When he took his hand off my shoulder, I a.s.sumed that he would settle on the floor, cross-legged Indian style, as I was sitting, and evidently he did. He faced me in the dark, which I knew when he reached out and gripped my hands.

If he couldn't have his life back, he wanted rea.s.surance. He did not have to speak to convey to me what he needed.

'I'll do my best for Danny,' I said too softly to be heard beyond the pantry.

I did not intend my words to be taken as a guarantee. I haven't earned that level of confidence from anyone.

'The hard truth is,' I continued, 'my best might not be good enough. It hasn't always been enough before.'

His grip on my hands tightened.

My regard for him was such that I wanted to encourage him to let go of this world and accept the grace that death offered him.

'Sir, everyone knows you were a good husband to Carol. But they might not realize just how very good a father you were to Danny.'

The longer a liberated spirit lingers, the more likely he will get stuck here.

'You were so kind to take on a seven-year-old with such medical problems. And you always made him feel that you were proud of him, proud of how he suffered without complaint, his courage.'

By virtue of the way that he had lived, Dr. Jessup had no reason to fear moving on. Remaining here, on the other hand-a mute observer incapable of affecting events-guaranteed his misery.

'He loves you, Dr. Jessup. He thinks of you as his real father, his only father.'

I was thankful for the absolute darkness and for his ghostly silence. By now I should be somewhat armored against the grief of others and against the piercing regret of those who meet untimely deaths and must leave without good-byes, yet year by year I become more vulnerable to both.

'You know how Danny is,' I continued. 'A tough little customer. Always the wisecrack. But I know what he really feels. And surely you know what you meant to Carol. She seemed to shine shine with love for you.' with love for you.'

For a while I matched his silence. If you push them too hard, they clutch up, even panic.

In that condition, they can no longer see the way from here to there, the bridge, the door, whatever it is.

I gave him time to absorb what I'd said. Then: 'You've done so much of what you were put here to do, and you did it well, you got it right. That's all we can expect-the chance to get it right.'

After another mutual silence, he let go of my hands.

Just as I lost touch with Dr. Jessup, the pantry door opened. Kitchen light dissolved the darkness, and Chief Wyatt Porter loomed over me.

He is big, round-shouldered, with a long face. People who can't read the chief's true nature in his eyes might think he's steeped in sadness.

As I got to my feet, I realized that the residual effects of the Taser had not entirely worn off. Phantom electrical sounds sizzled inside my head again.

Dr. Jessup had departed. Maybe he had gone on to the next world. Maybe he had returned to haunting the front yard.

'How do you feel?' the chief asked, stepping back from the pantry.

'Fried.'

'Tasers don't do real harm.'

'You smell burnt hair?'

'No. Was it Makepeace?'

'Not him,' I said, moving into the kitchen. 'Some snaky guy. You find Danny?'

'He's not here.'

'I didn't think so.'

'The way's clear. Go to the alley.'

'I'll go to the alley,' I said.

'Wait at the tree of death.'

'I'll wait at the tree of death.'

'Son, are you all right?'

'My tongue itches.'

'You can scratch it while you wait for me.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'Odd?'

'Sir?'

'Go.'

SIX.

THE TREE OF DEATH STANDS ACROSS THE ALLEY AND down the block from the Jessup place, in the backyard of the Ying residence.

In the summer and autumn, the thirty-five-foot brugmansia is festooned with pendant yellow trumpet flowers. At times, more than a hundred blooms, perhaps two hundred, each ten to twelve inches long, depend from its branches.

Mr. Ying enjoys lecturing on the deadly nature of the lovely brugmansia. Every part of the tree-roots, wood, bark, leaves, calyxes, flowers-is toxic.

One shred of its foliage will induce bleeding from the nose, bleeding from the ears, bleeding from the eyes, and explosive terminal diarrhea. Within a minute, your teeth will fall out, your tongue will turn black, and your brain will begin to liquefy.

Perhaps that is an exaggeration. When Mr. Ying first told me about the tree, I was a boy of eight, and that is the impression I got from his disquisition on brugmansia poisoning.

Why Mr. Ying-and his wife as well-should take such pride in having planted and grown the tree of death, I do not know.

