I looked around. There was no one else nearby. The street was silent, except for the quiet idling of the car. 2312 was closed again, the soccer mom in another universe behind the drapes.

I walked toward the car. The closer I got, the more the man seemed to lower his gaze.

What the h.e.l.l, I thought. Why wouldn't I get in the car? It's not like they wanted to kill me. Although, my brain offered helpfully, most movie whackings did begin with the obligatory Get in the car. Was I crazy to get in? Was I crazy if I didn't? Frankly, I didn't have anywhere else to go. The interior looked nice. Tan leather seats. It appeared empty--was this all for me? One final question: would the driver karate-chop my neck as I tried to enter the car?

I slipped in. He shut the door behind me.

The windows were more than just tinted, it turned out; they were black. I couldn't see anything. Another amusing feature of this automobile was the absence of door handles on the inside of my doors. The driver sat on the other side of a closed divider. Wherever he was going, I was coming along. All I could do was fix myself a drink at the mobile bar. I sat back and enjoyed the hum of the ride.

By my watch, we stopped an hour and a half later.

The door opened, and I stepped out onto a city block, noisy and bright. A high-rise loomed above me: a gray Art Deco building with flowers and medusas carved into the stone above the first floor of sooty windows. We were in the middle of a long block, and I couldn't read a street sign in either direction. The driver stood back and nodded toward the building's doorway. He lowered his head again, and this seemed like my cue to walk like an important man. Do you know who I am? my stride suggested to the indifferent pedestrians pa.s.sing in both directions. The occasional car enthusiast glanced at my ride.

The doorman waved me in and smiled.

"Mr. Davis?"

"Yes." He said my name like it meant something.

"Twenty-eighth floor, please. They're expecting you."

The elevator actually had an operator. He pulled the door shut and raised the lever. It was a fast ride with no stops. He decelerated to 28 and smiled pleasantly.

"Have a nice evening, sir."

"You too."

Was I supposed to tip? After the new suit, I was pretty sure I had less in my bank account than he did. I'd already decided I couldn't ask my parents for extra money to make it until the spring student loan check. It was bad enough they went into debt to help with my Ivy League tuition. I wasn't going to ask for more.

It occurred to me that I had no idea which room to go to. But at the end of the hall, I saw a door partly opened, with half of a very striking older woman, probably in her sixties, smiling at me.

Her hair was silver-white, cut midway between professional and sensual, swept back behind long ears. She reached up and pulled a few loose strands back with musician's fingers, letting the nails trace along her ear. Her face was aristocratic. She wore a white blouse under a gray suit that clung to her slender, tall figure. As I got close, she said, "Please," and stepped aside to let me in.

They led me to a plush chair in a sitting room, facing a roomful of women, all in their sixties, seventies, and eighties, all remarkable in their elegance. The woman who met me at the door sat last, in a chair directly across from me. There was a quiet power in the room, like a historical gathering of senators' wives, or the near future's a.s.sembly of retired senators. The walls were painted bright red, a shade between scarlet and rose. It was a strange, soothing color, almost pulsatile. The lower halves of the walls were paneled with white wood. I was the only man in the room.

A lady in an ap.r.o.n and bonnet entered, carrying teacups on a silver tray.

"Thank you, Beatrice," the aristocratic woman said. I decided to think of her as Ms. Silver, since actual names seemed to be taboo at these events. Mr. Bones and Ms. Silver. Apparently I was living in a giant game of Clue. She took a cup.

Beatrice held the tray to me.

"Enjoy," Ms. Silver said.

I nodded, and we both sipped.

"So," she said finally, "are you comfortable?"

"Yes, thank you."

"Do you have any questions for us?"

They were messing with me. I was sure of it. I decided to maintain some semblance of control by avoiding the one million obvious questions I wanted to ask.

"What color are the walls?"

She looked slightly surprised.

"Amaranth. Like the poem. 'With these, that never fade, the spirits elect. Bind their resplendent locks.' John Milton." She shrugged.

In retrospect, I felt stupid for asking about paint.

I felt all eyes on me. No one else had spoken yet. There were a lot of women in the room, but a fair number of them were shadowed; I could make out only the lines of their long faces.

I started to fidget.

"Relax." Ms. Silver smiled. "We don't need to rush." Was she channeling Barry White? Slow down, baby, take it easy. I thought: if tonight ends with an orgy of eighty-year-olds, I'm out. You've got to draw the line somewhere.

She sipped her tea. I did the same. We sat in silence for a long time and finished our drinks.

I was growing warm, relaxed.

"How do you feel, Jeremy?" she asked pleasantly. Her voice sounded lighter now, breezy.

"Good," I said. I noticed a pleasant buzzing in my fingers and toes. My voice sounded far away.

"Good," she said, watching me with a slight smile. She swept her hair again, those long, graceful fingers riding along the curve of her ear.

The room was rotating slowly. I heard the whoosh of my pulse.

I laughed.

"What's funny, Jeremy?"

It sounded like three people asked me the question at once.

"I don't know," I said.

"That's okay." She smiled broadly. Her teeth were perfectly white. I liked her so much.

She watched me a little longer. One of the ladies nodded. Ms. Silver leaned back in her chair, draped her slender arms over the armrests, inclined her head.

"Jeremy, we're friends, right?"

"Yes," I said, smiling.

