BELOVED WIFE, BELOVED SON.

They had perished within a few hours of each other. Eustace was not told of this until two days later; he was roiling with fever, his mind adrift in psychotic dreams he was glad to have no memory of. The epidemic had cut through the city like a scythe. Who lived and who died seemed random; a healthy adult was as likely to succumb as an infant or someone in their seventies. The illness came on quickly: fever, chills, a cough from deep in the lungs. Often it would seem to run its course only to come roaring back, overwhelming the victim within minutes. Simon had been three years old-a watchful boy with intelligent eyes and a joyful laugh. Never had Eustace felt a love so deep for anyone, not even for Nina. The two of them joked about it-how, by comparison, their affection for each other seemed minor, though of course that wasn't quite true. Loving their boy was just another way of loving each other.

He spent a few minutes by the grave. He liked to focus on little things. Meals they'd shared, snippets of conversation, quick touches traded for no reason, just to do it. He hardly ever thought about the insurgency; it seemed to have no bearing anymore, and Nina's ferocity as a fighter made up but one small part of the woman she was. Her true self was something she had shown only to him.

A feeling of fullness told him it was time to go. So, another year. He touched the stone, letting his hand linger there as he said goodbye, and made way back through the maze of headstones.

"Hey, mister!"

Eustace spun around as a chunk of ice the size of a fist sailed past his head. Three boys, teenagers, stood fifty feet away among the headstones, guffawing like idiots. But when they got a look at him, the laughter abruptly ceased.

"Shit! It's the sheriff!"

They dashed away before Eustace could say a word. It was too bad, really; there was something he wanted to tell them. It's okay, he would have said. I don't mind. He would have been about your age.

When he returned to the jail, Fry Robinson, his deputy, was sitting at the desk with his boots up, snoring into his collar. He was just a kid, really, not even twenty-five, with a wide, optimistic face and a soft round jaw he barely had to shave. Not the smartest but not the dumbest either; he'd stayed on with Eustace longer than most men did, which counted for something. Eustace let the door bang behind himself, sending Fry jolting upright.

"Jesus, Gordo. What the hell did you do that for?"

Eustace strapped on his gun. It was mostly for show; he kept it loaded, but the ammunition the redeyes had left behind was nearly gone, and what remained was unreliable. On more than one occasion, the hammer had fallen on a dud.

"Did you feed Rudy yet?"

"I was just about to before you woke me up. Where'd you go? I thought you were still back there."

"Went to visit Nina and Simon."

Fry gave him a blank stare; then he understood. "Shit, it's the twenty-fourth, isn't it?"

Eustace shrugged. What was there to say?

"I can look after things here if you want," Fry offered. "Why don't you take the rest of the day off?"

"And do what?"

"Sleep or something. Get drunk."

"Believe me, I've thought about it."

Eustace carried Rudy's breakfast back to his cell: a couple of stale biscuits and a raw potato cut into slices.

"Rise and shine, partner."

Rudy lifted his emaciated frame off his bunk. Thieving, fighting, being a general, all-around pain in the ass: the man was in jail so often he actually had a favorite cell. This time the charge was drunk and disorderly. With a lurid snort he excavated a wad of phlegm, hawked it into the bucket that served as a toilet, and shuffled to the bars, beltless pants hoisted in his fist. Maybe I should let him keep his belt next time, Eustace thought. The man might do us all a favor and hang himself. Eustace slid the plate through the slot.

"That's it? Biscuits and a potato?"

"What do you want? It's March."

"The service isn't what it used to be around this place."

"So stay out of trouble for once."

Rudy sat on the bunk and took a bite of one of the biscuits. The man's teeth were disgusting, brown and wobbly-looking, though Eustace was hardly one to talk. Crumbs spurted from his mouth as he spoke. "When's Harold coming?"

Harold was the judge. "How should I know?"

"I need a clean bucket, too."

Eustace was halfway down the hall.

"I'm serious!" Rudy yelled. "It stinks in here!"

Eustace returned to the front and sat behind his desk. Fry was wiping down his revolver, something he did about ten times a day. The thing was like his pet. "What's his problem?"

"Didn't care much for the cuisine."

Fry frowned with contempt. "He should be grateful. I didn't get much more than that myself." He stopped and sniffed the air. "Jesus, what's that smell?"

"Hey, assholes," Rudy yelled from the back, "got a present for you!"

Rudy was standing in his cell holding the now-empty bucket with a triumphant look on his face. Shit and piss were running down the hallway in a brown river.

"This is what I think of your fucking potato."

"Goddamnit," Fry yelled, "you're cleaning this up!"

Eustace turned to his deputy. "Hand me the key."

Fry unhooked the ring from his belt and passed it to Eustace. "I mean it, Rudy." He jabbed a finger in the air. "You're in a heap of trouble, my friend."

