"Let me ask you something," Piasecki said. "How old are you?"

"Forty-five," Kendall said.

"You want to be an editor at a small-time place like Great Experiment the rest of your life?"

"I don't want to do anything for the rest of my life," Kendall said, smiling.

"Jimmy doesn't give you health care, does he?"

"No," Kendall allowed.

"All the money he's got and you and me are both freelance. And you think he's some kind of social crusader."

"My wife thinks that's terrible, too."

"Your wife is smart," Piasecki said, nodding with approval. "Maybe I should be talking to her."

The train out to Oak Park was stuffy, grim, almost penal in its deprivation. It rattled on the tracks, its lights flickering. During moments of illumination Kendall read his Tocqueville. "The ruin of these tribes began from the day when Europeans landed on their sh.o.r.es; it has proceeded ever since, and we are now witnessing its completion." With a jolt, the train reached the bridge and began crossing the river. On the opposite sh.o.r.e, gla.s.s-and-steel structures of breathtaking design were cantilevered over the water, all aglow. "Those coasts, so admirably adapted for commerce and industry; those wide and deep rivers; that inexhaustible valley of the Mississippi; the whole continent, in short, seemed prepared to be the abode of a great nation yet unborn."

His cell phone rang and he answered it. It was Piasecki, calling from the street on his way home.

"You know what we were just talking about?" Piasecki said. "Well, I'm drunk."

"So am I," Kendall said. "Don't worry about it."

"I'm drunk," Piasecki repeated, "but I'm serious."

Kendall had never expected to be as rich as his parents, but he'd never imagined that he would earn so little or that it would bother him so much. After five years working for Great Experiment, he and his wife, Stephanie, had saved just enough money to buy a big fixer-upper in Oak Park, without being able to fix it up.

Shabby living conditions wouldn't have bothered Kendall in the old days. He'd liked the converted barns and under-heated garage apartments Stephanie and he had lived in before they were married, and he liked the just appreciably nicer apartments in questionable neighborhoods they lived in after they were married. His sense of their marriage as countercultural, an artistic alliance committed to the support of vinyl records and Midwestern literary quarterlies, had persisted even after Max and Eleanor were born. Hadn't the Brazilian hammock as diaper table been an inspired idea? And the poster of Beck gazing down over the crib, covering the hole in the wall?

Kendall had never wanted to live like his parents. That had been the whole idea, the lofty rationale behind the snow-globe collection and the flea-market eyewear. But as the children got older, Kendall began to compare their childhood unfavorably with his own, and to feel guilty.

From the street, as he approached under the dark, dripping trees, his house looked impressive enough. The lawn was ample. Two stone urns flanked the front steps, leading up to a wide porch. Except for paint peeling under the eaves, the exterior looked fine. It was with the interior that the trouble began. In fact, the trouble began with the word itself: interior. Stephanie liked to use it. The design magazines she consulted were full of it. One was even called it: Interiors. But Kendall had his doubts as to whether their home achieved an authentic state of interiority. For instance, the outside was always breaking in. Rain leaked through the master-bathroom ceiling. The sewers flooded up through the bas.e.m.e.nt drain.

Across the street, a Range Rover was double-parked, its tailpipe fuming. As he pa.s.sed, Kendall gave the person at the wheel a dirty look. He expected a businessman or a stylish suburban wife. But sitting in the front seat was a frumpy, middle-aged woman, wearing a Wisconsin sweatshirt, talking on her cell phone.

Kendall's hatred of S.U.V.s didn't keep him from knowing the base price of a Range Rover: seventy-five thousand dollars. From the official Range Rover Web site, where a husband up late at night could build his own vehicle, Kendall also knew that choosing the "Luxury Package" (preferably cashmere upholstery with navy piping and burled-walnut dash) brought the price tag up to eighty-two thousand dollars. This was an unthinkable, a t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e-withering sum. And yet, pulling into the driveway next to Kendall's was another Range Rover, this belonging to his neighbor Bill Ferret. Bill did something relating to software; he devised it, or marketed it. At a back-yard barbecue the previous summer, Kendall had listened with a serious face as Bill explained his profession. Kendall specialized in a serious face. This was the face he'd trained on his high-school and college teachers from his seat in the first row: the ever-alert, A-student face. Still, despite his apparent attentiveness, Kendall didn't remember what Bill had told him about his job. There was a software company in Canada named Waxman, and Bill had shares in Waxman, or Waxman had shares in Bill's company, Duplicate, and either Waxman or Duplicate was thinking of "going public," which apparently was a good thing to do, except that Bill had just started a third software company, Triplicate, and so Waxman, or Duplicate, or maybe both, had forced him to sign a "non-compete," which would last a year.

