“Be brave Icarus Number One,” he went on. “You can perform a life entire without ever getting wet.” Then he lowered himself and dipped a cupped hand into the rough water. He brought it to his lips and slurped long and loud with his eyes smashed shut in rapture.

“Here,” he said, in one long breath of relief. “This is the meadow.”

Titus set down the fish knife and began unwinding a length of wire from his arm, which was wrapped tourniquet-tight and made the veins of his thick hands bulge. Then he picked the knife back up and began snapping pieces of wire in short lengths.

Next Titus grabbed one of the many bags of stones and fixed it to the end of the hose with wire. He kissed the hose mouth like a beloved rattlesnake and tossed it from the skiff. Will watched the white bag disappear into the deep like a fleeing ghost.

Titus started the motor. “Come back here and take the tiller,” he said. “Fly us in sleepy as you can.”

Will minced his way, hands still gripping the garrote in his pocket, to the back of the boat, passing Titus in the middle, who clutched the knife at his side. Will took the motor’s vibrating handle.

As they crept toward shore, Titus fastened rock bags intermittently to the hose with wire and sent more of the coil overboard. With his own Black Lagoon subsiding, at least temporarily, Will allowed himself the momentary pleasure of piloting a boat for the first time. No wonder Marcus wanted one.

“So why are we doing this?” Will said over the low rumble of the engine. “Is it some kind of art project?” He’d nearly said “masterpiece” but caught himself.

“ ’Spose you could dedicate it so, that is if you sought some verbiage.”

“Can I ask another question?”

“I’m in an interrogative mode,” Titus said.

“I met the Butler and he said he wanted proof of something from you. Proof of what?”

“He’s dilated,” said Titus, as Will guided the skiff nearly to the shore. “Bring her in over there,” Titus said, pointing to some rubble at the foot of Pool 6. Will piloted them up on a patch of rocky sand, mostly hidden from the water. Will felt like kissing the ground when he stepped out. There he saw a shallow trench already dug, running up toward the elevator. Titus laid the hose in the trench and buried it at the waterline, then dragged the remaining length up the embankment. Following the trench, they reached the outer edge of the elevator, where Titus took the end of the hose and stuffed it into a protruding conveyance chute.

Will followed Titus at a safe distance into a chamber of the elevator he and Jonah had never explored. Inside, Titus pulled the hose from the chute and began attaching it to an ancient machine. As Titus kneeled to fiddle with its settings, Will recognized this as his final chance, and with tingling, fear-deadened hands, he extracted the garrote, pulled it tight to his belly, and for a second it rang out a high sound. Will crept noiseless as he could toward Titus.

Still crouched, Titus pulled a cord, starting the machine like a lawnmower. It puffed a foul ball of smoke and shook, running a few seconds before water burst from a spout.

Right when Will was about to hook the wire around his neck and demand Marcus’s whereabouts, Titus pursed his lips and applied them carefully to the stream. He took a long drink with his eyes shut with such profound pleasure Will felt the moment was nearly too intimate to observe.

“Superior,” Titus said, swallowing deeply. “Eventually, I’ll run this unblighted up to my quarters, but this donkey engine’ll suit for now.” Titus pushed a bucket under the stream, and it began to fill noisily.

Will laughed aloud, jamming the weapon back in his pocket, half-overjoyed, half-terrified. “This was what you were doing all this time? Trying to get pure—I mean unblighted—water?”

“I’m not as strong as I once was to fetch it myself, and I can’t go relying on you or Aurelius to do it for me anymore. I’m falling weaker each day. But I’m aiming to habitate this old premise as long as permitted. Which is why you should tumble home now, Icarus Number One. You’ve saved me in more methods than you’re privy to. But you’re a gold necessity to your mother. Boys don’t fit down here. It’s only septic things. The Butler included. I can’t shield you like I could’ve once.” Titus stood and wheezed, long and tired. He thumped at his chest violently with his big fists. “Sometimes I suspect my whole damn condition is that my head isn’t privy to enough air,” he said pitifully, “because of these old wind bags. And that’s why my nut goes turbulent.”

“Can I ask you a question?” Will said backing away cautiously.

Titus looked up and nodded again.

“Promise not to take it the wrong way?”

“No such right way here down by the bay.”

“What does it feel like to be crazy?”

Titus watched him for a moment with an unreadable expression. “So that’s what has been wobbling on your vector top this whole operation?” he said.

“Yeah,” Will said. “I guess.”

“Well,” Titus said, cutting the pump’s motor and standing there on legs bowing as though they might snap. “A ripe comparison would entail trying to fix a radio. Except the only tool that comes to hand is another busted radio. You scavenge me?”

“Is that why you helped Marcus? Because he’s a busted radio, like you?”

“I nurtured him because Aurelius has been through Hades and still managed to till some good acreage in his soul.”

“Yeah, well, I have one more question,” Will said with a throb of mounting courage, turning his feet to bolt for the door. “If you were so busy helping Marcus, why did I find your fingerpri—” and it was then Will heard the dull scrape of metal behind him.

Relaxation Time

At the subway station, she canted the stroller and wheelied her son onto the escalator, holding him prone as they descended. He frowned and threw the worlds of his eyes wide, thoroughly baffled by her upside-downness.

They emerged onto the grimy, gum-spackled tile of the platform. Always tile! she mused playfully, must public transit take place in one enormous bathroom? As though all the tunnels were slated to someday be flushed?

She and Will awaited their train, the air close and thick, her son babbling fragments only she could piece together, most related to food and the construction scene they’d witnessed earlier that day: a section of pavement torn out, exposing the multifarious cables and pipes beneath, densely packed as a wrist. Workers had cut into the pavement with a tremendous saw, a blade the size of a café table, throwing a rooster tail of sparks into the tepid morning air. It was a spectacle of noise and destruction no boy could resist, so she’d held him up to watch over the fence. When the sawing ceased, leaving his eyes braziers of wonder, aflame with the knowledge that, like wood, pavement could be sawn, she resisted a gushy urge to crush him in her arms, to feel him squirm but hold him fast.

Now in the cool of the tunnel, she could feel the lick of perspiration at her neck’s nape. It had been a long day of walking, of submission to the pedestrian rapids, to the dueling scent of exhaust and hot dog cart—how long would these smells last if either were outlawed? A year? More? She’d once heard the street scene called a ballet, but she disagreed. The president of some arts foundation had once mailed Arthur tickets, but Diane fell dead asleep, only to be poked awake by the pin of her thrift store brooch. “No one ever falls in the ballet,” she’d said afterwards, one of her famous remarks.

But is there a greater, more sustaining joy than walking in a city? She could wring all that she needed from the sight of men shaking hands, the cooperative swerving of cars, the incredible garbage arrayed curbside for collection. What a thrill it was to move through it all, unharmed, like sipping tea in the splayed jaws of a lion, then stretching out and napping there, waking only to linger in the lion’s warm breath for another minute.