Eustace unlocked the door, stepped into the cell, closed the door behind himself, reached with the keys back through the bars, and locked the door again. Then he deposited the ring deep in his pocket.

"What the hell is this?" Rudy asked.

"Gordon?" Fry looked at him cautiously. "What are you doing?"

"Just give me a sec."

Eustace drew his revolver, spun it around in his hand, and slapped the butt across Rudy's face. The man stumbled backward and toppled to the floor.

"Are you out of your mind?" Rudy scrabbled backward until he was against the wall of the cell. He worked his tongue around and spat a bloodied tooth into his palm. He held it up by its long, rotten root. "Look at this! How am I supposed to eat now?"

"I doubt you'll miss it much."

"You had that coming, you piece of shit," Fry said. "Come on, Gordo, let's get this asshole a mop. I think he's learned his lesson."

Eustace didn't think so. Teach the man a lesson-what did that actually mean? He wasn't sure what he was feeling, but it was coming to him. Rudy was holding out his tooth with a look of righteous indignation on his face. The sight of it was thoroughly disgusting; it seemed to encapsulate everything wrong with Eustace's life. He reholstered his gun, letting Rudy think the worst was over, then hauled him to his feet and slammed his face against the wall. A damp crunch, like a fat cockroach popping underfoot: Rudy released a howl of pain.

"Gordon, seriously," Fry said. "Time to open that door."

Eustace wasn't angry. Anger had left him, years ago. What he felt was relief. He hurled the man across the cell and got to work: his fists, the butt of the revolver, the points of his boots. Fry's pleas for him to stop barely registered in his consciousness. Something had come uncorked inside him, and it was elating, like riding a horse at full gallop. Rudy was lying on the floor, his face protectively buried in his arms. You pathetic excuse for a human being. You worthless waste of skin. You are everything that's wrong with this place, and I am going to make you know it.

He was in the process of lifting Rudy by his collar to slam his head against the edge of the bunk-what a satisfying crack that was going to make-when a key turned in the lock and Fry grabbed him from behind. Eustace connected with an elbow to Fry's midriff, knocking him away, and wrapped Rudy's neck in the crook of his arm. The man was like a big rag doll, a fleshy sack of loosely organized parts. He tightened his biceps against Rudy's windpipe and shoved his knee into his back for leverage. One hard yank and that would be the end of him.

Then: snowflakes. Fry was standing over him, heaving for breath, holding the fire poker he'd just used on Eustace's head.

"Jesus, Gordo. What the hell was that?"

Eustace blinked his eyes; the snowflakes winked out one by one. His head felt like a split log; he was a little sick to his stomach, too.

"Got a little carried away, I guess."

"It wasn't like the guy didn't deserve it, but what the fuck."

Eustace turned his head to get a look at the situation. Rudy was curled into a fetal ball with his hands jammed between his legs. His face looked like raw meat.

"I really did a number on him, didn't I?"

"The man never traded on his looks anyway." Fry directed his voice at Rudy. "You hear me? You breathe one word of this, they're going to find you in a ditch, you asshole." Fry looked at Eustace. "Sorry, I didn't mean to hit you so hard."

"That's okay."

"Don't mean to rush you, but it's probably best if you vacate the premises for the time being. Think you can stand?"

"What about Harold?"

"I'll handle it. Let's get you on your feet."

Fry helped him up. Eustace had to hold on to the bars for a second to make the floor feel solid. The knuckles of his right hand were bloody and swollen, skin split along the bone. He tried to close it into a fist, but the joints wouldn't go that far.

"Okay?" Fry was looking at him.

"I think so, yeah."

"Just go clear your head. You might want to take care of that hand, too."

At the door of the cell, Eustace stopped. Fry was easing Rudy into a seated position. His shirt was a bib of blood.

"You know, you were right," Eustace said.

Fry glanced up. "How's that?"

Eustace didn't feel sorry about what he'd done, though he supposed he might later on. A lot of things were like that; the reaction you were supposed to have took its time getting there.

"Maybe I should have taken the day off after all."

31.

Alicia began to spend her nights in the stable.

Fanning took little notice of her absence. That horse of yours, he might comment, barely lifting his eyes from one of the books that now completely occupied his waking hours. I don't see why you feel the need, but it's really none of my business. His mind seemed distant, his thoughts veiled. Yes, he was different; something had shifted. The change felt tectonic, a rumbling from deep in the earth. He wasn't sleeping, there was that-if indeed their kind could be said to sleep. In the past, the daylight hours had brought forth in him a kind of melancholy exhaustion. He would fade into a trancelike state-eyes closed, hands folded in his lap with his fingers tidily meshed. Alicia knew his dreams. The clocks' hands remorseless turning. The anonymous crowds streaming past. His was a nightmare of infinite waiting in a universe barren of pity-without hope, without love, without the purpose that only hope and love could bear upon it.

