“We don’t know what happened here. Would it have been your fault if he got hit by a car?”

“He died because I brought him in to the grand jury.”

“You don’t know that. For all we know this could have been a drug deal gone bad or a botched robbery. Let Ray Figgs do his investigation, and we’ll see where it goes.”

“But I’m telling you right now. I can’t sit and watch Figgs do nothing.” Connie walked into the middle of the street and put in a call to the DA. He would need to know what was going on. That one of their grand jury witnesses had been murdered not twelve hours after his appearance in court.

Sleep vacuumed the house, the hardwood floors, the area rugs, the runner on the stairs. Then he polished all the woodwork, the piano and the mantel. That was how Momma liked it done. The house hadn’t been very dirty. But it had to be cleaned every week, as Momma had taught him. He didn’t want to live in a pig sty, did he? He would clean the kitchen and bathroom last, everything spic and span.

He enjoyed cleaning, bringing back order from chaos. As he cleaned, he thought about her. Not Momma. Her.

He remembered when she tried to push him out of her life. He was upset at first, until he realized why she’d done it. She had tried to set him free because she loved him. But he could never leave her. He was forever hers.

That summer, so many years ago-they were still teenagers-he was finally enjoying life. He was getting paid to do the work that he loved. The old man had been dead close to a year, so there was no one to criticize him. So what if he liked to play with his Little Things? That didn’t mean that he was gay. How could he be gay if he was in love with Natalie?

She was the reason he had gone into the city. It was the beginning of the summer and she had left home, taking an apartment in the South End, working at one of the boutiques on Newbury Street. He had missed seeing her every day, so he’d spent hours walking, window-shopping, getting a cup of coffee, pretending to read books, hoping to bump into her.

He would use the window in the store across the street from Natalie’s shop as a mirror, hoping to catch a glimpse of her in the reflection. That was how he’d met Ronald.

HE’D BEEN STARING INTO the window when Ronald appeared and began undressing the mannequins. He remembered the way Ronald looked the first time he met him-tall, slender, with tight jeans and a silk shirt, open halfway down his chest. Sleep felt small looking up at him.

Momma would have said that Ronald was a handsome man with his dark shining eyes and neat white teeth. A man who would take his girl for a romantic picnic. Maybe at Jamaica Pond, maybe Olmsted Park. That first time, Ronald smiled, gave him a wink and went back to work. Sleep was fascinated by what he was doing with the mannequins. For a while anyway, he’d forgotten about Natalie. He watched for close to an hour as Ronald dismantled the old display and set up the new one with a beach theme-brightly colored starfish, antique sand buckets, striped umbrellas. About halfway through the job, Ronald came out and introduced himself. Soon Sleep was working as his assistant. Lifting and carrying the things Ronald needed. incredible, he thought. A dream. He and Ronald set up displays in half the stores on Newbury. It was perfect, getting paid to do what he loved and having the chance to see Natalie every day, the way he used to.

Then it happened. It was a Saturday, a beautiful day. He and Ronald were setting up a new display when Natalie walked in. She was angry, accusing him of watching her, following her, stalking her. He still remembered her words. “You’re creeping me out,” she had said. “We grew up together. Why are you doing this to me? We used to be friends.” Used to be? She acted like she didn’t remember how she had come to the house after his father died. How she sat with him and Momma, making them all tea. That even if they weren’t together, that special bond was there. She was quiet for a second and then she mentioned a restraining order.

Ronald and their client heard every word. “I don’t know what she’s talking about,” he told them after she’d stormed out. He was scared he’d lose his job, but Ronald understood. He said he knew that women sometimes overreacted to things. “Let’s get back to work,” Ronald said. “We have a busy night ahead of us.” They were scheduled to change displays in a couple of stores, getting them ready for summer sales starting on Sunday morning.

Ronald picked up some Chinese food for supper, but Sleep wasn’t hungry. He was too upset by what Natalie had said. He didn’t particularly like Chinese food, either. The brown rice tasted like cardboard. He managed to force some noodles and rice down after Ronald showed him how to smother the rice in lobster sauce. When he finished, Sleep tucked his fortune cookie, dessert, in his back pocket. He wanted to be alone when he read his fortune. As they started back to work, Ronald asked about Natalie. How he knew her. Why she thought he was following her.

It was none of Ronald’s business.

Ronald told him to loosen up. He put his hand on Sleep’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

“What the hell are you doing?” Sleep bent away from his touch. It felt fiery hot, and heavy like a big machine.

Ronald stepped back, startled. “I was trying to help you talk things out.”

“Don’t touch me. What are you, half-a-fag?” He didn’t really know what that meant except that his father used to say it when Sleep played in the attic.

Ronald’s face went rigid. “I’m sorry you feel that way. Maybe that girl was telling the truth. We can’t keep stalkers working in boutiques.”

Sleep was stunned. “You mean…?”

Ronald gestured toward the door.

Sleep walked out onto the sidewalk, feeling alone and scared. In one night he had lost the woman and the job he loved.

He still had one thing. Sleep had his gun. It wasn’t really his gun. He had found it in his father’s belongings, and he’d been carrying it around for months. When he first found it, he took it and hid it in the trunk in the attic. As he got used to it-the way it felt in his hand, a comfortable fit-he started to carry it around. He wasn’t sure why. It just felt cool, tucked into his waist, held up by the makeshift holster his father had made from a piece of heavy gauge wire, one end looped around his belt, the other stuck in the barrel of the gun. He felt invincible when he had his piece with him. No one could mess with him. He was a big man when he had the gun.

After Ronald fired him, Sleep walked to the Fens. The sun was setting. When he sat on a bench, he heard the crunch of the fortune cookie in his back pocket. He didn’t know if he should laugh or cry. He couldn’t do anything right. He reached back and held the cellophane wrapper with the crumbled mess in his hand. With all that had happened in one day, he needed some good news. Maybe this was his real fortune. He hoped it would be a good one. There was no rule that said the fortune wouldn’t come true just because the cookie was crumbled was there? Maybe the broken cookie had broken his bad luck. He tore the cellophane with his teeth, dumped the shards of cookie onto the ground. The pigeons could have them. He removed the strip of paper and read “STOP SEARCHING FOREVER, HAPPINESS IS RIGHT NEXT TO YOU.”

He closed his eyes tight. Maybe this was his fortune.

He opened his eyes. There was a young woman at the other end of his bench. She had long dark hair like Natalie. Maybe she was his true love. She was looking straight ahead. He never had the nerve to introduce himself to pretty girls. He just needed to talk to her. His fortune said that happiness was right next to him. There was no one else around.