hours, and we’re out. Compared to the candy store, it’s a vacation.”

“So you think you’ve really accomplished something by working here.”

“I think I’m doin’ all right.”

Francesca shook her head. “You don’t have any goals?”

“Goals?”

She folded her arms across her chest, and even at his tender age Richie knew that when women did that, something unpleasant was on the way.

“Name me one goal you have.”

“Well.” He felt himself flush. “I was hopin’ you’d go to a movie with me.”

Francesca rolled her eyes, unfolded her arms. “That’s not a goal. That’s a desire.”

“Same thing, if you’re Italian.”

She couldn’t help giggling, but forced herself to get serious again. “Honestly, Richie. Do you plan to work here for the rest of your life?”

“Hell, no! But for now, it’s a steady check.”

Francesca shook her head. “If you’re not careful you’ll wind up a lifer,” she warned. “Sitting in this room thirty years from now, drinking bad coffee.”

Richie let a respectful silence pass. They were interrupted by the rumbling cough of Ernie Abruzzo, a bony old man with wild tufts of white hair and goatlike legs. Ernie put a quarter in the coffee machine and kicked it repeatedly when it delivered the hot liquid without a cup.

“Nothin’ works here,” he informed Richie and Francesca. “Not one Goddamned thing.” He tottered back to his job.

“That sums up Pechter’s,” Francesca said, her voice deep with drama. “Coffee without a cup. You just stand there and watch it go down the drain.”

“He’s in the million loaf club,” Richie said.

Francesca’s eyebrows arched. “I beg your pardon?”

“They figured that Ernie’s made over a million loaves of bread since he’s been here. Gave him a plaque last summer.”

Francesca actually shivered with revulsion, as if an army of beetles had just crawled over her body. “I swear I’d kill myself right now if I thought I had something like that waiting for me.”

Richie shrugged. “I don’t know. They threw him a nice little party. Sprang for champagne and a sheet cake.”

“Great. Champagne and a sheet cake, and all you have to do is sweat over an oven for fifty years.”

“Fifty-two, to be exact. I hear Ernie’s shootin’ for sixty.”

“Doesn’t that bother you? A whole life, wasted at this place?”

` “I hear he’s got a family. This place made it possible.”

“Oh my God, you’re a company man!”

“No, I ain’t. But there’s worse things you can do with your life. People like bread, you know? They need it. Bible says it’s the staff of life.”

“I don’t eat bread.”

Richie couldn’t help laughing. “How could anybody not eat bread? That’s like not breathin’ air!

They stared at each other as their break dwindled down to its final moments.

“So,” Richie said, “we goin’ to the movies tonight, or what?”

Francesca sighed. “No good movies around.”

“We can go to a bad one and boo at the screen.”

She smiled, a smile of surrender. “You’re funny.”

“So we’re goin’?”

“Yes, I’ll go to the movies with you.”

“Great!”

She told him her address. They rose to return to work.

“Richie.”

“Yeah?”

Francesca hesitated. “You’ve got dreams, right?”

“Sure I do.”

“I mean, your whole life isn’t going to be bread, is it?”

“Me? Bread? No way. Gotta have a little cake once in a while, right?”

She seemed greatly relieved. “Yes. Absolutely. A little cake is what it’s all about.”

The movie they went to was indeed a stinker but they didn’t see more than a few frames of it anyway, locking lips for nearly two hours in the theater’s balcony. Like any nineteen-year-old in such a situation Richie Fasanella had no complaints about it, but he sensed a despair in Francesca she seemed to be trying to kiss away. It was as if she knew that it would end up for her the way it does for everybody, that in the wink of an eye you go from talking about dreams to suckling squalling children, and what were those dreams all about, anyway?

Francesca didn’t want to get a bite to eat after the movie. She didn’t want to do anything, and when Richie walked her home she actually broke into a trot in front of her house, bidding him good night over her shoulder. She might even have been weeping...

That’s it, he told himself, but the next day at Pechter’s there she was, seeking him out at the break to tell him what a nice time she’d had.

“You did? You didn’t seem happy.”

“Oh, it wasn’t you, Richie. I have my moods, you know?”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s just a girl thing. Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay.”

And so they became a couple, or as much of a couple as people can become when they’re living with their parents. Francesca’s dad was a short, bald-headed guy with a handlebar moustache who pitched trash for the Department of Sanitation. His even shorter wife worked in a ribbon factory, and the two of them were imbued with a sadness that probably traced to their failure to make their only child happy.

What if a better doctor had set Francesca’s nose? What if they’d been able to afford singing and dancing lessons for their child? Ah, well. There was only so much money they could hurl at their problems, and every time they looked at Francesca they felt like apologizing.

Of course, if the DeMarcos had borne a few more children, Francesca’s selfishness would never have had a chance to bloom. But as an only child, it thrived in the deep soil of her parents’ guilt. All Francesca had to do was sigh, and they felt bad. There was something about her that made her sadness seem more important than their own.

It was working on Richie, too. Another person’s misery is like anything else - there’s a fine line between getting used to it and then suddenly being unable to live without it. At times, he thought he’d go insane if he had to hear her complain for one more minute.

But when she went away with her parents to Greenwood Lake for a week in the summer, Richie found himself aching for her.

Francesca slyly returned to Brooklyn two days before her parents and invited Richie over for dinner. Like so many unhappy people, Francesca was an excellent cook. It was as if she could make the ingredients themselves sad enough to weep hidden flavors from within, resulting in an extraordinary lasagne the likes of which Richie Fasanella had never tasted. It was almost enough to make him believe in heaven...

They sat close through dinner, the red roses Richie had brought sweetening the air. Without a word Francesca took his hand and led the way to her bedroom.

The bed was covered with dolls, which Francesca moved carefully to the floor, as if not to wake them. She lay on the bed and invited Richie to join her.

The country had done her good. Her skin was tanned a honey brown, and her long, lustrous hair was as fragrant as mountain air. She’d never looked better, and she’d never look so good again, but even in the heat of the moment Richie sensed two sad, sad facts - the fact that Francesca was not the girl of his dreams, and the fact that he was more like a stableboy than the man on the white horse she certainly needed to take her away.

But you don’t stop when you’re in the middle of it, do you? Oh, no. Nobody ever stops, especially at age nineteen. Stop? Hell, you don’t even know where the brake is...

Hands quaking, Richie reached to unbutton her shirt, and she did not resist.

“Richie. Wait.”

His hands froze, and his heart fell. It wasn’t going to happen, after all. Maybe that was a good thing. He could get away clean, walk of the boner, go home and jerk himself off. And he wouldn’t have to worry about pleasing an unpleasable woman.

Francesca stared at him, glared at him. “You’ve got dreams, right, Richie?”

“You know I do,” he lied. “I told you I do.”

“What are they?”

Richie swallowed to lubricate his suddenly parched throat for the biggest lie he was ever going to tell. “To get rich, some day.”

“How?”

“That’s the part I haven’t figured out yet. But I will, I swear I will.”

Francesca’s nostrils widened. In one startling motion she whipped off her shirt and lay there, bare-breasted and serene.

“That’s all I wanted to know, baby.”

A week later they eloped.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Artie shook his head in wonder. “You married her a week after you had sex with her?”

“It’s known as thinkin’ with your dick.”

“You didn’t love her?”

“I didn’t even know what love was. Still don’t. Do you?”

“Why’d you do it?”

“Guess I thought it was what she wanted.”

“That’s insane.”

Richie sighed. “I think maybe we thought we were each other’s escape, you know? Little did we know we were each other’s prison.”

Artie let it sink in. “So,” he began, “at the risk of getting belted in the mouth, was Francesca...you know...”

“A virgin? I don’t know.”

“Come on. You can tell from the blood.”

“Artie, there’s a million ways for the hymen to tear. She liked horseback riding in Prospect Park, for instance. That’ll do it.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’ll tell you what I do know - Francesca was the first woman I was with who wasn’t a pro.”

“You went to hookers?”

“Once in a while.”

“I never did that.”

Richie shrugged. “You grew up in a different time. Too dangerous now. Back then, it wasn’t a bad way to release the steam, you know? Keep the boiler from blowin’ up.”

Richie arched his back, squeezed the steering wheel. “Anyway, Francesca was my first non-pro. Little did I know it’d be eleven years before I got to taste my next one, but life’s funny like that.”

Richie and Francesca got themselves a two-room apartment right in the neighborhood. Richie kept plugging away in the sliced bread department, and every now and then it hit him like a tingle across the shoulders: My God, I’m married. He wondered if all married guys felt such moments of disbelief, but who could he ask? His father? His father had no time for anything like that. His father barely had time to shower and shave. The rest of the time he was either fast asleep or in the candy store, serving customers or waiting for them.

For the first time Richie really wondered what his parents’ marriage was like. They never argued, and they seemed to care about each other, but he’d rarely seen them touch each other. When one appeared in the store, the other had a chance to go upstairs and catch a nap. Alone, of course.

Sleep together? What a wasteful concept! Who would mind the store? And so over the years, Richie’s parents had become the interlocking halves of a well-oiled mechanism. It was a devoted marriage, Richie concluded, except that they weren’t married to each other. They were married to the store, a pitiless beast that sent them springing to their feet every time the bell over the door jingled with the arrival of a customer.

Meanwhile, things were happening in his own marriage. Francesca was no longer in the dinner rolls department - she’d managed to get herself transferred to the payroll department, thanks to excellent grades in mathematics on her high school record.

That’s when things started to change. Francesca was no longer a smock-and-hairnet employee - she now went to work in a dress and good shoes. She had to flesh out her wardrobe, and it didn’t come cheap. The little bit of money Richie had saved was gone, and since they’d eloped they hadn’t made a nickel off their wedding.

It was clenched-teeth time, stares-across-the-kitchen-table time. Francesca had moved on, while her husband had not. He lived in fear of being asked what those big dreams for the future were, because he still hadn’t been able to cook up a plan.

He told her he might get promoted to foreman of the sliced bread department, but that was not his wife’s idea of reaching for the stars.

“Oh boy, Richie,” she said, her voice thick with bile. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they actually made you a foreman?”

He felt his guts go into free fall, as all husbands do when they’ve been made to feel inadequate.

“The extra money would help,” Richie offered.

Francesca snorted. “After taxes it’d hardly be worth the promotion.”

“Want me to get demoted, so we can pay less in taxes?”

“I want you to want something.”

“Like what?”

“I think it’s time you figured that part out, Richie. You told me you dreamed about being rich. Was that the truth?”

“Sure it was. I also told you I didn’t know how I was gonna do it.”

“I think you just wanted to get laid without paying for it.”

“You think I ain’t payin’ for it now, listenin’ to this horseshit?”

Francesca’s eyes widened. “My parents warned me about you,” she hissed, and then she stormed out of the room.

Richie wondered if she was going to pack her stuff and leave. That would have been a relief, but it didn’t happen, and not because of Francesca’s undying love for her husband.

No matter how she felt, she wasn’t going to return to her parents. That would be going backwards, and Francesca DeMarco Fasanella did not believe in retreat.

In his own much quieter way, Richie was just as stubborn.

So they were paralyzed. There was nothing more to say, and they spent the next few months not saying it in a marriage gone cold and sexless. When Richie tried to speak with her she ignored him, responding with sighs and pillow punches as she rolled to the far side of the bed.

Then one night Francesca spoke up from her side of the bed, the side Richie had taken to avoiding as if a barbed wire fence had been erected down the center of the mattress.

“Richie. I got an idea.”

His heart leapt. Not counting the times she’d asked him to pass the salt or the sugar, this was the first time she’d spoken to him since the big fight.

Richie rolled over to face her. She got up on one elbow and stared at him, a faint promise of sex in her eyes.

“You wanna hear it, or what?”

“Yeah, sure. Sure I wanna hear it.” He blinked back tears. “God, baby, I’m glad you’re talkin’ to me again.”

Working in payroll, Francesca had become intoxicated by the nearness of money, actual cash. Pechter’s paid its employees by check, but they also cashed the checks for workers who needed immediate table money, which was more than half the work force.

Payday was every other Thursday, and the cash delivery always came the day before. Accompanied by an armed guard, two guys from Brooklyn Federal Savings simply walked from the nearby bank straight to payroll, carrying the money in locked briefcases. This was transferred into a safe not fifteen feet from the desks where Francesca worked with half a dozen other pencil-pushers, most of them gray and stooped.

The first time Francesca saw bricks of twenty dollar bills being stacked into a tin box, she literally felt faint. She couldn’t believe how casual the bank guys were as they emptied their briefcases, chatting amiably with Morris, the busy-haired head teller. Everybody but Francesca had grown numb to the sight of money. She had never seen more than three twenty dollars bills at one time.

She had to excuse herself to the ladies’ room, where she splashed cold water on her burning cheeks. The funky, fuzzy stink of money lingered in her nostrils.

When she returned to her desk the bank guys were gone, and the cash was locked in the safe behind Morris. It was an old-fashioned safe with a long brass handle near the dial that locked with a hard click and opened with the same sound.

Among the payroll people only Morris knew the combination, ancient Morris, who no longer bothered to block the dial from view when he opened the safe.

Francesca had a religious streak that came in handy when she wanted things, and it was this streak that convinced her that God himself wanted her to have the money. Why else would He have made it so easy for her to watch old Morris dial that combination - eight right, thirteen left, twenty-two right?

At last, God was making up for the way her busted nose had fouled up her life! It was payback time for Francesca, as plain as the light that shined into the payroll office...light that, unfortunately, was striped by sets of security bars on all the windows.

Francesca realized that having the combination to the safe was only half the battle, as the entire payroll department was locked up at night like a tomb, down to a heavy metal door that was bolted shut from the outside.

But God came through one more time for Francesca. The payroll department contained its own bathroom, right in the middle of the office, away from the walls. The only ventilation came from a tiny skylight.

Tiny. Very tiny. The kind of thing only a very skinny person could squeeze through....someone like that crazy friend of Richie’s, Mickey Rivioli.

Like Richie, Mickey had no great ambitions at Pechter’s. He’d gone to school with Richie before dropping out on his sixteenth birthday, a hyperactive kid who just couldn’t sit still in class.

He was still that way now, a giggly, squiggly kind of person whose very presence was enough to make Francesca nervous. He had a job at Pechter’s sweeping up and he would have been fired long ago if one of his uncles hadn’t been a hotshot in the delivery truck drivers’ union.

Richie had known him all his life and for that reason they were friends. Richie’s loyalty worked that way, even though he knew Mickey was a king-sized fuck-up. Francesca rolled her eyes every time Richie talked about bringing Mickey over for dinner, but suddenly he was a welcome guest in the DeMarco-Fasanella home, where Francesca outdid herself with a glorious chicken parmigiana dinner.

Mickey couldn’t believe he’d been invited, and Richie couldn’t believe he was dragging his goofy friend in on such a scheme.

Like a mother showing a child how to use building blocks, Francesca laid out her plan to Mickey even more convincingly than she’d laid it out to her husband. Somehow, this human cup of coffee managed to sit still and listen to every syllable of it.

The plan was the essence of simplicity. Richie and Mickey would climb onto the roof at Pechter’s, no sweat - either of the connecting buildings had fire escapes with ladders. Once on the roof, they’d walk to the bathroom skylight and pull it open all the way - the thing was already open slightly for ventilation, so it couldn’t possibly be wired to an alarm. Richie would then lower Mickey down by rope, and pull him back up once he had the money.

This was the part of the plan that made Richie’s nostrils flare, but he said nothing. Those would be an excruciating couple of minutes, waiting while Mickey found his way to the safe, opened it, got the money and returned to the bathroom to be pulled up to the roof.

In short, the heart of the plan was in the hands of a guy who could barely sweep flour off the floor without fucking something up. They were using Mickey, plain and simple. It was the wrong thing to do.

Unless, of course, it worked. If it worked, it was everybody’s dream come true.

Mickey cackled with glee. “Great. Great! Let’s rob those bastards!”

Francesca held up a calming hand. “Easy, Mickey. Don’t get emotional. It’s important that you don’t get emotional.”

“I ain’t had a raise in three years!” Mickey exclaimed, spreading his hands for effect and knocking a glass of red wine onto Francesca’s best tablecloth. Richie expected her to kick him out but all she did was howl with laughter.

That, more than anything, convinced Richie that the whole plan was sheer madness. The train had definitely gone off the rails if Francesca couldn’t throw a fit over a mess, but in fact this whole thing was now a runaway train, and there was no jumping off. The payroll money would be delivered the next day. They’d pull the job that night. All they needed was a rope and a couple of flashlights.

They clinked wine glasses. It was a done deal.

That night Francesca went after Richie in bed as she hadn’t gone after him since her first night home from Greenwood Lake, the summer before.

It was wild. It was passionate. It was blow-out-your-brains sex. It was Richie Fasanella’s farewell fuck, though he’d be in jail a good six months before he’d come to think of it that way.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The gas station loomed up ahead, a little four-pump place without a soul in sight.

“Then what happened?” Artie asked.

“Let’s gas up here, first.”

Richie pulled in and cut the motor. The sign over the pumps startled him.

“Self-service? What the hell is that?”

“Man, it’s been a while since you rode in a car, hasn’t it?”

Artie got out and went to the office, where a somber fellow with a beard and a turban sat within a Plexiglas chamber. Artie slid a twenty dollar bill into the cash slot, which the man took without the faintest expression of gratitude as he punched a few buttons on the register.

“Pump two,” the attendant deadpanned.

Artie went to that pump and began filling his tank. Richie got out of the car and watched in wonder.

“Jesus,” he said, “we’re in the middle of fucking nowhere, and this guy’s locked up like he expects Al Capone to pull in.”

“You can’t be too careful.”

“Look at this guy. Bet it was his cousins who decided to make that little detour into the twin towers.”

“If security was this good at the bakery, you’d never have gone to jail.”

“Yeah. I’d have spent those eleven years with Francesca, instead of behind bars. Thank Christ security was bad at Pechter’s, huh?”

Artie sighed. “I find it a little sad, the way you can joke about your life.”

“I find it a little sad, the way you take yourself so seriously.”

“One of us is wrong.”

“Christ, I can’t get over this setup. Your hand’s gonna stink from gas. What the hell ever happened to gas jockeys? When I was a kid they pumped gas, wiped the windshield, gave away free dishes - ”

“Free dishes?”

“Swear to God. At the movies, too. They called it Dish Night. My mother had a whole dining set. Pretty nice dishes, as I recall. Too bad they didn’t have glass nights. We wouldn’ta had to drink outta jelly jars.”

The gas hose jolted. Artie hung it up and screwed the cap back on. Richie stretched, yawned, arched his back.

“I gotta use the toilet. Do I need two pieces of I.D., or do you think Gandhi in there’ll let me in?”

Without waiting for an answer Richie went to use the toilet. Artie got in the car and froze at the sight of the keys dangling from the ignition.

This was it. All he had to do was slide over, start it up and go. Richie would be totally fucked, a fat Italian in the middle of nowhere.

Artie reached over and tickled the dangling keys. His head was pounding. He wouldn’t have much time to make up his mind.

Richie relieved himself, washed up and found a pay phone. He had to feed eight quarters into it for the call to his apartment. One good thing about running a candy store - you always had lots of change.

` Marion answered it on the second ring.

“You’re still there.”

“You told me to stay.”

Richie sighed. “You okay?”

“I feel funny answering the phone in your place.”

“Don’t feel funny about that.”

“Well, I do.”

“What are you doing?”

“Finishing off your beer.”

“What else?”

“Watching ‘Citizen Kane.’ “

“Ooh. That’s a good one.”

“It just started.”

“What, with the kid playing with his sled in the snow? Pay attention to that sled.”

“Richie. I’ve seen the movie before.”

“Not with me, you haven’t.

“Where the hell are you and what the hell are you doing?”

“I’m gonna tell you all about it when I get back tomorrow.”

“Funny, I once had a husband who said almost exactly the same thing to me. Next call I got was from a coroner at the whorehouse.”

The operator’s recorded voice asked for seventy-five cents for the next three minutes. Richie fed the coins into the slot.

“You’re pretty far away, wherever you are. So I guess you were being straight about this trip.”

“I’m north. North of the city.”

“I like it up there. Pretty when the leaves come out.”

“Too dark to see any leaves.”

“You’ll see them in the morning.”

“Guess so.”

“I had a kid who died, Richie.”

A sudden chill cut through Richie’s jacket. His teeth literally chattered and he waited for them to stop before speaking. “Jesus Christ,” he said at last.

“I’ve been waiting to tell you. His name was Max. He had leukemia and he died when he was seven.”

