“He was never depressed—the least moody person I ever met. And he was a great father. Never played shrink with us at home. Just a dad. He played ball with me even though he was no good at it. Couldn't change a lightbulb, but no matter what he was doing, he'd put it aside to listen to you. And we knew it—all three of us. We saw what other fathers were like and we appreciated him. We never believed he killed himself, but they kept saying it, the goddamn police. “The evidence is clear.' Over and over, like a broken record.”

He cursed and slapped the desk. “They're a bureaucracy just like everything else in this city. They went from point A to point B, found C and said, good night, time to punch the clock and go home. So we hired a private investigator—someone the firm had used—and all he did was go over the same territory the police had covered, say the same damn thing. So I guess I should be happy you're here, telling me we weren't nuts.”

“How did they say it happened?” I said. “A car crash or some kind of fall?”

He pulled his head back as if avoiding a punch. Glared at me. Began loosening his tie, then thought better of it and tugged it up against his throat, even tighter. Picking up his jacket, he flipped it over his shoulder.

“Let's get the hell out of here.”

“You in shape?” he said, looking me up and down.

“Decent.”

“Twenty blocks do you in?”

I shook my head.

He pressed forward into the throng, heading uptown. I jogged to catch up, watching him manipulate the sidewalk like an Indy driver, swaying into openings, stepping off the curb when that was the fastest way to go. Swinging his arms and looking straight ahead, sharp-eyed, watchful, self-defensive. I started to notice lots of other people with that same look. Thousands of people running the urban gauntlet.

I expected him to stop at Sixty-fifth Street, but he kept going to Sixty-seventh. Turning east, he led me up two blocks and stopped in front of a red-brick building, eight floors high, plain and flat, set between two ornate graystones. On the ground floor were medical offices. The town house on the right housed a French restaurant with a long black awning lettered in gold at street level. A couple of limousines were parked at the curb.

He pointed upward. “That's where it happened. An apartment on the top floor, and yeah, they said he jumped.”

“Whose apartment was it?”

He kept staring up. Then down at the pavement. Directly in front of us, a dermatologist's window was fronted by a boxful of geraniums. Josh seemed to study the flowers. When he faced me, pain had immobilized his face.

“It's my mother's story,” he said.