“You know that he became extremely ill just before his death,” he said after a moment.

“No. But I don’t doubt it, being as old as he was.”

Sol nodded again, again vigorously. “The oldest person we’ve ever cared for. Frankly, it was remarkable how strong and alert he was until the last few weeks.”

“He always amazed me,” I said. “When I first met him, I thought he would only live a few years. That was thirty-eight years ago.”

“He’s certainly been an interest to the media. We’ve had a lot of calls about him. I think it must be true, what they say.”

“What’s that?”

“That you automatically become a celebrity if you live to be a hundred. Everyone in New York seems to want to know about him.”

“What do you tell them?”

Sol blinked in surprise. “Tell them? I tell them he was one hundred and six years old, that he had lived here for thirty years.”

“Nothing else?” I said in a purposely flat voice.

“What else could I say? It’s all I really know, except for the records of employment, previous addresses, that sort of thing.” Sol settled back into his chair. “As I said, Mr. Murphy, we handle a lot of people. It’s impossible to get to know them very well, especially at their age. So many of them who are placed here by their families seldom talk at all. They’re at that stage of their life, as you may imagine. They’re forgetful, and they know it, so they choose not to talk, or they get confused by being left by people who used to care for them—or so they thought—and they don’t know how to explain it, to themselves or anyone else. They don’t know what to say.”

“Was Avrum that way?”

He again tried to smile. “Mr. Feldman was, well, different,” he replied slowly. “Sometimes he could be extremely difficult, but I’m sure you know that. For example, he occasionally insisted on playing his opera recordings at odd hours, and at full volume. We would have to take his records away until he promised to be more considerate. He could be very stubborn, Mr. Murphy, and, if he wished, he could be mean.” Sol picked up the file before him and held it up for me to view. It was crammed with papers. “You can see the number of complaints we received over the years.”

I suppressed a smile. I knew the file of violations and warnings that Sol Walkman held was Avrum’s last, proud protest against the Highmount Home for Retired Citizens.

“A lot of people used to think he was insane,” I said.

Sol’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Most of the doctors who attended him over the years would probably agree with that,” he said after a moment. Then: “What do you think?”