I go to where Bibi sits, translating, and tell her that with this latest note about heredity she’s done enough for now, thanks. I’ll do some more research locally, to illustrate the piece with figures and a few clinical cases.

She asks whether I have my own theory. I tell her I don’t but whatever I come up with will provide a basis to confirm or challenge this. “Challenge Durkheim?” She’s astonished, though she quickly acknowledges, “Others have done so.” She doesn’t specifically say that these others knew more about it than I do, and doesn’t notice that she’s thus opened another path toward doubt; if Durkheim is not the irrefutable Einstein of suicide then his theory of non-inheritance lacks relativity. But I bear up with equanimity.

I ask after Piel Blanca and she points out that it would not be a good idea for me to call her at her job. She says we can look for her that night in the bowling alley, though she doesn’t know whether she’ll show up.

•

Marcela sees the envelope with the photos.

“None of them are of any use?”

“I didn’t look at them. I didn’t do the story.”

She loses interest.

She smokes. “We’re bogged down,” she says.

I say, “Yes. We are.”

I suggest, “This afternoon—”

She cuts me off. “I can’t. I’m seeing the father.”

I translate. “The old guy.”

It’s made me a little angry.

I ask her why: Why will she be seeing him.

“Because we agreed to.”

“And he’s taking you to his house? The wife will be there—”

“He’s not taking me, he’s inviting me. And not to his house, to the Galley Slave. Any other questions, patrón?”

•

We have two months to do the work. How many cases can we hope to observe during that time?

I turn to the Statistics Department.

The expert lady who’s hearing me out murmurs, “Ah, codes 970 to 979.” I’m about to say “Exactly” when I realize I have no idea what codes 970 to 979 are. I tell her so and she says, “Those are the suicides. Under the international statistical classification of causes of death. The codes for homicide are 980 to 983.”

She adds, “There are a lot more 970 to 979s than 980 to 983s.”

Understood. How many 970s (and thereafter) can we expect over the course of a brief period—a week, a month?

She issues her response with professional exactitude. The typical rate for an industrialized Western city can go from two suicides per day for a city of six million to one every six days for a city of half a million.

Nevertheless, she continues, rates are unstable and highly variable, especially in America. They depend on social conditions that vary a great deal from country to country. She can only give me an approximate idea.