“How you know so much about suicide, I-nelik?”

I-nelik pulled him closer and whispered, “Every artist thinks about suicide at some point in his life.”

“So what we should do, dread?” Fire asked.

“Let’s go up to the Lighthouse and call him.”

Fire was consumed with anxiety as they drove up the hill. He imagined Ian dying … hanging himself … and he heard his own words urging him to do it during the fight. All self-interest left his body when he reached the door, and in his mind he began to see Ian with a noose around his neck, preparing to take the step.

Fire dialed Ian’s number in New York. The phone rang without an answer.

“If he’s not at home, call Claire and find out,” I-nelik said.

Fire dialed again. “Claire, it’s Fire,” he began urgently. “Have you seen or heard from Ian?”

“Let me tell you about your fucking friend,” she said. “Ian has stabbed me in the fucking back and his ass is mine. Ian and Lewis have defrauded me of hundreds of thousands of dollars, okay? Ian has sold pieces to Lewis behind my back … cutting me out … after all I’ve done for him … after how close we used to be. Well, I’m suing them both!”

He pretended he didn’t know. She would be angry with him as well.

“And you know what pissed me off even more?” she continued. “He was calling me to comfort him because Margaret told him she doesn’t want him anymore. Me! Me who he’s fucked over … he was calling me!”

She’d spoken to him, Fire thought. Which was good. He was alive.

“Where’d he call from?” Fire asked.

“So what about me?” Claire snapped. “Don’t you care about how I feel, Fire?”

“Yes, Claire … but …”

“But he’s more important?”

“Does it really matter?”

She hung up.

He threw the phone on the bed, but it bounced off and hit the floor. He put it to his ear. It was dead. He tried to dial anyway.

I-nelik was annoyed now. How could the boy lose his cool at a moment like this? The dread reached out and grabbed the phone. Fire grabbed it back.

“Listen, I-nelik, I’m a big man, okay?”

The dread waved him away and began to use a penknife to pull the phone apart. Fire stormed through the door, jumped into the Land Rover, and drove to Mr. Bartley’s to call and apologize to Claire, his best bet for finding out where Ian was. He thought of what he’d say to her as he gunned the engine.

“Claire,” he said, as soon as she picked up. “I was wrong and I apologize. I shouldn’t have said what I said. You know I love you best … I’m just under a lot of pressure, that’s all.”

He spoke to her softly, counting every minute on the Air Jamaica clock over the door. She eventually warmed up, but he was forced to listen as she poured out her emotions. This took fifteen minutes, during which time Mr. Bartley kept hinting to him to get off the line. This was a business, he kept saying. And his daughter was supposed to be calling from Canada. Finally, after about twenty minutes, Fire felt safe to ask about Ian.