“Marion.”

“He had blue, blue eyes and when he laughed he really laughed, you know? It was like he somehow knew he didn’t have much time, and he had to laugh while he could. He got that laugh from me. I used to laugh like that. I wish you could have heard me laugh like that, just once.”

Richie gripped the phone. Marion was speaking about her loss in the same calm tones she used to speak of the dying patients she dealt with each day.

“You there, Richie?”

“I’m here. I’m sorry.”

“Look, it was fifteen years ago. Sixteen, almost. I decided to go to nursing school. His father fell apart, but I didn’t. I guess I needed to know more about life, you know? More about this mysterious little bit of time we get on this crazy planet. It was too late for me to become a doctor, but nursing was within my reach. And I reached it.” She hesitated before adding, “I’m proud of myself for doing that.”

“How come you never told me any of this before?”

“I was waiting for the right moment. Now I realize I may never see you again, so this is the moment.”

“Marion. I’m coming home tomorrow. What more can I say?”

“Nothing. This is a night for me to say things. I just wanted you to know, Richie Fasanella, that you’re not the only one who’s ever suffered.”

She hung up the phone so gently that Richie wondered for a moment if they’d been disconnected. Then the recorded voice asked for more money, and Richie hung up the phone and returned to the car.

It was still there.

Artie sat still in the passenger seat, his breath faintly fogging the windshield. The temperature was dropping. A shiver went through him, and then another at the sound of the driver’s door opening.

“What took you so long?”

“Phoned Marion.”

“She know what you’re doing?”

“No.”

“You miss her, don’t you?”

Richie snorted. “I said goodbye an hour ago. How the hell am I supposed to miss her?”

“I miss Diane.”

“You’re amazing. You’re just fuckin’ amazing.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Richie! You do miss her! You’re afraid of losing her!”

“Only thing I’m afraid of losing right now is that dough your wife swiped....whoa, whoa. What’s with that kid over there?”

On the very edge of the rim of light thrown by the gas station lamps was a skinny teenage boy in worn blue jeans straddling a red Stingray bicycle. He was too big for the bike, and the windbreaker he was wearing was too big for his body, and he was scowling at the turbanned man in the Plexiglas booth with unmistakable hatred.

“He’s gonna do somethin’ stupid,” Richie said.

“How do you know?”

“That’s what they look like in my store when they’re about to steal the Tootsie Rolls. It’s cold and he’s sweating. And look at his hand in his pocket. He’s got a gun.”

Before Artie could say another word Richie was out of the car and heading to the kid with surprising speed. The kid remained frozen in place but did not back down.

“What the fuck do you want?” the kid snarled.

Richie smacked his face and dragged the kid and the bike behind a giant garbage dumpster. Artie got out and ran to them. By the time he got there the kid didn’t look so tough. Richie gripped him by the upper arms and gave him a shake.

“You gonna rip off this gas station?” Richie taunted. “Huh? Tough guy?”

“Richie,” Artie hissed, “last fucking thing we need now is to get hit with an assault charge!”

Richie ignored Artie. “Answer me!” Richie demanded of the kid. “What are you doing?”

Through tight teeth the kid replied, “I hate these fuckin’ Arabs!”

` “Yeah? You Italian?”

The kid nodded. He was sixteen, maybe seventeen, brimming with rage and hormones. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, dark-souled.

“Thing of it is, I’m Italian too,” Richie said. “This is the kinda thing that gives us a bad rep.”

Artie was terrified, and at the same time he realized the ridiculousness of the situation. Of all people to be giving this kid a lecture about ethnic pride!

Richie shook the kid again. “You proud of your heritage?”

“I dunno.”

“Michelangelo. Da Vinci. Columbus. Marconi. Enrico Fermi. Caruso. And then there’s you. What’s your name?”

“Michael.”

“Michael. From Michelangelo to Michael. A great artist to a stick-up artist. That what you want? That how you want the Italians to be remembered?”

Michael stared and swallowed. “This was my father’s place,” he said, fighting back tears. He pointed at the gas station. “Then these fuckin’ rag-heads took over. That’s what killed my father. Losing his business. My poor mother...”

The kid lowered his head, let the tears fall. But when he looked up again his eyes were alive with fury. He pointed again at the Plexiglas office.

“I’m gonna rip off that fuckin’ rag-head.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes I am. I’ll do it and ride away on my bike. No way he’ll catch me. No way.”

Richie shook the kid again. Artie’s butt cheeks clenched in anticipation of the gunshot to follow but the kid kept his hand in his jacket pocket, going eyeball to eyeball with the big man.

“Kid, listen to me. This place is high tech. The guy’s in a bullet-proof cube. And they got surveillance cameras, you know? Cameras even smaller than your dick, but they take great pictures. By the time you pedalled home there’d be five cops waitin’ in your mother’s driveway. And this wouldn’t be any youthful offender bullshit, even if you didn’t hurt anybody. Arabs hold a grudge like nobody else. You’d go away for a long, long time.”

Richie released the kid’s arms. “Your mother lost her husband, now she’s gonna lose you. You really wanna do that to her, Michael?”

The kid shook his head. In a startling snake-fast motion Richie reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a handgun. It looked like a toy in his big hand.

“Oh Jesus Christ,” Artie breathed.

The kid reached out a quaking hand. “May I please have my gun back?”

“No, you may not. I’m takin’ it with me in case my little lecture didn’t penetrate.”

The kid’s shoulders sagged. “I spent fifty bucks on that gun.”

“You’d have spent a lot more than that on a lawyer.”

“Come on, give it back. I won’t use it, I just wanna sell it.”

“You just did. To me.” Richie took out his wallet and handed the kid two twenties and a ten. “All right? Now go home, Michael. Have a glass o’ warm milk and go to bed hating me.”

Michael pocketed the money, boarded his bike and rode twenty feet before daring to turn and flip the bird at Richie. Then he was gone, head low, bony legs pedalling as fast as they could go.

Richie and Artie returned to the car and hit the highway. For a few miles they were silent.

Then Artie said, “Might not be the smartest thing in the world for us to be riding around with an unlicensed handgun.”

“Gonna drop it, next bridge we cross.”

“Because if one of these hard-on state troopers - ”

“Artie. I get it. I’ll dump it. I had to do what I did, all right? I saw that kid, I saw me forty years ago. Last thing the world needs is another me.”

Richie was careful not to speed. A bridge loomed in the distance. “Marion had a kid who died,” he blurted.

Artie was stunned. “Your girlfriend?”

“Yeah. Died when he was seven. I’m only now findin’ this out.”

Artie let out a long sigh. “That’s tough.”

“No shit, it’s tough. Until tonight, she waits to tell me. Jesus Christ.”

“She thinks you’re not coming back.”

“You’re a genius, you know that?”

Richie put down his window as they rolled onto a short steel bridge, high over a narrow waterway. He waited until they’d reached the center of the span before tossing the gun over the rail.

“Rich. Fingerprints.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“But - ”

“That gun was a piece o’ shit twenty-two. It’s stuck in the mud and it’ll be a chunk o’ rust in a month. No prints. Stop worryin.’ ”

“All right, all right.”

“How hard did you think about it?”

Artie’s spine tingled. “About what?”

“Ditchin’ me.”

Artie swallowed. “Let’s just say I realized I had a chance.”

Richie chuckled. “Knew you wouldn’t.”

“Oh yeah? I’m not as honest as you think.”

“Got nothin’ to do with honesty. There’s just no way you were gonna miss the rest o’ my story.”

Artie nodded. “Finish the story.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

A crescent moon hung over Brooklyn that night, shining as brightly as the Devil’s earring. Richie and Mickey got onto the roof of Pechter’s easily enough, the two of them dressed in sneakers, black pants and black sweatshirts. Mickey was so excited about the crime he couldn’t keep a hop out of his step.

“Mick, Mick. Slow down, please.”

“Can’t help it, man.” He spread his arms toward the sky, as if he meant to leap and hang from the tip of the moon. “Ain’t this great?”

“It will be when it’s over. Calm down.”

‘I’m tryin’, Richie, I’m tryin.’ ”

The night was chilly, but Richie could feel his palm growing sweaty against the handle of the small zippered gym bag he carried. It didn’t contain much - a flashlight, a coil of rope, latex surgical gloves for Mickey, work gloves for Richie and an empty nylon drawstring to carry the cash box.

What the fuck...Richie could barely believe his eyes as he watched Mickey execute a perfect cartwheel right there on the roof, one a circus clown would have been proud of.

`”Buddy, please,” Richie begged. “Calm down. Walk low and slow, like me.” He demonstrated a few steps along the tarry surface.

Mickey roared with laughter. “You look like Groucho fuckin’ Marx!”

Richie grabbed him and clapped his hand over Mickey’s mouth. “Mick, I’m beggin’ you to keep quiet. When this is over you can make all the noise you want, okay?”

Mickey nodded, the hand still over his mouth. Richie let it drop. Mickey swallowed, a look of alarm on his face.

“Know somethin’?” he all but whispered. “I forgot to thank your wife for dinner last night.”

“You’ll thank her later.”

“Think she’s mad at me?”

“Mick, she ain’t mad at you.”

“ ‘Cause for a long time, she didn’t want nothin to do with me.”

Richie hesitated as Mickey studied his eyes for the hidden truth. “Things are different when you get married,” Richie assured him. “For a while, you forget all about your friends.”

“Really?”

“Honest.”

“But not anymore, right?”

“No, Mick. Not anymore.”

` “I can come to your house a lot from now on, right?”

“Absolutely right. Now let’s do this job and get the hell out of here.”

Mickey grinned. “I’m with ya.”

“Want to go over it?”

“Nah, I know it by heart.”

Richie felt an odd tingle of fear at those words, a tingle that tempted him to grab his friend and guide him the hell back down the fire escape they’d climbed. When they were in school those were the very words Mickey always used to say before they had a test...words that always came back to bite him on the ass when the test was returned with a failing grade.

Richie held up an instructional finger. “One more time,” he implored, ignoring Mickey’s eye-roll to the heavens before reviewing their astoundingly simple plan: tie the rope around your waist, put on the gloves, get lowered down through the skylight, untie the rope, find the safe, open it, grab the cash box, return to the rope, tie it around your waist again and give it a few yanks.

“I’ll pull you right back up. Whole thing shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”

“You told me that like a million times.”

“Got the combination?”

“In my pocket.”

“Remember it’s right-left-right.”

“Hey Rich. I’m not a retard, no matter what anybody says.”

“Nobody thinks you’re a retard.”

“Nobody thinks I’m a genius.”

“We’ll both be geniuses when this is over.”

It seemed as if they had to cross the length of a football field to reach the tiny skylight but suddenly there it was, at their feet. With shaking hands Richie knotted the rope around Mickey’s ridiculously narrow waist.

“Rich,” Mickey began, “can I come to your house for dinner tomorrow night?”

Richie swallowed. “Of course you can.”

“Don’t you gotta ask Francesca first?”

“No. Just come over.”

Mickey stared at Richie with strangely calm eyes. “If she don’t want me there, I’ll be able to tell.”

“Mickey. She likes you. Come over tomorrow for dinner.”

“What’s she makin’?”

“For Christ’s sake!”

Mickey gave Richie’s cheek a light slap. “Hey, I’m fuckin’ wichoo, I’m fuckin’ wichoo! Come on, gimme the gloves.”

They both gloved up. The skylight opened easily, with a groan of rusty hinges. Mickey’s snaky hips barely brushed its edges as he slid down and disappeared into the hole, a flashlight in hand. The guy was amazingly light. Richie felt as if he were lowering a cat in a basket .

Suddenly, all he could do was wait. He put his ear to the dark hole and heard Mickey moving through the office. Then there was silence, followed by a pinched cry of joy that had to be the moment the safe door swung open.

Minutes passed, the kind of minutes that linger like hours. Richie stared at the cold clear sky, as if to absorb it in memory...as if his skin suspected something could go horribly wrong, and land him in the kind of place where the sight of the night sky is one of the many pleasures a man is denied...

Then he heard a toilet flush. The stupid fuck had taken a leak! At last he felt a tug on the rope. Richie braced his feet and pulled his friend back to the roof, and suddenly there he was with a metal box under his arm, which he set down almost daintily.

“Piece o’ cake,” said a grinning Mickey Rivioli.

“You stopped to piss, you dumb fuck?!”

“Hey, you know my weak bladder,” Mickey said, and they both laughed and locked themselves in a gleeful embrace. They’d done it! The thing was done!

Richie pushed the skylight back down, then put the box into the drawstring sack. He untied the rope from Mickey’s waist and squatted to stash it and the flashlight back in the gym bag.

“We’re rich, Rich. Hey! You hear that? Rich, Rich? Pretty funny, huh?”

Richie nodded. His heart was pounding so hard he couldn’t yet rise to his feet.

“Hey, Rich. You okay?”

Richie licked his lips. “It can’t be,” he breathed.

“Can’t be what?”

“Can’t be this easy.”

Mickey shrugged. “We did it,” he said plainly. “All we gotta do now is leave.”

The simplicity of Mickey’s words penetrated Mickey’s fog. He was right. They’d done it. No alarms had sounded, nobody was chasing them. The money was in their hands. All they had to do now was climb down and go home.

Mickey extended a hand to his friend and pulled him to his feet - and then, a funny thing happened. Neither man let go of the other as they crossed the roof like lovers, hand in hand. They broke the grasp when it was time to climb down, and only when they dropped to the sidewalk did the whole thing start to become real to them.

“Mick. Let’s take our gloves off.”

They stuck them in the bag with the rest of the stuff. Now they looked like two civilians, walking the streets of Brooklyn - Richie carrying the gym bag, Mickey the nylon sack with the money.

“Rich. Let’s open the box.”

“Mickey.”

“I just wanna see it.”

“Not in the middle o’ the fuckin’ street, buddy. Wait ‘til we’re inside.”

Chortling with excitement, they headed for Richie’s apartment, where Francesca awaited. Richie gave Mickey’s shoulder a playful shove. Mickey shoved him back too hard, a real adrenaline shove. Richie tripped over a chunk of broken sidewalk and came down hard.

The snap in his ankle was something he remembered more for its sound than for any particular pain. It was a clean, hard noise that Mickey heard too, above the clunking sound of the bag with the money box hitting the pavement.

“Oh, Christ, Richie, what’d I do?”

“I’m all right. Help me up.”

Mickey did as he was told, but Richie let out a howl of pain the instant he tried to put weight on his ankle.

A chubby foot cop named Timothy Shannon turned the corner just in time to see these dark-clad men grappling with each other. Coupla hoods, mixing it up after too many drinks - he’d seen it a million times on his beat.

“Trouble here, fellows?”

Officer Shannon waddled over to Richie and Mickey with the maddeningly slow steps of one who has all the time in the world. As he walked Officer Shannon actually swung his night stick around the way cops do in old movies, catching it after it twirled around as many times as the leather strap on its handle would allow.

Mickey stood still while Richie lay on the sidewalk. He could actually feel his ankle swelling up, the rush of fluid to the broken bone. Nature’s cast. The cop came to a stop right in front of Richie, who could smell the polish on his thick-soled shoes.

“What happened to you?”

“I tripped.”

“You all right?”

“I think I busted my ankle.”

Officer Shannon twirled his night stick the other way around and forced a chuckle.

“Been drinkin’, eh?”

“No, sir. We were foolin’ around, pushing each other, and I fell.”

“Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

Richie closed his eyes, willed the cop to go away. He felt the tap of the nightstick on his shoulder.

“All right, now. Up, up. On your feet.”

Richie couldn’t believe it. He opened his eyes and swallowed. “Officer. I wasn’t kidding. My ankle’s busted. I can’t stand up.”

“You can try.”

“He’s hurt,” Mickey said. “He can’t do it.”

Officer Shannon seemed to notice Mickey for the first time. He was his usual jangly self, which is to say normal-looking to anybody who knew him, and on the verge of a nervous breakdown to anyone else. He clutched the nylon sack as if it were a wild animal trying to get away.

“Who the hell are you?”

“His friend.”

“Yeah? What’ve you got in the sack there, friend?”

“Nothin.’ ”

“Nothing, you say? That’s an awfully full-looking sack to be containing nothing.”

“My laundry.”

The cop snorted. “Doin’ your laundry after midnight, are you?”

“No law against that, is there?”

Officer Shannon laughed out loud. “Laundry! That’s a good one. You guineas aren’t big on washin’ your clothes, are you? What’s the point, when you’re gonna go and spill marinara sauce on ‘em all over again?”

To Richie’s shock, Mickey laughed at Officer Shannon’s stupid remark. “Here,” he said, “see for yourself.”

He tossed the nylon sack on the sidewalk. It landed with a tinny thump that made the cop’s eyes narrow.

“Laundry, my ass,” the cop said. “Take out whatever you’ve got in that bag.”

Richie was numb. They’d had the slimmest of chances of getting out of this mess, and now it was gone. They were cooked. Three to five years in jail, any way you looked at it.

To make things even worse, Mickey was ignoring the cop’s command. Officer Shannon pushed back his cap, in the manner of a lawman growing impatient with those not good enough to shine his shoes.

“Open the bag, you stupid spaghetti-bender, and show me some laundry.”

Mickey forced a smile. “Whatever you say, Officer.”

Richie felt as if he were watching a movie, the horrible story of his own foolish life. It seemed to be happening in black and white and in slow motion. Mickey Rivioli knelt to open the bag, reached inside and pulled out the metal box. He opened it and took out a rubber-banded wad of cash, which he waved in the astonished cop’s face.

“This is from the safe at Pechter’s, which we just robbed,” Mickey said matter of factly. Then he raised his other hand, which held a .22 caliber pistol.

“And this,” he said, “is for you.”

He fired all six shots into Timothy Shannon’s chest and belly, loud, echoey sounds that carried far across the Brooklyn night. The cop’s eyes bulged and blood flowed through his clenched teeth as he gasped, choked and fell backwards, dead before he hit the pavement.

Somewhere a woman screamed. Already a distant siren sounded. Mickey stuffed the cash back in the box, stuck the box in the bag and squatted before Richie.

“Couldn’t let that stupid Mick talk that way about the Italians, could I?”

Richie looked at him in wonder. He wasn’t even angry. Somehow, deep down, he knew this caper could not possibly have played out any other way.

“Mickey. Jesus, Mickey.”

“I fucked up.”

“We both did.”

The sirens were getting closer. A teary-eyed Mickey kissed Richie’s forehead.

“They’ll never take me alive,” he said, lifting the evening’s black-and-white aura to its zenith as he grabbed the money and fled down Atlantic Avenue.

And suddenly it was a world of color once again as Richie Fasanella forced himself to roll away from the body of Officer Timothy Shannon, to avoid the flow of extremely red blood that was running down the sidewalk.

He was fucked, completely fucked, but even as the world was coming down around his ears a funny thing occurred to Richie. At least he wouldn’t be in trouble with Francesca for inviting Mickey Rivioli to dinner tomorrow night. Dealing with her over that would have been hell, absolute hell.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

They were close to the college now, very close, riding on a road at the edge of a dark lake that looked to be as big as an ocean. Richie sighed.

“My one and only caper. Funny how they didn’t hold my job at Pechter’s when I got sprung. I put on an apron, picked up a broom and went to work for my old man.”

“You never knew Mickey had the gun.”

“No, but I did know he was crazy. And a crazy person is always dangerous, with or without a gun.” Richie chuckled. “I still can’t get over it, the way he hid it in his grandmother’s ceiling. He knew he was fucked if he ran to Francesca. Same deal if he went to his mother’s house - the cops would’ve been over with a search warrant in no time. So he goes to old lady Rivioli’s. She was hard of hearing. Never even woke up.”

“Where’d you think the money was?”

“Always figured the cops cut it up among themselves. Nobody looked too hard for it. Bakery didn’t really give a shit. They were insured.”

Richie leaned back to stretch his back, arms at full extension as he gripped the steering wheel. “Funny, huh? All those years his grandma rocked and knitted, with a hundred and sixty-two large over her head.”

Artie let it all sink in. Then he said, “Wait. Isn’t Mickey going to want his end?”

“His end? Listen to you!”

“His cut. You know what I mean. Is he still in prison? He’s gotta still be in prison. I mean, Jesus, he was the shooter! A cop-killer! He’s got to be doing twenty-five to life, right?”

Richie sighed. “Mickey never went to prison. Mickey went to the morgue. Right after he hid the dough he went nuts. Climbed a telephone pole and started shootin’ at the sky.”

“Come on.”