She had a dream like that of her own. Her baby. Her Rose.

She sometimes thought about the past. "New York," Fanning liked to say, "has always been a place of memory." She missed her friends as the dead might miss the living, citizens of a realm she had permanently departed. What did Alicia remember? The Colonel. Being a little girl in the dark. Her years on the Watch, how true they felt. There was a night that came back to her often; it seemed to define something. She had taken Peter up to the roof of the power station to show him the stars. Side by side they had lain on the concrete, still warm with the day's crushing heat, the two of them just talking, beneath a night sky made more remarkable by the fact that Peter had never seen it before. It brought them out of themselves. Have you ever thought about it? Alicia had asked him. Thought about what? he'd asked; and she'd said, nervously-she couldn't seem to stop herself-You're going to make me say it? Pairing, Peter. Having Littles. She understood, much later, what she was really asking of him: to save her, to lead her into life. But it was too late; it had always been too late. Since the night the Colonel had abandoned her, Alicia hadn't really been a person anymore; she had given it up.

So, the years. Fanning said time was different for their kind, and it was. The days' ceaselessly melding, season into season, year into year. What were they to each other? He was kind. He understood her. We have traveled the same road, he said. Stay with me, Lish. Stay with me, and all of it is ended. Did she believe him? There were times when he seemed to know the deepest truths of her. What to say, what to ask, when to listen and for how long. Tell me about her. How soft his voice was, how gentle. It was like no voice she had ever heard; it felt like floating in a bath of tears. Tell me about your Rose.

Yet there was another part of him, veiled, impenetrable. His long, brooding silences disturbed her, as did instances of a slightly off-key cheerfulness that seemed wholly manufactured. He began to venture out at night, something he had not done in years. He made no announcement; he would simply be gone. Alicia decided to follow him. For three nights he wandered without apparent destination, a forlorn figure haunting the streets; then, on the fourth night, he surprised her. With deliberate strides he made his way downtown, into the West Village, and halted before a nondescript residential building, five stories tall, with a flight of steps connecting the front door to the street. Alicia concealed herself behind a rooftop parapet at the top of the block. Several minutes passed, Fanning studying the building's face. Suddenly it came to her: Fanning had lived here once. Something seemed to click inside him, and he marched up to the door, forced it with his shoulder, and disappeared inside.

He was gone for a long while. An hour, then two. Alicia began to be concerned. Unless Fanning appeared soon, there would not be time for him to return to the station before sunrise. Finally he emerged. At the bottom of the steps, he stopped. As if sensing her presence, he cast his eyes around the street, then looked straight toward her. Alicia ducked below the parapet and pressed her body to the rooftop.

"I know you're there, Alicia. But it's all right."

When she looked again, the street was empty.

He made no mention of the night's events, and Alicia did not press. She had glimpsed something, a clue, but its meaning eluded her. Why, after all this time, would he make such a pilgrimage?

He never left again.

What was going to happen next, Fanning must have anticipated; Alicia was obviously meant to do it. The building was a wreck on the inside. Black spatters of mold scaled the walls, and the floors were soft underfoot. In the stairwell, water dripped from a leak in the ceiling, high above. She ascended to the second floor, where a door stood open in invitation. The interior of the apartment had been largely spared the destruction. The furniture, though caked with dust, was all neatly arranged; books and magazines and various decorative objects still occupied their places, just as, Alicia supposed, they had been in the final hours of Fanning's human life. As she moved through the fastidious rooms she became aware of what she was feeling. Fanning wanted her to know the man he'd been. A new, deeper intimacy had been offered her.

She entered the bedroom. It seemed different from the other spaces of the apartment, possessing an intangible sense of more recent occupation. The furniture was simple: a desk, a dresser, an upholstered chair by the window, a bed, neatly made. Bisecting the center of the mattress was a depression of distinctly human dimensions. A similar divot marked the pillow.

A pair of eyeglasses rested on the bedside table. Alicia knew whom they'd belonged to; they were part of the story. She gently picked them up. They were petite, with wire frames. The cratered bed, the linens, the glasses within reach. Fanning had lain here. And he had left all of this for her to see.

To see, she thought. What did he want her to see?

She lay on the bed. The mattress was formless beneath her, its internal structure long collapsed. Then she put on the glasses.

She could never explain it; the moment she had looked through the lenses, it was as if she had become him. The past poured through her, the pain. The truth hit her heart like voltage. Of course. Of course.

Daybreak found her at the bridge. Her fear of the churning waters, though strong, seemed trivial; she pushed it aside. The sun cast its long, golden rays behind her. Upon Soldier's back she made her way across, following her shadow.

32.