"Yup," he says. "He never talked, I mean never, not even when he passed me in the hall or we both just happened to open our doors at the same time. There we are, face-to-face, and the most he ever did was sort of give me a little smile and a jerk of his chin."

Marino isn't a great believer in coincidences and suspects Dave listened for Benton to come and go and just happened to open his door when Benton was opening his.

"Where were you this afternoon?" Marino wonders if Dave heard the altercation, a loud one, coming from Benton's apartment.

"Oh, I don't know. After lunch, I sleep a lot."

Drunk, Marino thinks.

"He's the sort who didn't have friends," Dave goes on.

Marino continues looking around, standing near the door while Dave peers through the crack.

"Never saw him have a single visitor, and I've been living here five years. Five years and two months. Hate this place. He seemed to go away sometimes. Since I retired from being the head chef at the Lobster House, I have to watch my pennies."

Marino has no idea how watching pennies has anything to do with the man's mysterious neighbor.

"You was the head chef there? Every time I come to Boston, I eat at the Lobster House."

This isn't true, nor is Marino a frequent visitor to Boston.

"You and the rest of the world, yessir. Well, I wasn't the head chef, but I damn well should've been. I'll cook for you one of these days."

"How long did the weirdo live here?"

"Oh." Dave sighs, his eyes shining through the space as he watches Marino. "I'd say goin' on two years. On and off What was your favorite dish at the Lobster House?"

"Two damn years. That's interesting. Told me he'd just moved in and gotten transferred or something, which is why he had to give up the apartment."

"Well, probably lobster," Dave remarks. "All tourists get the lobster and sop it in so much butter it's a wonder they taste anything but butter, so I was always commenting to the other workers in the kitchen, what was the point of bringing in nice fresh lobsters if nobody tastes anything but the butter?"

"I hate seafood," Marino says.

"Well, we do have mighty fine steaks. Aged one-hundred-percent-prime Angus."

"Aged always worries me. In the grocery store, aged means, spoiled. You know, clearance buggy shit."

"Now, he wasn't here all the time," Dave says. "In and out, sometimes gone for weeks. But no way he'd just moved in. I've seen him coming in and out for two years, like I said."

"Anything else you can tell me about this homo who locked me out and made off with half the stuff in the joint?" Marino asks. "When I find him, I'm gonna kick his ass."

Dave shakes his head and disappointment glints. "Sure wish I could help you out, but like I've been saying, I didn't know the man and I'm glad he's gone, and it's looking like you and me will be great neighbors, Dave Too."

"Thick as thieves. Now you go on to bed. Let me get a few things done in here, and I'll catch you later."

"So nice to meet you. I guess I'll be calling you Dave Too from now on, if that's okay with you."

"Nighty-night."

BENTON LIVED HERE TWO YEARS and nobody knew him, not even his lonely, busybody neighbor Dave.

Not that Marino is really surprised, but the realization is a reminder of Benton's desolate, confining life, which is all the more reason his refusal to return to himself, his friends and those who love him makes no sense. Marino sits on Benton's perfectly made bed, staring in a glazed way at the mirror over the dresser. As well as Benton knows him, he must have suspected that Marino would come back and rant and rail at him again. Not much could be more wounding than for him to have said he doesn't want to see Marino again-ever.

He focuses on his big, unhealthy self in the mirror, sweat rolling down his face, and it occurs to him that Benton turned off the air-conditioning in the living room when he and Benton were arguing. But when Marino just broke in, the air-conditioning was back on in that room but turned off in this one. Virtually every move Benton makes is deliberate. That's the way he is, and for him to crank the air-conditioning on high in the living area and turn it off in the bedroom was for a reason. Marino gets off the bed and walks to the window unit, noticing an envelope taped to the side of it.

Perfectly centered on it in block letters are the initials PM.

Excitement kicks in but is tempered by Marino's wariness. He returns to the kitchen for a sharp knife. Back in the bedroom, he sets it on top of the air-conditioning unit. Then he heads to the bathroom and yanks off several long sections of toilet paper, wrapping it around his fingers. He returns to the window unit and carefully removes the envelope, noticing that both ends of the tape are folded over so that they adhere to themselves, the same technique police use to prevent fingerprint tape from sticking to their gloves.

He slits the top of the envelope and pulls out a folded sheet of plain white paper and smooths it open. Written in the same block printing that's on the envelope is: "Please keep on."

Baffled, Marino considers for a moment that the note wasn't intended for him and wasn't written by Benton. He considers that neither the tape nor the paper is old, and they are very clean, and the folded ends of the tape hint that whoever used it might have been wearing latex gloves. Marino's initials are PM, and Benton knows that handwriting comparisons are usually foiled by block printing unless a documents examiner is comparing block printing exemplars written by the same individual. Benton also knows that Marino would be hot as hell in this room and would turn on the air conditioner. Or if nothing else, Marino would notice the inconsistency of one window unit left on while the other isn't and would wonder about it.

"Keep on the air conditioner?' Marino says out loud, frustrated and exhausted.

He returns to the kitchen and snatches open a cupboard where a few minutes earlier he noticed a neat, tidy stack of small paper grocery bags. Shaking one open, he drops the envelope inside it.

"What the hell are you talking about? Are you just fucking with me, you son of a bitch?"

Frustration tightens his chest as he thinks of the way Benton treated him, as if the two of them hadn't been lifelong friends, buddies, almost like brothers, sharing the same woman but in entirely different ways. In a fantastic and secret part of Marino's mind, he and Benton were married to Scarpetta-at the same time. Now Marino has exclusive rights to her. But she doesn't long for him, and that repressed anguish adds to his volatility, his upset. A flutter of panic stirs in his stomach and floats up his throat.

Outside in the dark without a cab in sight, Marino lights a cigarette and weakly sits on a brick wall, breathing hard, his heart pounding violently against his ribs like a boxer pounding him, battering him, knocking the wind out of him. Pain shoots through the left side of his chest, terrifying him, and he takes slow, deep, sharp breaths but can't get enough air.

An empty taxicab drives by, seems to drift by, as sweat drips from Marino's face while he sits perfectly still on the wall, eyes wide, hands on his knees. The cigarette drops from his clamped fingers and rolls on cobblestones, stopping in a crack.