“Well, of course the man goes straight up in the air and hits his head a terrible clout on the bottom of the sink. His wife is awakened by the commotion, runs down from the bedroom to find him laid out and calls the hospital. It is just a slight concussion and by the time Meyerson and his intern respond, the man has regained consciousness. They’re taking him out of the house when Meyerson asks him how it happened, and when the man tells him, Maish laughs so hard the stretcher slips out of his hand and the man falls and breaks a hip. Now he’s suing the County.”

It was their mutual fatigue more than the story that broke them up. They laughed together, shook, chortled, wept, would have rolled in their silliness had they not been close to the edge of the roof. The sudden, unexpected joy came from down deep in their bellies, uncoiling springs of tension wound tight by the thirty-six hours just past. Cheeks wet, Adam kicked happily, his foot striking one of the dead soldiers. The empty can skittered on the tar paper and then disappeared over the side.

It fell.

And fell.

And finally clattered on the cement courtyard below.

They waited in silence, resuming breathing at the same time. “I’d better look,” Adam whispered.

“Let me. Natural camouflage.” He crept forward and inched his head beyond the lip of the roof.

“What do you see?”

“Nothing going on down there but a tin can,” he said. He lay with his cheek on the lip of the roof, the shingles still warm from the long day’s sun, his head spinning from weariness and mirth and too much beer. This place may work out just fine, he told himself.

Later that night he was less optimistic. It was hotter, the dark marked by heat lightning but no rain. Spur lay naked on his bed, missing Manhattan. When all sound of movement had ceased next door and he felt sure that Silverstone was asleep he picked up the guitar and played softly in the dark, at first noodling but then seriously improvising, the running unnamed melody one he had never heard before but which said for him what he was feeling, a combination of loneliness and hope. It was ten minutes before he stopped playing.

“Hey,” Silverstone said. “What’s the name of that thing?”

He didn’t answer.

“Hey, Robinson,” Silverstone called. “Man, that was great. Play that again, will you?”

He lay quiet. He couldn’t have played it again if he had wanted to. This place, he thought; no privacy but fine acoustics. The lightning flashed, occasionally calling forth a muttering of thunder. Twice more there were ambulance wailings. Fantastic sound to get into a piece of music, he thought. You’d have to use horns.

Eventually, without realizing it was possible, he made it into sleep.

3

Harland Longwood

Early in August, after his attorneys had set up the irrevocable trust, Harland Longwood telephoned Gilbert Greene, chairman of the hospital board, and asked him to come to his office to review the terms of his will, in which he had named Greene as executor.