Munching his hamburger, Kendall had understood that this was how people spoke, out in the world-in the real world he himself lived in, though, paradoxically, had yet to enter. In this real world, there were things like custom software and ownership percentages and Machiavellian corporate struggles, all of which resulted in the ability to drive a heartbreakingly beautiful forest-green Range Rover up your own paved drive.

Maybe Kendall wasn't so smart.

He went up his front walk and into the house, where he found Stephanie in the kitchen, next to the open, glowing stove.

"Don't get mad," she said. "It's only been on a few minutes."

Stephanie wore her hair in the same comp-lit pageboy she'd had the day they met, twenty-two years earlier, in an H.D. seminar. In college, Kendall had had a troubling habit of falling in love with lesbians. So imagine his relief, his utter joy, when he learned that Stephanie wasn't a lesbian but only looked like one.

She'd dumped the day's mail on the kitchen table and was flipping through an architecture magazine.

"How's this for our kitchen?" Stephanie said.

Kendall bent to look. It didn't cost anything to look. An old house, like theirs, had been expanded by ripping off the rear wall and replacing it with a Bauhaus extension.

Kendall asked, "Where are the kids?"

"Max is at Sam's," Stephanie said. "Eleanor says it's too cold here. So she's sleeping over at Olivia's."

"Sixty-five isn't that cold," Kendall said emphatically.

"If you're here all day, it is."

Instead of replying, Kendall opened the refrigerator and stared in. There were bottles and cartons, most nearly empty. There was something greenish black in a produce bag.

"Piasecki said something interesting to me today," Kendall said.

"Piasecki who?"

"Piasecki the accountant. From work." Kendall poked the greenish-black thing with his forefinger. "Piasecki said it's unbelievable that Jimmy doesn't give me any health insurance."

"I've told you that," Stephanie said.

"Piasecki agrees with you."

Stephanie raised her eyes. "What are you looking for in there?"

"All we have are sauces," Kendall said. "What are all these sauces for? They wouldn't be to put on food, would they? Because we have no food."

Stephanie had gone back to flipping through her magazine. "If we didn't have to pay for our own health insurance," she said, "we might have some money for renovations."

"Or we could waste heat," Kendall said. "Eleanor would like that. What temperature do Olivia's parents keep their house at?"

"Not sixty-five," Stephanie said.

"I've got my head in the refrigerator and it's not even that cold," Kendall said.

Abruptly, he straightened up and slammed the refrigerator door. He sighed once, satisfyingly, and headed out of the room and up the front stairs.

He came down the hall into the master bedroom. And here he stopped again.

He wondered if Alexis de Tocqueville had ever envisaged a scene like this. An American bedroom quite like this.

It wasn't the only master bedroom of its kind in Chicago. Across the country, the master bedrooms of more and more two-salaried, stressed-out couples were taking on the bear-den atmosphere of Kendall and Stephanie's bedroom. In this suburban cave, this commuter-town hollow, two large, hirsute mammals had recently hibernated. Or were hibernating still. That twisted ma.s.s of bedsheet was where they slept. The saliva stains on the denuded pillows were evidence of a long winter spent drooling and dreaming. The socks and underpants scattered on the floor resembled the skins of rodents recently consumed.

In the far corner of the room was a hillock rising three feet in the air. This was the family wash. They'd used a hamper for a while and, for a while, the kids had dutifully tossed their dirty clothes in. But the hamper soon overflowed and the family had begun tossing their dirty clothes in its general direction. The hamper could still be there, for all Kendall knew, buried beneath the pyramid of laundry.

