John said, “Was it you in the rest of the picture?”

“Nah,” Chester said, “that was some movie star. They even had to bring in somebody else to do his swimming. Anyway, the problem was, that career dried up. They don’t need the guys like me now, they got computers to do the stunts.” He shrugged, but looked disgusted. “People wanna look at a cartoon, a car on a diagonal down the alley, nobody at the wheel, nobody’s life at stake, what I say, it isn’t the pictures got worse, it’s the audience. But don’t let me get off on that, that’s a pet grievance, or it would be, except now I got a new pet grievance.” Turning to Andy, he said, “And frankly, that’s why I’m here.”

“I was wondering,” Andy admitted. “You say you’ve been out four years, but I haven’t heard anything about you, so I don’t think you’re driving any more.”

“Not away from banks,” Chester said. “See, it isn’t that I reformed, it’s that driving in heists wasn’t my first career choice to begin with. Movies, and some television, your circus in the slow periods, industrial films, I was making out okay. But then, when the computer muscles me outa there, how else am I gonna maintain my standard of living?”

“So,” Andy said, “you didn’t go back to it when you got out, because you got something else?”

“I did minimum time,” Chester told him. “Kept my nose clean, all positive reports, got parole in one, with a placement bureau that actually did some placing for once. There was this rich guy, Monroe Hall—”

“I’ve heard that name,” Andy said, and Anne Marie felt that she too had heard it, but couldn’t think where.

“It’s been in the news of late,” Chester said, and sounded disgusted again. “Let me get there.”

“Take your time,” Andy agreed.

“Monroe Hall,” Chester said, “owns one of the major antique car collections in the world, out in his estate in Pennsylvania. Probably two million dollars on wheels, he keeps them in climate-controlled barns, he does exhibits sometimes, these are his babies. But himself he’s not a great driver, so he hires a guy, like a chauffeur, to drive the cars, make sure they stay in condition. You just let a car sit around, the gasoline gums up, everything goes to hell. So around the time I’m getting out, Hall’s previous chauffeur, that he’s had almost as long as the cars, dies of natural causes and he needs a new guy. I’ve got one fall, I’ve paid my debt to society, I’ve got this movie background, it’s exciting to Hall in every possible way. Movies, jail, bank robbery, you name it. So the placement bureau puts me together with Hall, I’m hired, I relocate the family out to Pennsylvania.”

Andy said, “Family?”

Surprised, Chester said, “You didn’t know that? Well, I guess I kept that part away from the part you knew. Yeah, I got a wife and three kids, grown now, well, in their twenties, but outa the house. So the wife and me, we relocate, and I’ve got all these cars to play with, and I’m an employee of SomniTech.”

“Wait a minute,” Andy said. “I’ve heard of that.”

“Sure you have,” Chester agreed. “It’s one of your huge corporations, they’re in oil, they’re in manufacturing, they’re in communications, they’re all over the place. It’s what they call horizontal diversification, which to me sounds like a whorehouse that caters to all tastes, but if that’s how they want to call it, fine. Anyway, Monroe Hall is one of the major executives there. And everything in his life is paid for by SomniTech. My paychecks are SomniTech. I get health insurance and a retirement plan, it’s all SomniTech. The upkeep on the cars, paid for by SomniTech. His pool maintenance is a business expense, goes through SomniTech, his kids’ dentist bills.”

“Something went wrong,” Andy said. “I’ve read about this thing.”

“What he was doing,” Chester said, “charging everything off to the company, turns out he wasn’t supposed to do that.”

“Cheating the IRS,” Andy suggested.

“Well, that, too,” Chester said. “But the main thing was, he was stealing from the company. That’s shareholders’ money, that’s supposed to be profit, dividends, they just sucked it all out, him and like four other executives at the top of the heap.”

Anne Marie said, “I remember that! Wasn’t he the white-haired man, testified in front of Congress?”

“Anne Marie,” Andy said, “every white-haired man in America that owns a suit has testified in front of Congress.”

“But you’re right,” Chester assured her. “Monroe Hall was one of the people testified in those business ethics hearings.”

Andy said, “So what happens? This Hall guy gets your old cell?”

“Not a chance,” Chester told him. “You can’t touch these guys, every one of them is surrounded by a moat filled with man-eating lawyers. He’s still fat and happy there in Pennsylvania. But here’s the thing of it,” he said, and Anne Marie saw that now he was getting angry. “The deal he cuts,” Chester explained, “he has to make restitution, partial restitution, and the reason it’s partial, he’s gotta plead poverty now, so he can’t be a guy now that his hobby is million-dollar antique cars, so he gives it—here comes a charitable tax deduction, by the way—he gives it to a foundation. And guess who the foundation is. I mean, if you lift up the rock.”

Andy said, “How does this affect you?”

“The foundation takes over maintenance on the collection,” Chester said, “with some federal education money, and the foundation can’t hire an ex-con.”

Andy said, “You’re out of a job.”

“I’m out of everything. My job is gone, my medical insurance through SomniTech is gone, my retirement is gone, everything’s gone. I asked him, on account of my faithful service, find a spot for me somewhere, all of sudden I’m not allowed on the property, nobody wants to talk to me on the phone.”

“Jeez,” Andy said.

Chester shook his head. “My first career is still dead, my second career still contains certain risks, and I don’t feel like getting a job at a car service in Manhattan, to be the guy out at the airport holding up the sign: Pembroke.”

Andy said, “You have a different idea.”

“I do.”

“And you think it includes me,” Andy said.

“I hope it includes you.”

John said, “What is it you want to steal?”

“His fucking cars,” Chester said, and nodded at Anne Marie. “Excuse the French.”

“I TELL YOU WHAT,” Monroe Hall said. “Let’s throw a party.”

“They won’t come,” Alicia said, and walked on past him toward the stairs.

Monroe had been standing about in the upstairs west wing hall, not thinking of much of anything, when his wife emerged from the music room with a triangle in her hand. Seeing her, the party thought had just popped into his head, fully formed, and now it was as though a big happy party was what he’d been wanting forever. Forever. “Why not?” he called after her. “What do you mean, they won’t come?”

She turned back to give him one of the patient looks he detested so. “You know why not,” she said.

“Who won’t come?” he demanded. “What about our friends?”

“We don’t have any friends, darling,” she said. “Not any more.”

“Somebody has to stand by me!”

“I’m standing by you, dearest,” she said, this time with the sad smile that was only marginally less detestable than the patient look. “I’m afraid that will have to do.”

“We used to throw parties,” he said, feeling very forlorn and put-upon. Nearby, the clock room erupted into a hundred cuckoos proclaiming the hour—ten (A.M., though the cuckoos didn’t know quite that much)—and Monroe and his wife automatically moved on down the hall.

“Of course we used to throw parties,” she agreed, raising her voice a bit above the cuckoos. “You were an important and successful and rich man,” she explained, as the cuckoo chorus raggedly wound itself down. “People wanted to be seen with you, to have the world think of them as your friend.”