“No, I like it out here. I’m thinking I might even relocate. I do consulting for start-ups.”

“A business guy.”

“Entrepreneur.” A term for somebody who didn’t want to work very hard, although I didn’t say so. “All I need is a computer and a phone line to do business. I have a friend I can stay with,” he added, and I wondered if he meant a woman.

We paid attention to our food for a time. He must have guessed I didn’t trust him.

“Look,” he said, “she’s still my mother, no matter what our history is. And my father would have wanted me to watch out for her, even after everything, so there’s that. And much as I think that artists, poets in particular, are a pain in the ass, she’s a pretty good one.”

He was like Viridian in that he knew how to be persuasive, how to win people over. Still, I wasn’t really sold. I said, “She’s never been anything but kind to me.”

“Then you’ll want what’s best for her, too. For her legacy.”

It was that word, legacy, that made me finish up my sandwich and push back from the table. “Thanks for lunch. I have to get going.”

He stood up with me and we went out to the sidewalk. I hoped he wasn’t going to follow me to the truck. “Well, thanks again,” I said, already turning away, when he did a quick little foot shuffle and crouched down in a fighting stance.

“Ninja,” he said, and that made me smile, though I didn’t let him see me do it. I didn’t want to like him even a little.

Viridian didn’t have any money, that was clear, and the house would come with a chunk of mortgage. Was Boone after the Mathias poems, too? Everybody seemed to have designs on them. I suppose it was possible that Boone might have both selfish and unselfish motives when it came to his mother. I couldn’t say. But I could usually tell when somebody wanted something from me, whether it was sex or anything else. Boone wanted something, I was pretty sure, I just didn’t yet know what it was.

Then, as if Boone was a bird of ill omen, Viridian had a health scare and ended up in the hospital.

This is what happened: Viridian and Oscar were attending a literary event in Sonoma, a luncheon sponsored by a women’s philanthropic organization, where they and some other authors would speak and sign books. They had been driven there by one of the event organizers, installed at the head table, and served their first course of citrus and fennel salad.