“I didn’t know you two were friends,” Anna said, as she handed over the black-bound Medical Staff binder. Not thinking to ask: If so, why don’t you know his address? Some people were blessed with a trusting nature. Jeremy often woke up in the middle of the night, mistrusting his own existence.

He said, “We’re more like pupil and student. Dr. Chess has taught me a lot, and I wanted to repay the favor.”

“Well, that’s nice. Here you go.”

Not the Victorian house in Queen’s Arms that Jeremy had conjured. An apartment in Ash View- the southern suburbs, far from the water, a good twenty miles out of the city.

Wrong, yet again. Everything about Arthur seemed to be taking him by surprise.

Or perhaps Arthur had given him hints. Ash View had once been farmland and Arthur had spoken, fondly, of agrarian roots.

Birthing calves… a sanguinary process. The old man had grisly sensibilities.

Did he sense that Jeremy shared them?

Because of Jocelyn?

Lately, he’d been thinking more about Jocelyn.

He could talk to Angela, make love to Angela. But Jocelyn.

So gone.

He needed to see the old man.

He hurried to the wards early, saw his patients, hoped he’d shortchanged none of them because his mind was elsewhere.

People smiled at him- familiar smiles, grateful smiles. A wife thanked him, a daughter squeezed his hand and told him her mother looked forward to his visits, he was the one doctor who didn’t hurt her.

He couldn’t be screwing up too badly, fraud that he was.

Tomorrow, he’d do better.

He drove his Nova out of the doctors’ lot just after noon. A rare dry day, but a mournful one, flying-saucer rain clouds looming over the skyline, blackening the roiling waters of the wind-whipped lake. The promised installment of another storm seemed to be bewitching motorists. From the time Jeremy got on the Asa Brander Bridge until he exited onto an industrial road that fed to the southern turnpike, he witnessed multiple driving aberrations, near collisions, and, finally, one accident that bred detours and congestion and foul tempers. Finally, he squeezed onto the toll road, battled traffic for miles before the midday commuter clog dropped off and he was sailing.

Zipping through the flatlands. He’d consulted a map before setting out but nearly missed the obscure left-hand exit that took him past a cemetery big as a town, middle-class shopping, and several retirement communities, each of them touting independent living.

Had Arthur opted for that? Canasta and bingo and accordion concerts, he and the doting wife blending in?

A cheerfully colored sign said Two miles to Ash View. The terrain stepped down a notch: working-class shopping, gas stations, tire dealers, shacks whose scratchy lawns accommodated rusting autos.

A far cry from the splendor of CCC. Whatever that stood for.

Jeremy passed a Dairy Queen and a Denny’s and three hamburger chains. Far cry from foie gras, too.

Independent living by day, gourmandizing by night. Arthur Chess was a man to be reckoned with.

Ash View was empty land and stray dogs and scattered multiple dwellings. Arthur’s address matched a large, flat-roofed, frame house overlooking what had once been a wheatfield and was now just endless acres of grass. The nearest landmark was a quarter mile north, a dormant drive-in theater with a chipped marquee.

The rain clouds turned the flatlands to shadowy moonscape.

Jeremy parked and studied the building. Once elegant, now shabby and subdivided. Not all that different from Angela’s place.

The old man lived in a rooming house. Had chosen to distance himself from the pleasures of the city and who knew what else.

A detached carriage house to the right of the main building had been converted to a four-car garage. Four closed doors, but no locks in sight. Jeremy got out, lifted the left-hand door, and found a Nissan. The next stall contained a Ford Falcon, the third was empty, and the last harbored Arthur’s black Lincoln Town Car.

Prior engagement. The old man had cut out from Tumor Board early and simply gone home.

Jeremy climbed the big house’s cement steps, read the names on the weathered brass mailbox.

A. Chess- no degree listed- lived in Unit Four.

The front door was etched glass- a remnant of bygone glory. Jeremy opened it.

Up the stairs and to the right. The house smelled of corn and curdled milk and laundry detergent. The stairway was steep, guided by a spotless white wooden rail. The walls were textured plaster, the same white, just as clean. Below Jeremy’s feet were weathered pine boards under a well-trod blue carpet. Old wood, but not a single squeak. The building was maintained lovingly.

Arthur’s door was unidentified as such. Okay, here we go.

Jeremy’s knock was met with silence.

“Arthur?” he called. No response. Louder rapping caused the door of the unit across the landing to crack. As he repeated Arthur’s name and appended his own, the crack widened and Jeremy made eye contact with a single, dark iris.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m Dr. Carrier, and I’m looking for Dr. Chess.”

The door opened on a short, round sweet-looking woman in a pale yellow housedress. She had white hair and dramatic, russet brown eyebrows. Someone else of Arthur’s generation. She held a flowered teacup in one hand and smiled at him. Her eyes were a darker brown, as deep as brown can be without veering into black. Large, hoop earrings tugged at her lobes.

Like an old fortune-teller.

“Was the professor expecting you, dear?”

“Not exactly,” said Jeremy. “I work at Central Hospital, and there’s a treatment issue to discuss.”

“An emergency?”

“Not quite, ma’am. But an important issue.”

“Oh… and you came all the way out here. How dedicated- it’s such a fine hospital. All my children were born there. Professor Chess was a young man back then. Tall and handsome. He had an excellent bedside manner.” She giggled. “Of course, I was young, too. He did a masterful job.”

“Professor Chess delivered your babies?”

“Oh, yes. I know he’s a pathologist, now, but back in those days he did all kinds of medicine. What a wonderful man. I was so pleased to find out we’d be neighbors. I’m afraid he’s not in, dear.”

“Any idea where he went?”

“Oh, he travels all the time,” said the woman. “Shall I tell him you were by, Doctor…”

“Carrier. So he’s definitely traveling?”

“Oh, yes. When Professor Chess travels, I pick up his mail, see to his messages.” She smiled, shifted her teacup to her left hand, and extended her right. “Ramona Purveyance.”

Jeremy crossed the landing. Her palm was soft, slightly moist. Chubby fingers exerted no pressure.

He said, “He does like to travel.”

Ramona Purveyance nodded with enthusiasm.

Jeremy said, “I wonder how long he’ll be gone this time.”

“Hard to say. Sometimes it’s a day, sometimes it’s a week. He sends me postcards.”

“Where from?”

“Everywhere. Come, I’ll show them to you.”

Jeremy followed her into a compact apartment brightened by rear windows that afforded a view of the infinite grass. A meadow, really, with just the faintest rise as it swooped toward the horizon. A dozen or so ravens circled, blending with the sooty sky only to dart out into the fissures of light that separated the storm clouds. The effect was startling- airborne static.

Ramona Purveyance said, “They’re always out there. Beautiful things, despite their reputation.”

“What reputation is that?”

“You know, like in the Bible? Noah sent the raven out to seek peace, but the raven failed. It was the dove that brought back the olive branch. Nevertheless, I consider them beautiful creatures. Not peaceful, though. Sometimes we get cardinals, lovely red things that they are. The ravens scare them off.”