“Tink you miss this,” Ian said, glancing into Fire’s eyes. He killed the cigarette on the heel of his shoe—his black loafers looked expensive. His pants fit loosely. He’d lost some weight. His hollow cheeks were rutted, and he’d chipped a tooth. Through his shirt, his joints were knots of rope. Miss Gita would be sad to see her boy.

“So how everything?”

“Yuh nuh know … cyaah keep a good man down.” He held his face low. “Can I ask you something? How it feel to be a six-footer?” He looked up again, his eyes set close like the barrels of a shotgun.

This is shit, Fire thought. Is this all you have to say after all this time? And how should I reply? The opposite of being five-seven?

What about your mother Miss Gita? The one that lives with me now—that works for me as a maid because her son, the famous sculptor who made the cover of Time magazine, bought a car with the money I lent him to buy her a house so she could have somewhere to live in case an overdose killed him. And where is the Benz now, Ian? Repossessed … like the house in Paris and the Prince Street loft and the beachfront villa in Barbados.

“You want a cigarette?” Ian asked.

“I done smoke eight years now. You know that.”

“Yeah … I forgot.”

They fell into silence.

“So where’s Claire?”

Fire began to blame his anger on fatigue. It wasn’t fair, he thought, to be mad at him, after all that he’d been through.

“She’s inside.”

“So what you doing out here? Just come for a smoke?”

“That … and waiting for some beer. We was playing some poker upstairs and run out.” He glanced at his TAG. “The fuck a-take so long?” He glared at Fire. “And why you take so long?” Fire began to answer but he cut him off. “Y’always have a rassclaat reason.”

Silence reclaimed them. Filled their lungs. Made their breathing uneasy.

“So how’s I-nelik?” Ian asked. He lit another Newport. Took a deep drag … glanced at his shoes … willing Fire to read his mind. Being here isn’t easy, he wanted to say. I always feel useless in front of you …

“He’s awright,” Fire said, hoping Ian would ask about Miss Gita, hoping also that he wouldn’t ask about his father.

Claire was having a smoke outside the gallery when Fire and Ian arrived.

She started toward them, her form swinging loosely in an A-line dress that draped from a collar of beads. Her skin was black like a seasoned wok, and her dreads were long and crinkled. She was French, from Martinique.

“How are you?” Fire said as he hugged her. Her body had the heft of an upright bass.

“You were right about him, y’know?” Ian said. “The fucker always late but him always show.”

Fire stamped kisses on her cheeks.

This is the way it should be, Fire thought, as he remembered Lisbon. The villa they shared in the Alfama and light in the afternoon. Ambition mattered more than fame then … and friendship more than money. Fame and money. Ian had come to New York to find them. Mine them, he’d said. But after he found the mother lode the shaft caved in and trapped him.