He wanted to get together tonight but she couldn’t. She had a meeting scheduled with Jack and that new lawyer, Sean O’Neill, tonight. Will pressed her for Monday night—an Armenian place called Zov’s with a super rack of lamb—and she gave in.

She was becoming more and more comfortable with him. She didn’t know if that was a good thing.

3.

3.

Jack didn’t return any of Jorge’s three calls this morning. The man kept wanting to thank him for returning the full six thousand Ramirez had owed him, and kept asking why Jack hadn’t taken his cut. Jack had told him once that his fee had come out of the “interest” he’d charged Ramirez. He didn’t want to go over it again.

One call he did return was to his father in Florida, and they went round and round again—Dad urging him to come down and cash in on all the “fantastic opportunities” waiting for him in Florida, Jack dodging this way and that, finally promising to come down for a visit “real soon.”

That done, he took a moment to send five hundred dollars in cash to Dolores, care of the Hudak Agency, with an unsigned note stating simply: “For your trouble.”

And then it was out to pick up some of the equipment Milkdud had told him he’d need. After that he was looking forward to some time alone with Gia while Vicky was at her art lessons.

4.

4.

“Hi, Ma,” Sam Baker said as he entered his mother’s room.

“Stay away from the fence!” his mother shouted, looking past him.

She was a thin, angular woman, with glistening blue eyes. The nursing home staff had secured her into her chair with a nylon mesh vest they called a “posy.” Her bony fingers worked incessantly at the hem of the blanket wrapped around her legs.

“I brought you flowers, Ma,” he said, showing her the half dozen short-stemmed roses he’d picked up in the city.

“And get Janey away too!” she called.

Baker sighed and sat on the bed—gingerly. His back still throbbed like some giant goddamn infected tooth from that kidney punch on Thursday night. He unscrewed the cap from the bottle of seltzer he’d brought along. He hated seltzer, but it was better than drinking straight water.

He took a sip and stared at the woman who’d raised him. She’d be sixty-eight next February. Not so old in body, but her mind had begun to slip away about ten years ago. Now it was completely shot. He’d had to move her into this nursing home two years ago, and it was sucking him dry.

He’d heard Alzheimer’s ran in families, and that scared the shit out of him. Every time he forgot something he should have remembered, he wondered, Is this the start?