"I'm not paranoid."

"Mike, I don't have time for this. Do you or don't you?"

He shrugged and loosened his collar.

"Let's just say I'm diversified for all contingencies. Including the total collapse of the U.S. banking system."

"Good . . . Good."

I pushed an envelope across the table to him.

"I want you to keep this somewhere discreet for me. Don't open it. Get it off your hands right away."

"What is it?"

"I can't say. But if something ever happens to me, get it and open it. There's another envelope inside. It's already addressed. If something bad happens, mail it. That's it."

"Jeremy, are you on drugs?"

"Please. Just do this for me. It's important."

He leaned back in his chair and sighed.

"I'm not an idiot, Jer. Whatever you think of me, I didn't get where I am by being stupid. This is insurance, fine, I get it. But you want my help, you gotta tell me what I'm getting into. What is it, gambling debts? Is this mob s.h.i.t? Young f.u.c.king c.o.c.ky lawyers, think they're so smart, get into poker, I've seen it before. That's what you get for going to school so close to Atlantic City. Listen, if you're in trouble, I'll pay off your debts. But it won't be free. You'll pay me back with interest. You have to learn consequences. But at least I won't break your legs, right?"

"Your money can't fix this."

The words came out harsher than I meant. I sounded bitter. I saw his face twitch. His composure came back quickly, but the words hung in the air between us.

"Mike, I need your help. Please."

He blinked a few times and ran a hand through his hair. It was thick but the hairline was definitely receding. I noticed he had the hint of a double chin. This is my brother, I kept thinking to myself. Jesus, he looked like a middle-aged man.

He smiled, but it was weaker, less c.o.c.ky. Strangely enough, I found myself missing the c.o.c.kiness.

"Remember when we used to play at the creek?" he asked me.

"Yeah."

"There was that dog. Belonged to Mr. Reynolds. Remember that?"

"Mean animal," I said.

"He was. Remember the time he was lost, and we found him down in the creek?"

"After a big storm, right? He was pinned down, under a tree."

"You tried to help him."

"I did."

"And what did he do?"

"He bit the s.h.i.t out of my hand."

Mike nodded at the memory.

"I'm gonna help you," he said. "And I'm gonna play it any way you want. You want me to hold this letter in a mystery bank and never read what's inside? Fine. I'll do that for you. You're a smart guy, Jeremy. Smarter than I am. No, don't say anything, I know it's true. I busted my way through. I'm a bull in a china shop, I know. If you think this will fix whatever's out to get you, I believe you. But you have to promise me one thing."

"What?"

"If this package gets them to leave you alone, then you're finished with them, right?"

I didn't say anything.

"That's it. You understand? Get them off your back and go live your life. Is that what you plan to do? Can you promise me that?"

I looked down at my hands.

"I know you," Mike said. "You have rules. Principles. Always have. Well, I have a different philosophy. Look out for number one. Because no one else is going to. You don't understand that, because you've been lucky. You've never had a real problem. Mom and Dad always babied you. I'm sorry to put it like that, but it's true. If I'm gonna help you, you've got to promise me you're not gonna keep messing with these people. You have leave it alone. Live and let live. Okay?"

I took a deep breath.

I thought of Sarah.

We can't let that go. If we do . . .

"I'm trying to help you," he said. "I'm trying to save you from yourself."

"I know, Mike."

"Promise me. Jer, promise me."

I felt my whole life branching, tearing in half. I shook my head.

"I can't."

He closed his eyes. I watched his face. His good looks, a little worn but still there. I could remember the smell of the gra.s.s, playing down in that creek with him, even twenty years later.

"Then I can't help you," Mike said. He slid the envelope back across the table.

"Are you serious?"

He nodded.

"Mike, I need you."

"No. If you won't help yourself, I can't help you."

We stared at each other for a long time. No one flinched.

"I'm sorry," he said, finally.

I nodded.

"I know."

I put the envelope back in my bag and stood up.

"I'll see you," I told him. I started walking away.

He grabbed my arm. He looked like he wanted to say something, but then he let my arm go and turned back to his coffee.

