The bedroom was hot, even with the windows open and the ceiling fan spinning slowly overhead. The honking and braying of the traffic on West End Avenue was filling what little space in the room wasn’t taken up by the oversized furniture, making the air seem even heavier and denser. With the shades drawn against the afternoon sun, it felt and looked like midsummer. Russell had taken the air conditioner out of the window too early, probably on one of the few cool days they’d had this fall. How kind of him, except it was the sort of chore he always left to Desmond, and the fact that he hadn’t waited until Desmond returned to let him do it was just one more piece of suspicious information to slip into the file of evidence Desmond was carefully compiling in his head: self-help book, eyeglasses, air conditioner, possible weight loss, sideburns. (Suspicious or not, this new flaring facial hair had one thing going for it: very unbecoming.)

Russell was in the shower. His parents had called that morning to announce that they were attending a conference of the American Psychological Association at a vast hotel in Midtown Manhattan and would love to have dinner with them. “Notice,” Russell had said, as soon as he’d clicked off the phone, “that they waited until the last minute to call. They’ve probably known about this conference for months, and ordinarily, I would have had something planned for a Saturday night.”

Like what? Desmond managed not to ask.

Russell’s incessant grumbling about Gloria and Leon was an indication of his devotion to them; he’d arranged his life and career in ways that were guaranteed to displease them mostly because he was afraid that he’d fail at any attempt to earn their approval. Better by far to take himself out of the running than to risk losing the race. Russell’s parents usually showed up in New York two or three times a year, most often unannounced, and the four of them would grimace through a tense dinner. Afterward, Russell would retreat into a thousand-page book for several days.

Listening to the hiss of the shower, Desmond felt defeated by all that he understood about Russell’s defenses. What was the point in knowing someone this well when it helped bring their betrayals of you into the light?