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hair, or hating himself. Bucky, to whom guilt was the staff of life.
    I’d seen him try to kill himself over leaving the Church. I’d watched him go through agonies of guilt over ignoring answering-machine messages from Father Healey. Hell, I’d watched him shake and cry because at ten years old we’d stolen three apples from a market on Columbus Avenue. Yet there he sat, disturbed but coherent. For Bucky, even serene. Believing he’d contributed to murder.
    I said, “What neuropharms do you take, Bucky?”
    “I told you. None.”
    “None at all?”
    “No.” His brown eyes were completely honest. “Gene, I want you to find out how these clinical subjects really died. You have access to NYPD records—”
    “Not anymore.”
    “But you know people. And cases get buried there all the time, you used to tell me that yourself, with enough money you can buy yourself an investigation unless somebody high up in the city is really out to get you. Kelvin Pha r maceuticals doesn’t have those kinds of enemies. They’re not the Mob. They’re just…”
    “Committing murder to cover up an illegal drug trial? I don’t buy it, Bucky.”
    “Then find out what really happened.”
    I shot back, “What do you think happened?”
    “I don’t know! But I do know this drug is a good thing! Don’t you understand, it holds out the possibility of a pe r fect, totally open connection with the person you love most in the world.…Find out what happened, Gene. It wasn’t suicide. J-24 doesn’t cause depression. I know it. And for this drug to be denied people would be…it would be a sin.”
    He said it so simply, so naturally, that I was thrown all over again. This wasn’t Bucky, as I had known him. Or maybe it was. He was still driven by sin and love.
    I stood and put money on the table. “I don’t want to get involved in this, Bucky. I really don’t. But—one thing more—”
    “Yeah?”
    “ Camineur . Can it…does it account for…” Jesus, I sounded like him. “I get these flashes of intuition about things I’ve been thinking about. Sometimes it’s stuff I didn’t know.”
    He nodded. “You knew the stuff before. You just didn’t know you knew. Camineur strengthens intuitive right-brain pathways. As an effect of releasing the stranglehold of violent thoughts. You’re more distanced from compulsive thoughts of destruction, but also more likely to make co n nections among various non-violent perceptions. You’re just more intuitive, Gene, now that you’re less driven.”
    And I’m less Gene , my unwelcome intuition said. I gazed down at Bucky, sitting there with his skinny fingers splayed on the table, an unBucky -like serenity weirdly mixed with his manic manner and his belief that he worked for a corporation that had murdered eight people. Who the hell was he ?
    “I don’t want to get involved in this,” I repeated.
    “But you will,” Bucky said, and in his words I heard utter, unshakable faith.
     
    Jenny Kelly said, “I set up a conference with Jeff Connors and he never showed.” It was Friday afternoon. She had deep circles around her eyes. Raccoon eyes, we called them. They were the badge of teachers who were new, dedicated, or crazy. Who sat up until 1:00 a.m. in a frenzy of lesson planning and paper correcting, and then arrived at school at 6:30 a.m. to supervise track or meet with students or correct more papers.
    “Set up another conference,” I suggested. “Sometimes by the third or fourth missed appointment, guilt drives them to show up.”
    She nodded. “Okay. Meanwhile, Jeff has my class all worked up over something called the Neighborhood Safety Information Network, where they’re supposed to inform on their friends’ brothers’ drug activity, or something. It’s somehow connected to getting their Social Services checks. It’s got the kids all in an uproar…I sent seventeen kids to the principal in three days.”
    “You might want to ease up on that, Jenny. It gives