“Swear to God. He’s yellin’ “Top o’ the world, Mah!’ ”

just like James Cagney in ‘White Heat.’ That’s what the papers said, anyway. Cops told him to drop the gun, but he refused. Nine times, they shot him. Bet he fell twenty feet. Just as well. Mickey wouldn’t have lasted a week in prison. Must’ve occurred to him, right after he stashed the money. Wanted to go out in a blaze, and that’s what he did.”

Richie chuckled. “Fuckin’ cops. They shoot the only guy who knew where the money was.” He patted Artie’s knee. “And there it stayed, until the day a Yuppie decided he wanted to expose his tin ceiling. Know what’s really funny? You were gonna spend a fortune to fix that ceiling. Instead, a fortune falls on your head.”

“That fortune cost me my marriage.”

“Bullshit. Money never wrecks anything. It only reveals things, good and bad.”

Artie took it all in. Then he said, “You’d have been home free if you hadn’t started pushing each other after the burglary.”

“That’s true. Why did I shove Mickey? Been askin’ myself that question for thirty years. I guess it’s because I was happy. See the stupid things you do when you’re happy?”

“The cop didn’t help matters.”

“He was an asshole, but all any cop has to do is die to become a hero, and that was the headline. ‘Hero Cop Killed In Bakery Heist.’ Turns out he was a father of four. Every time I’m up for parole, the widow brings the four kids to the hearing. They got a little bigger every year, those kids. By the time they let me out the oldest one was shavin.’ ”

“That’s awful.”

“Ayy, it’s not like that widow wore a halo. She remarried six months later. Rich guy in private sanitation. Mobbed up for sure. Bought her a mansion in Sands Point.”

Richie ventured a smile. “So you see, life has a funny way o’ workin’ out for some people.”

“Not you.”

“It’s early yet. Few twists and turns left to this story, you know?”

A weird cry pierced the night air. Richie turned to Artie.

“What the hell was that?”

“A loon. The lake’s full of them.”

“Jesus, that’s a creepy sound. You studied four years up here with noises like that?”

“What happened to you, lying there on the sidewalk?”

“What do you think? In five minutes every cop in Brooklyn showed up. Blue shirts wherever I looked. They took the dead cop away in an ambulance, and they hauled me to a squad car. I’m screamin’ that my ankle is busted, but they made me walk on it. Christ, the pain! Wasn’t until they were through slappin’ me around three hours later that they finally took me to the hospital. Still hurts when it rains, this ankle. Bone never set right.”

“You should have sued.”

Richie laughed out loud. “Yeah, right. Police brutality.”

“You didn’t shoot that cop! They knew that!”

“Wanna hear somethin’ even funnier than what you just said? This happened the next morning, after my ankle was set. I’m lyin’ there in Methodist Hospital with my foot in a cast and my wrist handcuffed to the bed, and my parents walk in, and all they can do is stare at me.

“They don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to say. Then I ask, ‘Who’s mindin’ the store?’ All my life, this was the first time I ever saw them together outside the candy store. I think that’s when it really hit me that I was in deep, deep shit. Anything serious enough to make my parents close the candy store had to be a real catastrophe.”

Artie pointed. “There. Right up ahead. That’s the college.”

Richie made the turn onto a side road, leading to an entrance that was gated and locked. A sleepy-looking security guard sat in a toll-booth like structure. Richie pulled over to the curb.

“We can’t just drive on campus?”

Artie let his head fall. “I forgot about this new security bullshit. You need a campus I.D. card to get in after hours, or else you have to phone someone inside.”

“You know anybody to phone?”

“At two in the morning? Anyway, I don’t know anyone here anymore.”

“You know one guy.”

“I can’t phone him.”

“Ask the guard if your wife is here.”

“I can’t do that!”

“You do it, or I’ll do it.”

On quaking legs Artie walked to the security booth. His feet stuck slightly to the macadam with each step and a stink of tar filled his nostrils.

He tapped on the window. The guard, a seventy-something man with long ears and a too-big cap, sat up with a jolt. He slid the window open and said, “Help you?”

“I’m looking for my wife. Did a woman named Diane Farley arrive here tonight?”

The guard make a lemon-sucking face. “I can’t answer that.”

“You can’t answer it, or you don’t know?”

“I can’t answer.”

“So she’s here.”

“Like I said twice already, I can’t answer that, young man. If you want to come in, I’ll need some I.D.”

“I’m not a student anymore.”

“I can’t help you, then, unless you want to call someone inside. Kinda late for that, don’tcha think?”

The guard was an old pensioner picking up a few bucks with an easy, snoozy night job. He was not used to dealing with anyone on his shift and Artie was making him nervous.

“Give me a break, here,” Artie pleaded. But the guard shook his head, making his long earlobes wiggle.

“Campus opens to everyone tomorrow at seven in the a.m. You can come inside then.”

Artie’s eyes were watering from the smell of the road. “Why’s it stink so bad out here?”

“Fresh macadam. They just re-paved. Sun was hot today. It’s givin’ me a headache, I can tell ya that much.”

The guard slid the window shut and watched as Artie turned and went back to the car.

“What’s the verdict?”

“We can’t get in until tomorrow.”

“She in there?”

“Old fucker wouldn’t say. But she is. I know she is.”

Artie fell to one knee, breathing hard. Richie got out of the car and helped him into the passenger seat.

“Easy, kid, easy. I know this is rough on you, thinkin’ of her with that fuckin’ poet.”

“It’s not that,” Artie breathed. “It’s that stink from the road.”

“Makin’ you nauseous?”

“It’s making me think.”

“About what?”

The tears in Artie’s eyes flowed faster and spilled down his face. “My Daddy,” he said.

Patrick Farley was the kind of dad every kid in the neighborhood knew and loved. He could build a go-cart, he could fly a kite, he could play ball with the children for hours without tiring.

He also happened to be the strongest man in their Long Island town, thanks to his job as a highway construction worker. He labored like a mule through the cruelest winters and the hottest summers, swinging a pick to bust up the macadam.

When he got home from work each day he’d shower, change into clean clothes and play catch in the yard with little Artie. His wife would come out to watch them, or just sit in a lawn chair to be nearby as she read the Ladies’ Home Journal. Artie could tell his parents really liked each other, just from the way his dad would squeeze behind her on the way to the refrigerator, or the way they held hands while they watched television.

The Farleys didn’t have a big house, and they didn’t take fancy vacations, but they had true harmony, and the proof of that was the voice of Libby Farley, who hummed happily as she washed dishes, pegged clothes on the line, tucked her son into bed.

“Hey. Who’s the best boy in the world?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well it’s you. Know what that means?”

“What?”

“We’re going to keep you!”

She tickled Artie until he cried out for mercy, only to tumble on top of the child as her husband tickled her, and the three of them were a happy tangle of arms and legs and laughter...

Best of all was when they went to Jones Beach with a giant cooler full of lemonade, a six-pack of beer and a sack of bologna sandwiches. Artie and Patrick would ride the pounding waves for hours, until their lungs were raw and their hands were pruny.

Patrick and Libby weren't the kind of parents who counted the minutes spent at the beach, eager to head home. They were always among the last to leave, when the sun hung low and red and the gulls grew bold, fighting on the sand for bits of food left behind.

By then it was too cold to swim, so the Farleys sat on the sand and polished off the remains of their picnic. Artie remembered the way his father would tilt his head back to drain those bottles of beer, his Adam's Apple bobbing. The liquid disappeared as if it had been poured down a sink.

And those were the only times he ever heard his parents even come close to fighting, when Libby tried to get the car keys from Patrick for the ride home. One time in particular, it got a little ugly.

"Honey. You've had a lot to drink."

Patrick's eyes narrowed. "I paced myself," Patrick coldly replied. "Stretched 'em out over the whole day. Swam a lot, ate a lot. I'm fine."

"Please let me drive."

She reached for the keys, but her husband clenched them in a rocklike fist.

"You can take the bus back if you like," he said. "But I am driving the car. And the boy's coming with me."

Patrick grabbed Artie by the upper arm, so tightly Artie could feel the pulse of his own blood against his father's fingers.

"Daddy, that hurts!"

Patrick ignored him, stared right into his wife's eyes. "So. Are you coming with us, or not?"

Of course, she caved in. What else could she do? He was just too strong for her. And though the ride home that day felt safe enough, the stony silence in the car made Artie's belly hurt, a pain that wouldn't begin to ebb until Patrick smoothed it over later by grabbing Libby for an impromptu dance in the kitchen.

"You see?" Patrick said. "Did I get us home all in one piece?"

"Yes, you did."

"Think I'd ever do anything to hurt my family?"

"Not deliberately, no."

They stopped dancing. "Aw, now what's that supposed to mean, Lib?"

"Look at your boy's arm, Paddy."

Swallowing hard, Patrick hesitantly went to Artie and pushed back his sleeve to examine his upper arm. It was as if he'd grabbed him with a glove soaked in purple paint.

"See?" Libby said softly. "You don't know your own strength."

Patrick's chin dropped to his chest. He embraced Artie and wept, the tears falling on his son's back.

"I'm sorry, my boy."

The sound of his sobbing father was worse than any physical pain. "Don't cry, Daddy!"

"Jesus, I'm sorry...."

Libby Farley put her arms around both of them in a healing hug they were reluctant to break for many minutes.

"It won't happen again," Patrick whispered. "Never. I swear on my soul..."

Happy days followed, many of them, until the day Artie would remember by a sound he'd never before heard from his house. It was a shriek, and it carried all the way to the other end of the block, where Artie was playing football with his pals. Neighbors raced to the Farley house, where they found Libby passed out cold on the floor, the wall phone dangling by its cord.

Artie burst in to see several people squatting around his mother, trying to revive her. Meanwhile, a neighbor named Eleanor Fitzpatrick picked up the phone to speak with whoever was on the other end.

Artie remembered the way her shoulders suddenly seemed to turn rigid, as if they'd hardened into concrete. She hung up the phone and saw Artie standing there, the football in his hands. She went to him and hugged him so hard that it hurt, and Artie knew something too terrible for words had happened.

The only good news was that Patrick Farley never felt a thing.

He'd been on the Long Island Expressway near Exit 61, working to patch a section of road that had been torn up by repeated freezes. The steamy macadam mixer was parked at the side of the road, blocking one lane of traffic. Patrick stood in the blocked lane right behind the mixer, measuring the area of rubbly road to be dug up and re-paved.

He paced it off with his feet, walking backwards. He'd done it a million times before, except this time, his heel skidded on a patch of motor oil at the last step.

Patrick slipped backwards in what looked like a great pratfall. His body went flying into traffic, just as a Mack truck was passing.

When Libby came around she insisted upon going to the accident site, taking Artie with her. They got there just as Patrick’s sheet-covered body was being loaded onto an ambulance, his shoes sticking out from the edge of the sheet. Two cops walked around asking questions. A work crew was putting the finishing touches on the patch job, wet-eyed guys tamping down the hot macadam.

They recognized Libby and rushed to comfort her. Little Artie stood by his mother and held her hand as he breathed in that tarry stink, an odor he would despise for the rest of his life.

The funeral service had a closed coffin, of course. Artie sat with his mother as neighbors came by to console the two of them. Atop the coffin was a framed photograph of Patrick Farley taken when he was in the Navy, a sailor's hat cocked on his head and a grin on his face that suggested God had just whispered the combination to the safe at Fort Knox into his ear.

He was thirty years old. Artie was eight, and his mother was only twenty-eight, but from that day on Artie would never again think of his mom as a young woman. Her whole being sagged, like a sail when the wind suddenly dies down.

She never again sang around the house. Her wardrobe became thick with the pants suits of Old Lady Land, as if she were willingly hurling herself toward the end of her life. A few guys from town waited a respectable time before asking her out, and were quickly but politely cut down. Libby Farley had just one love in her life...a love who, unfortunately, hadn't left his family terribly well off.

A company insurance policy paid her ten thousand dollars, but she had to have a job, and found one working the lunch counter at a Woolworth's. It wasn't great, but it was within walking distance of the house.

Libby was easily distracted on the job. The word went around the neighborhood that Old Lady Farley (Old Lady Farley!) forgot to charge for ice cream sodas half the time. If two kids stationed themselves at either end of the lunch counter and kept her bouncing back and forth enough times, she'd usually forget to give either of them a check.

Artie couldn't help hearing about it in the schoolyard. His ears burned, but he said nothing. Mostly he remembered how tired his mother was when she got home, and how her hair smelled of those greasy frankfurters that went endlessly around on those rotisserie grills, until they shriveled down to nothing...

Nobody else's mother had to work like Artie's mother did. He was barely a teenager when he vowed two things to himself: one, he'd grow up to make a lot of money to take care of his mother, and two, he'd provide for his own family a lot bigger and better than Patrick Farley had for his.

Artie chuckled when he came to the end of his tale.

"Funny, huh? I make good, I pay off her mortgage, I send her money, and I beg her to quit her job. No way. She's still at Woolworth's, working the lunch counter. She's like the house clown, Old Lady Farley. Every year a whole new generation of kids trick my mother out of ice cream sundaes."

"Makes sense. She doesn't need the job anymore, but she still needs someplace to go."

"Oh, yeah. Wouldn't be a lunch counter without Old Lady Farley. Jesus, man, she's not even fifty!"

"Maybe she's happy."

"How could she be? She's all alone."

"She's got peace. Peaceful loneliness beats the shit outta turbulent togetherness." Richie grinned. "Bet you thought I didn't know a big word like that, huh?"

"It's not funny, man."

"I'm not tryin' to be funny. What I'm tellin' you is that peace counts for a lot. You can't make people happy just by doing things for 'em and givin' 'em shit. That can backfire on you. That's one lesson you shoulda learned tonight."

Artie took a deep breath. “Could we get out of here, away from the stink of this road?”

Richie started the car and returned to the main street.

“Which way?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“I’m figuring we should get a motel room for the night, and come back here first thing.”

“Turn right. That’ll take us to town.”

Richie drove slowly, as if Artie had just undergone minor surgery and couldn’t withstand a jolt.

"Another thing. Don't be pissed at your father. It gets you nowhere."

Artie sat bolt upright. "Pissed?! Who's pissed? I just miss him!"

"Yeah, that too, but you're also pissed at him for dyin.' Don't be ashamed of it."

"I'm not ashamed of anything, man!"

"Shhhhh...."

"What are you now, my shrink?"

"Hey, I'd like to think at this point that maybe I'm your friend, but I may have miscalculated."

"I miss my father - period. You don't know what it's like to lose your father when you're just a kid."

"Hey, I went to jail when I was a kid. Lost both my parents for eleven years."

"Yeah, but nobody died, man. It's different."

"That's right. It's cleaner. Death's terrible, but at least it's clean."

"You don't even know what I'm talking about."

"What I do know is that there's shit you ain't tellin' me, Artie."

In the darkness Richie could not see Artie's face blanch, but it did. "Bullshit."

"If ex-cons know one thing, it's when they're bein' told half a story. It's all you ever hear in prison, and I'm hearin' one now."

"Hey, man. I don't have to tell you anything."

"That's right. You don't. But please don't tell me anything at all if you're only gonna tell me half."

Artie let out a long, jagged breath, the sort of sound that always precedes the truth.

"There was," he began, and his voice died.

Richie pursed his lips, like a patient priest awaiting a reluctant confession. "Just tell me."

Artie swallowed. "There was this guy on the road crew who had a bottle of Scotch that day. They broke it out at lunch to celebrate somebody's birthday. A little celebration, you know?"

"Your father had more than one, huh?"

"I don't know. Probably. Sure. My old man, he liked his Scotch. Always made him want to dance. And that's what he did." Artie's chin quivered. "Right there on the road, he does this crazy dance. He trips and falls right into traffic."

"Didn’t slip on any motor oil, huh?"

Artie shut his eyes, shook his head. "He fucking tripped on his own damn feet!"

He pressed his hands against his face, then began punching the dashboard.

"How could he do that to us?" Artie hissed. "How could he...how could he lose control like that?!"

His shoulders shook with sobs. Richie patted his back.

"All right," Richie said. "All right."

"I'm sorry," Artie blubbered.

"For what?"

"Being a baby."

"This ain't bein' a baby. This is growin' up. And growin' up is tough. Go ahead, let it out."

Artie obeyed. For many minutes the tears flowed, until at last he sat back and wiped his eyes. "Jesus Christ, I never told anybody about that. I mean, not even Diane."

"Sometimes it's easier to tell a stranger."

Artie stared at Richie without shame. "You still haven't answered my question. How the hell could my old man lose control like that?"

"Control's a funny thing. Look at you. You're in control. You work hard, you buy a house, you take care of your wife. You don't do one fuckin' thing to jeopardize anything, and all of a sudden, it's all outta your control."

"It's not fair."

"Yeah. That's right. It's not fair. It's life. Know what I think life is? Life's a ride in a car goin' downhill, and the car's got no steering wheel. So all you can do is try to guide it with your weight." He sat and swayed from side to side. "Sometimes you make the turns you wanna make. Sometimes, you hit the tree."

"There’s a cheerful outlook."

"Cheerful is my middle name.” Richie hesitated. "You were right about what you said before. It's true, I don't know what it's like to lose a father the way you did, when you were just a kid. But I do know what it's like to disgrace my parents so badly that it probably helped drive them to early graves. That's maybe even worse than what happened to you."

Artie shrugged. "Maybe."

"Your old man went out with sweet memories of you. My old man went out knowin' the only kid he'd ever have was a lousy jailbird who pissed away his whole life. Jesus Christ, are we gonna reach this fuckin’ town any time this century?”

“Few more minutes and we’re in Cooperstown.”

Richie’s eyebrows shot up. “Cooperstown? You mean where they got the Baseball Hall of Fame?”

“That’s it.”

Richie chuckled. “My old man always meant to take me there. Jesus, Artie, what a trip! I’m goin’ to college, and I’m goin’ to Cooperstown. Two big dreams are comin’ true, just like that. And maybe three, by the time this is over.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Diane Farley was in supreme caution mode. Between leaving the knapsack behind at the Brooklyn diner and hitting the deer, she knew she couldn’t afford any more mistakes. She drove five miles under the speed limit and strapped the knapsack beside her with the passenger side seatbelt. A ridiculous thing, but it helped her feel secure.

Once, at the hundred and twenty-six mile mark, she'd given serious thought to turning around and driving back to Brooklyn. She was going to hand Artie the knapsack and tell him she didn't want the cash - she simply wanted out of the marriage.

But by the hundred and twenty-seven mile mark, she'd ditched that plan. It was thanks to Artie that she now had nowhere to go, having given up up their rent-controlled apartment for the big move to Brooklyn. She deserved a fresh start. She deserved the cash.

"It's fair," she said. "It's only fair."

Did she believe in fate? She never had before. She'd always considered herself too intellectual to believe that anything was meant to be, but when a box of cash falls into your lap, you have to wonder about omens...much as she had to wonder if that fateful Homecoming Weekend was meant to be.

The funny thing was, Diane had not wanted to go. It was Artie who insisted they make the trip, on a weekend when Diane would have preferred staying in town to see a Monet exhibit at the Met.

"Come on, we'll have fun," Artie had insisted. "See the old gang, have a few laughs."

Diane rolled her eyes. "Artie, most of the old gang lives right here in town, and we hardly ever see them. Why do you want to drive two hundred miles to see people you wouldn't ride the subway to see?"

"Ahh, Diane, come on. Let's do this thing. It'll be pretty up there. You love the foliage and all that shit."

"I do?"

"Don't you? I was pretty sure one of us liked foliage."

"Artie, you go. I don't mind."

"It's no fun like that. Come on. Please. I like showing you off in front of all those guys who wanted you."

"Artie, that's so imma - "

"Please, please, please come with me."

And so they made the trip to the campus, which was packed with students from years gone by. There was a big football game and parties galore. Artie was eager to hook up with his old buddies, but the only event Diane even remotely cared about was a reading at the Alumni Library. The featured speaker was Duncan McLaverty. She asked Artie to come along, but he rolled his eyes at the suggestion.

"Last guy I want to see," he said. "Fucking faggot gave me a C-minus. Screwed up my average."

Diane was appalled. "He's not a faggot. God, that's a terrible word."

"Well, if he's not, he might as well be one."

Diane couldn't even speak. She hugged herself at the elbows, as if she'd caught a shiver she never expected to shake.

"Artie, I really hate it when you talk like that."

"Aw, hell, I'm sorry." He hugged her, and it was like hugging a snowman, but he ignored the freeze. "I don't mean it. But that fucker burns my ass, the way he stuck me with that shitty grade."

"It was what you deserved. At best."

"Hey. Whose side are you on?"

