Leo closes the door. He lingers outside of the car, and I know he has something to say to me. Now that I’m here, I wait. But he decides to keep whatever it is to himself. An act of mercy, perhaps, but for me or him, I’m not sure.

He gives me a little wave and goes back to the apartment. Across the street the Szechuan place is closed. A closer look tells me that half the storefronts on this block are going out of business. There’s a sign up a few doors away, a community notice asking for input. Peter Vidal’s Devi Group has bought up the block and wants to open an art gallery and cultural center.

I look up.

The neon pink lights of the Szechuan place are indeed off, permanently now. To make space for art and culture, I suppose. For community, or someone’s idea of it anyway.

Whisper barks at me from the car. She’s telling me to hurry up.

71

Brazuca dismantles the telescope and puts it in the carry bag it came in.

He opens the safe in his bedroom and takes out his documents, the gold watch his father had given him when he turned eighteen, and the engagement ring that once belonged to his mother. The one his ex-wife returned calmly before she asked him to leave. She was tranquil, growing increasingly more reasonable toward the end, as his addictions spiraled out of control.

“I’ve never been unfaithful,” he said to her one night, after a particularly vicious argument about where he’d been. It had come out like a plea, but that wasn’t what he meant. He guessed he meant he was at a bar, as usual. Drinking alone.

She’d given him a curious look. He remembers it to this day, how puzzled she was by his insistence that he wasn’t all that bad. That there was still something to save. “What does that have to do with anything?” she asked.

He didn’t know, but it had seemed to be an important point at the time.

She set her boundaries and said, “You can no longer cross this line with me. I’ve had enough. It’s over. Good-bye.”

He never understood how she could be so cold, until now. Until he’s faced that coldness, yet again, from Nora. Who won’t return his calls. He’d seen her at Lynn’s funeral, from a distance. Something in him broke when Everett Walsh hit her. Her expression, the emptiness there . . . it’s going to stay with him for the rest of his life.

Brazuca puts all his things in a small rolling suitcase, along with a few items of clothing that do the best job of hiding his gauntness. He closes the empty safe. There’s one item missing. His handgun, the only weapon he owns, which was never recovered from the MINI after the crash.