"When I was six years old," Shapiro said, "I discovered the pond at the bottom of the backyard. In the dingle. I'd lie in the ferns at the edge of the scummy water and watch water skimmers, dragonflies hovering over the surface. Underneath the water were shiners, some gold, some silver with blood-red fins, their scales flashing in the sunlight, darters disappearing like fishy magicians under lily pads. Frogs and peepers, the hum of insects, the small sounds of the pond lapping the mud under my chin ... Everything smelled full of life, a dark, rich, bitter, sweet stink I loved. Deep in the weeds, all around me, the sun looked green. I could feel my shirt and shorts wet against my skin, the heat on the back of my neck. On my lids when I turned over and closed my eyes. Everyone must have some heaven in their childhood. That was mine. I began studying pond life: the beetles that looked black until you saw the black was green and purple and red and gold. For my eighth birthday, I got a microscope. Not a fancy one. Through it I could see transparent creatures. I decided all I wanted to do with my life was study biology. Which I did. Until three years ago when I got involved in that lawsuit against Mohawk Electric." Shapiro covered his face with the mask, which grinned horribly at Jack. "Suddenly, no more research. All my work shit-canned. And I'm teaching students who make fun of the subject. They make fun of me."

Jack looked at the mask, which still hid Shapiro's face.

"I'm sorry," Jack said to the grinning mouth, the hooked nose, the eyes blinking deep in the blank sockets.

He lifted his jacket, which he'd slung over the back of his chair.

At the door, Jack stopped at a sepia photograph of a burlesque dancer.

A beautiful woman naked to the waist, her left arm, in a black lace glove that reached her bicep, holding her tousled golden hair in a pile on her head, her gloved right arm bent, her fingers spread just below her breast, her thumb dimpling her side below the shaved hollow of her armpit. She was sitting in white feathers. A lavaliere of sparkling white stones hung between her breasts. Matching pendants sparkled from her long earlobes. Her lips were parted, revealing even, damp, gleaming teeth. Her nose was narrow, slightly snubbed, elegant. Her eyebrows were plucked and arched.

"My grandmother," Shapiro said. "A big star at the Old Howard in Boston. Where my grandfather met her. Right after World War One. He was fifty-something. She was a teenager."

Shapiro picked up a wooden-framed color photograph of an older woman in a peach sweater, cream-colored slacks, and pearls who looked shrunken underneath her big straw hat.

"My grandmother last year at Tanglewood," Shapiro said. "Celebrating her one-hundred-and-third birthday."

He held the recent picture up next to the burlesque picture.

"No stopping time," he said.

3.

The pylons supporting the electrical power lines straddled the hill behind the motel where Stickman's family lived, where Jean Gaynor had lived with Stickman. Before she moved to Rostyn Avenue. The two uprights, with the cross beams reflected in the pale moonlight, looked like the spinal column of some giant, turned to metal by a spell. An Atlas holding up the electrical world. Or a crucifix for an alien martyr with six arms in a lurid Frank Frazetta sci-fi book cover.

"Sorry about your nephew," Jack said to Kipp, who shrugged.

"You surprised?" Kipp asked.

Jack shook his head no.

"This ain't a sympathy call, right," Kipp said.

"Tell me more about the ghost," Jack said.

Kipp sat in a rusty pool chair. The green webbing was frayed. Jack sat in another rusty chair, next to him. Kipp stared into the empty, cracked pool.

"What's to tell?" Kipp said. "She skates through. Singing. They say you found Hussein?"

Jack nodded.

"I helped you out," Kipp said. "Told you where."

Jack leaned to the left side and fished in his right pocket for some folded twenties.

"Don't insult me, man," Kipp said.

"Like you said, you told me where."

"Not the favor I want." Kipp leaned down and pulled up a sock. "You tell the cops how you knew?"

"No."

Kipp sat up, gave Jack a smile.

"That's the favor."

"Who needs the trouble is what I figured," Jack said.

"We got enough trouble," Kipp said. "Kids drive by. Shout things. Throw things. Someday they shoot things, huh?"

"You ever see the ghost?" Jack asked.

"I look like someone sees ghosts?" Kipp asked. "I see the ghost I kick the little pest in the ass, tell her to sing something else for a change."

"How many people have seen the ghost?" he asked.

"People talk," Kipp said. "Say they know somebody who knows somebody who saw something."

Jack looked past Kipp at the pylons.

"You ever get headaches?" Jack asked.

"Everyone gets headaches," Kipp said. "What's your interest in the ghost?"

"Muscle aches?" Jack asked. "Dizziness, ringing in the ears, irregular heartbeat...?"

"What's your point?" Kipp asked.

"You moved in last June?" Jack asked.

"Ringing in the ears," Kipp said, "I guess everyone gets that one time or another."

"Did you have that, ringing in the ears, before you moved in?" Jack asked.

"Who can remember?" Kipp said.

"The electric wires up there," Jack nodded toward the pylons. "Were they here when you moved in?"

Kipp nodded.

"Did Jean complain of headaches, ringing in her ears, muscle aches, dizziness?"

"Like I said, who remembers?"

"It's important," Jack repeated.

"I didn't see her much, you know."

Jack waited.

"What you saying? I get ringing in my ears, headaches, because of the wires?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe means what? Yes?"

"I don't know."

"But you're asking, which means-"

"I don't know."

Slowly, Kipp smiled.

"You think we maybe got a lawsuit?" he asked.

"Jean Gaynor."

"I become a lawyer, maybe that's my first case, huh?"

"Jean-"

"Okay. Okay. You help me, I help you."

"If I find something, I'll let you know."

"Who do we sue?"

"If I find that out, I tell you, too."

"The Great American Dream, huh?"

Jack grinned.

"A scholarship to Harvard, winning the lottery, getting hit by a big corporation's truck, yeah."

Kipp called to some girls on the balcony, "You know Hussein's girl? Who was here? She ever complain about being sick?"

The girls looked at each other. Two giggled.

"Hey," Kipp shouted, "this man wants to know."

"She was always complaining," one of the girls called.

"About what?"

"Everything."

"Smart-ass, I'm asking you."

"She's right," another girl said. "She was always complaining."

"She couldn't sleep," a third girl said.

"You do that much coke," the second girl said, "who sleeps?"

"Kept telling us," the first girl said, "turn down the music."

"What music?" the third girl said. "We don't play any music."

"Maybe she meant the ghost?" the first girl said.

The girls laughed.

"Hey," Kipp called. "You think this is some joke? She's dead. Hussein's dead."

The first girl glanced at the others.

"I don't know," she said. "She was worried about her, you know, monthlies."

"Her period?" Jack asked.

"Always asking if someone has Tampax," the second girl said. "But what's the point? Between her legs, nothing."

"Like the pool," the third girl said. "Dry."

"And cracked," the second girl said.

"And growing moss," the first girl said.

Again, they laughed.

"Headaches," Jack said, "muscle aches, fatigue, dizziness, ringing in the ears, irregular heartbeat, hallucinations-"

"You talking about the ghost?" Kipp said.

"-difficulty in concentration," Jack continued, "and irregular menstruation..."

"We get that from the wires?" Kipp said.

"You do, you get your lawsuit," Jack said.