Diane shook her head. "There are no sides. This is a silly conversation."

Artie waved the whole thing off. "Hey, I'm not crying. It's not like that C-minus ruined my life, right? Right?"

Diane sighed. "No, Artie, it didn't."

"Damn right it didn't. I'm kicking ass out there."

It got very difficult to communicate with him when his testosterone levels climbed this high. "You're not interested in the reading, I take it."

Artie chuckled condescendingly. "Listen, you want to go hang with the liberal arts gang, go right ahead. I'll be at the Victory Gym with my boys, if you need me."

"Getting plastered."

"It's very possible. Hey. It's not like I'm driving anywhere. I'm the totally responsible husband, here."

He tossed his car keys on the bed. "Okay? All right? The main thing is that we meet later in bed, right?"

Diane's stomach fell so fast that her knees actually bent. She straightened up, hoping Artie hadn't noticed. "Have a good time," she managed to say.

He kissed her cheek. "I'll see you later. Enjoy the reading."

He turned and left, and to Diane it was like watching a stranger depart.

The reading was attended by several dozen students, past and present. Diane took a seat in the back row, and applauded politely along with the others as Duncan McLaverty - a little older, a little thinner - approached the podium with several pages of a manuscript.

It was from his novel-in-progress, the story of an Irish immigrant who moves to Hell's Kitchen with dreams of becoming a singer. By night, he washes dishes in a restaurant. By day, he sings anywhere he's allowed, trying desperately to be noticed.

Old Mac read a funny chapter set in Washington Square Park, where the singer gets into a spat with a black juggler. The juggler insists the singer is performing on his turf. Their heated argument draws a huge crowd, and the situation is resolved when they realize the argument is a better crowd-pleaser than either of their acts. In a spontaneous solution to their problems, they combine talents, and the singer belts out "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" while dodging whirling batons, their ends glowing with flames. And the crowd goes wild...

It was a funny bit of work, quirky and light-hearted, and the round of applause that followed it was spirited and sincere. It looked as if Duncan McLaverty might truly be on to something, as he'd so boldly promised. Diane joined the line to congratulate the man, hoping he'd remember her.

She extended a cordial hand, truly not expecting to be remembered. He'd had hundreds of students come and go since they'd last clapped eyes on each other.

"I'm one of your old students," she said. "I really enjoyed the reading."

His face lit up. "Well, as I live and breathe. Diane, you're more beautiful than ever."

A thrill went through her, far beyond the mere thrill of being recognized. He did not let go of her hand as he said, "You're coming to the party downstairs, aren't you?"

"Sure."

"Do you promise?"

"I do," she said, and as she released his hand it occurred to her that the last time she'd spoken those same two words was on her wedding day.

The party was a wine-and-cheese social, far more crowded than the reading itself had been. Duncan waved Diane over to a corner of the room, where he was hiding behind a pillar. He passed her one of the two large goblets of red wine in his hands.

"What a mob!" Diane said.

Duncan nodded. “Nobody shows up for the sake of the reading. It's like a Catholic soup kitchen, where the bums endure the prayers that precede the food."

Diane giggled, sipped the wine. "Not bad."

"Considering that the bottle had a screw-on cap, not bad at all."

"I really like your book, Mac."

"You only heard a bit of it, my dear. I've a long way to go."

"You'll get there."

"From your lips to the Big Guy's ears."

They spoke for more than two hours, taking turns for quick runs to the bar for more wine. Duncan was delighted to learn that Diane had become a schoolteacher, and when she spoke of how good it felt to get through to the kids, there were definite tears in McLaverty's eyes.

"You see, I never get that," the poet lamented. "By the time they come to me they've heard it all, seen it all. Their sense of wonder is long gone."

He clasped the back of her hand. "You have an important job, Diane Miller," he said, tightening his grip rather than loosening it.

Her head whirled. She'd had a lot of wine. Was he being cute? Didn't he know she'd taken Farley for her last name? Maybe not. Many hours had passed. The party was winding down.

"Want to get some air?" asked Duncan McLaverty.

Night had fallen, and the wind was chilly. Duncan hooked his arm in her elbow as they walked, and Diane did not resist.

"I take it you're still married to that man," he said evenly. It was the first time Artie had been mentioned by either of them.

"Yes," Diane said. "I am."

"Is he up here now?"

"Yes, he is." She hesitated. "He's still burned up over that C-minus you gave him."

Duncan laughed. "Did I give him a C-minus? I should have flunked him."

"You tried. He talked you out of it."

"He never thought much of me, that's for sure."

"You never thought much of him."

"Oh, I had nothing against him. I get plenty of students who need my course for an easy elective. No hard feelings." He hesitated. "Truth is, my dear, all I ever felt for your husband was envy."

They stopped walking. Nobody else was around. Duncan McLaverty took Diane in his arms and gave her a kiss she did nothing to resist.

"My cottage is just over there, you know," he whispered.

That night, back at the motel, Diane pretended to fall asleep long before Artie staggered to bed, boozed to the gills. He reached for her back, but the hand went dead almost immediately as he rolled over, passed out and started snoring.

Diane turned to look at his broad, bare shoulders, freckled but hairless. The back of his head seemed as square as a cracker box, thanks to a horrible "power" crewcut he and so many other Wall Street types had succumbed to that year. Go forth and conquer...

Artie was a mover, a shaker, a money guy who was going to become an even bigger money guy...and the very sight of him was enough to make her shudder. Already it seemed as if the bony shoulders of Duncan McLaverty had been sculpted by the Lord God himself specifically for Diane to hang from, enabling his long, fragrant curls to tickle her face.

She could deny it no longer. This man who lay close enough for her to feel the heat from his skin officially became what he'd been becoming for quite some time. A memory. A distant memory. Their marriage was in ruins, and poor Artie Farley didn't have a clue. How could that be? How was it possible?

She put her face in her pillow and wept. It was as if she were at Artie's grave, saying a final prayer for his soul.

A surge of hope: could it really all be over between them, just like that? Maybe not. Maybe not. She'd take her time and think about it. At this stage, the Duncan McLaverty thing was just a fling. Flings happen to married people, or so she'd heard, though she never expected to find herself in the middle of one.

"Don't panic," she whispered to herself. Artie moaned at the sound of her voice, a moan dizzy with drunken dreams. He was going to have a hell of a hangover in the morning. There'd be snide questions about the poetry reading, and cutting remarks about Duncan McLaverty...

Or maybe not. Maybe Artie would wake up and be that man who'd swept her off her feet on this same campus, all those years ago. If she could wave a wand and make her husband as irresistible as he'd been that night he brought her the Bunsen burner grilled cheese sandwich, she'd surely wave it.

She let out a giggle that turned into a sob, a sob she bit the pillow to muffle. She suddenly remembered which term paper she'd been writing, the night Artie made that grilled cheese delivery in the wee hours of morning. It was for Duncan McLaverty's poetry class...

The fling had happened two years ago, and since that time Diane hadn't seen or spoken with Duncan McLaverty, until the move to Brooklyn. One night when Artie took a break from painting to play for his company's basketball team at Chelsea Piers, Diane made the phone call and poured her heart out to the man. He was a listener, a sympathetic ear eager to hear everything she had to say. And when she ran out of things to say, she got to the point.

"What we had was special, wasn't it, Mac?"

"Of course it was, my dear. You know it was."

"You don't just do it with any co-ed who lets you, do you?"

"Diane. Of course not."

"That's all I wanted to know..."

The sound of a car horn...Diane had been fishtailing from one lane to another. She shook her head to clear it, slapped herself on the cheek, gripped the steering wheel a little tighter.

"Careful," she murmured aloud. "Pay attention."

She forced herself to concentrate on the dark country highway, aware all the while of a gulpy, tingly feeling in her heart. With every passing moment, she was that much closer to reaching Duncan McLaverty.

She could barely believe it when she actually arrived at the campus gates. She rolled down her window and asked the old guard in the booth to ring Professor McLaverty.

"It's kinda late, lady."

"He's expecting me."

"You sure?"

"Tell him it's Diane."

The guard couldn't help grinning as he gave her the eye. "He's not a full professor, you know. He's what they call an associate."

Grief like this, from a minimum-wage security guard. Diane managed not to say anything except, "Please call him."

The guard picked up a phone and called. He nodded at Diane, gave her a sly wink and pushed a button that slowly opened the gates.

"Here we go," Diane murmured as she rolled onto the campus. She flicked on her high beams to light up the dark, narrow road leading to the poet's cottage.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

THE cozy streets of Cooperstown were deserted at that hour. They parked on Main Street and walked past the shops, all of which sold every imaginable form of baseball memorabilia - cards, bats, autographed balls, pictures...

Richie squinted at a black and white autographed photo of Joe DiMaggio in a store window. "Three hundred and fifty bucks," he marveled. "God Almighty, who has the dough for this stuff?"

"Investors. A year from now they figure it'll be worth six hundred. More, maybe, now that DiMaggio's dead."

Richie shook his head. "He came into my father's candy store once for a pack of cigarettes. Can you imagine? Must've been during World Series time, against the Dodgers. Why the hell else would DiMaggio have been in Brooklyn?"

"Pretty exciting for your father, huh?"

"No. That's my point. DiMaggio comes in during my mother's watch. The old man was upstairs, takin' the half-hour nap he took to break up his shift. Some guy in the store told my mother who DiMaggio was, after he'd left. She'd never heard of him."

Richie chuckled. "That was my old man for you. Never did have much luck. If he had one hero in his lifetime, it was Joe DiMaggio. He cried when he found out who he'd missed. Sensitive guy, my old man."

"That's a terrible story."

Richie shrugged. "I don't know. You hear that DiMaggio could be a rude son of a bitch, too. So maybe it would've been worse if he'd been there. Maybe he asks for an autograph, and Joe gives him the cold shoulder. I don't think my old man ever would've gotten over that."

Artie came to an abrupt stop. "Tell me, please. How does Marion stand it?"

"Stand what?"

"The negativity, man! Jesus Christ, it's non-stop with you! Everything in the world has a way to go wrong, in your eyes!"

"Hey. You'll wake the whole neighborhood."

"Don't you ever expect things to go right?!"

Richie shrugged. "Where'd it get you?"

Artie let his back bump up against the cold wall of a memorabilia shop. "No matter what happens, promise me one thing, all right?"

"What thing?"

"I've got to meet this Marion woman. I've never met a saint before."

Richie nodded. "It's a deal."

They resumed walking.

"She really likes you, doesn't she?"

"Tonight she tells me she loves me."

"Marry her, Richie. If you do nothing else with your life, marry that woman."

"You think?"

"I think."

A few doors down from the Hall of Fame they found a place that had a night bell. They rang it and waited. At last, a lock clicked and the door opened.

An old lady in a fluffy bathrobe stood before them, holding her collar to her throat against the evening chill. Her white hair was back in a bun, and she wore black eyeglasses on a chain, like a librarian.

"Yes?" she hissed, and it was immediately clear to the two of them she was sorry she'd opened the door. Richie was sure it was the sight of him that scared her, but actually it was Artie who made the old lady wonder if she'd live through the night.

His wild red hair pointed in all directions, and there was a desperate look in his eye, the same look bank tellers see in the faces of quaking gunmen who suddenly realize they are in way over their heads...

"We'd like a room for the night," Richie said when it became clear Artie wasn't going to speak.

The woman adjusted her glasses. "Seventy dollars, including tax."

"That's fine."

"You can pay me in the morning," she yawned, handing over a key connected to a red plastic tag. "Room two. One flight up."

Artie found his tongue. "We'll be leaving very early."

The woman nodded. "I'm up very early," she said, and she was gone.

The room overlooked Main Street. It had two beds, an ancient TV set and the wasteful sprawl that always strikes New Yorkers away from home, where every square inch of space counts so dearly.

"You believe how they trust us for the money?"

"Not everybody's from Brooklyn, Richie."

"Oh, yeah. Blame Brooklyn. Brooklyn made your wife a thief."

Richie pushed down on the bed, making the springs squeak. "No mints on the pillows here, huh?"

"Lucky we have pillows."

"Yeah, well, you can laugh. This room's bigger than my apartment."

Richie went to the bathroom and let out a laugh. "Artie, you gotta see this." When Artie got there Richie pointed at the toilet paper roll.

"Get a load o' that."

"What's so funny?"

"Look how the end o' the roll's folded up, like a triangle shape. What the hell do they do that for?"

"Helps you find the end of the roll."

"Get out."

"I'm telling you."

"People need help to find the end of a toilet paper roll?!"

"Obviously, you haven't spent much time at the world's finer hotels."

"That's true, but I was a guest at a facility not far from here for eleven years, and nobody folded the ends into triangles. Come to think of it, the paper wasn't even on rollers."

"Why not?"

"Dangerous weapons, those rollers. Some psycho sharpened one and stabbed another guy in the neck. After that, it was loose rolls, all the way."

"You're an education, Richie."

"I'd like to think we learn from each other."

They stripped to their underwear and got into the beds. The room was bright with moonlight. They were exhausted, but far from sleepy.

"Sheets're stiff," Richie said. "Guess they don't believe in fabric softener up here."

"We should've asked for a wake-up call."

"Look around. There ain't even a phone in here. Don't worry, I'll wake up. I can't sleep late. I'm up with the light, just like my old man. We'll be out at dawn. You mind if I put the TV on?”

“You want to watch television?”

“I can’t just go straight to sleep.”

“Keep it low.”

Richie surfed the channels until he came to an oldie called “They Drive By Night,” starring Humphrey Bogart and George Raft.

“This is a good one,” Richie murmured. “Bogart and Raft are truck drivers. Bogart loses his arm when he falls asleep on the road and runs the truck into a ditch.”

Artie glanced at the TV screen. “I hate black and white movies.”

“How the hell can you say that?”

“The acting sucks and the dialogue is stupid.”

“Stupid? Burt Lancaster in ‘Sweet Smell of Success’ is stupid?”

“Never saw it.”

“You don’t see ‘Sweet Smell of Success,’ you feel it.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“Bet you like movies with a lotta special effects, and aliens, and all that shit.”

“I like to be entertained. Isn’t that what movies are all about?”

“What’s more entertaining than a good story?”

“Sure, but it’s got to be realistic. In black and white movies everybody talks out the sides of their mouths, and they talk too fast, and there’s always ice in a bucket.”

“Ice?!”

Artie sat up in bed. “Every time a guy and his wife come home, they go right to the bar - like normal people have bars in their homes, right? - and the husband makes himself a drink, and he takes ice cubes out of a bucket on the bar. It’s right there for him. He doesn’t open a freezer or bang a tray of ice cubes, it’s just ready. It didn’t melt while they were out?”

“What are you gettin’ excited about?”

“The plots are always crazy, too. It gets so confusing that in the middle of the movie somebody has to sum up what’s going on. ‘Now, lemme get this straight - blah, blah, blah.’ What bullshit!”

Richie sat up in bed. “You know, you’re right. They do sum up the plot in the middle of the movie.”

“Every fucking time. Totally unrealistic.”

Richie narrowed his eyes and spoke in a nasal voice, out the side of his mouth.

“So lemme get this straight, Mac. You buy your wife a house for a surprise birthday present, right? You’re fixin’ it up and boom, a box o’ dirty money falls outta the ceiling. The guy who hid it there thirty years ago got shot by the coppers, see, but his partner in crime is still alive, and when he finds out about the loot he comes to claim his share, only the wife takes a powder with the dough and the two guys gotta figure out where she vamoosed to in the middle o’ the night.”

Richie sank back in bed, his hands behind his head. “Funny thing. For a guy who hates black and white movies, you sure as shit are in the middle of one.”

Richie continued watching the movie. Bogie and Raft were haggling with a fruit merchant over a load of lemons they were delivering. The fruit dealer called them “lemon-ettes,” trying to drive down the price, but Raft held firm. Good for him...

The sound of Artie’s hard breathing drowned out the TV. He was flat on his back, hyperventillating as if he’d just sprinted a hundred yards. Richie turned off the movie and went to his side.

“What’s happening? Your heart? You need a doctor?”

Sweat gleamed on Artie’s face. He managed to shake his head. “I need to tell you something.”

“Tell me what?”

“What happened.”

“When?”

Artie shut his eyes, swallowed, hesitated. “On Nine-Eleven.”

Richie went to the bathroom and returned with a small towel, which he used to wipe Artie’s brow.

“Been waitin’ for this,” Richie said. “Calm down. Calm down and just tell me.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Artie Farley was fast and he was fit, but even so he was having a hell of a time running in wing-tip shoes from the billowing cloud of dust that only moments earlier had been the World Trade Center.

Suddenly the cloud was upon him and all around him. The sun was gone, and as he squeezed his eyes shut he heard the screams of God knows how many of his fellow human beings, convinced that the end was here.

He pulled his jacket up to cover his nose, Dracula-style. He was still running blindly but with determination, as if he were navigating by a compass in his soul. Sirens wailed. He bumped shoulders with someone and tumbled to the street. Someone stepped on his hand before he could get back on his feet and then he was running again, breathing through the jacket, eyes still shut, and it suddenly occurred to him that he could be going the wrong way, straight back to the burning cauldron of the Commodities Exchange.

“Not yet, not yet!” he shouted, and what he was referring to was the end of his life, which he was not at all prepared to face.

Then it happened. The sun filtered through the dust cloud. Artie sensed this and dared to open his eyes, seeing everybody and everything powdered chalky white. Beyond the people he saw the Hudson River. Suvival was as simple as getting to the river....

Artie stopped breathing through his jacket. He spat as he walked. He kept on spitting, but whatever was in his mouth was too stubborn to leave and soon he was dry, his throat feeling as if it were embedded with steel needles.

He came upon an overturned hot dog cart, its yellow and blue umbrella blown inside-out. A puddle of warm oily water cut a path through the dust on the sidewalk and boiled hot dogs covered the street like goldfish from a suddenly drained fish tank. A big block of rapidly melting ice had also fallen from the cart, surrounded by bottles of Mountain Dew, Pepsi and Poland Spring water.

Artie grabbed a bottle of Poland Spring, filled his mouth, swished it around and spat. As he continued walking toward the river he rinsed and spat without swallowing, like a boxer in his corner between rounds. He was tempted to rinse his face clean but he knew it was coated in substances that could be toxic, and that if any of it ran into his eyes he could be in big trouble.

He fought the urge to run, knowing that would involve deep breathing, knowing that would be bad for his lungs. With every step there was a little more light and a little less dust.

Yes. He was all right. He was going to make it.

A young woman in a pants suit lay on the street, crying hysterically. Without a word Artie scooped her into his arms as if she were weightless and continued on toward the river. She kept crying and clung to Artie, eyes tightly shut.

“I’ll get you out of here, ma’am.”

Sirens pierced the air. Artie reached the sidewalk at the West Side Highway, where a Daily News photographer took the photo of Artie that would come to be known as the Face of Nine-Eleven. The woman’s face was buried in Artie’s shoulder, but through the dust on his face Artie Farley’s blue, blue eyes were like twin beams of eternal hope.

He crossed the highway. Fire trucks and ambulances were everywhere. A young medical worker with a stethoscope was suddenly at his side.

“You okay, guy?”

“I’m fine. Take the girl.”

Artie set the woman down on a stretcher. She was still crying and had not spoken one word to her hero.

Artie began walking downtown, staying as close to the river as he could. The world had gone mad, but he had a plan. If a bomb went off or something else crazy happened he was ready to jump into the water and start swimming toward Jersey. He wasn’t going to die. He had a lot to live for.

“Diane...”

School hadn’t started yet. She would be home. He never wanted to be home as badly as he did now. He felt himself weep, and let the tears flow. It was a good cry.

He forced himself not to look back at the rubble. That would be bad luck, like Lot’s wife looking back and turning into a pillar of salt.

No. There was only one direction now for Artie Farley, and it was forward, onward, to the rest of his life. To his home. To his wife.

It took him the better part of an hour to reach Morton Street, where he and Diane had a studio apartment. By the end of his walk Artie was baking hot. He couldn’t wait to get out of his clothes and that suffocating coating of dust. People stared at him as if he were a ghost.

He stood on the sidewalk outside the brownstone where they lived, fumbling through his pockets for his house key. Somehow he’d lost it. How the fuck could that have happened?

While digging through his pockets for the second time the front door opened and there was Diane, on her way to somewhere. She came down the steps of the stoop, looked up and gasped at the sight of her husband.

“It’s me, baby.”

Diane stared at him in wonder and disbelief, eyeing Artie from his dust-caked shoes to the two-pronged cowlick at the crown of his head, now thickened with dust and sticking up like a gray antenna.

