Mr. X

You're not her only son, after all.'

    'You're lying.'

    'Don't forget, you had dinner up in the lounge with Nettie and May.'

    'And you came to the hospital?'

    'How do you think the poker money wound up in your pocket? Maybe I shouldn't have done that, but I couldn't resist. Then I went in and said goodbye to Star, and she told me about Rinehart. Obviously, she was going to tell you the same thing. I was sure I could count on you to take it from there. For all your flaws, you're a dependable lad.'

    I could only stare at him. 'You knew you could count on me.'

    'To take the next step. I'll shut up again, and you can fill me in.'

    'Oh, I'll fill you in,' I said. 'Edward Rinehart was Howard Dunstan's son. I'm pretty sure he was illegitimate. He's been looking for us most of our lives.' I described what Howard Dunstan had said to me by pretending that I had heard it from Joy. I told him about meeting Max Edison at the V.A. Hospital with Laurie. 'Edison was still afraid of Rinehart, and so was Toby. Toby didn't want me to mention his name. I'll never say this to Laurie, but I think we got him killed. She said his name.'

    Robert absorbed it all. 'You don't know that Rinehart killed Toby Kraft, and you shouldn't blame yourself. You thought Rinehart was dead. Besides, Toby was in a dangerous profession, and I don't mean pawnbroking. Concentrate on being grateful for the money he left you.'

    'How do you know about that, I wonder?'

    “I went into his safe, remember? When I took out Hatch's papers,

    I came across Toby's will and his insurance policies. With the real estate, it must come to about two million. Think of it as your dowry.'

     'Too bad I gave most of it away,' I said.

    Robert looked at me in genuine dismay. Then his eyes narrowed and his mouth lifted ina smile. 'You're joking.'

    I told him about asking Creech to divide the money.

    'What possessed you to do a ridiculous thing like that?'

    I explained and said, 'After all, Star should have inherited the money, not me.'

    “I wish I didn't believe it. Did the lawyer suggest that the money revert to you when the old girls kick the bucket?'

    'C. Clayton Creech doesn't miss a trick.'

    'Could be another twenty years.'

    'The aunts don't spend money,' I said. 'They use a one-way barter system.'

    'Once they get their hands on a few hundred thousand, they might turn into model citizens. I can see Clark buying the biggest car in sight. Joy will put Clarence in a nursing home. Eventually, all three are going to wind up in nursing homes.'

    'Good,' I said. “If they need nursing homes, they'll be able to afford decent ones. That's what the money is for.'

    “It was supposed to be yours. Ours.'

    “I hope you're not thinking of killing them for it,' I said. What I thought was a joke earned me a sizzling glance of disgust. Robert shook his head and looked away.

    'Robert, you didn't kill Toby, did you?'

    He sighed and shook his head again. “I should give up on you.'

    'Tell me you didn't murder him because you knew I would inherit his money.'

    “It would get you off the hook, wouldn't it? You wouldn't have any reason to wallow in guilt, or to blame Laurie.'

     I thought about the timing of Toby's death, and the world seemed to stop moving.

    'But to answer your question, no. I did not murder Toby Kraft. Sorry, you'll have to live with your guilt.'

    'When I found him, he was sitting at his desk. Which means that he was killed before he went upstairs to his apartment. He was already dead by the time you got there.'

    'Not a pretty sight. But then, Toby never was much to look at. I wish you hadn't given away three-fourths of his estate.'

    'A shadow doesn't need money,' I said.

    “I low would you know? I'm getting tired of being on the edges. I'd like more stability, more continuity. You're my retirement plan. My pension fund.'

    'You could go into any bank in the world and walk out with a fortune. Why bother setting me up with Ashleigh Ashton and Laurie Hatch?'

    “I promised Star I'd look out for you. She didn't warn you aboutme, did she? Once we get past our birthday, we can carry on, apart and together, together and apart, for the rest of our lives.'

    I did notbelieve Robert. 'This afternoon, I walked past a bar called the Peep Inn and saw you talking to a girl. Something happened to me. I started to disappear.'

    “I disappear all the time. How far did it get?'

    “I could see through my hands.'

    'No one ever prepared you for certain aspects of Dunstan life. Probably means you're getting a little stronger.'

    'Did it have anything to do with seeing you?'

    'You're seeing me now. More to the point, I can also see you.'

    'The day I came here, you were in bed with a woman, and I felt everything you did. I was making love to a woman who wasn't there.'

    Robert's eyebrows shot up. 'Really?' He was not unhappy to have this information.

    'You didn't know you were doing it.'

    'No.' He smiled. 'That's an interesting phenomenon.' The whites of his eyes seemed whiter, and his teeth shone as if they came to points. When he noticed my unease, he moved out of the chair. 'Don't plan on seeing me at the funeral, but I'll be there. Tomorrow night we'll discuss our birthday. In the meantime, please try to stay alive.'

    'Don't underestimate me, Robert,' I said.

    “I'm not sure I could.' He gave me an ironic smile and faded through the door like a phantom.

    I regarded the back door. It consisted of a tall wooden panel separated into two equal portions by a recessed horizontal division. I stood up, walked around the table, and aimed my index finger at the center of the upper panel. My finger met solid wood. Telling myself I was a Dunstan, I tried to will my finger through the surface of the door. My fingertip flattened and bent upward.

 •96

 •I sat at Laurie's table, staring at my glass and thinking about my brother, my shadow, whose absence had shaped the entire course of my life. He had known what would happen to me at Middlemount and saved me from death by starvation or exposure—it was Robert who had flirted with Horst while I was drinking myself into a stupor. He had set up my encounter with Ashleigh because he knew it would lead to dinner with Laurie Hatch at Le Madrigal. Yet he had not known that I would give away three-quarters of what had come to me from Toby Kraft, and he had been surprised to hear of my visit to New Providence Road. Robert wanted me to think that he knew everything about me, but he had not known about my semi-disappearance on Word Street or my new ability to eat time.

    Robert seemed blind to the moments when I acted in accordance with my Dunstan legacy, especially what had come directly from Star. Virtually everything I had learned since arriving in Edgerton distanced me from his unseen claim on my being. The parts of myself least familiar to me were out of his range.

    But Robert had been delighted to hear that I'd participated in his sexual adventures and had watched my hands disappear on Word Street—maybe he wanted me to disappear altogether. For thirty-five years, Robert had