“I hate to ask this,” I said, “but have you heard anything about why she committed suicide?”

Lynne nodded and waved to someone over my shoulder, her face springing back to its usual forceful, enterprising expression. I followed her gaze to the doorway inside and saw the taut smile of Nelson de Wilde, the well-known gallery owner who was no doubt scouting for new talent this weekend. “I have to speak to Nelson,” she said, then swiveled back, as if my query had just registered. “Why? I heard she went off her antidepressants,” she said. “I heard she was isolated. I heard she was blocked, or she wasn’t that talented after all, and the pressure was eating her up. But why does anyone do the unthinkable?” She sighed. “Because they can’t imagine living another day.”

3

WHILE I POUNDED TWO LONELY gin and tonics in quick succession, I reviewed my situation. I wasn’t a total outcast at The Oasis. I could find someone with Rocque connections to chat with, and I could blend in, with my faded jeans and my navy shirt with its cleverly jagged hem. But to do so would mean giving up my freedom to spy on people, and I’d lost my taste for small talk. So I wedged myself into a little corner alone and watched the pool game.

Two men circled the table, intent, not caring when their sticks jabbed strangers. Only when the bar’s lone waitress passed did they pause, their eyes downcast, as if they had been reprimanded before. And they played with speed, the shots sure, the balls reeling into holes. Blurs of color, clacks and knocks. Fast games. I counted three, four, before I realized the same man kept winning. He was the smaller of the two, bent at the shoulders, with an unhealthy leanness to his face. It was possible that he was far older than his spry body let on. The other man was looser, floppier, with long, dirty-blond hair, a soft gut, a casual slump when he wasn’t shooting. When he did take aim, he tensed like a hornet, and his strokes stung. The balls obeyed him completely. But the older man always triumphed. He won by strategy. He won by patience. An eight ball almost tipped into a pocket. A striped ball blocking a solid. A cue ball impossible not to scratch.

By the fifth game, the loser was starting to mutter, his sneakers punching the ground. His confidence was fading, too, and he muffed the first break, the balls barely spinning apart. The winner noticed me staring and leered. The expression turned him ancient, lizard-like, and nasty.