Furst said, “Half the people in the United States work in financial services now. It’s what the country produces these days instead of widgets.”

“And the other thing is,” I said, “Sturdivant’s family in Pittsfield has some kind of shady past. I’m going up there tomorrow to find out what that’s all about.”

Timmy said, “Why wouldn’t the DA have thought of that? He’s there in Pittsfield, and he must know about any organized crime that goes on.”

Furst reached for her drink and finished it off. She said, “Thorny would know about such things, yes. But Thorny is a man in love with the obvious. Or what’s obvious to him, anyway. And what’s now obvious to Thorny is, the Sturdivant murder is an unfortunate spat involving a couple of South County fags.”

I said, “Might I convince him otherwise?”

“You could try,” Furst said. “But you’d probably have to drag in the actual mob contract man to do it. That sounds risky, Don. Probably impossible.”

Timmy said, “Anyway, you’re probably imagining all that mob stuff. The Mafia is a dying institution. Black gangs have taken over the mob’s most popular function, keeping a sizable percentage of the population narcotized. The mob in this country exists mainly on HBO now, doesn’t it, Ramona?”

She said, “No, not really. They’re actually still around,” and we all wondered what that could possibly mean in a place as sweetly benign as the Berkshires seemed to be.

The Berkshire County House of Correction was off a main highway a few miles north of Pittsfield, near a shopping mall and a cement plant. The place was on the new side, with the let’s-not-overspend look of something put up by the Army Corps of Engineers in New Orleans – or maybe an especially brutal high school. A light drizzle was falling Saturday morning just before ten, a bummer for the weekenders in Great Barrington but probably no loss to the men and women who had been locked indoors for having behaved incorrectly, or for seeming to Thorne Cornwallis to have done so.

I went through the security rigmarole – multiple ID checks, heavy metal doors opening and closing electronically – and was led eventually to a small room with a window to a corridor where corrections officers were stationed. I sat on one side of a metal conference table, and Fields was led in and left alone on the other side.

He looked awful. His blue eyes were bloodshot and his red lips dry. Fields’ orange jumpsuit was a size too big for his mid-sized frame. He was subdued, as if he were resigned to spending the rest of his life in this building, even though no matter what happened he would not. Fields had a bruise on his left temple, and I asked him about that.

“Did you get hit? You’re bruised.”

A wan shrug. “An inmate. Last night I tried to change the TV to the Independent Film Channel.”

“And somebody preferred Bill O’Reilly?”

“No, sports.”

“The inmates are learning about fair play. This is good, maybe.”

“Not fair play. Jumping on people.” He said, “I appreciate your coming here.”

“Glad to help. I’m getting paid. And in some weird way, I may have set all this in motion. I mean, myself and Jim Sturdivant and Steven Gaudios. So I have to get you out of this.”

Fields said listlessly, “Yeah, that would be good.”

“You didn’t shoot Sturdivant, did you?”

“No.”

“But you did hit him with a large cheese.”

“He had it coming,” Fields said. “I know, I know. Assault is assault. And I don’t believe in violence. In Guido’s that day, I just lost it. I do that sometimes, as you have no doubt heard. Apparently it’s congenital, not that that’s any excuse.”

“What did Sturdivant say that set you off?”

“He… well, he insulted my mother.”

“Uh huh.”

“The funny thing is, my mother is a horrible human being.”

“How so?”

“I was reacting to the fact that what he said about her is all true. When I heard it, I just blew up.”

“Understandable. What did Jim say?”

“Anyway, he didn’t even know my mother.”

“He didn’t?”

“How could he? Or at least there’s no way he could know that the woman who is my mother is my mother.”

I said, “Is your mother a well-known criminal?”

This produced a little slit of a smile. “You could say so, I do believe. The mother stuff started because Jim said I had offended his mother. Of course, I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. It turns out – he told me in Guido’s, and I remembered – that I had once told her and Jim’s brother to be quiet during a movie. They’d been bothering other people in the theater.”

“I heard about this incident,” I said.

“So when they wouldn’t shut up, I made them leave. They were really obnoxious about it. The guy – it was Jim’s brother, I now know – threatened to have somebody break my legs. The guy was a total thug.”

“He used those words?” I said. “Somebody was going to break your legs?”

“Yeah.”

“And did anybody? Break your legs, or retaliate in any way?”

“No, the guy and the old lady just left in a hurry. This was after somebody called the cops. A Great Barrington cop arrived just as they were leaving, but they seemed to want to drop the whole thing and just get the hell out of there, which they did do.”

Outside the window, two officers led an unshaven young man in manacles down the corridor. Fields noted this somberly, as did I.

I said, “Have you ever been in jail before, Barry? Or whatever your real name is.”

He looked back at me and said, “No. I’m the first in my family to be incarcerated. Ironical as that may be.”

“Are you going to tell me now about your family situation? My impression is, it’s dreadful.”

His gaze was steady. “No, I’m not going to tell you about my family. Not now, not ever.”

This was getting annoying. Fields bore no resemblance to Pol Pot, or to Ayman al-Zawahiri, or to George W. Bush’s recently retired secretary of the interior, Gale Norton. I said, “How come you won’t tell me? I can keep my mouth shut.”

“Because that was then, and this is now. I’m not the same person I was before. That person is essentially dead, and to me so are all the people from that dead life. So just drop it. Because if you keep asking about my past life, you will be wasting your breath.”

I said, “What did Sturdivant call your mother?”

“He didn’t really call her anything. He just said I had insulted his mother, who was a refined Christian lady. He said next to his mother, my mother was probably an unholy screaming bitch.”

“And that struck a chord?”

Fields let himself smile. “I had to pay for the cheese. Two hundred eighteen dollars. I didn’t even get to keep it. It’s probably down at the Great Barrington police station. The Barrington cops are eating fine Italian cheese with their Dunkin’ Donuts.”

I said, “Witnesses at Guido’s said you threatened to kill Sturdivant. And the night before, you even told me you were so mad at Jim you were going to get rid of him. What is anybody supposed to make of that?”

Fields lowered his head. “I know I said that. That’s so awful.”

“But you didn’t mean it.”

He looked up at me now and said, “That’s what my mother and father used to say to me when I was bad. They said they were going to get rid of me. Or they were going to kill me, because I didn’t deserve to live. It’s hard to believe, I know.”

“Well.”

“And I sort of picked up that habit, apparently. Along with my family’s anger. It’s a problem,” Fields said, indicating the prison bars next to him.

I didn’t really know how to respond, and Fields seemed ready to move on. So I said, “What about Bill Moore?”

“What about him?”

“Where is he?”

“He’s helping you out, he told me.”

“Well, he didn’t tell me that. He’s gone – gone to Washington, according to Jean Watrous.”