AT ABOUT 10:20 WE NOTICED that my niece Allison seemed to be missing.

By 10:30 it became apparent that Mick had also disappeared.

Madelaine went looking for him. Though she was really looking for them. She tried to be discreet about it and to keep her fury capped below socially approved decibel limits. When she’d searched every room, including the bathrooms, she enlisted two of the catering staff, issued them flashlights, and sent them out searching the grounds. She checked to be sure that they both had cell phones. Obviously, they were to call if they found either or both, but also if they were found fucking or sucking, even groping or grasping, unclothed, even significantly disheveled, they were to be photographed and pictures immediately texted to the mothership.

At 1:45 in the morning, Allison came back.

Delivered by a police car.

CHAPTER TWENTY

RIDE OF THE VALKYRIES

THIS IS ALLISON’S STORY OF the missing hours. It’s not what she said to the police. She didn’t say much of anything in front of Madelaine either. This is what she told to me as I drove her, slowly and carefully, back to the city.

—

Mick honed in on me. Instantly. You saw that. Everyone saw that. He almost tried to be subtle about it, for someone like that. Wherever I went, he came by. I encouraged it, but didn’t bite.

Whenever he got me alone, or nearly so, he kept bringing up different subjects.

He asked me what I was studying. I told him I was trying to learn Chinese and I said the few words I know, badly. He said he did business with the Chinese, a lot of it.

Then he says, an idea that just hit him, “I’m going to Hong Kong and Shanghai in two months. Why don’t you come along? Because the best way to learn a language is to be there. It’s called ‘immersion.’ Don’t worry about, I’m not suggesting anything improper. Please. It’s just that I like to help out young people. When I see someone as bright and focused as you, I say to myself, that’s the future, and Mick, you should do something to contribute.”

I politely declined. My father would never permit it. He suggested that I ask him. He offered to talk to my father. He said, “I’m very convincing. People who start out saying no to me, almost always end up saying ‘Yes!’ ” And he went on about why they did.

Madelaine came by, “There’s another writer I want you to meet,” took me by the arm and led me away.