He gestured toward a pair of thick black aluminum tubes that Janson was holding up to his ear.

“Those things are really going to make it?” he asked.

“Oh yes,” Janson said. “As long as the gas mixture doesn’t leak. The little darlings are going to be full of pep. Just like you.”

Katsaris held up a foil strip of Provigil tablets. “Want one?”

Janson shook his head. Katsaris knew what he was doing, but Janson knew that drugs could have unpredictable side effects in different people, and he declined to take substances he had no experience with. “So tell me, Theo,” he said, putting away the tubes and shuffling the blueprints, “how’s the missus?” Now that they were not around the others, he once more called his friend by his first name.

“The missus? She know you call her that?”

“Hey, I knew her before you did. The beautiful Marina.”

Katsaris laughed. “You have no idea how beautiful she is. You think you do, but you don’t. Because right now she’s positively radiant.” He pronounced the last word with special emphasis.

“Wait a minute,” Janson said. “You don’t mean she’s …”

“Early days, still. First trimester. Touch of morning sickness. Otherwise, she’s doing great.”

Janson flashed on Helene, and he felt as if a giant hand were squeezing his heart in a crushing grip.

“And we are a handsome couple, aren’t we?” Katsaris said it with mock swagger, but it was the indisputable truth. Theo and Marina Katsaris were among God’s favored, perfect specimens of Mediterranean strength and symmetry. Janson remembered a week he’d spent with them in Mykonos—remembered the particular afternoon when they encountered an imperious Paris-based director of a fashion shoot in pursuit of the ever potent combination of skimpy swimsuits, abundant white sand, and azure sea. The Frenchwoman was convinced that Theo and Marina were models, and demanded the name of their agency. All she saw were their perfect white teeth, flawless olive complexion, glossy black hair—and the possibility that these attributes were not enlisted for some commercial enterprise struck her as a wasteful indifference toward a valuable natural resource.

“Then you’re going to be a father,” Janson said. The rush of warmth he had felt on hearing the news quickly cooled.

“You don’t sound overjoyed,” Katsaris said.

Janson said nothing for a few moments. “You should have told me.”

“Why?” he returned lightly. “Marina’s the one who’s pregnant.”

“You know why.”

“We were going to tell you soon. In fact, we were hoping you’d agree to be the godfather.”

Janson’s tone was almost truculent. “You should have told me before.”

Theo shrugged. “You don’t think a dad should take risks. And I think you worry too much, Paul. You haven’t gotten me killed yet. Look, I understand the risks.”

“I don’t understand the risks, dammit. That’s the point. They’re poorly controlled.”