Ernie and Pooka Ying are Asian Americans, but there's nothing in the least Fu Manchu about them. They're too amiable to devote any time whatsoever to evil scientific experiments in a vast secret laboratory carved out of the bedrock deep beneath their house.

Even if they have developed the capability to destroy the world, I for one cannot picture anyone named Pooka pulling the go lever on a doomsday machine.

The Yings attend Ma.s.s at St. Bartholomew's. He's a member of the Knights of Columbus. She donates ten hours each week to the church thrift shop.

The Yings go to the movies a lot, and Ernie is notoriously sentimental, weeping during the death scenes, the love scenes, the patriotic scenes. He once even wept when Bruce Willis was unexpectedly shot in the arm.

Yet year after year, through three decades of marriage, while they adopted and raised two orphans, they diligently fertilized the tree of death, watered it, pruned it, sprayed it to ward off spider mite and whitefly. They replaced their back porch with a much larger redwood deck, which they furnished to provide numerous viewpoints where they can sit together at breakfast or during a warm desert evening, admiring this magnificent lethal work of nature.

Wishing to avoid being seen by the authorities who would be going to and coming from the Jessup house during the remaining hours of the night, I stepped through the gate in the picket fence at the back of the Ying property. Because taking a seat on the deck without invitation seemed to be ill-mannered, I sat in the yard, under the brugmansia.

The eight-year-old in me wondered if the gra.s.s could have absorbed poison from the tree. If sufficiently potent, the toxin might pa.s.s through the seat of my jeans.

My cell phone rang.

'h.e.l.lo?'

A woman said, 'Hi.'

'Who's this?'

'Me.'

'I think you have the wrong number.'

'You do?'

'Yes, I think so.'

'I'm disappointed,' she said.

'It happens.'

'You know the first rule?'

'Like I said-'

'You come alone,' she interjected.

'-you've got a wrong number.'

'I'm so so disappointed in you.' disappointed in you.'

'In me?' I asked.

'Very much so.'

'For being a wrong number?'

'This is pathetic,' she said, and terminated the call.

The woman's caller ID was blocked. No number had appeared on my screen.

The telecom revolution does not always facilitate communication.

I stared at the phone, waiting for her to misdial again, but it didn't ring. I flipped it shut.

The wind seemed to have swirled down a drain in the floor of the desert.

Beyond the motionless limbs of the brugmansia, which were leafy but flowerless until late spring, in the high vault of the night, the stars were sterling-bright, the moon a tarnished silver.

When I checked my wrist.w.a.tch, I was surprised to see 3:17 a.m. Only thirty-six minutes had pa.s.sed since I had awakened to find Dr. Jessup in my bedroom.

I had lost all awareness of the hour and had a.s.sumed that dawn must be drawing near. Fifty thousand volts might have messed with my watch, but it had messed more effectively with my sense of time.

If the tree branches had not embraced so much of the sky, I would have tried to find Ca.s.siopeia, a constellation with special meaning for me. In cla.s.sic mythology, Ca.s.siopeia was the mother of Andromeda.

Another Ca.s.siopeia, this one no myth, was the mother of a daughter whom she named Bronwen. And Bronwen is the finest person I have ever known, or ever will.

When the constellation of Ca.s.siopeia is in this hemisphere and I am able to identify it, I feel less alone.

This isn't a reasoned response to a configuration of stars, but the heart cannot flourish on logic alone. Unreason is an essential medicine as long as you do not overdose.

In the alley, a police car pulled up at the gate. The headlights were doused.

I rose from the yard under the tree of death, and if my b.u.t.tocks had been poisoned, at least they hadn't yet fallen off.

When I got into the front pa.s.senger's seat and pulled the door shut, Chief Porter said, 'How's your tongue?'

'Sir?'

'Still itch?'

'Oh. No. It stopped. I hadn't noticed.'

'This would work better if you took the wheel, wouldn't it?'

'Yeah. But that would be hard to explain, this being a police car and me being just a fry cook.'

As we drifted along the alleyway, the chief switched on the headlights and said, 'What if I cruise where I want, and when you feel I should turn left or right, you tell me.'

'Let's try it.' Because he had switched off the police radio, I said, 'Won't they be wanting to reach you?'

'Back there at the Jessup house? That's all aftermath. The science boys are better at that than I am. Tell me about the guy with the Taser.'