I dropped my packages in the mail, half in random mailboxes I pa.s.sed, half in the Penn Street station. I felt totally, radically free. For the first time in my life, I knew exactly what I had to do, even if I didn't have the slightest idea how I was going to do it.

29.

Miles handed me the phone.

"Dial," he said.

"Who am I supposed to call?"

"Call Nigel."

"Miles, I don't know . . . after what happened . . ."

"Listen to me. You're going to call him."

He told me what to say.

I steadied myself and dialed. The phone rang, but no one answered. I hung up and shook my head.

"Okay," he said to me. "Try again."

"Call Nigel again?"

"No, I want you to call Daphne."

I nearly choked when he said her name. I felt a burning shame that I tried to press down. My last conversation with Daphne involved stealing her purse and some borderline stalking. Not a part of my life I was eager to revisit. Then again, it occurred to me that Daphne--that Daphne--didn't even exist anymore. Miles pushed the receiver into my hand.

I still knew her number from the long weeks of trial prep. I pressed the digits in, lingered over the last one, then felt it depress. I closed my eyes.

"h.e.l.lo," came the milky voice. It set off a firestorm inside me. I tried and failed to ignore the image of her coming out of the shadows outside my room, grabbing me and brushing her lips across mine. I looked at Sarah and encouraged myself to focus.

"h.e.l.lo," I managed.

A pause.

"Jeremy . . . is that you?"

It was disturbing how much power she still had over me. Deep breaths . . .

"Yeah. It's me."

Another pause.

"I was just thinking about you," she purred into the phone. I could picture her, curled up by the window, legs tucked under, her long hair in a ponytail slung over her shoulder; those fire-blue eyes. "I want to see you."

I bet you do.

"Daphne, I need you to listen to me."

"Come on, why talk on the phone? I miss you." Her voice was melodic. "I want to see you."

"Listen to me. The situation has changed."

I repeated Miles's words exactly. We'd protected ourselves. We wanted to meet. No details. No fear. My voice was confident, firm.

This time there was a longer pause on the line. I heard voices in the background. Then Daphne spoke to me. All the purring and silkiness was gone. Her voice was all business now. I listened to what she said and nodded. Miles and Sarah looked on, eyes wide. Apparently, Miles was just as surprised as I was that his words hadn't led to hysterical giggles on Daphne's end. Glad I didn't know that before I'd spoken them. "I understand," I said, and hung up the phone.

I realized I hadn't breathed in a while. I exhaled and rubbed my eyes.

"Well?" Miles said.

"They want to meet us tonight."

"Really? Where?"

I smiled wearily and made a face that said, Where else?

"In my room."

I've never been on the victim's end of a burglary, but I was pretty sure this was how it felt. I hadn't been back to my dorm since coming out the hatch under my bed. Everything was in the exact same place, but it all felt different, foreign and contaminated. My Albert Einstein poster--the one that says "Do not worry about your troubles in mathematics, I a.s.sure you mine are still greater"--used to be cute (a little juvenile for law school, maybe, but a concession to the fact that I never had a college dorm room to decorate with cliched posters). Now Mr. Einstein's face, larger than life on my wall, looked sinister, as if the benign genius in his eyes had slipped into lunacy while I was out. The troll dolls in a line along my desk used to guard my computer; now they struck me more like a druid a.s.sembly, here to hack at our shins with tiny adorable axes.

When we arrived, the door was still locked, but of course I expected to see Daphne waiting for us on my bed anyway. Locked doors had never been a problem before. But the room was empty and eerily silent. The only relief from the darkness was the moon shining through the blinds, splashing old Albert in silver light.

I flipped on the fluorescents, and the shadows vanished and the room became much, much closer to normal. I forced myself to sit in my old chair, a nice leather one that rotated and complemented the Stickley furniture. It felt the same, creaked in all the same places.

Sarah sat on my bed. There was one other chair in the room, wooden, yellow, and surprisingly uncomfortable. I bought it at a thrift store for seven dollars, the last chair from a long-gone kitchen table. Miles tried it, said oomph, and joined Sarah on the bed.