He grinned inanely. "I'm not going to tell you about that. It's humiliating. It's none of your business. When are you leaving?"

"Soon. How long have you known Billy, Frank?"

"Three years. Three years next month. November fourteenth." His cigarette had burned itself out; an inch of ash fell onto his pant leg and lay there. "I met him over at the Terminal one night," Zimka said. "He cruised me. And I really thought that night that he liked me. That he liked me."

"But he really-didn't?"

"It's too complicated. I'm not going to talk about this anymore. Not to you. You're about to leave. It's too bad it'll never work with Billy and me. Really too bad. He's been great for me. Billy opened up a lot of positive things inside me I never knew were there. It's too bad. I can be a really fabulous person. Are you leaving now?"

"I'm sure you can be. I'll leave soon. What happened in New York?"

"New York?"

"At the airport. La Guardia."

"I dropped him off."

"What time?"

"Nine. Or nine-fifteen."

"You didn't go in with him?"

"He wouldn't let me. He said he'd send me the money, he thanked me, he gave me a little brotherly kiss. And then he— took off!" He imitated an airplane.

"You drove back to Albany then?"

"No."

"No?"

"Fucking Billy took every cent I had! I had no money for gas or tolls coming back." He giggled. "So what I did was, I stopped in Scarsdale and called a guy I knew. Scared the royal blue shit out of him, too. He met me at a gas station and says, 'Nice to see you, Frank,' tosses me fifty, and took off in his BMW like I'm diseased. He's one of my admirers. He likes me."

Every life tells a story. "How old are you, Frank?"

"How old do you think?"

"Twenty-four."

"Twenty-six. My face looks fifty."

"I would have said thirty, or thirty-five. Still, maybe you should be looking into a somewhat more restful line of work."

"I'm a chemist," he said. "I graduated RPI cum laude."

"Why don't you work as a chemist, then? Or at something else in the sciences, or whatever, that you might be good at? Why not try it—maybe just something part-time to start out?"

His eyes were like baby spotlights now. He said, "I think I'll get a job as the president of MIT!" He laughed idiotically.

I drank my beer. I asked Zimka whether he'd had any odd phone calls recently in which the caller didn't speak but just listened, or whether anyone had tried within the past week to break into his apartment. He looked at me as if I'd asked him if his hair were on fire, then giggled. I asked him if he knew who Chris was, and he summoned up the clarity of mind to say no. I asked him if he knew who Eddie was, and this caused another fit of uncontrolled hilarity. Finally I asked Zimka if the police had been in touch—his number was written on Billy Blount's

phone book. He said yes, but he'd told them he was the Queen of the Netherlands and they hadn't returned.

I thanked him, gave him my card, and asked him to get in touch with me if he heard from Billy Blount or if the money Billy had borrowed was returned in any manner. He asked me to stop by on Monday to pick up something he said he'd have for Billy, and I said I would.

I shook his hand and left. He may or may not have noticed my going.

6

AT TIMMY'S I CHECKED MY SERVICE WHILE HE MADE MASHED

potatoes to go with the roast chicken. He used a real masher, and I admired his domestic skills. At my place I boiled the potatoes, put them in a Price Chopper freezer bag, and beat them with a hammer wrapped in a towel.

There were two messages, one from a former client who owed me three hundred dollars. He said, "The check is in the mail." The other message was from Brigit: "Books will be found on front lawn after noon Sunday."

I asked, "What's the weather forecast?"

"Showers or drizzle later tonight," Timmy said. "It's supposed to clear late tomorrow and get cold again."

"Crap."

Brigit's new husband and his four daughters were moving into our old place in Latham, and they needed the room where I had my books stored. The Rabbit wasn't going to do the job, and Timmy drove a little Chevy Vega.

I said, "Brigit means business about the books. We'll either have to make six trips or rent a U-haul."

"We?"

"Would you help me move the books, please?"

"Yes."

"She says noon tomorrow, then she chucks them out. She's a sweetheart."

"Right, you've been so busy for the past month." He dropped a brick of frozen peas into a saucepan.

I said, "The heart has its reasons."

"For not picking up a load of books?"

"Don't confuse the issue. Brigit hasn't been nice."

"It's a diabolical retribution—books."

"One does what one can."

"It's the final break. That's why you've been putting it off. This is really the end and you won't face it." He took the chicken out of the oven and set it on the trivet on the table.

"Not true. The final break was three years ago. In a courtroom with portraits of two Livingstons, a Clinton, and a Fish." I began hacking away at the chicken with a bread knife. Timmy winced.

"Why don't you let me do that? You carve the mashed potatoes." I went looking for a serving spoon. "The final final break," Timmy said, "will come when Brigit smiles warmly and shakes your hand and says, 'Heck, Don, at least we had seven wonderful years. I understand and sympathize and there'll be no hard feelings on my part.' That's the final break you're waiting for, except it's not going to happen."

"I can't find a spoon."

"Middle drawer."

"How come I keep getting mixed up with people who devote their lives to explaining me to me? Brigit did that. It's a powerful force to constantly contend with."

"Nature abhors a vacuum."

"Like the poet said, fuck you. Anyway, I make my way in the world. I understand enough of what's going on. I do all right."

"That you do."

"You don't make it easier."

"Of course I do."

I said, "You're right. You do. Let's eat." * * *

Over dinner I told Timmy about my two visits with Billy Blount's friends and what I'd found out about Blount. "It turns out he's not so morbidly attached to the duke and duchess as I thought he was. That's just how they see it—or want others to see it. In fact, he seems reasonably stable and in control of his life. And sufficiently resourceful that he knew just where to go when trouble happened. He went somewhere you can fly to for two hundred forty bucks."

That could be just about anywhere these days. You can get to London for under a hundred and fifty."

"Not from La Guardia. That'd be JFK. I've got to find somebody who can check passenger manifests. Deslonde says Blount once had friends on the West Coast. He could be out there."

"Maybe he flew under another name. It's easy."

"Could be. He was thinking."

The cops could check. Are you going to tell them?"

"Later. In due course. Are there more rolls?"

"In the oven."

The people who know Blount best speak well of him. Everybody says he's likable and fun to be around, though a bit verbose and dogmatic. But he's got no real hangups that get to people, and certainly no violent streak. He does have some private grief he keeps inside—an irrational, or possibly entirely rational, fear of being shut in or locked up. Something that happened to him once. Huey and Mark and Frank Zimka all mentioned it. I'll have to check that out with the Blounts. It would explain his panic to get away, even if he hadn't committed the murder."