“It would be easier to show you.”

I checked my watch. I was leaving for California on Monday and thought I might as well get this over with. In fact I could use another lead like his tip about Sunshine Ray. When I’d come back from Arcade, I found my reporting a little patchy. I had the tape of the Kenneth Sample interview, but reviewing my notes about what I’d seen in the lab, as well as my talk with Dr. Kriss on Wigwam Deck, I found them oddly incomplete, like I hadn’t written down as much I’d thought.

I asked Lane if he wanted to meet at the office, but he suggested I come to his apartment. “All my materials are here.”

I didn’t want to get dressed. “You’re sure it’s really worth it?” I asked, chomping off some bark.

“It’s worth it.”

—

With a hideous, confectionary appearance, all mint-green and red velvet details, Lane’s building on the Upper East Side looked like it had undergone a restoration of its own. I buzzed and climbed to the fourth floor, a hint of sawdust in the air.

When Lane opened the door, he offered a low, rushed apology—his mother was here. I said I could come back another time, but he assured me she was just about to leave. We joined her in the living room. Louise Porter wore a baby-blue cardigan, khaki capris and wine-dark lipstick, and shared her son’s soft features and orange hair.

“I’ve heard wonderful things about you,” she said, glancing at Lane. “I’ve read all your articles.”

“That’s very gratifying.”

“I read everything Lane sends me.”

Lane offered me a beer and I accepted without thinking. I’d kept dry during the course of antibiotics.

I occupied an armchair while Lane and Louise sat on the white leather couch across from me. They were listening to that CD with brackets on the cover by Sigur Rós.

“Lane always plays new music for me,” Louise said. “It’s beautiful, glacial, don’t you think?”

“Not really.”

“No?”

“It’s so formulaic.” I sucked down half the beer. “Always these long buildups before the cinematic crescendo. I think band music is more or less bankrupt.”

Lane and his mother exchanged a happy look, as if it was a benediction to have your taste maligned by a staff writer from the Bystander. I felt bad for being so blunt, but I was impatient to get on with our business.