“Artie,” she breathed, clearly shocked to see him alive, and that would have been understandable, but the part that pierced Artie to his core was a little flicker of something he caught in her eyes, a tiny flash of lightning from her soul that she tried to hide by throwing herself into his dusty arms and crying, “You’re alive!”

It was a good try on Diane’s part, but he caught it, all right. As his wife hugged him and wept on his dusty shoulder Artie Farley realized that she was, without a doubt, sorry that he’d made it home.

He went inside, stripped down and took the longest shower of his life while Diane watched relentless TV bulletins about America under siege. He put on a short and a t-shirt, then stuck everything he’d been wearing - shoes included - into a black garbage bag and threw it away.

“Come watch with me, Artie.”

“I have to lie down, Diane.”

“Want me to lie down with you?”

“Gotta be by myself for a while.”

“Of course. I understand.”

But she didn’t. She didn’t know that he’d seen what she’d tried to hide.

He went to bed, got under the covers naked and wept for an hour. Then he stared at the ceiling for another hour. It was the ceiling he was speaking to when he finally did speak, when the big idea came to him.

“I’ll buy her a house,” whispered Artie Farley.

Artie had calmed down. He was through crying. At last he’d told a fellow human being the one thing he could barely admit to himself, the very worst thing that had ever happened to him.

“She wanted me dead, Richie. No two ways about that. She was sorry I’d made it out of there alive. My own wife.”

Richie squeezed Artie’s shoulder. “You can’t know that for sure.”

“Oh, I know it. I saw it in her eyes. That look....hell, she was already in Grieving Widow mode. I fucked that up by surviving. Her eyes...” A shiver went through Artie. “Hope I never see anything like that again. Just a cold, angry look. She didn’t just want me dead, Richie. She was sorry I’d ever been born.”

“Come on.”

“I kidded myself for a while, told myself I’d imagined it. But that’s why I bought the Brooklyn house. That’s why I wanted to knock her up. I figured if we had a kid together, she’d love me again, and I could forget all about The Look.”

Artie shook his head. “But once you get The Look, you don’t forget it. It’s like peeking into hell. Seeing something nobody should ever see. Once you see it, you’re fucked up forever.”

He turned to Richie, eyes glistening with tears and a funny smile on his face, the smile of a little kid trying to be brave.

“Anyway, there it is. The worst thing that ever happened to me. Glad I finally told somebody.”

An owl hooted, jolting the both of them. The creature was so loud he might have been perched between their beds.

“The hell was that?”

“Just an owl, Rich.”

“Jesus, the fucking country. Give me car alarms any night of the week.”

Artie let out a long yawn. “Let’s try and sleep. Suddenly I’m more tired than I’ve ever been.”

“Confession’ll do that to you.”

They stretched out on their beds. The crickets were loud, but it was a soothing, continuous sound. Artie was drifting off to sleep when Richie’s voice jolted him.

“Artie.”

“Mmmm.”

“For what it’s worth, and it might not be worth much, I’m glad you were born.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

IT was a good thing Diane had phoned ahead from that diner in Brooklyn, because Duncan McLaverty had a lot to do to get himself ready.

Truth be told, he almost hadn't answered that particular call. This was because he suspected it might be another angry bookie, like the one who'd just left the premises.

That man's name was Gugliemo Asencione - Googie for short. Googie had dropped by because Duncan McLaverty had failed to show up to make a long-overdue $500 payment.

Googie's shoulders were almost as wide as Duncan's door. He stood there with his chin high, Mussolini-style. The nostrils of his blunt pug nose appeared to be aimed straight at the poet's face, dark and round as the barrels of a shotgun.

"You ain't got it, huh?"

"I've got part of it, Googie."

"Yeah?”

Duncan reached into his pants and handed over nine dollars. Googie looked at it as if a pigeon had just shit in his hand.

"Professor. What is this?"

"I'm only $491 light," Duncan said. "What's $491, really?"

Googie let the dollars fall to the floor. He sighed with what appeared to be reluctance. "The funny thing is, I like you."

"Well, I'm fond of you too, Googie. Without you Italians the Renaissance would have been a complete failure. Not to mention that there'd be no Inferno to scare everybody onto the straight and narrow path."

Googie kept his face blank. "You makin' fun o' me?"

"Furthest thing from my mind."

"Yeah, well, the problem here, Dunc, is your devotion to slow horses. You leave me no choice. Come on. Let's bob for apples."

Duncan pursed his lips, shut his eyes. "Could you let me flush it first?"

Googie shrugged. "Go ahead, flush it."

Duncan went to the bathroom and flushed the toilet. It wouldn't help much, but at least the water would be slightly fresher. Googie appeared at his side.

"You ready?"

"Is this really necessary?" He asked the question as if he were referring to a slightly unpleasant medical procedure. Googie nodded solemnly.

"You know it is." He produced a large apple from his jacket pocket.

"Oh now wait, Googie," Duncan pleaded. "They're getting bigger every time. How am I supposed to get my teeth into that thing?!"

Googie tossed it into the toilet, where it landed with a big splash. "Hit your knees."

And so the acclaimed poet knelt down, put his face down in the toilet bowl and tried his best to bite into the apple. It was a Rome apple, better for baking than for munching, but Googie had chosen it for its size, not its flavor.

Duncan struggled unsuccessfully to trap it against the porcelain, and after about ten seconds he pulled his head out, gasping for breath. The apple bobbed on the water, shiny and unmarked. It seemed to be mocking him.

"I'll never get my teeth into it, Googie."

"Tell me somethin'. Don't they pay you here?"

"Yes, they pay me."

"You live like a loser. Whaddya you got, a sick mother you send money to?"

"Nope. Nobody but myself to look after in this wretched world."

"It don't make sense. Free room and board, a salary, no kids, and you can't fuckin' pay what you owe."

"Like they say in religion class, it's a mystery."

But it wasn't. The truth of it was that the night before, another bookie had collared Duncan and taken nearly $400 from him. In all, he owed seven guys a total of almost seven thousand dollars in horse racing debts...and juggling the payments was not easy.

Duncan McLaverty actually thought about bringing all his debtors together for a meeting, where they could hash out a regular system of payments. This haphazard door-banging method of debt collection simply was not working.

He took another deep breath and dove after the apple. Suddenly there was a hand at the back of his head, pushing down hard. My God, he's going to drown me...

"Bite into it, you fucking poet."

It worked. The pressure of Googie's hand was enough to force Duncan's teeth into the apple. Googie yanked him back by his hair and beheld the sight of the poet with the apple in his wide-open jaws, like a roasted pig on Christmas morning.

Googie left the bathroom. Duncan removed the apple from his mouth, chucked it in a wastebasket and walked out to join Googie.

"You're drippin.' Here." Googie tossed him a towel.

"Thank you, Googie."

"Look at yourself. Ain't you ashamed?"

"To the very marrow of my bones."

"How's it happen? Huh?"

"As you've noted, I have great faith in slow horses."

"Smart guy like you with a cushy job, and just fuckin' look at you."

"Well, now, look at it this way, Googie. Without guys like me, guys like you would have nothing to do. Wouldn't your days be empty if you didn't have deadbeat gamblers' faces to shove into toilets?"

Googie's hand closed around Duncan's throat. It was a particularly hard hand. On a prior visit Googie had lit a cigar in front of Duncan, striking the match on the surface of his palm.

"You gonna come to me next week, or you gonna make me come here again?"

"I'll come to you," Duncan gasped.

Googie loosened his grip. "See, I'm through humiliating you. Now we move on to pain. You don't have the money next week, Professor, I gotta hurt you. Understand?"

"Completely."

"You're a poet. Here's a little poem for you. Pay what you owe, or I'll make you die slow." Googie grinned. "Like it?"

"Masterful. Especially coming from one with your name."

Googie's eyes narrowed. "Fuck's my name got to do with it?"

Duncan couldn't help chuckling. "Asencione! The ascension, man! The ascension into heaven! If I die by your hand, I've got to have an excellent chance of making it through the Pearly Gates, don't you think?"

Googie swallowed. "I knew what my name meant," he lied. "Have the money when I come back."

Duncan nodded, rubbed his soaking-wet curls with the towel. He gestured at the floor. "Do you want the nine dollars?"

"Fuck you. Keep it. Buy yourself a little dignity."

Googie boomed his way out of the room, and the slammed door was still echoing when Diane phoned him from Brooklyn. Toilet water dripped from his chin as he listened to her say she was on the way to see him. Her last words echoed in his head: "I am doing this thing..."

What thing was she was doing? Leaving her husband? In all those long, tortured phone calls Diane had been making to Duncan in the past month or so she'd not once mentioned divorce, or even a separation. She barely ever referred to their one night of passion on that Homecoming Weekend two years ago. In Duncan's mind, that was something sudden and abrupt that had happened between the two of them, the sexual equivalent of a fender-bender in which both drivers had been drinking. Who do you blame? Nobody. You forget about it, and get on with your lives...

Mostly, Duncan listened to Diane speak about how lost and lonely she felt in the life she was leading. Half the time she broke down crying, and Duncan soothed her with a gentle patter any parish priest would have been proud of. It occurred to him during those phone calls that he might have made a hell of a priest.

Not a bad life. Plenty of time to write, rest, meditate. And you never hear about angry bookies busting in on priests in the middle of the night to make them bob for apples in the toilet.

Who does drop in to visit parish priests late at night? Unhappy wives, eager to talk about the problems they have with their rotten husbands. That would suit Duncan McLaverty just perfectly. At age 37, he was set in his ways, and had absolutely no desire for a wife or children. Just a smattering of sex from the occasional unhappy housewife would round off his priestly world just fine, thank you very much.

Now, suddenly, Diane was on the way over, and Duncan McLaverty had no real idea why. Holy Christ, that was all he needed now - a woman who wanted to share his ridiculous life. Well, whatever she wanted, he knew he had to get his room ready.

And how pathetic was that - a man like him, living in a room? It was amazing, how things had changed. What once was charming about the humble life of a poet was now downright humiliating...humiliating, and damn near slovenly.

Duncan hadn't had the heart to tell Diane over the phone, but the quaint cottage that had been his for so long had been taken away to make room for a young mathematics professor, a real whiz whose wife and infant child needed the space a lot more than Duncan did.

At least that's what the college administrators told Duncan was the reason for the move, but the real truth was plain to everyone - he'd lost his clout, plain and simple. He hadn't published a single word since that disastrous second volume of poetry, and his long-awaited novel had blossomed into the campus joke.

Duncan McLaverty's problem wasn't simply writer's block. He was also a lazy man with a drinking problem that was getting worse all the time. He was usually drunk when he placed those bets that had landed him so deep in debt. The little bit of pocket money he had left went for trips to local gin mills, from which he staggered home three or four nights a week.

Home! Look at what he now called home! This room on the ground floor of a freshman dormitory! It was slightly bigger than the other dorm rooms, and he did have his own bathroom, but those cinder block walls and linoleum floors let you know without a doubt that you were a grown man living among children...and when were you ever going to grow up?

He looked over his room. Googie was right. He lived like a loser. Empty beer and whiskey bottles littered the floor. A wastebasket in the corner was crammed to overflowing with ancient greasy pizza boxes and empty Cheetoes bags.

He went to the bathroom, flicked on the light and studied himself in the mirror. There were bags under his eyes, and a slight but definite roll of booze fat lapped over the waistband of his shorts. Threads of white and gray hair peppered his once-brown mane, which was now balding at the crown. There was no denying it. He'd aged like potato salad in the sun since that Homecoming Weekend with Diane Farley.

Duncan McLaverty leaned on the bathroom sink for support. What to clean up first, himself or the room? He looked in the mirror.

"Get in the shower, man," he told his reflection. "My God, you've had your head in the crapper."

A long, hot shower left him feeling a little better, but a chill went through him as he recalled Googie's warning. Next week, the punishment for non-payment went from humiliation to pain. Good God in heaven, he didn't even want to dream about Googie's concept of pain...

Duncan toweled off, had a quick shave and then attacked the mess in his room like a man on a mission. He carried armloads of bottles to the big community trash barrel at the end of the hallway, not even bothering to put a shirt on. Two smart-ass freshmen passed him on their way to a dance at the gym. He heard them laughing as they went out the door, and a renewed bout of laughter when one of them quipped, "Busy on his book!"

He'd become the campus joke. Now his poetry courses were half-filled, and the students who did sign up thought nothing about cutting class. He repeated himself. Sometimes, he gave the same lecture two weeks in a row, tipped off to the mistake by the giggles and snickers.

And what about when he wasn't in class? What the hell did he do in his lousy room, with the shades drawn? He wasn't writing. He wasn't even reading. He'd become a television junkie, addicted to the story lines of the daytime soap operas. It occurred to him from time to time that maybe he could move to Manhattan and charm his way into a job as a writer for one of these shows. It'd be easier than trying to finish his novel, that was for sure.

The novel! When was the last time he'd tapped his typewriter keys? A year and a half? Two years? He dug into his closet and found it in a plastic shopping bag, under a pair of wrinkled blue jeans that probably no longer fit. A lousy forty-four pages of double-spaced work, entitled "Shadow of the Shamrock." He'd shown it to nobody. Truth was, the only time he'd shared any of it with anyone was the time he'd given that brief reading two years ago, the one attended by Diane Farley.

How could his story run out of steam so suddenly? What the bloody hell had gone wrong with his talent? These were questions the author himself could not answer. Whenever anyone asked about the book, he grinned slyly and answered, "Slowly but surely."

A total lie. The book was mired in a tar pit, and so was Duncan McLaverty's soul. He was tired all the time, and no wonder. Did any of them ever realize how exhausting it was to be charming all the time, to sustain this smarmy smokescreen against the world? It took everything out of you! It was like running windsprints all day long! No wonder he fell asleep watching television!

But Diane's imminent arrival lit a fire under Duncan McLaverty. Maybe it was just what he needed to flatten out the walls of his rut.

He'd make it look good, for old time's sake. He grabbed a rag and wiped a thick coat of dust off the keys of his Olivetti manual typewriter, then scrolled the last page of "Shadow of the Shamrock" into the carriage. The other pages he set beside the typewriter, face down.

He stood back and looked at it. Not a bad effect. A good, old-fashioned writer’s desk - none of this computer bullshit for Duncan McLaverty. Anyone who looked at his machine would believe that a real writer was at work, a man who scorned the light of a laptop screen in favor of things you could touch - paper, ribbons and ink.

Next Duncan combed the floor and the windowsills for dirty socks and underwear, which he stuffed into his laundry sack and wedged into the closet. The room was looking as good as it was going to look.

He made the bed, swept the floor and headed for the bathroom. He'd worked up such a sweat that he needed another shower, and then he put on his darkest shirt and his loosest pants. The light bulbs in his lamps were low-wattage. With any kind of luck and a little bit of charm, Diane wouldn't notice how far he'd fallen.

He flopped on his bed and fell asleep, a dreamless slumber interrupted by a phone call from the guard at the gate who told him a woman named Diane was there to see him. Duncan simply said, "Let her in."

He ran the short distance to the cottage that had once been his home and stood in front of it. Moments later, he was squinting against the harsh glare of her car's headlights. He hurried to the passenger door and got in, edging his ass in beside the bulging knapsack.

"Here, now. A seatbelt around your luggage? Diane, I do believe there's such a thing as being too cautious."

She laughed out loud and fell into his arms.

"Oh, Mac, how I've missed you!"

"I've missed you too, dear heart."

"You're the only one who's kept me sane, these past few weeks. The only one."

"There, there...."

"Can we go inside? I feel like I've been on the road for a year."

"Ah, Diane." He pulled back from the embrace, forced a chuckle. "There's been a shift in my fortunes, I'm afraid. This castle is no longer mine."

"What?"

"A young professor with a wife and baby needed the space. What could I say? After all, how much room does a lonely Irish poet really need?"

"So where do you live now?"

Duncan pointed. "Drive onward, brave one," he said. "We are not at all far from my ivory tower."

"Good." She giggled with girlish shame. "I have to go to the bathroom so badly!"

"Fortunately, my new accommodations do include a private toilet, my dear." And my face was in it just a few hours ago, he failed to add.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

THE dim light of dawn filled the room as Artie awakened to the surprisingly gentle touch of Richie Fasanella, shaking his shoulder.

"Oughta get movin', Art."

"Right."

"You wanna shower first, or you wanna lie here a few more minutes?"

It was an oddly intimate question, the sort of thing long-married people asked their partners when they're on the road. How long had Artie known this man - twelve hours, maybe? It felt as if they'd grown up together.

"You go ahead," Artie said.

Richie nodded. "Won't be a minute."

Artie went to the window. Down on the sidewalk, a boy who couldn't have been more than seven was having a catch with himself, throwing a baseball straight up in the air and waiting for it to come down. It was obvious this little early riser had been driving his drowsy parents crazy, and they'd sent him outside to get the bubbles out of his blood. It was also obvious he was having a last-out-in-the-World-Series fantasy, because every time he caught the ball, he did a little jig.

Artie remembered doing the very same thing a million times, back when ballgames mattered to him. It occurred to him that he and Richie were probably the only two people who'd ever stayed at Cooperstown without visiting the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Richie came out of the bathroom, a towel around his wide waist.

"Go ahead. Watch the hot water, it could boil a lobster."

Artie stood under the shower, letting the spray hit his tightly-shut eyes. There was a lot to think about, and suddenly he felt his priorities shifting. What had begun as a mission to find his fleeing wife had evolved into something much, much different.

He ducked his head, opened his eyes and looked at his hands, opening and closing them as if he were trying them out for the first time. He cupped them to catch water, opened them to let the water fall on his feet.

Hands. It was all about hands. What you reached for, what you took, what you held onto...in the end, your hands made the call. And what did these hands want now? For perhaps the first time in his life, Artie Farley couldn't say. But he knew what they didn't want, and that was a step in the right direction.

Artie came out of the bathroom and immediately began dressing.

“You’re not gonna shave?”

“I can skip a day and get away with it.”

Richie chuckled. “You Irish. By the time I’m through shavin’, I need another shave.”

Richie returned to the bathroom with his toilet kit. A half-dressed Artie leaned against the open bathroom door and watched him wield his razor with motions that were almost dainty. His bare, hairy chest jiggled as he moved.

"Rich."

"I'm right here."

"I don't want the money."

Richie set the razor down on the edge of the sink and turned to Artie, his half-lathered face both comical and grave.

"You serious?"

Artie nodded, slipped a clean t-shirt over his head. "It's the right thing. It's yours. When we get it, you take it."

"I think maybe you mean, if we get it."

"Whatever." Artie held up his hands, palms facing Richie. "See, I already got what I needed out of this trip. I found out where I stand. Some guys are married twenty years before they find out what a joke it all was. Way I see it, you saved me a lot of years. Can't put a price on that."

Richie pursed his lips and nodded. "Funny, huh? That's the way it always works out, in the end. Everybody thinks it's money that counts, when it's really time that matters." He shook his head in admiration. "Gotta hand it to you, my friend. Very few people who haven't been to prison figure out what you just figured out. A building has to fall on them before they get it.”

“A building did fall on me.”

Richie picked up his razor and gestured at Artie with it. "Some day, somehow, you're gonna be happy, whether you like it or not. Hear me? Huh?"

He made it sound like a threat. Artie couldn't help smiling. "So are you, Rich."

"I already am. I was just too stupid to know it, until now."

He resumed shaving. "Now as for the money, I thank you for your share. But let's remember that your current wife is still entitled to her share, which works out to be a third."

"No, no, no. Every dollar is yours."

"That's not the deal we made."

"I'd say the terms of that deal have been violated."

"Doesn't matter. You wanna give up your end, that's fine. I thank you. But what's hers is hers. I came up here to get what's mine, period. And let's face it, your wife's gonna need that money."

Artie couldn't help laughing out loud. "For what?"

Richie finished shaving, rinsed his face and turned to Artie with a dripping chin.

"Don't you see it? She's turnin' her back on everything she ever knew. She's out. She's gonna start a new life with this poet, and it won't come cheap. Maybe what she did wasn't very nice or very pretty, but goddam, man, it took guts. For that alone, she deserves her end."

He grabbed a towel and roughly dried his face. "Come on, now, put your damn shoes on and let's get out o’ here."

Richie was ready before Artie. He went downstairs in search of coffee, leaving Artie to finish dressing. When Artie came down to pay for the room the old lady waved him off.

"Your father took care of it," she said.

Artie literally felt as if he'd had the wind knocked out of him, but when he got his breath back he found he did not care to correct the old lady's mistake.

