Someone struck a blow across his back. He was in the hotel lobby. The magazine shot out of his lap and onto the floor.

“Doug.”

“Cheers, old sport.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Say, that’s a fine-looking fellow.” Doug carefully scooped up the magazine from the floor. He placed the cover in front of his face, and did a determined shuffle-step walk.

“Just give that back. Please.”

Which was exactly the wrong thing to say, for it caused Doug to leap from the floor to the arm of the chair, magazine held before his face. He pretended, as if the smiling mug on the magazine were his, to pick his teeth. Chaplin was ready to be truly annoyed—how could you ask a man how he was faring when he was holding a magazine cover bearing your picture over his own face?

But then he saw that the man who had just insulted him had returned, and was standing in the lobby, staring.

Sensing that he was not the center of attention for some terrible reason, Doug lowered the magazine. He glanced from Chaplin to the silent, staring Lee Duncan. Slowly, the corners of Chaplin’s mouth turned upward. He angled his head, an acknowledgment to Lee, who had only made it fifteen feet down Market before a dark thought—who exactly had he just been speaking to?—hobbled him.

And then Chaplin smiled at Doug, as refreshed as if he’d just gotten a massage. Some kind of curtain dropped down between the movie stars and Lee, who of course recognized Fairbanks, and who understood he was welcome to leave.

Lee walked away with his face aflame. Tossing his magazine in the trash, he felt as if the sidewalk were cracking open and hands were waving through, ready to pull him into the earth. Lee thought of all the times he had forgotten to tie the station boat with the pinnacle knot. He thought of how he had punched both Field brothers for no better reason than that they had a father. And how they had both pummeled him, for he was a terrible fighter.

He would serially let down everyone who had ever known him. In a punishing moment, he found his reflection in the window.

He would visit Andy.

9

At that moment, Andy was being robbed.

It was late enough in the afternoon that the hour of sleep—rather, the seven hours of not sleeping—had caught up with her, and she couldn’t follow simple discussions. For instance, her father and the Rabbi Golod had been speaking for a very long time—negotiations were protracted over what exactly he was buying, and for whom—and she had been sent out twice now, once to change the thousand-dollar bill, and a second time to bring back egg-salad sandwiches.