“You can work on a new thesis idea there, anything, some Skinnerian animal-in-a-box kind of thing, who cares—just to get the degree. Then you can go on and do any kind of research you want. And at Millbrook, you’ll have both Tim and Dick there to guide you, like it was the best university in the world.”

“They piss on Skinner.”

“So somebody else, then—the point is, this is a chance to get them all off your back, start afresh, finish this thing, Fitz, once and for all. Don’t you see?” She was sitting on the edge of the bed, removing her flats and stockings. Fitz was slumped in the chair. Corey, lightly snoring, lay facedown on the cot in the corner, an orange smear of pizza grease decorating the flange of his nose.

“What are we going to do for money?”

“It’s rent free, you heard Ken. So that takes care of our biggest expense right there.”

It was almost too good to be true: an entire estate, 2,500 acres, with ponds and fields and a turn-of-the-century mansion, and it was being given to Tim by Peggy’s twin brothers, Tommy and Billy, who lived in another house on the property, for the sum of one dollar a year. And why? For the purpose of setting up the Castalia Foundation and conducting all the research he wanted without any academic constraints. “And I could work while you write your dissertation.”

“Where? Poughkeepsie? Beacon?” Fitz’s voice was thick and phlegmy, caught somewhere deep in his throat. He’d been drinking more heavily than usual, drinking all summer, though he’d vowed he was never going to sink to that level again. Which was all the more reason to get him out of here—and herself too. They’d already put down a deposit on the apartment haunted by the old lady and her cats, but she’d see what she could do to get that back.

“Sure,” she said. “Anywhere. Face it, Fitz, this is a dead end here. And think of Corey—the schools have got to be better there, a little town like that surrounded by all these big estates. Rich people. Money. And there’s a college there too, isn’t there?”

Fitz said, “I don’t know,” and he wasn’t referring to the college (Bennett, two years, all girls, which he knew every bit as well as she did), but this radical notion that had been dropped in their laps just hours before by Ken Sensabaugh, Fanchon and Alice at a time when radical change was just what they needed to keep from rotting in their shoes like all the other living corpses traipsing around the streets of Boston.

“It’s the chance of a lifetime.”

“You sound like a used car dealer.”