Lester left Kathy’s note on the bedside table near his empty teacup, then thought better of it and slid half of it into the door casing at what he hoped was her eye level. He thought about kissing her cheek or forehead, but he didn’t want to wake her; so much had happened since they last spoke, it would take too long for them to get things into some kind of even understanding before he could leave. He walked back down the carpeted hall, pressed his ear to the bathroom door, and heard one of them snoring, a light nasal snore that left him feeling he might pull off leaving after all.

He stuck his pistol down the front of his pants, covered it with his shirt, and left the house for the darkness outside. He urinated in the woods across the street. A fog hovered among the black trees, and the sky already was beginning to lighten. He put his car in neutral, left his door open, and pushed until the Toyota was off the soft shoulder and the hill started to take it and he hopped in and coasted silently down toward the sea.

Now the sun was bright off the chain-link fence around the motor pool, and Lester glanced at his watch. Five more minutes and he’d go in. And he was going to have to tell the truth. If he lied he would force Alvarez to call or even visit the Iranian for a follow-up interview. He imagined the Behrani family awake now, having to urinate in each other’s presence, the mother too, a woman from a culture that demanded women cover themselves from face to foot. He pictured the colonel knocking on the door, prepared to do what he must. If Kathy was still asleep and no one answered, would he assume Lester was too and then tell his family they would all have to wait a bit longer? Or would he hear the silence and think the house was empty and begin making noise?

There had to be a better way to proceed, but right now Lester didn’t know what it was, only that there was quite a bit he hadn’t done as well as he could. He thought about Bethany and Nate, how sometime today he was going to have to get them alone for a talk. Maybe early tonight he’d take them out for hamburgers and chocolate shakes at a fast-food shack on the beach somewhere. He imagined Kathy with them too but then he let that one go; his daughter and son wouldn’t be ready for that for a while, and the truth was he wasn’t quite ready for it either. With any luck, Kathy would be moving back into her place at dusk anyway, and he thought of Bethany one sundown when she was four and they were all at the beach. Carol was nursing Nate, and Bethany sat next to him in the sand, her Star Wars towel around her shoulders. She turned to him and asked where the new suns come from.

“The new suns? What do you mean, sweetie?”

“The new one that comes out every morning, Daddy.”

“Honey, there’s just one sun.”

“No, ’cause look, Daddy, the ocean’s putting that one out. See? It’s getting all wet. They all do, Daddy. Didn’t you know that?”

He’d laughed and pulled her onto his lap, hugged her to him, and kissed her wet sandy hair until his lips started to feel numb.

A truck horn sounded in the traffic out on Broadway, and Lester got out of the Toyota and locked it. His pistol was under the passenger seat and he wished he’d taken his holster from Kathy’s Bonneville at dawn. He thought about how she might feel when she woke. Would the pills and his gun become something from a faraway drunkenness she wouldn’t even need to think about anymore?

He walked across the sunlit lot for the shaded doors at the back of the Hall of Justice, and he had to squint in the light, his head aching slightly at the eyebrows, his legs two long sandbags underneath him. His mouth was dry and he planned on getting a cold Coke from the machines around the corner from the elevators. He took a deep breath and told himself just to speak the truth about Monday night—not a word about last night—but admit everything about Monday. His jacket was positively trouble-free; Alvarez might even let it all go with an oral reprimand.

“Hey, Les.”

It came from behind him, but Lester stepped into the shade of the building before he turned around. It was Doug, hopping out of his patrol car, leaving the engine running. His uniform was stretched tight at the shoulders and across the chest, and his forearms looked, as always, impossibly thick. He was chewing gum, something he always did on patrol, never any other time. He’d gotten a haircut, his brown hair shorter than Alvarez’s, and Lester could see his scalp glisten in the sunlight just before Doug stepped up into the shade, saying, “I thought you were off.”

“Left a book in my locker. Why aren’t you out on patrol?”

Doug shook his head, said he had to clean up two arrest reports from yesterday. He looked straight into Lester’s face and began to chew his gum with his mouth closed, as if chewing gum was a slightly indecent thing to be doing, under the circumstances.

“Barbara went over to see Carol last night. She stayed pretty late.”

“Yeah?” Lester thought he knew where this was going, and he didn’t like it. He also wanted to hurry inside, get his appointment over with, and get back on the freeway heading north.

“Carol wanted us both to come over, but, tell you the truth, Les, I didn’t feel like hearing you get shitcanned all night. You look like crap, by the way. Sleep at the camp last night?”

“We’re there for now.” Lester looked away and over the chain-link fence to the old courthouse on the other side of the street. Its huge stained-glass dome looked cool and composed under the sun.

“We still, huh?”

“That’s right, Doug.”

“Listen, I know we’ve already done this little dance, but are you real clear on what you’re doing?”

Real clear. Doug used that kind of language all the time, a vestige of all the inner healing weekend workshops he took with Barbara. Doug put his hand on Lester’s shoulder, a warm calloused paw. “’Cause you know you’re throwing it all away, right, man? All those years between you two, you’re trashing them. You do know that.”

Lester took in Doug’s face, his friend’s forehead all ridged with concern, his eyes blue and bright and earnest as he’d ever seen them. But naive too. It’s what Lester had always liked and disliked about him. “I don’t look at it that way.” Lester turned to open one of the doors, letting Doug’s hand fall away. He could feel the echo of his heart in his veins, and he was thirstier than ever. “I appreciate you looking out for me, Doug, but tell you what: you go patrol your territory and I’ll patrol mine, okay, man?”

Lester turned and walked into the air-conditioned Hall of Justice. Three lawyers in dark suits stood at the elevators with their briefcases and paperwork. He glanced at his watch and decided to skip the Coke. Maybe Alvarez would offer him coffee, or water. He stood and waited, his hands crossed in front of him, his eyes on the polished brass elevator doors. He could see his reflection there, taller than the lawyers, but divided by the center line where the doors met. Then the tone sounded, the doors began to part, and as Lester moved forward he watched his own image spread out from the middle then disappear.

THERE WAS JUST WHAT WAS IN FRONT OF ME, THINGS I KNEW BUT didn’t: an empty chair facing the side of my bed; an open door with a brass-plated knob, the knob of all the doors of all the rooms I’d ever lived in; lamplight across the blanket that covered me completely, even my arms—it looked like wool, as brown and purple as eggplant, and I was too warm under it, but I didn’t move.

My throat was dry and sore, and my face and head felt flat, part of the pillow underneath. I was sweating. I could taste the salt in my throat, and I was waiting for my mother to walk through the doorway to get me up for the busride to school. But this is where I lay and sometimes watched Nick walk in from the bathroom. He’d come back naked or wrapped in a towel, his love handles hidden beneath the terry cloth, then he’d dress quietly in front of the closet so he wouldn’t wake me, stepping into his underwear, tucking his bobbing penis under the waistband, pulling on his suit pants and leaving them unbuttoned and unzipped until he found the right shirt. I’d sit up and light a cigarette, smoke it and watch him put on the costume he couldn’t wait to shed each night when he came home to eat too much, then smoke too much while he played bass in his practice room till I made him come watch TV with me, or make love.