“I haven’t got the answer to that. As long as it takes.” Now it’s silent again. I’m drowned in his tight world. There’s no way out. My eyes feel like they’re bleeding from the smoke. I scan up to the wall of books and lock on titles: Last Grass Frontier, The Wind Leaves No Shadow, These Were the Vaqueros, Production of Field Crops by Wolfe and Kipps; an entire red set of American Broodmare Records with dark gaps where he’s taken them down to devour statistics. In one of the gaps a Smith & Wesson Airweight .38 sits propped in a clip holster. I recognize it from long ago. Back when it used to make sudden appearances under parking lot lights and rubber bands snapped on crisp rolls of fifties. Another golden leaf sails past his window, disappearing.

“So, what’re you thinking, you’re gonna head down to Lexington and try and snag that mare? Is that it?”

“Wanna come along?” he says, turning to me with the cigarette drooping from a sly smile. “We could be down there and back in four days. Simple.”

“What about the kids?”

“School.”

“Rena then?”

“Rena?” He chuckles, then stifles a cough. “She doesn’t need me. Are you kidding? She hasn’t needed me for a long, long time.” He retreats again to his gray pages.

“She’s pretty upset right now.”

“Upset.”

“Seemed like it to me.”

“You don’t know her.”

“I used to.”

“Yeah, you did, didn’t you.” He slips the wet Lucky into the ashtray and turns to me slow. “You knew her pretty good. I bet you even have thoughts in your mind right now.”

“Thoughts?” I say.

“Yeah, thoughts. Thoughts like, ‘If she was still with me she might be happy. She might be a whole different person than what she is now. She might be raising my blond kids instead of his.’ ”

“I wasn’t thinking anything like that.”

“Yeah, you were. Don’t gimme that. Something right along those lines. What makes you think you wouldn’t have messed up the same way I did?”

“You haven’t messed up, Reese.”

“Don’t gimme that condescending crap. You somehow think you’re just a little bit superior, don’t ya? Always have.”

“I’m not getting into this.”

“Just a little bit superior in every department. Especially with the chicks.”

“All she wants to know is when you’re coming down! That’s all.” Silence again but this time he doesn’t turn away. He stares straight at me and slowly a smile of recognition pans across his face.

“You actually believe that?” he says.

“What?”

“That’s all she wants to know?”

“That’s what she said.”

“That’s not all she wants to know.”

“What then?”