It was an assumption that baffled him. People whose lives are rife with moral contradictions are generally the first to pass judgment. Look at the Catholic clergy. Look at the whole of the American right wing, that strangely cherubic cast of haloed scoundrels, characters out of a Disney production of Ubu Roi, hurling insults and stones from their sloughs of hypocrisy. Still, Desmond wasn’t one to correct anyone’s suppositions, especially if doing so meant losing access to their dirty laundry. He was a voyeur by nature and he’d take whispered confessions whatever way they came. As for his own moral ambiguity, he wasn’t sure. He liked to think he lived on the high ground of moral principles strictly adhered to, but he realized he’d chosen this absolutist path for what was undoubtedly the wrong reason: he found it easier to lead a productive life when his options were limited. Monogamy was a perfect example. For all its drawbacks, it certainly made it easier to find time to do the laundry.

It was his tendency toward voyeurism that had brought him around to writing his biography of Lewis Westerly, an act that changed his life on almost every front and was indirectly responsible for this pending move to Boston.

Desmond was living in Chicago when he became aware of Westerly. He was practicing law and was so desperately unhappy with his life, he was seriously considering taking up handball, the last stop on many a road to emotional ruin. He’d rushed into law school right out of college in a mad dash to follow in his father’s footsteps, only to learn, on the day he graduated, that his father had secretly hoped he’d go into a more creative and loose-jointed profession. “If I hadn’t had to support a family,” his father had said, “I think I would have tried to put together a career as a songwriter. I used to write songs when I was in college. I’ll show them to you sometime. What the hell, it’s too late now, for both of us, probably.”

Great, Desmond thought, I’ve gone through three years of law school to please a man who wishes he’d sired Kander and Ebb. The next time he planned his life around pleasing other people, he’d have to make sure he first knew what they wanted.