One of the pitfalls presented by my son was how engaging he was in conversation. He knew how much I loved to play with ideas, especially when those ideas had to do with thinking that ran contrary to everyday beliefs. He knew how much I liked to read.

"Talk to me, Twill."

That brought a broad grin to the young man's face.

"Her name is Tatyana Baranovich," he said. "Baranovich. She comes from a place called Minsk and has won every award that CCNY has to give to an undergraduate. She's a senior, about to graduate. D been talkin' about her for almost a year now. You know how shy he is. Every now and then they got coffee together, and that'd keep him smilin' for two weeks."

"So she didn't feel the same?" I asked.

"I don't know what she felt. I tried to get Bulldog to ask her on a date. I told him we could get your car and I'd take somebody, too. But he said that he just liked talkin' to her. But you should see this girl, Pops. I mean, she got it workin' every which way. Damn."

I felt like a dirty old man cackling at Twill's leering sexual expression.

"So what happened?" I asked.

"One day he sees that Tatyana is all upset. She tells him that she can't go back to her apartment because the man who paid her rent wanted her to do something that would mean she couldn't go to graduate school."

"Gustav."

"Yeah, right." Twill was a little discomfited that I was ahead of him in the story. "Gustav's a pimp. Tatyana is in the country illegally. And she's a hot number with some of his clients out west. He tells her that she can go to graduation but after that she has to work full-time for a few years."

"Did she make good on the million?"

"Damn, Pops, you are a private detective, huh?"

"Did she make her nut?"

"She says so," Twill allowed. "And I believe it, too. She doesn't have real fancy clothes or no habit. City College don't cost that much.

"D came to me and I talked to the girl. She told me about Gustav but not how connected he was. It was only later on that I found out he had people all over the place lookin' for her. D been thinkin' that maybe they could go down to New Orleans and start over, like."

"And you were going to help him?"

Twill admitted his involvement with a slight motion of his left shoulder.

"If Gustav is so connected like you say, then you know New Orleans would probably only be a temporary fix."

"Yeah, I know. But when they were gone I knew I could tell you, and then it would only be a matter of time before it was all smoothed out again."

It was the first time I had seen the boy in Twill for at least three years. He showed an unshakable faith in my ability to save him and his brother. I was so surprised that it might have shown.

"So D and this Tatyana are together now?"

"Oh yeah. All night, every night. He thinks they're in love."

"Are they?"

"He is."

"Twill, if you suspect that this girl is playin' your brother, why help?"

"Tatyana's okay. She in trouble, and she a ho' through no fault of her own. Somebody got to break D's cherry, an' you know he will remember that girl till the day his grandchildren die."

"Hyperbole," I said.

"Poetic exaggeration," he corrected.

"What am I going to do with you, Twill?"

"Me? It's D in trouble, Pops."

"Without meeting you she would never even be with him. You're the one that convinced her something could be done."

"Oh, come on, man. Don't put that shit on me. Bulldog's my brother. He asked me to help him. I couldn't say no."

"No," I admitted, "you couldn't."

"So what do you want me to do?" Twill asked.

"Tell Dimitri that two men from Gustav were laying for him out in front of his mother's house. His mother's house. They saw me in the dark and thought it was him. They attacked me, threatened me, pulled a knife on me. You tell him that and then say I figured out what was going on. Then you tell Tatyana that I intend to do something, but she has to come meet with me first."

Twill nodded, a wry twist to his mouth.

"Convince her, Twill," I added. "I can't do this neatly without talking to her."

His assent was in his eyes, even more subtle than the shifting of a shoulder.

When we got up to leave he put a ten and a five on the table. He never ate and rarely drank at Takahashi's, but he always left a tip.

We separated on the street. Him, a boy walking off into a man's life, and me wondering, What if the Gordian knot was someone you loved?

I was already taxiing my way toward the federal detention center when Breland called and said that I had been granted permission to visit the prisoner.

The so-called holding facility was on the seventh floor of a building that had once been a warehouse. Instead of bars there was thick metal grating over every door and window-laced with razor wire along the seams.

The first person I met was a brown woman with a skinny body and a huge round face. She was standing on the opposite side of a small, iron-latticed window that was set toward the left side of a large wall. The waiting room, where I was standing, was nearly empty. The only other applicant was an Arab woman, surrounded by three small children. She was slumped in a chair. The feeling she radiated was that of intense hopelessness.

"Can I help you?" the bureaucrat asked through the haze of crisscrossed metal.

"Leonid McGill for Ron Sharkey."

"Purpose of visit?"

"His lawyer sent me."

Name? Occupation? Relationship to inmate? Citizenship? Weapons? Other contraband? (This was followed by a long list of everything from cash to chewing gum.)

"Any and all actions, comments, and utterances may be recorded while you are here," she said when the list was through.

Utterances?

"But I represent his lawyer," I said.

"If you do not wish to continue we can stop the process here."

"No," I said. "You can knock yourselves out recording me. Just remember my left profile is my good side."

The brown woman-who had short, straightened hair-almost smiled.

"Have a seat, Mr. McGill," she said. "You'll be called in the order this application has been filed."

The morose Arab woman didn't seem to want to commiserate, so I sat five metal chairs away from her and her oppressed children-waiting my place in a line of two.

Seventeen minutes later a man's voice said, "McGill."

The woman had yet to be called.

I looked around and saw that a door-sized panel to my right had slid open. After a moment that might have seemed like hesitation I stood up and went through the makeshift doorway.

The hall was short, ending at a larger-than-normal metal door replete with a metal screen window.

A man stood on the other side of that door.

"I'm Agent Galsworthy. How can I help you?" a tall white man in a gray-green suit asked me. His eyes were the color of lemons and pecans, giving the impression of small, dusky oranges. He was slender and should have been tall except for the fact that he was a little stooped over, which was odd because he wasn't a day over forty.

"McGill for Sharkey," I said.

"How did you know he was here?" the official asked through the grating. He was my own personal antagonist-confessor.

"His lawyer."

"Who's that?"

"Breland Lewis."

"What's your relationship with the prisoner?"

"His lawyer-Breland Lewis."

It was then that I detected a strong smell of human sweat on the air.

"What is your connection to the prisoner?"

"Can I just say ditto, or is there some reason I got to say the same words over and over?" I asked.

Galsworthy was like the cop in front of Wanda Soa's building; he thought that an evil stare would break me down to jelly. But he was just another bean counter. The only difference was that he counted skulls instead of legumes.