she says. ‘I’ll see that he gets them.’
‘So,’ says the bigger one, standing up. Together the men seem to fill the room. ‘I guess that’s it.’
Lottie rises too.
‘When you see him, have him call the station, if you would,’ the bigger man says. ‘He can ask for me or’ – he gestures – ‘my partner here.’
Lottie walks behind them to the front door, feeling suddenly small and childish in the wake of their creaking, jingling bulk. They smell of cigarettes, of leather. She feels a peculiar relief
when she closes the door after them.
She returns to the living room and pushes the chairs back where they were. She stands alone in the middle of the room, watching the men out on the street. They laugh at something over the roof
of the car as they open its doors.
When they have driven off, she picks up the wallet from the threadbare arm of her mother’s chair. She hesitates for only a moment before she opens it. There’s about fifty dollars in
cash, and some ATM slips – his checking account has seven hundred dollars, his savings account three thousand. More, actually, than Lottie would have thought. He has a license, a MasterCard
and a Visa, a card for an HMO. He has business cards from another used-book dealer, in Fall River, and from an interior decorator in New York. This seems odd for a moment, but then Lottie remembers
that he sometimes sells whole libraries of beautifully bound books to people who are furnishing elegant studies, who want that cultured, Ralph Lauren look. There are several other scraps of paper
with names and addresses on them, but nothing that suggests anything to Lottie about where he might have gone or what he might be doing.
Distraught
, the policeman said. A clear picture of him in his bathroom, cutting himself, rises quickly in her mind. Lottie winces and immediately dismisses it; but she also decides, at
that moment, to go over to his place. Maybe he’s there, just not answering the telephone; maybe he’s asleep. Lottie feels she needs to know, one way or another.
She goes upstairs to get her purse. When she comes back down, she stands in the hallway for a moment, trying to make up her mind whether to tell Ryan where she’s going. She can hear the
noise of the paint scraper, pulling in hard regular strokes. Finally she decides to write him a note saying she’ll be back at lunch. She props it up on the kitchen table, where they usually
leave messages for each other. Maybe after a morning of work he’ll calm down and they’ll be able to talk more peaceably about all this.
Her car, a dark-blue Saab she bought used four years earlier, is slow to start. It always is after a rain, and Lottie feels a kind of near affection for its predictability. When it finally
catches, she leaves it in neutral for a few minutes, to let it warm up. There are people out on the street now; a man walking his dog, and two little kids on one of the wide lawns farther up the
hill, throwing a big pink plastic ball back and forth. As she drives past Elizabeth’s house, she looks closely at it, but it still has its sleepy, blank look.
Everywhere on the sidewalks and along the river, people are already out, jogging, walking dogs, lying on blankets in the sun. It’s been raining for three days straight in a summer in which
every week brings at least two or three days of rain; on sunny days like this, no one wants to be inside. The South End, where Cam lives, is quieter, though. More people work nine-to-five jobs;
there are few students. Cam’s apartment is at the southern edge of this neighborhood, next to the expressway. All around it are warehouses and abandoned buildings. In the littered entryways
along his street, the alcoholics and homeless people from the shelter on the corner, turned out after breakfast, sit and smoke and tip their faces up to the sun, as grateful as everyone else for
its healing touch.
The stairwell outside Cameron’s apartment is ugly: dirty, covered
‘So,’ says the bigger one, standing up. Together the men seem to fill the room. ‘I guess that’s it.’
Lottie rises too.
‘When you see him, have him call the station, if you would,’ the bigger man says. ‘He can ask for me or’ – he gestures – ‘my partner here.’
Lottie walks behind them to the front door, feeling suddenly small and childish in the wake of their creaking, jingling bulk. They smell of cigarettes, of leather. She feels a peculiar relief
when she closes the door after them.
She returns to the living room and pushes the chairs back where they were. She stands alone in the middle of the room, watching the men out on the street. They laugh at something over the roof
of the car as they open its doors.
When they have driven off, she picks up the wallet from the threadbare arm of her mother’s chair. She hesitates for only a moment before she opens it. There’s about fifty dollars in
cash, and some ATM slips – his checking account has seven hundred dollars, his savings account three thousand. More, actually, than Lottie would have thought. He has a license, a MasterCard
and a Visa, a card for an HMO. He has business cards from another used-book dealer, in Fall River, and from an interior decorator in New York. This seems odd for a moment, but then Lottie remembers
that he sometimes sells whole libraries of beautifully bound books to people who are furnishing elegant studies, who want that cultured, Ralph Lauren look. There are several other scraps of paper
with names and addresses on them, but nothing that suggests anything to Lottie about where he might have gone or what he might be doing.
Distraught
, the policeman said. A clear picture of him in his bathroom, cutting himself, rises quickly in her mind. Lottie winces and immediately dismisses it; but she also decides, at
that moment, to go over to his place. Maybe he’s there, just not answering the telephone; maybe he’s asleep. Lottie feels she needs to know, one way or another.
She goes upstairs to get her purse. When she comes back down, she stands in the hallway for a moment, trying to make up her mind whether to tell Ryan where she’s going. She can hear the
noise of the paint scraper, pulling in hard regular strokes. Finally she decides to write him a note saying she’ll be back at lunch. She props it up on the kitchen table, where they usually
leave messages for each other. Maybe after a morning of work he’ll calm down and they’ll be able to talk more peaceably about all this.
Her car, a dark-blue Saab she bought used four years earlier, is slow to start. It always is after a rain, and Lottie feels a kind of near affection for its predictability. When it finally
catches, she leaves it in neutral for a few minutes, to let it warm up. There are people out on the street now; a man walking his dog, and two little kids on one of the wide lawns farther up the
hill, throwing a big pink plastic ball back and forth. As she drives past Elizabeth’s house, she looks closely at it, but it still has its sleepy, blank look.
Everywhere on the sidewalks and along the river, people are already out, jogging, walking dogs, lying on blankets in the sun. It’s been raining for three days straight in a summer in which
every week brings at least two or three days of rain; on sunny days like this, no one wants to be inside. The South End, where Cam lives, is quieter, though. More people work nine-to-five jobs;
there are few students. Cam’s apartment is at the southern edge of this neighborhood, next to the expressway. All around it are warehouses and abandoned buildings. In the littered entryways
along his street, the alcoholics and homeless people from the shelter on the corner, turned out after breakfast, sit and smoke and tip their faces up to the sun, as grateful as everyone else for
its healing touch.
The stairwell outside Cameron’s apartment is ugly: dirty, covered
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