I wanted to ask him what the chances were now of our being discovered, but I thought the question would make him laugh. I sat with him for as long as I thought was necessary. He slapped me on the back as we said goodbye in the lobby.

WHEN I GOT home, Mart was in bed. His line was not infected, he said, nothing had come up in the blood tests, the vomiting had stopped, but he was still feverish and tired. Jack had met a couple at the marina who had invited him out on their boat. It was typical of him, Mart said, to disappear like that, just when things were rough. When he saw that I was taking this seriously, he sat up and said that he was joking. This was Jack’s vacation too, he said, and he was glad that he had ingratiated himself with a couple at the marina. His pills still stood in rows on the bedside table. I asked him how he knew which ones to take.

“They’re our children,” he said. “We have no favorites. We brought them all into the world and we love them equally. They might look the same to you, but they are all fully formed individuals to us.”

He began to go through all the names of the pills and what they were for and when he began taking them and how much they cost. Then he gave each of them real names, most of them were the names of film stars.

“These,” he grabbed a case of capsules and shook them, “are Woody Allen.”

He laughed so much that he lay back on the pillow exhausted. He coughed and spluttered and seemed to be about to get sick, but he closed his eyes and stayed still. I thought that he was dying and I wondered whether I should call downstairs and get Pablo. I held his hand. He clung to me, breathing heavily. And then he relaxed and opened his eyes and smiled.

“You should see me on a good day,” he said.

He began to get better. When he went to see the doctor again, I drove him there and sat in the car and waited for him at the side entrance to the hospital. After less than a half-hour the doctor came to the door with him. They were both smiling. The doctor was much younger than I had expected. He could only have been in his late twenties or early thirties; he seemed stunningly fresh-faced and good-looking. He did not look like someone who dealt every day with death or disease. His skin and hair were shiny with health. He smiled at me when I got out of the car, and he helped Mart into the passenger seat, smiling all the time. I shook his hand and thanked him.