Wherever Ray was now, under the same smudged moon and orange sky, listening to the same police helicopter begin to ratchet through the night, he must have been muddling over the same questions. Or was he? I couldn’t help thinking that his frame was different, that his picture of today’s discoveries was different, and that somehow it also included his brother.

14

THE CREW WAS ALREADY WORKING when I arrived at the gallery the morning after the interviews. Pearson acknowledged me with a nod. The others ignored me. They were preoccupied with the shoes. Sorting, piling, stringing, each falling into a specific role. If the video had had an effect on them, they were endeavoring to hide it. The backlash was like a creature locked away in another room—invisible, except as a thousand tensions in the air.

Pearson resumed his role as their manager. All engineering questions went straight to him, and he answered with calm directives. His column of destroyed shoes rose in the gallery’s center, exactly his height—he must have worked on it all night—but he avoided it studiously, as if it were an embarrassing friend who disclosed too much.

Layla was the chief communicator, moving between Zania, Erik, and Pearson, making sure everyone had the materials they needed. She often stood back and took in the whole scene, hands on her hips, and then, shaking her head, went about organizing new piles. She changed her demeanor for each interaction: with Pearson, she was polite and deferential; with Zania, prone to mutual disgust at the shoes; with Erik, contemptuous and confused. She disregarded everything Erik said, but I often caught her appraising him out of the corner of her eye and slowly tucking her red hair behind her ear.

Erik wore rumpled clothes and an aggrieved expression. He wrenched at the rising columns, chucked a shoe so hard it scuffed the wall, and, as he’d done the day before, disappeared frequently to the bathroom. And yet there was no doubt he was the master maker here, wiring and building with his sensuous, expert hands. No matter what Erik touched, it looked better after. The ugliest penny loafers he wrapped and layered like clusters of grapes. A huge scuffed basketball shoe sprouted a bouquet of smaller sneakers from its ankle hole. He moved fast from task to task, whistling tunelessly through his teeth, his curly hair tumbling in his eyes. He rarely stopped to evaluate his creations. Once his hands were empty, he hastened to fill them again.