How had it happened in one generation? His parents' bedroom had never looked like this. Kendall's father had a dresser full of folded laundry, a closet full of tailored suits, and, every night, a neat, clean bed to climb into. Nowadays, if Kendall wanted to live as his own father had lived, he was going to have to hire a cleaning lady and a seamstress and a social secretary. He was going to have to hire a wife. Wouldn't that be great? Stephanie could use one, too. Everybody needed a wife, and no one had one anymore.

But to hire a wife Kendall needed to make more money. The alternative was to live as he did, in middle-cla.s.s squalor, in married bachelorhood.

Like most honest people, Kendall sometimes fantasized about committing a crime. In the following days, however, he found himself indulging in criminal fantasies to a criminal extent. How did one embezzle if one wanted to embezzle well? What kind of mistakes did the rank amateurs make? How could you get caught and what were the penalties?

Quite amazing, to an embezzler-fantasist, was how instructive the daily newspapers were. Not only the lurid Chicago Sun-Times, with its stories of gambling-addicted accountants and Irish "minority" trucking companies. Much more instructive were the business pages of the Tribune or the Times. Here you found the pension-fund manager who'd siphoned off five million, or the Korean-American hedge-fund genius who vanished with a quarter billion of Palm Beach retiree money and who turned out to be a Mexican guy named Lopez. Turn the page to read about the Boeing executive sentenced to four months in jail for rigging contracts with the Air Force. The malfeasance of Bernie Ebbers and Dennis Kozlowski claimed the front page, but it was the short articles on A21 or C15 detailing the quieter frauds, the scam artists working in subtler pigments, in found objects, that showed Kendall the extent of the national deceit.

At the Coq d'Or the next Friday, Piasecki said, "You know the mistake most people make?"

"What?"

"They buy a beach house. Or a Porsche. They red-flag themselves. They can't resist."

"They lack discipline," Kendall said.

"Right."

"No moral fibre."

"Exactly."

Wasn't scheming the way America worked? The real America that Kendall, with his nose stuck in "Rhyme's Reason," had failed to notice? How far apart were the doings of these minor corporate embezzlers from the accounting fraud at Enron? And what about all the business people who were clever enough not to get caught, who wriggled free from blame? The example set on high wasn't one of probity and full disclosure. It was anything but.

When Kendall was growing up, American politicians denied that the United Stales was an empire. But they weren't doing that anymore. They'd given up. Everyone knew about the empire now. Everyone was pleased.

And in the streets of Chicago, as in the streets of L.A., New York, Houston, and Oakland, the message was making itself known. A few weeks back, Kendall had seen the movie "Patton" on TV. He'd been reminded that the general had been severely punished for slapping a soldier. Whereas now Rumsfeld ran free from responsibility for Abu Ghraib. Even the President, who'd lied about W.M.D., had been reelected. In the streets, people took the point. Victory was what counted, power, muscularity, doublespeak if necessary. You saw it in the way people drove, in the way they cut you off, gave you the finger, cursed. Women and men alike, showing rage and toughness. Everyone knew what he wanted and how to get it. Everybody you met was n.o.body's fool.

One's country was like one's self. The more you learned about it, the more you were ashamed of.

Then again, it wasn't pure torture, living in the plutocracy. Jimmy was still out in Montecito, and every weekday Kendall had the run of his place. There were serf-like doormen, invisible porters who hauled out the trash, a squad of Polish maids who came Wednesday and Friday mornings to pick up after Kendall and scrub the toilet in the Moorish bathroom and tidy up the sunny kitchen where he ate his lunch. The co-op was a duplex. Kendall worked on the second floor. Downstairs was Jimmy's "Jade Room," where he kept his collection of Chinese jade in museum-quality display cases. The carvings were made from single pieces of jade and were usually of horses' heads, enfolded upon themselves. Jimmy kept what he couldn't show off in specially built, curatorial drawers. (If you had criminality in mind, a good place to start would be the Jade Room.) In his office, when Kendall looked up from his Tocqueville, he could see the opalescent lake spreading out in all directions. The surround of water at this alt.i.tude made for a fish-tank sensation. Water, water, everywhere. The curious emptiness Chicago confronted, the way it just dropped off into nothing, especially at sunset or in the fog, this void was responsible for all the activity. The land had been waiting to be exploited. These sh.o.r.es so suited to industry and commerce had raised a thousand factories. The factories had sent vehicles of steel throughout the world, and now these vehicles, in armored form, were clashing for control of the petroleum that powered the whole operation.

