Manny bared his fourteen-karat teeth at Evan on his way out. And then Evan was alone with René and Dex.

“You’re upset,” Evan said.

“Not for them. For me.”

“Why’s that?”

“We all get sad when someone dies. It reminds one of one’s mortality.”

Jack’s blood-drenched hand trying to stem the arterial spray from his shoulder. The crimson soaked blue flannel mopped around Evan’s fist. Jack’s smile, rare as a rainbow, warming his eyes at the corners.

Evan said, “That’s why you think people get sad?”

“Remember when you first found out about death as a child? I never got over it. I don’t think any of us do. It’s an awful thing, to die. I don’t buy any of the marketing pitches that try to assuage the horror of it. Heroics of war. Drifting off into a blaze of white. The welcoming arms of God.” René’s teeth clenched, a sudden intensity. “I don’t want to,” he said. “And I won’t.”

“You’d be the first.”

His lips pursed, pulled taut. “Remember how long summer used to last when you were a child? An eternity. Everything still in front of you. Life feels … limitless.” He folded his hands at his waist and studied them. “And then one day you see a picture. You’re in your thirties, getting out of a pool in Santorini. And your hair is thinning, so much so that you can see the scalp beneath. It’s been that way for a year, maybe years—how often do you see a photograph of yourself swimming?” His palm rose again, hovering over his thinning hair. He seemed to realize what he was doing and pulled his hand away. “I don’t like limits. Being told what is possible. By man or nature. Just like you.”

“No,” Evan said. “You want to be everything. I want to be one thing well.”

“Then you suffer from a failure of imagination.” René leaned forward, a fall of light illuminating his meaty features, the dried dabs of cover-up, the augmented hairline. “We all want to beat death. It just becomes embarrassing to admit. But think if you could. Control time. If you control time, you control everything.” When he leaned back against the chairless desk, the thick fabric of his suit rippled like spread butter. “Imagine being who you were in your twenties.”

“Like the good book says, ‘You can’t repeat the past.’”

René smiled, showing a gleaming row of beautiful ivory caps. “‘Why of course you can!’”

The cuffs were cutting off the circulation in Evan’s hands. He wondered how long René was going to leave them on.

René produced the skinny bottle and sprayed down the surfaces he’d touched. “Uncuff him and lock him in,” he told Dex. On his way out, he paused before the big man. “No need to be gentle.”