“I think it’s time for us to go,” Capozza says, shaking my hand. Then he hands a card to Bert. “Call me, Mr. Washington. I’d like to talk more and maybe you could bring us some of that financial information. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but Frank’s interest is worth around a hundred million dollars.”

“That’s right around what Bert’s group is looking to do,” I say, and Bert nods.

We thank Mr. Capozza for his time and see him to the door of the suite. He thanks us for giving him a night his great-grandson won’t forget.

“Jesus,” Bert says when they’re gone. “Did you see those three guys? They make Andre look like a choirboy.”

“This is the big leagues, Bert.”

“And you’re going to send me into a meeting with all those guys without you?”

“You’ll do fine,” I say, taking a can of Bud Light out of the refrigerator and cracking it open for him. “You did great tonight.”

“Yeah,” Bert says, “with an old man and a little kid.”

“Don’t let that ‘old man’ fool you. His teeth are razor-sharp.”

“Exactly,” Bert says, “and I just want to make sure it’s not us that get bitten.”

WE’RE RIDING IN THE BACK of the limo, quiet in the darkness, when Bert says, “How about you have a beer with me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you and me. How about we just have a beer, like we used to when you lived in my trailer. Remember that?”

“Yeah. I remember.”

“Good days, huh?” he says, and I see his massive shape leaning over and I hear him rattling around in the ice chest.

“Not bad,” I say. “A little cramped.”

“Yeah, that shower wasn’t no marble cathedral like that thing you got now. But sometimes I miss just having a bologna sandwich with ketchup on white bread. You?”

I hear the snip and clink of two bottles being opened. Bert hands me one. A Molson Golden that makes me smile. We touch the lips of glass together and drink.

“I like good food,” I say. “Good food and red meat.”

“I see how you eat those steaks. That ’cause you got hungry in jail?”

“I did get hungry,” I said.

“That go away any?”

I take another swig of beer and think about it. We’re crossing the GW Bridge now and I can see all the lights of Manhattan.

“You want to thumb wrestle?” I ask.

“I thought we didn’t do that no more,” he says. “I thought we’re a little too fancy for that.”

“I don’t think anyone’s going to see us back here,” I say, and hold out my hand. I pin him quickly and he immediately wants to go best out of three. He beats me once and then I get him again and it becomes best out of five. He gets me the next two and then we’re done because by then it was best out of seven.

“You ever notice how you have to keep going until you win?” I ask him.

“That’s ’cause thumb wrestling is my thing,” he says. “Like fucking these people over is your thing.”

“Exact revenge,” I say, more to myself than to him.

“What?”

“When someone does something to wrong you,” I say, “you exact revenge. You take it. But it’s exact too in its precision. It’s about respect.”

Bert only grunts.

“You’re the one who told me one time that you’d kill Villay if you ever had the chance, you remember that?” I say.

“Yeah, that’s different,” he says. “In the old days, the Akwesasne warriors would tomahawk their enemies who fell on the battlefield. That wasn’t the way it was with all the tribes. The Hurons? They’d skin ’em while they were still alive and boil them. That’s pretty exact, huh? The white man’s like that, but in a sneaky way. I think you get this from your dad’s side.”

“In a way,” I say, thinking of Lester.

The car dips down into a tunnel and we lose sight of the city around us. Bert drinks the next beer on his own, and neither of us says anything until we get out in front of the mansion and we say good night.

When I get to my bedroom, I feel something. A dark figure is tucked into the curtains by the balcony. My heart races and I ease my way over toward the night table. There is a gun in the drawer.

I think of Andre, Russo, Villay, Rangle, and Frank all at once.

“Seth?”

“Helena?” I say, exhaling. I step into the broad strip of light that falls into the bedroom from between the curtains.

She moves into the same light and throws her arms around my shoulders.

“Don’t do that.”

“I saw you and Bert come in,” she says. “Standing in the curtains is lucky for me.”

“I thought you were in Toronto.”

“I was.”

“I thought tomorrow was Boston.”

“It is,” she says, putting her nose in my chest. “Did you miss me?”

“I always miss you.”

“So, you’re glad I’m here?” she asks.

“Always.”

“Is there someone else?” She pulls away and looks up at me.

“Is that why you were watching?” I ask quietly.

“You’re different since we came here,” she says. “There’s something.”

“Work,” I say. “Just work.”

I kiss her and we move toward the bed.

In the middle of the night, my eyes shoot open. I am breathing hard. Helena is wrapped around me and I twist free and sit up, dabbing at the dampness on my upper lip. I saw Villay, twisting in his sheets. I heard him moan. And scream.

It is 3:37. I look at the computer on the desk across the room and I get up and get dressed. I resist the urge to turn on the computer. Instead, I sit out on the balcony, watching the sky above the park change from black to purple to blue while I wait for the day to come.

At 6 a.m., I am in the second-floor dining room, having breakfast with Bert, when my cell phone rings.

“He did it,” says Chuck Lawrence. “It’ll be on the news if you want to see. I waited until now to call. Didn’t want to wake you.”

“What did he do?” I ask. Bert is looking at me.

“Killed the wife,” Lawrence says. “Strangled her. Then went running through the neighborhood in his boxers crying like a baby. I went in as soon as he left and got our stuff out of there. I’ve seen some bad stuff, but… Jesus.”

“Where is he now?”

“They took him straight to Winthrop Hospital,” he says, “that’s where I am. They got him locked up in a rubber room.”

By the time the psychiatrists are finished with their initial assessments and I am able to buy my way into Dean Villay’s rubber room it’s nearly noon. He is lying in the corner wrapped in a straitjacket, sedated. His breathing is shallow and he stares vacantly at the empty wall. His face is sunken and gray and his forehead gleams with a thin sheen of sweat.

His blood-red eyes widen when I kneel and put my face in front of his. The torn pupils are fully dilated, like black stars. I speak in a whisper.

“Do you know who I am?” I say.

His eyes grow wider yet. He nods that he does.

“Cole,” he says in a mutter.

“No,” I say, keeping my voice very low. I put my lips next to his ear. “Look close. Look at my eyes. It’s me… Raymond White. I’m back.”

I look at him again, staring until his face crumples in agony, his eyes locked on mine.

“You can’t be,” he says. “You’re dead.”

His arms begin to squirm inside the canvas straitjacket, making the buckles clink like small spoons. A choking noise bubbles up from his throat. His head starts to shake and jerk from side to side before he explodes into an unending wail.

I put my fingers in my ears and stand up, looking down on him while he twists and shrieks until his throat is torn and an attendant comes in, nervously taking me by the arm and leading me away.