Richie was waiting right outside, tossing a baseball on the sidewalk with the kid who'd been having a catch with himself. The kid was throwing the ball hard, but Richie could handle it in his meaty hands.

"Good speed," Richie said.

Suddenly the kid threw a ball that wasn't as fast.

"Hey," Richie said. "Whaddya call that?"

"Curveball," the kid replied with pride.

"Curveball? How old are you?"

"Seven."

"Listen, you're too young to throw a curveball. Stick to the fastball for now, you don't wanna wreck your arm."

"My father taught me how to throw it."

"Good. Wait another coupla years, then throw it. Anyway, that's my advice. Lotta good pitchers had arm trouble later for throwin' curves when they were young. What's your name?"

"Brian."

“Well, Brian, you got a nice fastball. Save the tricky stuff for later.” He tossed the ball back. "See you around, Brian."

Richie and Artie began walking to the car. "Curveballs, his father's teachin' him," Richie said in wonder. "Kid's gonna wind up with a pretzel for an arm."

They picked up a pair of take-out coffees at a diner.

"This enough for you, Artie, or you wanna eat?"

"I couldn't eat a thing."

"Me neither."

And again they were on the road, sipping coffee through holes in the lids.

"Am I goin' the right way?"

"Yeah."

"We gonna have a problem gettin' on the campus?"

"No."

"You remember where this fucker lives?"

"Yeah. Cute little cottage with his motorcycle parked in front."

"A motorcycle? A poet on a motorcycle?"

"It's all part of the image."

"This guy pisses me off, and I ain't even met him yet...he's got a private cottage? Nobody else lives in it?"

"That's how I remember it."

"Beautiful. We want them isolated. Now look. We knock on the door, and he lets us in. You let me take it from there."

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is, I'm not emotionally involved, here. All I want is my money. Soon's we get the finances straightened out, you can go nuts."

"I won't go nuts."

"You say that now, but I'm prepared for it. Maybe you want to bat the guy around a little bit. It's normal, it's natural. Me personally, I'd advise against it. He'd sue you. Teachers love lawsuits. They got all the time in the world to sit in court."

"Richie, trust me, I'm past it. Can we just be quiet for a while?"

"Sure, kid. I'm sorry. Go on, gather your thoughts."

Artie tried to do just that, but found that it was like trying to catch feathers in a high wind. For the next few miles he rode with his forehead pressed to the cold glass of the passenger window, aware that anything, absolutely anything could happen from here on. It was a little like running from the tumbling Trade Towers, knowing you'd never been through anything like this before, and wondering if you were going to come out of it alive.

Except this was worse. Much, much worse.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CAPTURED by the charms of Duncan McLaverty, Diane actually felt her heart leap at the prospect of his new home, until she pulled up beside his rusting motorcycle and saw where they were.

"Here? They put you in a dorm?"

"Now, my dear. It's not as bad as all that. I've got my own bathroom, and I can stay up as late as I like."

She had to laugh. He still had that same wonderful sense of humor, and a way of making you feel as if everything was going to be all right.

Duncan struggled with the weight of Diane's suitcase as he entered the dorm, Diane a few steps behind with the precious knapsack. She was startled but not dismayed by the sight of his bald spot, wide and pink under the long florescent hall lights.

Two geeky freshmen wearing nothing but boxer shorts bumbled into sight. They were in the midst of a shaving cream fight, and all but shrieked at the rare sight of a woman.

"Easy now, lads!" Duncan cried in a voice rich with hollow cheer. Diane caught a stray gob of shaving cream on her coat as the boys roared past.

"Courage, my dear." Duncan fumbled for his keys. "We've reached my kingdom at last."

Inside, Diane's nostrils were assailed by a sweaty stink the poet had long ago stopped noticing. To him, the room was as spiffy as it ever got, but Diane was plainly shocked.

"Oh," she said, and it came out like a sound she'd have made if she'd been punched lightly in the belly.

Duncan forced a laugh. "A temporary setback, I assure you. Take off your coat. I've a feeling you've got quite a story to tell."

Sitting by his side on the bed, she told him all about what had happened. Like a bishop hearing a confession, the poet cocked his head and looked down at his lap as he absorbed this wild tale of found money and theft, and when at last she unzipped the knapsack and dumped its contents on the bedspread Duncan's eyes widened as if he were looking at the Holy Grail.

"Heaven help us," murmured Duncan McLaverty, for the first time since his days as an altar boy. He reached out to touch the bricks of bills, tightly bound by thick pink rubber bands.

Diane drew a deep breath. "You and me, Mac."

He pulled his hand from the money. "I beg your pardon?"

"This." Diane raked her hand over the bundles, picked one up, riffled its edges. "This can be our future."

Duncan McLaverty swallowed, his Adam's Apple bulging as big as a tennis ball.

"It's quite a stunning concept," he managed to say. Diane clasped his damp hands in hers.

"It’s overwhelming, I know. I've had a lot more time to think about it than you have. It's a long, dark drive from Brooklyn. Shall I tell you what I've been thinking?"

Duncan's nod was barely perceptible.

"We're both unhappy with our lives," Diane began. "I know you don't like it here, and I know that I can't be a proper wife to Artie. He deserves so much more than I could possibly give him. We're just...it's over."

A catch in her voice: she put a hand to her throat until it passed, then gestured at the money.

"I think of this as my divorce settlement. Artie can keep everything else. The house in Brooklyn is worth a fortune. It's a fair split." She hesitated. "You and I can disappear."

Duncan's eyes widened. "Disappear, you say?"

Diane nodded. "Someplace warm. Maybe we can live in the Caribbean. You can do it really cheaply, year-round. And believe me, we've got enough here to last us for a long time. A couple of years, at least."

She patted the back of his hand. "What do you think? Does this excite you, or do you think I'm completely out of my mind?"

Duncan made a funny sound, the combination of a sigh and a giggle. "I'm just thinkin' of my poor Celtic pelt in that Caribbean sun. I'd burn to a cinder."

"You can sit under palm trees. You can finally unwind and get to work finishing that wonderful book of yours."

"Ahh, my book..."

"Wouldn't it be great to put all your energies into something you really want to do? For once? I see this as the chance of a lifetime, for both of us."

"What would you do all day, Diane?"

"I'd read. I'd swim. I'd make love with the one man I ever truly felt could be my soulmate."

McLaverty's breath made a wheezy sound. "That'd be me, I take it," he said gently.

"Yes, Duncan McLaverty. That would be you."

Duncan licked his suddenly dry lips. "When would all this happen?"

"Immediately, if not sooner."

"Good God, Diane. We're in the middle of the semester!"

"I know, I know. And the funny thing is, I've never been anything like this! I'm the kind of person who gets nervous about going away for long weekends because the plants don't get watered!" She took a deep breath. "This is all brand-new to me. But I know what I feel. I trust what I feel. And I trust you."

She picked up a bundle of money and tossed it playfully at Duncan, who fumbled it to the floor. He leaned over to pick it up.

"So, Mac. How does all this strike you as a plan?"

Duncan cleared his throat. "I can't think of a better one."

"You've got a passport, haven't you?"

"How do you think I got into this wonderful land of opportunity?"

"Well good. Good." She packed the cash back into the knapsack, zipped it shut and chucked it on the floor. "Now what do you say we make love? Are you up to it?"

As a matter of fact, he wasn't, though he tried to make it seem as if he'd been waiting all his life for such an offer. Diane was already in the bathroom, washing up and trying to ignore the greenish-black lines of growth between the tiles. My God, how he's been forced to live...

Duncan turned off the lights, stripped to his shorts and got under the covers. He didn't want her to see his body, but there was not much he could do to keep her from feeling it. He felt a stab of humiliation when she returned naked to the bed and embraced him around the waist, her fingers sinking into flab.

"Afraid I've allowed my gymnasium membership to lapse," Duncan murmured.

In truth Diane was startled by the change in Duncan's body, but tried not to let it bother her. She'd done too much, driven too far, burned too many bridges for this to fail.

It's the way he's living, she told herself. A few months on a Caribbean beach and he'll be bronzed and lean, more beautiful than ever...

He was allowing himself to be held, but not reaching for her.

"Is anything wrong?"

"No, no, child. It's just been such a night of wondrous events, one after another."

"Are you glad I came?"

"Oh, dear God, yes."

"Make love to me, Duncan."

He gave it a try. Lord, did he give it a try! But angling around in a semi-erect state, it was hard for him to get a condom on, and even after this was achieved he just couldn't get his boy to stand firm. Maybe it was a humiliation hangover, the sad after-effects of being forced to bob for an apple in a toilet. And here came Diane, eager to kiss those lips that had been deep in the bowl just a few hours earlier...

With gritted teeth and a desperate prayer in his heart Duncan finally entered Diane, only to be squirted out by the slightest motion of her hips. Attempts at re-entry failed miserably as he wilted within the condom. Dizzy with worry and confusion, Diane cradled his head.

"It's all right, Duncan."

"I'm just a little overwhelmed by it all, my dear."

"Shh. I know. We're going to be just fine. The future is as bright as the sun."

"That is is, child. Let's try it again in the morning, shall we?"

"Duncan, please. Don't call me that anymore."

"I'm sorry?"

"Child. I'm not a child anymore. That student-teacher thing is over. We're both adults now."

"Right you are, my dear. Absolutely right."

"We have a bond, my love. A bond that will not break."

"Never," he agreed, though to his ears it sounded more like a threat than a pledge of everlasting love.

She kissed the top of his head. "I'm so happy, Mac."

"Mmmmm."

In minutes the poet was fast asleep while the muse stared at the cracks in the ceiling, trying not to let herself think there might be a crack or two in her glorious plan.

CHAPTER THIRTY

RICHIE and Artie reached the campus gates a little after seven. There was no guard on duty, so they just rolled into a world of wide lawns, tall trees and red brick buildings.

"Holy shit," Richie said. "This is impressive."

"Think so?"

"Yeah, but where is everybody?"

"It's early, man. Nobody has a class until ten or eleven."

Richie chuckled. "Rough life, huh? Their parents must just love writin' out those tuition checks."

"Hey. I paid my own way, every nickel of it. No loans, no debts."

"Holy Christ, look at that guy!"

A scowling man with a long dark beard and a load of books under his arm was walking in their direction. He was muttering to himself, his loose pants flapping in the wind.

Richie pointed. "That the poet?"

"Give me a break, man. Think Diane would go for somebody like that?"

"He's talkin' to himself!"

They drove past the man, who seemed not to notice the car. Artie turned around for a last look.

"I remember that guy. I'm pretty sure he's from the philosophy department. Supposed to be some kind of genius."

"In Brooklyn they'd throw a net over him."

"Yeah, well, up here he’s royalty." Artie pointed. "This way, now. His cottage should be at the end of the road."

They pulled up in front of the place, cut the motor and got out. It was absolutely silent. Artie's head swam. It was wrong, all wrong. "No motorcycle," he murmured, astonished to see a mud-spattered station wagon with a baby seat in back.

"You sure he lives here?"

"This was his place. I'm sure of that."

"Looks like he's got a kid now, huh?"

"I can't imagine that asshole as a father."

Richie patted his shoulder. "Well, we've come this far," he said, leading the way to the door.

They could hear a baby crying. Richie politely tapped on the door and stood with his hands behind his back.

Moments later a young woman with blonde pigtails answered the door, the weeping infant on her hip.

"Yes?"

Richie deferred to Artie, who cleared his throat. "We’re looking for Duncan McLaverty."

"Oh. He doesn't live here anymore."

It figures, Artie told himself. Leave it to that bastard to knock up a woman and take off. He sighed and gestured at the baby. "Is this his kid?"

The woman giggled. "Of course not! My husband is his father."

"Is Duncan still around?

"Oh, yeah." She pointed. "They shipped him over to the freshman dorms when we moved here. Only took us two weeks to clean out his filth. God, what a pig!"

"Which dorm?"

"The one with his motorcycle parked in front. You can't miss it. Follow the empty bottles to his room." She studied Richie, a look of concern on her face. "You're not here to break his legs or anything, are you?" she asked point-blank.

Richie shook his head, tried to make himself seem harmless.

“Well,” the woman said, “if he gives you a tip on a horse, don't play it. I lost fifty dollars on a horse that came in seventh."

She went back in the cottage and shut the door.

Richie chuckled. "You look Italian, right away you're a leg-breaker. Swear to God, it gets tiresome."

They got back in the car and sat a moment, staring at the cottage.

"The freshman dorms," Richie said. "That means they threw him in with the kiddies, right?"

"Guess so."

"Bet your wife was delighted by that development."

Artie shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe it made her happy. Diane always had a soft spot for losers. Now she's got even more to save him from."

He started the car and drove to the dorms. And there it was, parked right out in front of the corner building - a delapidated black motorcycle, beside a shiny green compact car.

"Bingo," said Richie as he eased in beside the compact. "Notice that license plate? It's got a "Z" in it. Means it's probably a rental. Lookin' good, Artie, lookin' good."

Artie was breathing hard. "What do we do now?"

"Well, if we were in Brooklyn I'd let the air outta one o' his tires and one o' hers. Stop a quick getaway, in case they see us comin'. But this place is crawlin' with good citizens who spend their whole lives dreamin' about bein' an eyewitness to a crime, so screw that idea.”

"Richie. What do we do?"

"We walk in like a coupla insurance salesmen, buddy, and we take care o' business."

They got out and entered the dormitory. The place was silent, save for the sound of water running in a nearby shower. The carpeting under their feet was spattered everywhere with beer spills, and torn here and there as if gophers had burrowed up from below. Artie stopped to wet his suddenly parched mouth at a hallway fountain.

A zit-faced kid emerged from the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. He shook his wet head like a dog to rid it of water.

"Excuse me," Artie said. "Where's Duncan McLaverty's room?"

The kid smoothed his hair back. "He owe you money, man?"

"No, no. We're old friends of his."

"If you're old friends, how come you don't know where he lives?"

Richie stepped forward. "Kid, don't fuck with us, please. Just show us where."

He pointed with a trembling finger. "Last door at the end of the hall. It's got this sticker on it. Think it's the Irish flag."

The kid beat it up the stairs.

"Smartass little punk," Richie said. "All right, partner. It's time." He put a hand on his shoulder. "You ready? Whoa, what the hell is this, now?"

Artie's knees had begun to scissor, until he was squatting like a baseball catcher. Richie squatted beside him and squeezed the back of his neck.

"Breathe deep, buddy boy."

"I just feel..."

"Yeah? Tell me."

"...like I’m gonna die.”

Artie fell to his knees. Richie caught his shoulders to keep him from tipping over.

"Hey, buddy. Listen to me. You're tougher than you think. The twin towers fell on you, and you're still standin.' "

"That was easy, compared to this."

Richie got down on his knees. There they knelt together in the middle of the hallway, like a pair of long-lost altar boys.

"I'm gonna be sick, Richie."

"No you're not."

"My world's coming to an end."

"You're right, Artie. It is comin' to an end. But guess what? You get to build another world."

"Think so?"

"Of course. Look at you." He gave his shoulders an affectionate shake. "Young guy, good lookin', hard worker. You got your whole life ahead o' ya."

Artie hesitated. "I bet people said that to you when you got out of prison."

Richie shook his head. "Matter of fact, nobody did. And if they had, I'da known they were lyin.' So maybe that's my gift to you, Artie. Sayin' you got your whole life ahead o' you, and meanin' every word of it." He crossed his heart. "Scout's honor. Not that I was ever a scout."

Artie hesitated. "Will you answer a question before we do this?"

"Ask."

“Why’d you rob that bakery?”

"For the money."

Artie shook his head. "The real reason.”

"Oh. To be loved."

It was just what Artie needed to hear. "Funny," he said. "Same reason I bought a house in Brooklyn."

"Guess we were both wrong, huh?”

“Richie, Richie. Why do guys like us stay so long in bad marriages?”

The big Italian shrugged. “Same reason we sit through bad movies, I guess. You just have to see how it ends.”

He held out a hand to Artie. “So what do you say we do this thing now, and see how it ends? Come on. Up, up."

Artie took Richie’s hand and let himself be helped to his feet. The two of them turned the corner and there was the door, its Irish flag sticker plainly visible at twenty feet.

They walked slowly, deliberately, as if they were a couple to be married at the door saddle.

"Remember, I talk first," Richie said. "We square the money, and then you do whatever you gotta do."

"I know."

"Don't be nervous.”

"I won't."

"They'll be nervous. Remember that. We are righteous."

"Righteous. Right." With a surge of alarm, Artie noticed Richie's left hand, which gripped the little canvas bag he'd brought for the trip.

"Hey, Rich, what's with the bag?"

"What about it?"

Artie swallowed. "You got a gun in there?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"You do have a gun!"

"Bullshit."

"Richie - "

"Shut the fuck up!"

They stopped at the door. Richie held up a finger in warning, made a fist of the same hand and smashed at the door with his fist, four booming knocks that made the quaking Artie feel as if his fillings were coming loose.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

THE pounding nearly jounced Diane from the bed, but somehow Duncan McLaverty managed to keep slumbering away.

She shook his shoulder. "Mac, there's somebody at the door!"

He opened his eyes, and seemed startled by Diane's presence. She had the sheet pulled up to her throat. The door banged twice more. Duncan froze, put a finger to his lips.

"Ignore it," Duncan breathed. "He'll go away."

"Who'll go away?!"

Two more bangs on the door. "My dear," Duncan said, "I owe a bit of money."

Five seconds passed. Ten. Then four more bangs on the door, much harder than any of the previous ones.

"Open up, McLaverty," came the voice from the other side. Duncan turned to Diane.

"That's not anybody I know," he said truthfully.

Diane's heart quailed. She knew just who it was, even before the kick from the other side that sent pieces of the lock flying.

Richie Fasanella stepped inside, righteous as a landlord busting in on a deadbeat tenant. Artie Farley walked in next. The two stood at the foot of the bed, almost politely. A piece of the busted lock continued to clatter around on the floor, a round bit of metal that finally tiddly-winked its way into silence.

Diane literally felt herself go numb, from the marrow of her bones out to her skin. Artie stared at her as if she were a painting on a museum wall...a painting he wanted to understand and appreciate, but just couldn't.

Sitting up in bed, Duncan observed the two men with a fatalistic face. Clearly they were a pair of freelance leg-breakers, here to get a long-overdue payment for some bookie. Oh boy...

The poet held out a pair of long-fingered, placating hands. "Let's all be calm, now," he suggested.

"Fuck you to death, asshole," Artie Farley replied.

Only then did Duncan recognize the younger man as the lackadaisical student he'd once had...a student whose wife now lay at his side, weeping. It all came together, and he shrank down under the sheet with Diane. Only their heads showed, and they both stared in horror at Artie, though Richie was the far more menacing figure.

Artie was surprised to feel his own eyes go wet. The two of them looked almost comical there in bed, like a couple of kids who'd gotten caught playing "Doctor."

Oddly, it was the sight of Richie Fasanella that Artie found even more startling than that of his wife in bed with another man. His chest seemed to have expanded, and his waist somehow seemed narrower. He was totally focused on what had to be done. Artie Farley, a man who knew a thing or two about focus, had never seen anyone quite so focused.

Duncan cleared his throat. In times of awkward silences, poets are counted on to fill the void, and he did not disappoint. In fact, it was even a bit of a relief to him, the way things had shaken out. He'd been fearing death at the hands of a homicidal bookie. Now he figured the worst he could get was a beating from an angry husband.

"Well," he began, “it’s a situation, all right. Would you mind closing the door, Arthur?"

Artie shut it as best he could, but without a lock it refused to stay closed. So he propped Diane's suitcase against it to keep it shut.

"Bravo," Duncan said. "Now at least we won't be on display for the amusement of the freshman class."

Richie pointed at Duncan, looked at Artie. "This guy always talk this way?"

Artie nodded, staring at Duncan. "He keeps the bullshit flowing, all right."

Richie looked at Duncan. "Tell you what. My friend and I will turn around while your friend and you get some clothes on."

They did just that, Diane and Duncan pulling on yesterday's clothes like a pair of embarrassed kids. Only when she was clothed did Diane look Artie in the eye.

"There's not much I can say, Artie."

He breathed hard, felt tears forming in his eyes and blinked them back.

"You're my wife."

She nodded. "I know."

"Do you? Do you know that? Did you ever know it?"

"Artie, I'm so sorry."

He had to chuckle. "Be specific, Di. What are you sorry about? This business here, or stealing from me?"

"All of it."

Artie nodded. He'd clenched his hands together so tightly that when he released them, he felt the sweet tingle of blood return to his fingers.