The phone rang. It was Jimmy, calling from Montecito.

"h.e.l.lo, Jimmy, how are you?"

"Not bad," Jimmy said. "It's only three in the afternoon and I've already had my c.o.c.k out three times."

One nice thing about being obscenely rich was the liberty it afforded you to utter sentences such as this. But Jimmy's impropriety predated his money. It was the reason for his money.

"Sounds like retirement agrees with you," Kendall said.

"What are you talking about?" Jimmy said, laughing. "I'm not retired. I've got more going on now than when I was thirty. Speaking of which, I'm returning your call. What's up, kiddo?"

"Right," Kendall said, gearing up. "I've been running the house for six years now and I think you've been happy with my work."

"I have been," Jimmy said. "No complaints."

"So I was wondering, given my tenure here, and my performance, if it might be possible to work out some kind of health-insurance coverage."

"Can't do it," Jimmy answered abruptly. The suddenness with which he spoke suggested he was defending himself against his feelings. "That was never part of your package. I'm running a nonprofit here, kiddo. Piasecki just sent me the statements. We're in the red this year. We're in the red every year. All these books we publish, important, foundational, patriotic books-truly patriotic books-and n.o.body buys them! The people in this country are asleep! We've got an entire nation on Ambien. Sandman Rove is blowing dust in everybody's eyes."

He went off on a tear, anathematizing Bush and Wolfowitz and Perle, but then he must have felt bad about avoiding the subject at hand because he came back to it, softening his tone. "Listen, I know you've got a family. You've got to do what's best for you. If you wanted to test your value out in the marketplace, I'd understand. I'd hate to lose you, Kendall, but I'd understand if you have to move on."

There was silence on the line.

Jimmy said, "You think about it." He cleared his throat. "So, tell me. How's 'The Pocket Democracy' coming?"

Kendall wished he could remain businesslike, professional. He tried his best to keep bitterness out of his voice. He'd been a pouter as a kid, however, and the pleasures of pouting were still enticing.

He said nothing.

"When do you think you'll have something to show me?" Jimmy asked.

"No idea."

"What was that?"

"I've got no answer at the moment," Kendall said.

"I'm running a business, Kendall," Jimmy said before hanging up. "I'm sorry."

The sun was setting. The water reflected the gray-blue of the darkening sky, and the lights of the water-pumping stations had come on, making them look like a line of floating gazebos. Kendall's mood had dimmed, too. He slumped in his office chair, the Xeroxed pages of "Democracy in America" spread out around him. His left temple throbbed. He winced and, rubbing his forehead, looked down at the page in front of him:

I do not mean that there is any lack of wealthy individuals in the United Stales; I know of no country, indeed, where the love of money has taken stronger hold on the affections of men and where a profounder contempt is expressed for the theory of the permanent equality of property. But wealth circulates with inconceivable rapidity, and experience shows that it is rare to find two succeeding generations in the full enjoyment of it.

He swivelled in his chair and violently grabbed the phone off its hook. He stabbed out the number and after a single ring Piasecki answered. Kendall told Piasecki to meet him at the Coq d'Or.

This was how you did it. This was taking action. In an instant, everything could change.

At the Coq d'Or, they sat in their usual booth in the back room. Kendall stared across the table at Piasecki and said, "About that idea you had the other day."

Piasecki gave Kendall a sideways look, suspicious. "You serious or you just playing around?"

"I'm curious," Kendall said.

"Don't f.u.c.k with me," Piasecki cautioned.

"I'm not." Kendall was blinking rapidly. "I was just wondering how it would work. Technically speaking." Piasecki leaned closer to Kendall and lowered his voice. "I never said what I'm about to say, O.K.?"

"O.K."

"If you do something like this, what you do is you set up a dummy company. You create invoices from this company, O.K.? Great Experiment pays these invoices. After a few years, you close the account and liquidate the company."