"I have a question for you. You will be honest with me, won't you?" There was a touch of hurt in her voice.

"Of course," I said.

"I'm wondering, have you ever committed a crime?"

I felt a rush of surprise and anger. I opened my mouth to say no.

"Yes," I said.

"Oh dear," she purred. "What did you do?"

"When I was thirteen," I said, "I stole a pair of shoes from the store."

"Oh my. And what else?"

"When I was fifteen, my friends and I cut down a stop sign and took it."

"Hmm. Those aren't so bad. Why don't you tell me more?"

I wanted to close my mouth. I couldn't tell if I did or not. The questions continued. I was sleepy. I drifted in and out of the conversation, but I could hear myself still talking somewhere.

I snapped to when she said, "Jeremy, are you a virgin?" leaning back so her blouse strained against her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

I felt blood rush to my cheeks. I thought No in my head, but my lips formed the word Yes.

Something about my parents, she asked. I nodded off. When I came awake, we were talking about my secrets. Is there something I would be upset about if someone else found out?

Ms. Silver. She was pretty. I kept smiling at her. The other ladies were lost in the shadows. How long had we been here?

"What's your biggest fear?" she asked casually, arching her eyebrows with polite curiosity, stretching those long thin lips into a mildly interested smile.

I heard myself answer. I was already asleep, which was too bad. I really wanted to hear what I said.

Strange dreams: a Chinese dragon, blue-gold with wobbly eyes. A hand with a door in it. The moon, opening to spill its contents.

I woke up with my face on the floor. It felt rough. I was cold. It hurt to move. My eyes opened slowly. I saw dirt, leaves. My mouth was dry, my throat ached. I coughed dust out of my mouth. I tried to move my arms and legs: fire shot up the tracks of my nerves.

I saw sideways trees, felt wind, nothing else.

My head was clearing. I pulled myself up slowly.

I was wearing only underwear.

I rubbed my eyes, shook off the cobwebs. I could see no buildings, just trees to the horizon, yellow and red leaves. I'm in the woods.

After a while, I tried standing up.

Wobbly, but then better.

Pine needles stung my bare feet.

I tried walking heel to toe. Better.

I started off in no particular direction.

My head cleared as I walked. I remembered vague images from the night before: the soccer mom, the limo, a roomful of women. And now I'd been dumped in the middle of the woods, stripped to my underwear.

I'd heard about things like this, back in Texas, actually. In the old days, before lawsuits got rid of the real hazing, fraternities would sometimes strip their pledges down, blindfold them, and drop them alone in the middle of the woods, with only a hunting knife and a quarter. Or so we told each other in high school, since everybody had a friend with an older brother who swore it was true.

Well, I didn't have a knife or a quarter. What kind of a budget operation were they running up here?

And then that old, suspicious thought from Mr. Bones's house popped back into my head. This all seemed too boorish for the V&D. Were they mocking me? Another satire of my roots, like the trailer park bimbo hanging on to Mr. Bones? Or was this just another paranoid chip on my shoulder--too little sleep, too much wacky tea?

I was feeling woozy. Judging by the sun, I'd started walking around eight a.m., and now it was past noon. I hadn't eaten since lunch yesterday.

I saw a highway in the distance and stumbled toward it.

An hour later, I approached a lonely, run-down building on the side of the road.

I pushed the door open and stepped into a filthy room, me and my underwear. A few haggard men were sitting at tables alone, drinking. A couple of bikers talked in the back. They all looked up at me.

The bartender wore an undershirt with grease stains on it.

"Son," he said, "you're in the wrong bar."

That's when I pa.s.sed out on his floor.

15.

In the sunlight, the grand hallway of the law school, its main artery, thrummed with life. Giant shafts of colored light--red, green, and gold--poured in from the vast stained gla.s.s walls spanning both sides of the hallway. Frescoes of Creation and Wisdom adorned the ceilings, powdery yellows and blues paying tribute to the great ceilings of Rome and Florence. Students bustled in every direction, talking and laughing with the energy of a Monday morning in the middle of the warmest November in recent memory. On most days I pa.s.sed through the hallway somewhat anonymously, saying hi to the occasional acquaintance on my way to cla.s.s; but today, the first cla.s.s day after the mock trial, I was the source of my own energy. A buzz seemed to follow me and precede me, to propel me down the hall; people I'd never met stared at me, grinning, nodding, patting me on the back, offering congratulations and the occasional It was great, but why didn't you argue X? I felt like a king coming home from battle.

The journey back from the woods had felt cleansing, like a purification ritual. I had been in the wilderness, but now I was home. The bikers turned out to be great guys. They thought the idea of leaving someone half-naked in the woods was hilarious. They considered adding it to their next initiation. They even decided not to kill me.

I found Daphne sitting at the front of the cla.s.sroom, rereading today's cases. Buoyed by the good spirits, I marched right up to her. I felt confident, empowered. She must have felt it too, it must have projected off me, because she looked up and gave me the most dazzling smile I'd ever received, her skin tan and flushed, bright amaranth lips, black eyelashes above the flawless whites of her eyes, the perfect Caribbean irises.

"Hey there," she said, stretching her arms back over her head. "You look like you had a good weekend."

"I did. And you?"

"I slept all day yesterday. I slept like I hadn't slept in months."

"Me too."