"Well," he began, "it's a long way up here, you know? Lots of time to figure things out. And what I figured is that we've been so wrong for so long, this was the only way you could've left me. Abruptly, you know? Without a word."

He hesitated. "Because whatever you might have had to say, I probably wouldn't have given you the chance to say it. I was afraid of being quiet long enough to let you speak. So instead of speaking, you acted. It was the only thing you could do."

Diane looked in wonder at her husband, the way she'd looked at that occasional thick-headed second grader who'd suddenly, inexplicably come through with a brilliant observation.

She swallowed. "Funny how neither of us could talk about it."

“Well, we’re talking about it now, Mrs. Farley.”

It was not a time to lie, not with the money and everything else in the world on the line. Artie rubbed his hands together before launching into it.

“I want to talk about that look you gave me when you saw me all covered in dust on Nine-Eleven.”

Diane went pale. “The look?”

“You know what I’m talking about, Di, so please don’t bullshit me. Absolute truth, now. How did you feel when you saw the twin towers come down, and you thought I was dead?”

Diane’s lips trembled. She licked them and whispered, “Pleased.”

Artie knew it was coming, but it hurt anyway. His jaws clenched and he needed a moment before he could speak again.

“Pleased that I was dead.”

“No, Artie. Pleased because I thought I wouldn’t have to do anything....”

Diane struggled to find the right word. “Unpleasant,” she said at last.

Artie actually grinned as he nodded at his soon to be ex-wife, the queen of understatement.

“And how did you feel when I made it home, and you saw me alive?”

Diane shut her eyes. One heartbeat, two, three...

“Disappointed,” she whispered.

They were both breathing hard. Artie calmed down first.

“You hated me that much, huh?”

She opened her eyes. “No, Artie. Not loving you isn’t the same as hating you. I just didn’t want...a mess, I guess.”

Artie nodded. The sweat beads on his forehead were icy but good, like the sweat that comes when nausea finally breaks. He dried them with his sleeve.

“That makes sense. Divorce can be pretty messy, I hear. But we’ll find out soon enough.”

Diane swallowed. “You may not believe this, Artie, but I’m glad you’re alive.”

“You might not be, by the time the lawyers get through with this thing.”

Artie patted Diane’s back, a Little League coach comforting a kid after a strikeout. “We’re just a bad match. It happens. There are people who stick with it and call it courageous. Me, I call it stupid. So now, at least, we know what we're doing. We're through wasting each other's time."

Richie fought to hide a grin. The kid had hit the nail on the head. He'd made his point, calmly and cleanly. Richie's sense of pride was almost paternal.

Diane's lips quivered. She swallowed. "For some reason, I wasn't able to face how I felt."

Artie nodded. "Yeah, well, sometimes a fortune's got to fall from the ceiling to show you how you really feel. That's the funny thing about money. It might fuck up your life but it always, always, always takes you to the truth."

There was a moment of silence before Duncan McLaverty said, "Bravo, young man."

"Nobody asked you," said Richie.

Artie responded to neither comment, his eyes locked on Diane. A chilling smile came to his face. "Now this stealing business is a whole other thing."

This was Richie's cue. He stepped closer to the bed, put his hands together and rubbed them slowly, like a seasoned gambler eager to get a deck of cards in his hands.

"You'll recall that we had an agreement, Mrs. Farley. Where's the money?"

Diane handed over her knapsack. Richie dumped it out on the bed and counted out twelve bundles of money.

“Ohhh, baby.” He stroked the bundles with a gentle palm, picked one up, sniffed it as if it were a rose. “Long time comin.’ ” He lined them up in a single row and turned to Diane.

"Okay, lady. I assume they're all more or less even. Pick any four and I get the rest."

Diane swallowed. "The agreement was a third for you!"

"Right. Which works out to a third for each of us."

"You’re taking Artie's share?"

"Well, the truth is that sweet husband of yours wants me to have it."

She looked at Artie. "Is this true, Artie?"

"Absolutely."

She took a step closer to him. "Artie. We found that money together."

"Yeah, but we didn't put it there."

"Neither did he!"

"He suffered for it. We didn't."

She stared at him in wonder. "You'd really rather give your share to him than to me?"

"Diane. I'd rather give him both our shares, but my friend here just won't go for it. He wants you to have what's yours." He put an arm across Richie's wide shoulders. "Funny thing, coming across a person with principles in the midst of this much cash. Doesn't happen often, I swear to God."

The principled person patted the bed. "Come on, Diane. Pick four packs and we're outta here."

She crossed her arms. "I truly do not believe this is fair."

"I don't care what you believe, Diane. But here's something I believe - Richie and I could just take all of it, through sheer force, and how fair would that be? That's our next move, unless you take four bundles right now."

Diane needed five seconds to think about it before scooping up the four bundles closest to her.

"Good girl," Richie said. "Gotta be at least fifty grand, there. You did good." He unzipped his canvas bag and stuffed the rest of the money into it, one bundle at a time. The room had gone silent, save for the whispery, reverential sound of money changing hands.

Richie zipped the bag shut. "Done. All right? That's it. Artie, I'll be in the car."

Richie patted Duncan's shoulder. "Nice meeting you, professor."

"Actually, I'm merely an associate professor."

“Whatever.”

Richie left. Artie closed the door after him, propping it shut again with Diane's suitcase. Weak at the knees, Duncan McLaverty sat down at his typewriter, for the first time in years. Diane remained on her feet, facing her husband. But within moments standing became an ordeal, and she sat on the bed, the springs of which let out loud, rusty squeaks.

The noise impelled Artie to speak. "Do you love this man, Di?"

She managed a weak nod.

"You love her, Dunc?"

The poet managed an even weaker nod that might simply have been the trembling of his chin.

For a moment, it seemed as if he were about to pronounce them man and wife.

"Well," Artie sighed, "I wish you luck together. Fifty thousand's not as good as a hundred and sixty-two thousand, but it's a pretty nice start for whatever you're starting, here."

He touched a tear that trailed down Diane's cheek. "Got a plan, Di?"

She cleared her throat. "We're thinking about living in the Caribbean."

"Right away?"

"Yes."

"Well, I guess that could be a nice life. So you'll quit your job, just like that."

She closed her eyes. "Believe me, Artie, none of this is easy for me, either."

"Oh, I wasn't thinking of you. I was wondering about that student of yours who got the atomic wedgie. Without you around he might not get his eyeglasses."

She looked at him in wonder. He had to chuckle. "You see, Di? I was always listening. Even when you thought I wasn't listening, I was listening."

He reached out to shake hands with Diane, the same way he had when he introduced himself to her on this same campus so long ago.

"You can pick up your stuff from my house anytime, Di. Just give me advance warning so I won't be there. And get all of it out, please. I don't want a single trace of you left behind. My memory of you will be odorless and tasteless, just like that spermicide, you know?"

He moved to McLaverty, who tried his best not to cower. Suddenly Artie grabbed the poet by his frayed shirt, pulled him to his feet and drew back a fist. Arms dangling at his sides, Duncan shut his eyes to await the inevitable as Diane shrieked.

An eternal moment passed with Artie's fist poised to punch. At last he loosened his fist, and shoved the poet back down into his chair.

"Fuck it," he murmured. "You ain't worth it." He kicked Diane's suitcase out of the way and opened the door. He turned for a last look at his soon-to-be-ex-wife.

"Oh, by the way, Diane, I think you should know that if you do this Caribbean thing you may bump into your mother. She's over there with her girlfriend."

Diane looked from grinning Artie to baffled Duncan and back to grinning Artie. "What’s that you said?"

"Your mother's got a girlfriend. Don't worry, your father's cool with it."

He stayed just long enough to watch her jaw drop, then went to the car and rode off with Richie Fasanella.

Richie waited until they were off the campus before speaking. "You all right?"

"Yeah."

"You didn't stick to the script, my friend. I was supposed to go first, remember?"

"Sorry."

"Never, never improvise when you're goin' for the money. I learned that the hard way."

"Next time we go collecting, I won't improvise."

"You punch the guy's lights out?"

Artie shook his head. "Thought about it. Didn't seem to be much point."

"Yeah, I know. You'da felt even worse than him if you did. This way, he feels rotten about missin' a beating he deserved." Richie chuckled. "Those Irish. They got more ways of feelin' bad than the rest of us put together."

"I'm Irish too."

"And look at how bad you feel."

"Tell you the truth, Rich, I'm doing all right, all things considered."

"Good, good...Christ, what a stink in that room!" Richie shuddered. "This is how he lives? This is what she wants out of life, a creepy-lookin' guy like that?"

"He used to look a lot better."

"We all did...hey, I have to say I'm a little insulted that you thought I had a gun."

"Do you blame me?"

"After what a gun did to my life, do you really think I'd ever go near one again?"

"Rich. Forgive me. It's over, all right? You got your money."

"Yeah, and you got your freedom."

"Doesn't feel so great."

"Give it time. Lotsa nice girls in the neighborhood."

"Brooklyn girls?"

"You could do worse. You could do a lot worse."

Artie rubbed his face with damp hands. "Can we just ride quiet for a while? I swear to God, I'm whipped. Feel like I just ran a goddam marathon."

"You did. And by the way, you won."

They were quiet for a few miles. It was a beautiful sunny day, barely eight in the morning. How little time it had taken! While it was happening it seemed to last longer than the Crusades, but in fact they couldn't have been in Duncan McLaverty's room for more than fifteen minutes.

"Artie. If I make a suggestion, will you at least listen to it?"

"I'm listening."

"What say we ride back to Cooperstown, get a good breakfast into us and visit the Hall of Fame?"

Artie stared at him. "You actually want to look at bats and balls and old gloves?"

Richie shrugged. "Yeah. What the fuck. Never got around to it when I was a kid. Neither did you." He patted the bulging canvas bag at his hip. "On me, of course. Rest of this trip's on me."

Artie sighed. "I got nothing better to do, that's for sure."

"Me neither. Well, one thing. Gotta make a quick phone call. Gonna pull over when I see a phone booth. You got any change? I need all the change you got."

The ringing woke Marion up. She'd fallen asleep on the couch, the TV still tuned to the channel that had been showing "Citizen Kane." Now she opened her eyes to see a frantic gray-haired man in a track suit, trying to convince her that she couldn't possibly live without his juice-making machine.

"Hello?"

"It's me."

She cleared her throat, rubbed her eyes. The man on TV was shoving a carrot into the machine. "What time is it?"

"Little after eight."

"Morning or night?"

She wasn't kidding. It was the common confusion of people who worked nights.

"Morning," Richie informed her. "Can't you tell?"

"I pulled the blinds down last night."

"Well, roll 'em up. It's a beautiful day. You eat the leftover macaroni?”

"I did.”

“Wasn’t it better than the night before? The sauce has a chance to penetrate overnight.”

"Richie, please….did you accomplish whatever it was you were trying to accomplish?"

"Yeah. Also, I missed you."

Marion couldn't believe what she'd just heard. "You what?"

"You heard me. I missed you. Also, I love you. All right?"

Marion clutched the phone, clutched herself. "It's all right with me, Richard."

"You crying? Don't cry. Everything's all right."

"It sure is."

"Look, I'll be back before you leave for work. We gotta talk, all right?"

"Can I go to the corner for breakfast?"

"You can do whatever you want. I'll be home in the afternoon. I got some ideas."

"I want to hear them."

"You will. Go, go eat." He hung up the phone, and turned to find Artie standing there, half a grin creasing his face.

"You heard?"

"Most of it."

"What'd you think?"

"Pretty good stuff for a guy who's out of practice."

"Little clumsy though, huh?"

"Maybe a little. It's not easy to be in love, is it?"

Richie put his arm across Artie's shoulders. "Love," he announced, "is like ridin' a bicycle. Once you learn how to fall off, you can fall off for the rest o' your life."

They went to the Baseball Hall of Fame, spending the better part of the day with overfed tourists from all over America, examining Stan Musial's bat, Willie Mays' glove and the locker where Babe Ruth once hung his uniform. Clutching his canvas bag to his chest, Richie leaned forward and squinted to read the bronzed plaques of the baseball immortals. He refused to leave until he'd read the plaques of everyone who'd ever played for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

It was nearly four in the afternoon when they got back to Brooklyn. Richie pulled up in front of his shuttered candy store but didn't cut the motor.

Artie looked out the passenger window. "This is it, huh?"

Richie pointed. "I work there." He angled his finger slightly upwards. "And I live there. Those two windows over the store."

"Can't beat the commute, huh?"

"I guess that's true."

They got out of the car. Artie walked around to the driver's side, where Richie stood, gym bag in hand. They shook hands, almost formally.

"You did good," Richie said.

"You too."

"I'll give you a call."

"Or I'll call you."

"Either way."

Richie took Artie in a brief, awkward embrace before heading to the door of his building, casually carrying his bag as if it contained nothing more valuable than damp gym clothes. Artie stood and waited until he was inside before driving to his own home.

He was surprised at how glad he was to be there. There was a sanctity to the smell of new paint, like incense in a church. It actually brought tears to his eyes. A clean start.

He went to his bed and collapsed without undressing. Before passing out, he figured he could get the rest of the house painted in the remaining days of his vacation.

The tin ceiling he'd exposed was another story, but in time he'd take care of that, too. A tinsmith to repair it, a few coats of high-gloss paint to protect it...whatever the cost, it'd be worth it.

And he'd get his mother over for a look at the place, and to break the Diane story to her as gently as possible. Maybe his Mom would even want to stay over a few days. He had the room, that was for damn sure.

Up in the Fasanella apartment, Marion had tuna salad sandwiches ready in case Richie was hungry. She was in a clean uniform, ready to work the four to midnight at Methodist.

He entered the place, bag in hand. She rushed to his arms and clung to him as if she never meant to let him go.

“Are you hungry? I made tuna sandwiches.”

“Tuna sandwiches! Hey, and all my life they told me Irish girls can’t cook!”

Richie couldn't even get his head back far enough to see her face, her cheek snug against his. The best he could do was put his lips near her ear, which was where they belonged anyway for what he was about to do.

And then he did it.

"So," Richie Fasanella began. "You wanna marry me, or what?"

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

AT first, Diane just sat there as if she expected Artie to come back and say he was kidding. In the space of fifteen minutes she'd forever lost more than a hundred thousand dollars, her husband and her lifelong belief that her mother was a heterosexual.

She put her hands over her face and burst into tears there on Duncan McLaverty's bed, upon which she'd stretched out like a cranky birthday girl who's gotten none of the gifts she wanted.

Duncan got up from his desk, jammed the door closed with her suitcase and lay behind her, careful to jacknife his genitals away from her ass, lest she think there might be something sexual in his comforting gestures.

"There, there, now." He stroked her back, stiff as an ironing board.

"I have to call home," Diane sobbed. "I have to find out if it's true!"

"There, there. I'm sure he's just being vicious."

"Do you think so?"

"Of course. A parting shot."

Diane reached for Duncan's cheeks. "We're still good with our plan, aren't we?"

Duncan's right eyebrow arched. "Well, now. The funds have been depleted a bit, haven't they?"

"Let's count what we have."

It took Diane just a few minutes. It amounted to $51,640.

"Not bad." She sniffed, wiped her runny nose. "It's still a lot. I'm sure we could live for at least a year on this money."

"Know what'd do us both a world of good right now? A drink. What do you say, Diane?"

The very suggestion jolted her. "Mac. It's not even eight in the morning!"

"True, true. But these are what I'd call extraordinary circumstances, wouldn't you? Time to settle the nerves just a bit."

Moments later the bar was open, courtesy of two plastic cups and half a bottle of Jack Daniel's Duncan had squirrelled away in the back of his narrow closet. He poured with a heavy hand, and soon the bottle had barely an inch left.

Diane wept as she sipped. "I have to call Daddy."

She reached for the phone, but Duncan intercepted her. "You don't want to be bothering your father this early in the morning now, do you?"

"Ohhh, Mommy!"

Diane's eyeballs fluttered. She fell forward and was out cold before her head hit the pillow.

And when she came to hours later, Duncan McLaverty was gone. She went to his desk, figuring he might have left a note, and was all but paralyzed by the sight of the page scrolled into the typewriter carriage.

These were the very same words she'd heard him deliver in that reading on Homecoming Weekend, two years ago.

Duncan wanted to make sure Diane was really out cold. He lifted an eyelid, studied the seemingly lifeless pupil.

"Diane!" he said sharply. Nothing. Okay. Now was the time.

It took minutes to pack what he needed into a threadbare green backpack, the zippered pouch of which was just right for the four packs of twenties. He took some clothes, his wallet and his passport, which he'd need for the ride across the Canadian border. Would they search his backpack at customs? Maybe, but it was a chance he had to take.

"A new country," Duncan McLaverty said out loud as he packed. "That's what I need."

He thought about bringing his unfinished novel along, but decided against it. He was no fiction writer. He'd been kidding himself. Fiction was for losers, writers who needed a lot of words to hide the fact that they were unable to choose those precious few.

He picked up the pages of his unfinished manuscript and tried to tear them in half, but his hands lacked the strength to do it. He separated the pages into two piles and tore them up, ignoring the lone page left in the typewriter.

"There's that out of the way," he murmured, chucking the torn papers into the wastebasket, and the very act of destruction was like a shot of adrenaline. He felt a surge of energy he hadn't felt since his early days in New York City, as an unknown poet.

Poetry! That was the ticket! It worked once, and it would work again! He'd buckle down and knock out the best stuff he'd ever done, way up north, away from the snickering students, the frowning faculty, and most of all those pesky bookies.

He had to chuckle. Imagine that big goon Googie showing up next week, looking for his money! Let him shove someone else's face down the shitter!

"I got your money, Googie," Duncan murmured as he packed. "I got it, but you're not getting it."

Incredible. Unbelievable. A $51,640 grant. It was a godsend, Duncan McLaverty said to himself, a true godsend brought to him by the angelic Diane.

Her plan was insane. Live in the Caribbean together? They'd drive one another bats. And with the temptations of tropical life, he knew he'd rarely draw a sober breath on those rum-soaked beaches.

No. That's not how it was going to go. And after that big Italian took his cut there wasn't enough left for two people to live out a dream, anyway.

This was fate, plain and simple. It was absolutely clear to Duncan McLaverty that Diane was merely the messenger, intended to bring the money to him. He was meant to disappear into Canada alone, find himself a remote log cabin and get to work in earnest. No more fooling around. His third book of poetry would be the one they were all waiting for.

And eventually, he’d make his way back to Ireland, where an artist could live like a human being, without all these ludicrous American demands.

Diane certainly wouldn't miss the money. The divorce courts would see to it that her money-making ex-husband took care of her, in fine form, and the girl had far too much class to squabble over the lost money. Anyway, what could she do? She sure as hell couldn't take him to court! As far as the law was concerned, the money didn't even exist!

He shouldered his knapsack, bent over Diane and pressed his lips to her forehead.

"Sleep well, child," whispered Duncan McLaverty, and to make sure she did he rolled his motorcycle a good hundred yards away from the dormitory before kick-starting its noisy motor into life.

He was supposed to teach a class in an hour. Ha! Never again would he be forced to stare into the sleepy faces of spoiled students, daring him to be entertaining, laughing at his crumbled career...never again!

As he rode out the front gates Duncan hoisted his right hand in an over-the-shoulder, middle-finger salute to all those buffoons who'd never appreciated him, and sputtered his way north to freedom.

Oh, sweet Jesus - he'd forgotten his helmet. Screw the damn helmet! This was the only way to travel, with the wind whipping his remaining curls straight back. If the border police asked about his helmet, he'd cook up a good story. It might even distract them from wanting to check his knapsack!

It felt good. It all felt good. Duncan McLaverty felt as if he might suddenly sprout wings and take to the sky, but this was more than the gleeful freedom of the wide-open road. It was all that Jack Daniel's in his bloodstream, which had the treacherous effect of keeping his soul deliciously warm while sneaking off with his reflexes.

He was approaching a small bridge over a narrow, winding stream. Duncan McLaverty was puzzled by a strange sight, dead ahead. A large white van was coming straight at him! What the hell was wrong with its driver?

With a jot of drunken alarm Duncan realized he was the one on the wrong side of the road, having drifted into a daydream of his beloved Ireland, where traffic rode on the left. He gave the handlebars a twist to get back into the right lane, but it was too sharp a turn. His motorcycle smashed through the worn wooden fence and plummetted twenty-five feet to the water - which, thanks to recent drought conditions, happened to be extremely shallow.

