“I’m sure they would.” He smiled broadly and leaned in as if he were about to tell me a secret. “But who would listen?”

“Alec, all I need to know here is why—”

“You are potentially a man of impact, Patrick. You could be remembered long after you die. Think what an achievement that would be, particularly in this disposable culture of ours. Think of it.”

“What if I have no desire to be a ‘man of impact’?”

His eyes disappeared in the wash of fluorescence. “Maybe the choice isn’t yours. Maybe you’ll be turned into one whether you like it or not.” He shrugged.

“By who?” I said.

He smiled. “Whom.”

“By whom, then?” I said.

“The Father,” he said, “the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”

“Of course,” I said.

“Are you a man of impact, Alec?” Dolquist said.

We both turned our heads, looked at him.

“Are you?” Dolquist said.

Alec Hardiman’s head turned back slowly to face me, and his glasses slipped halfway down his nose. The eyes behind the lenses were the milky green of Carribbean shallows. “Forgive Doctor Dolquist’s interruption, Patrick. He’s a little on edge lately about his wife.”

“My wife,” Dolquist said.

“Doctor Dolquist’s wife, Judith,” Hardiman said, “left him once for another man. Did you know that, Patrick?”

Dolquist picked at some lint on his knee, concentrated on his shoes.

“And then she came back, and he took her back. I’m sure there were tears, pleas for forgiveness, some minor snide remarks on the doctor’s part. One can only assume. But that was three years ago, wasn’t it, Doctor?”

Dolquist looked at Hardiman and his eyes were clear but his breathing was slightly shallow and his right hand still picked absently at his pant leg.

“I have it on good authority,” Hardiman said, “that on the second and fourth Wednesday of every month, Doctor Dolquist’s Queen Judith allows penetration of her every orifice by two former inmates of this institution at the Red Roof Inn on Route One in Saugus. I wonder how Doctor Dolquist feels about that.”

“Enough, Inmate,” Lief said.

Dolquist looked at a point somewhere over Hardiman’s head and his voice was smooth, but the back of his neck bore a swath of hard bright red. “Alec, your delusions are for another time. Today—”

“They’re not delusions.”

“—Mr. Kenzie is here at your behest and—”

“Second and fourth Wednesdays,” Hardiman said, “between two and four at the Red Roof Inn. Room two seventeen.”

Dolquist’s voice faltered for just a moment, a pause or an intake of breath which wasn’t quite natural and I heard it and so did Hardiman, and Hardiman smiled slightly at me.

Dolquist said, “The point of this meeting—”

Hardiman waved his thin fingers dismissively and turned his full attention to me. I could see myself mirrored in the icy fluorescent light that ran along the upper half of both lenses, his green pupils floating just below my melting features. He leaned forward again and I resisted the urge to lean back because I could suddenly feel the heat of him, smell the torpid, fleshy stench of a decayed conscience.