Duncan clung to the handlebars all the way down, right up to the instant his head smashed against a boulder. Posterity was deprived of his final words, which were these, delivered in a high, keening shriek as his pants went wet from his rapidly evacuating bladder: "Jesus God, will I ever get a break?"

He was dead in moments, but even in death his hands gripped those handlebars, the lone parts of his body still possessed of that sweet dream of escape to Canada.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

SPRING seemed to have sprung all the way in the little bit of time that Artie, Richie and Diane were gone. As Artie had predicted, his Brooklyn street became beautifully canopied by branches bursting with new leaves that created a deliciously green shade. The wisteria tree in the back yard was also in bloom, and the sky was loud with birds.

The day before he was due to return to work, Artie went with his mother to the Long Island cemetery where his father was buried. It was the twentieth anniversary of Patrick Farley's death...the annual pilgrimage Artie had always dreaded, now more than ever.

Libby Farley took her son's elbow as they walked to the headstone. She wore a wide straw sun hat and a green pants suit and carried a canvas shoulder bag that clanked with small gardening tools. She was bone-thin and delicate looking...a woman barely past middle age who resembled a dotty old lady with an odd grin that never seemed to leave her face. How different her life would have been, had the guy whose memory they were going to honor had been a little more careful...

"Well, here we are," she sighed upon arrival, patting the top of the granite headstone. "How are you then, Paddy? Another year come and gone, and you're looking pretty good."

Artie hated it when his mother talked to the headstone. It was one of the tallest, widest stones in the cemetery, and he remembered that it had cost his mother more than a thousand dollars, which represented nearly five hundred hours of work behind the counter at Woolworth's. Libby didn't care.

"He stood tall in life and he'll stand tall in death," she told her friends when they suggested that a smaller stone might do very nicely.

She took a pair of clippers from her bag and handed them to Artie. "You trim, and I'll weed."

They both knelt to work. This was how they always did it. No speeches, no ceremonies...just some light gardening around the stone, followed by lunch at the local shopping mall.

Libby pulled hard to remove a dandelion, tugging out a root nearly as long as the plant. "Isn't it amazing how they get hold?" Her finger traced the length of it. "And look here! I didn't even get all of it!"

She pointed to indicate the clean white edge of the broken root. "Next time we come here there'll be another one grown back."

"We'll get that one too, Mah, don't you worry."

"Diane's never come with us to do this."

The statement was so sudden and abrupt that Artie felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him. On the other hand, here was his chance to tell her what he'd planned on holding until lunch.

"Diane and I are getting divorced, Mah."

She looked him right in the eye, a small shovel clenched in her hand like a dagger. At last her face relaxed.

"Well, thank God."

Artie was stunned. "You're happy about it?!"

Libby nodded. "I've known you two weren't right for years. Years. Hallelujah." She dug at the weeds with renewed vigor.

Artie watched her work. "I can't believe you're taking it like this."

"Artie, please. My only fear about this was that it would happen after you had your children." She cocked her head, adjusted her sun hat. "Is she out already?"

Artie nodded. "Moved in with a friend of hers named Jessica, until she gets her own place. She’s picking up the last of her things right now.”

"Hmmm." Libby dug at another giant dandelion. "Strange girl, that Diane. Strange parents, too, especially the mother. Why do you suppose she's so cold to her husband?"

"You noticed that?"

"Oh, my God! What a great favor she did, allowing him to marry her!" Libby chuckled, shook her head. "Never understood what she had to be so damn snooty about."

"As long as you brought it up, it turns out Diane's mother's got herself a girlfriend."

Libby all but cackled. "That so? Well, it takes all kinds. Don't you think, Paddy?" She patted the headstone as if she expected it to answer.

"Hey Mah, I just found out something about you I never knew before."

"What's that?"

"You've got a mean streak."

She shrugged. "A little one, maybe. Just enough of one to keep things interesting. Truth is, I'm just happy to see the right thing happen for you."

Artie hesitated. "Thing of it is, I’m not sure I’m over it. I thought I was, but I can't help thinking that maybe Diane was the one for me."

"Your soulmate, you mean."

"I hate that word, but yeah."

"Absolutely, definitely not."

“How can you be so sure?”

“Trust me, you came out of me. You’re not hanging in there because of your feelings. You’re hanging in because you’re a fighter, like me. Let it go, son.”

Libby yanked the long dandelion root out with both hands "See here, now!" she cried, shaking the long, hairy root. "I got all of this one! He won't be coming back!" She threw it as far as she could. "Arthur, you have many wonderful qualities, but patience isn’t once of them. Relax. Breathe a little. You'll find your soulmate, just like I found your father."

Artie put his clippers down. "Can we talk about him? We come here, but we never talk about him."

"Ask me anything."

"You were about my age when he died. That's a long time to be alone."

Libby scratched an itch on her chin, leaving a dirt line. "You're wondering why I never re-married."

"I'm wondering why you never even dated! You've been alone all this time!"

"Alone doesn't mean lonely, Artie."

Libby rubbed at a bird dropping on the face of the headstone, then ran her fingertips over the chiseled name, as if she were reading Braille. "This guy was it for me. Anybody else would have gotten second-best. Who wants second-best? I know I don't want to give it. And I certainly don't want to get it."

Artie swallowed. "You mad at him for what he did?"

"I guess I was at first, maybe. I'm not, now."

"Why not?"

Libby shrugged, wiped the dirt off her chin. "It's who he was. He woke up every day of his life ready to live it all the way. Remind you of anybody?"

Artie blushed. "Mah."

"If he were different he could have lived a long, long time. But it wouldn't have felt like living to him!" She shrugged. "So, we had nine years instead of ninety. That's all right. And he died beautifully."

Artie swallowed. "Jesus, Mah, he had a load on and he got hit by a truck!"

"That's one way of looking at it. The way I see it, he died dancing on a highway. Imagine that! You sprang from a man who danced on a highway! Think any of your friends can say that about their fathers?"

A dreamy smile came to her face. "How do you get mad at a man who danced on a highway? I might as well get mad at the moon."

She spanked her hands clean. "And besides, he gave me you." She got up to give him a hug. "Hear me, my boy? He gave me you. If that was all he ever did, it would be everything."

She kissed Artie's cheek. "Come on, now, let's finish up here. I'm starving, boy. Get your wallet ready, because you are going to buy me a very nice lunch."

By the time Artie got back to Brooklyn that night there wasn't a trace of Diane's possessions left in the house. She returned to teach school the next day and Artie went to the Commodities Exchange, and just like that they were into their new lives.

It was easier for Artie. Within days the wisdom of his mother's evaluation of his marriage began to sink in. But the double-punch of her mother's sexuality and Duncan McLaverty's betrayal kept Diane weeping into her Chardonnay every night.

In truth, the poet could not have dreamed a more dramatic death for himself, a drama compounded by the discovery of all that money in the dead biker's back pack. As it happened, the rescue worker who came upon it was an honest man who chose to turn it in, this fortune of more than fifty thousand dollars in ancient twenty dollar bills.

Whose money was it? Where had it come from? It was this element of mystery that pushed Duncan McLaverty's obituary to the front of the tabloid newspapers, giving his death dual coverage in both the broadsheets and the rags.

As the days passed, stories emerged about his boozing and his gambling, and the pathetic torn-up pages of the unfinished novel he'd left behind. But always, the big question was about the source of his fortune - and what was to be done with it.

Some speculated that it was drug money, that Duncan McLaverty had turned to peddling junk to the students to pay off his gambling debts.

But why were none of the bills minted after 1970? In the words the young Duncan had heard from the mouths of countless priests back in Ireland, it was, indeed, a mystery.

Of course, nobody came forward to claim it, as Duncan was absolutely alone in the world. At last it was decided that the money would go toward a Duncan McLaverty annual scholarship of $5000, for as long as the cash lasted.

When Gugliemo "Googie" Asencione read about the scholarship in the paper he nearly popped a gut, but all he could do was grit his teeth and write off his losses. And if Duncan McLaverty's spirit did exist, it had at least one thing to smile about: all this publicity about his sensational death convinced his publishers to re-issue his first book of poetry.

But this turned out to be as bad a gamble as all those slow horses the poet had put his faith and his money in. Only a few copies were sold, and the remaining thousands quickly found their way to the Books-For-A-Buck shelf.

Diane bought a dozen copies to give to friends. She was determined to somehow remain loyal to the tortured poet who'd taken off on that wild, fatal ride. It made her feel less like a fool.

In time Diane would come to realize she was content in her own skin, really not the type of person who should even try to be half of a whole. She would eventually leave town and move north of the city, living in a cottage not far from the banks of the upper Hudson River. She would take a job at a local grammar school and become involved with a man who was either a farmer who sculpted or a sculptor who farmed, one of those people who eluded definition as a way to stave off failure. Whatever he was, she made it clear to him from the start that they would never, ever wed, or even live together.

But all that was way down the line. Upon her immediate return from Oneonta there was little else to please Diane in her new life, except for the fact that little Stanley was indeed fitted with eyeglasses. He hit the hell out of the softball, and the atomic wedgies stopped. And for the first time in his life, the kid could see the blackboard, and he made the honor roll.

Artie Farley, always an energetic man, was amazed by the surge in energy after his split from Diane. It was as if he’d stopped running to catch a train that was always going slightly faster than him, the wasted steam that goes into trying to make a bad marriage bearable.

He worked weekends to finish sprucing up his house. A tinsmith charged him more than three thousand dollars for the new living room ceiling, and he was happy to pay it.

The day it was done, he invited Richie Fasanella over for coffee. The two sat sipping underneath the ceiling, gazing up as if to study a constellation of stars.

"Sure opens up the room," Richie said.

"Yeah. That's why I did it."

Richie set his cup down. "Ever think about how your life woulda gone if you hadn't touched the tiles?"

Artie nodded. "Pretty much the way it went anyhow, except I'd have been bald and fat by the time it happened."

"That's one way of lookin' at it."

"It's the only way of looking at it."

Richie laughed. "You sound more like me than I do."

"You have a way of rubbing off on a person, Fasanella."

"I hope that's a good thing."

"How was the wedding?"

"Small, like my first one. Me, Marion and my friend Spoony. He finally got to wear that powder-blue tux he found in the garbage."

"Nobody from her side?"

Richie shook his head. "The Irish have a way of losin' track of each other. Present company excepted, of course."

"Do I get to meet Marion at some point?"

"We'll have you over when we get back from the honeymoon."

"You didn't have a honeymoon yet?"

"Had to delay it. She couldn't get off from work."

"I’ll bet she’s some nurse."

"Nobody dies on her watch, I can tell you that."

They sipped coffee, stared at each other like long-lost brothers.

"So. Where are you going?"

"Florida. There’s this girl I want to see down there.”

Artie was disappointed. Then again, he’d heard about these Italian guys, always with a girlfriend on the side - a gumada? Whatever. He’d try not to let it affect his opinion of Richie Fasanella.

But of course it did.

“Richie. A girlfriend? On your honeymoon? What the hell, man?

“Who said anything about a girlfriend?”

“Well who the hell is she?”

Richie set his coffee cup down, squeezed his hands together. “My daughter.”

Artie felt the room spin. Richie sat slump-shouldered, a man who’d just bid farewell to his final secret.

“You have a daughter?”

Richie blushed, something Artie had never seen him do. “From my last time with Francesca, the night before the caper. Name’s Louisa Mondavi. Works at a Rexall Drug store in Fort Lauderdale. Thirty-two years old. Single.”

Richie pulled a folded yellow document from his back pocket. “Well worth the five hundred it cost me for a private eye to track her down, wouldn’t you say?”

Artie’s mouth had gone dry. He cleared his throat. “When’s the last time you saw her?”

“Never. Francesca’s second husband adopted her when she was a baby. A pharmacist. He’s dead now, too.” Richie unfolded the document and squinted at it. “Three years he’s dead, now. So I’m guessin’ Louisa’s all alone down there.”

It was a question that had to be asked, and there was only one way to ask it. But Artie faltered halfway through.

“Does she even know that you...”

“Exist? You got me. Depends on whatever Francesca told her. I left that up to her. Couldn’t see much point in my kid comin’ to see me through Plexiglas every other Thursday. Least she deserved was a clean start. God bless this poor Mondavi bastard, takin’ on Francesca with a baby.”

Artie sat in stunned silence for a minute or so. “Got any idea what she looks like?”

“Nah. Photos are extra. Didn’t feel like shellin’ out for that. I’d just as soon see her in the flesh, the first time.”

A cardinal landed on the wisteria bush, red and bold as a feathered flame. He cocked his head at Richie and Artie, letting them absorb his grandeur before taking off for the sky.

“Richie. Why’d you wait so long?”

“Because until now, I didn’t have it.”

“Have what?”

Richie leaned close to Artie, as if he feared they were being recorded. “Louisa’s dowry,” he breathed. “Half the take. Gonna give fifty-five large to her, fifty-five to Marion.”

“Which leaves you with nothing.”

Richie leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, well, what the fuck. Easy come, easy go.”

“Know what you’re going to say when you see her?”

“Not a clue.”

“The words’ll come to you.”

"I hope to God."

Artie drank down the rest of his coffee. "What say we sit in my yard and switch to something stronger? I happen to have some excellent single-malt Irish whiskey."

"I'd say that's maybe the best idea I ever heard."

They sat in wrought iron chairs that had been left behind by old lady Rivioli, chairs Artie had wired brushed clean of decades worth of rust before painting them with weatherproof white enamel.

Artie poured with a generous hand. “What’ll we drink to?”

“Oh, Jesus, you Irish and your fucking toasts.”

“Gotta drink to something.” Artie hoisted his glass. “To fate?”

“Ahh, fuck fate.”

“All right, then, you think of something.”

“I just did.” He hoisted his glass. “Fuck fate.”

Artie nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Fuck fate, before it fucks you.”

They clinked and drank.

It was hours before Richie staggered back to his apartment, where he forced himself to take two aspirins and swallow two glasses of water. The last thing he needed was a hangover on his train to Fort Lauderdale the next day.

He didn't have a hangover, but the sour stomach was there, along with the burning eyes and the palpitating heart. Thank God they weren't going on a plane! He'd never been on a plane before, and this was no time to start flying.

He coffeed himself into coherence before presenting Marion with a shoebox with a red ribbon containing $55,000 in cash. She didn’t have to ask where it had come from.

“My God, Richie!”

“Who says crime doesn’t pay, huh? But sometimes it takes a while gettin’ around to payday.”

Marion already knew about Richie’s daughter, and was fully in favor of splitting the take with her. She fingered the thirty-three year old bills as if they’d come from King Tut’s tomb.

“At least let me pay for the Florida trip,” she said, but Richie wouldn’t allow it.

“Truth is, you gotta be careful how you spend it. These bills have been out of circulation for a long time. Gotta wait a few months until that dead poet thing dies down.”

They went to the Brooklyn Federal Savings Bank and put the shoebox in a safe deposit box. From there they headed for Penn Station, and by six p.m. they were on an Amtrak train, heading south in a sleeping car.

The other $55,000 was bundled in Richie’s gym bag. He kept it beneath his pillow as he and Marion made love
on the narrow cot of their sleeping car, then fell asleep almost immediately to the train's gentle rocking motion. When they awoke there were palm trees going past the window.

They were in Georgia. Black people worked the fields along the tracks, moving slowly in a heat Richie knew had to be stifling.

And it was even hotter when they got off the train a few hours later in Fort Lauderdale, where Richie rented a car and asked for a local map. They drove to a beachside motel, changed into bathing suits and walked awkwardly along the sand, Marion self-conscious about her pink-white pelt, Richie embarrassed by his gut. Power-walking senior citizens with loose flesh swinging from their upper arms cheerfully greeted them as they zipped past in the other direction.

"Friendly people in Florida," Richie murmured.

"It's like a whole other world."

"You like it?"

"Oh, I don't know. It's okay for a visit. I think I'd go nuts if I lived here. You?"

"Kiddin' me? I'm allergic to politeness. Too many years in Brooklyn, I guess. If somebody doesn't give me the finger pretty soon I'm gonna need an insulin shot."

Marion gave him the finger.

"That's better," Richie said. "Come on, let's get our feet wet."

They waded in up to their knees. Twenty yards out, a pelican dive-bombed into the warm water of the Gulf, and flapped off with a doomed fish in its pouched beak. The brutalities of nature, right there in the midst of all those ancient grinning people trying their best to stave off death...

"I'll go see her tomorrow," Richie said suddenly. "I wanna Florida myself up a little bit, first. Learn how to greet people. Maybe get a little color."

"Are you scared?"

"Shitless."

"I'll go with you, if you like."

Richie shook his head. "I love ya, baby, but this I gotta do alone."

Back at the hotel, the clerk was efficient about getting Richie’s gym bag out of the motel safe and helping him locate the Rexall drug store near the beach.

The place was a short drive from the hotel. Richie parked and got out, really tasting the Florida heat for the first time, far from the beach's breezes. This was where all those people flocked to live out their sunset years, breathing molten air and eating frozen yogurt? Jesus....

He entered the Rexall's, gym bag in hand. The sudden cold of air conditioning hit like a fist. The place was huge. He had no idea of what shift she worked - she might even be away on vacation! But that was all right. He could wait around the clock, wait for days, for weeks...

The aisles were thick with big-butted people in pastel-colored shorts, walking about in a semi-stupor as they asked clerks inane questions about sun block and moisturizers.

What department did she work in? Her stepfather had been a pharmacist, but apparently she hadn't followed in his footsteps. No sign of her in clothing or lotions, either.

Richie felt a film of sweat coat his body, despite the arctic air conditioning. He was wearing his thick New York clothes, which happened to be the only kind of clothes he had, darker and more sinister than anybody else's. It was as if he were the only customer who'd forgotten to wear a costume, or maybe he was the only one in a costume. He felt as if someone from security might take him by the elbow at any moment and lead him to that little room.

And then he caught sight of someone in the cosmetics department, and felt a tug in his chest that seemed like the first faint rumble of a heart attack.

Dust rag in hand, she was wiping those large bottles of colored water that seem to decorate every drug store in America.

She was dark and slim, with long hair pulled back in a pony tail and huge brown eyes that seemed sad - by nature, not due to some tragedy. It was, he realized, like looking in a mirror and seeing the Fasanella soul.

Richie's heart galloped. The name tag on her smock said LOUISA. Oh boy.

He watched her work on the bottles. What was that colored water? Perfume? Or was it just a decorative touch to lure people into purchasing things they didn't need?

And better yet, how could he waste time wondering about such a silly thing with his daughter standing not ten feet away?

He didn't feel the floor beneath his feet as he moved toward her. She still hadn't looked at him, and this was good, as it gave him the chance to study her profile. Now he saw that she was also Francesca's child. The echo of his first glimpse of Francesca in Pechter's cafeteria went right through him, only this woman was different. Louisa had a beautiful nose, never marred by a fall from a bike...

How different everybody's life would have been if Francesca hadn't fallen from that bike! She might have reached her dreams, instead of settling for a job in a bakery and a man like Richie! The burglary wouldn't have happened, a cop wouldn't have died, and Mickey would be alive!

And what about Richie? He wouldn't have gone to prison, he wouldn't have been raped and he wouldn't have been forced to kill a fellow inmate! And my God, Artie Farley and Diane might still be married, and a poet named Duncan McLaverty would still be alive!

Astounding. A row of human dominoes had tumbled, three deaths and all those devastated lives, just because a little girl had a crooked nose!

Yes, all those things never would have happened, but neither would this lovely human being who suddenly noticed him staring at her.

He looked away and clutched the gym bag, fat with twenty dollar bills. How do you hand someone a fortune? Bottom line was, it was as much of a burden as it was a gift. Just look at the trail of blood and sorrow this one had left behind...

Richie was breathing hard. He'd have to tell her how to spend it, how not to spend it, how not to let it make her crazy...but first, he had to meet her.

She gave a bottle of blue water a final flick with her dust rag before turning to this dark, weary-looking customer.

"May I help you?"

A sweet voice. How happy it made Richie to know his daughter had a sweet voice! He never even knew it would be important to him, but it was, it was...

His eyes blurred with tears. He blinked to clear them.

"Sir? Are you all right?"

He cleared his throat. His heart was hollow, and a hummingbird was bumping around inside it, looking for a way out. He opened his mouth and out came the bird, only now it was a dove, a white dove...a whole flock of them. He waited until all the birds had flown and looked up to watch them in wonder, only their wings turned out to be the blades of a rotating ceiling fan...

He brought his gaze back down to this puzzled but patient woman. She was waiting. It was time. At long last, it was time.

"I knew your mother," Richie Fasanella began.

THE END