Peril

that simple measure of getting everyone through this thing—Sara, her mother, Mike, Nicky, herself—everyone through this thing unharmed.

But how?

She considered the situation, trying to focus on a solution, a way out, but each time, the situation itself exploded into a thousand glittering shards. This flying apart happened, she thought, because she simply lacked the capacity to think. Bright people saw the world with a clarity that was beyond her. They could find a pattern, chart a road through the entangling forest. But she saw only what was directly before her. It had always been that way, she thought. It was as if her brain were a gigantic eye that could detect only the brightest colors, all subtlety and shading beyond her view. She was like a ship that sailed from island to island on a journey that moved from Big Thing to Big Thing. GET A BOYFRIEND. MARRY. HAVE KIDS.

The trip had gone remarkably smoothly, she realized, the sea always calm in a world without storms and where night never fell. But now everything was storm-tossed and she could feel a terrible blackness approaching. She remembered Sara talking about a play in which, at the end, the whole house was turned upside down, everything falling on top of everything else, and it seemed to Della that her own house might do the same thing; one wrong move and everything she loved would be annihilated.

Maybe the thing to do, she reasoned, was to rate love. Make a list of people you cared for. The one you loved the most was at number one. Next was number two. And if helping the third person on the list put the people at one and two in danger, then you just didn’t do it. Number one for her, she decided, was Nicky. Number two was Denise. Then Mike. Her mother, grudgingly, made number four. Okay, she thought, if helping Sara endangered the others, then I won’t help Sara. That was simple enough, wasn’t it? Yes, she thought, momentarily pleased with the little mathematical scheme she’d worked out. Then, in the midst of that satisfaction, blurring the clarity of rated love, another calculation emerged. Herself. Where did she fit in the scheme she’d worked out? Who would she be —what would be left of her—if she turned away from a friend in danger, made no attempt to warn her, save her, but simply closed the door, turned out the light, and with that gesture switched off the power to her heart?

STARK

The buzzer sounded unexpectedly, and like all such surprises, it was unwelcome. He walked to the door and opened it.

“Sorry to bother you,” Mortimer said. He took off his hat but didn’t leave it on the rack by the door. “You busy?”

Stark closed the door, leaving the two of them in the shadowy light of the foyer. “What is it?” he asked.

“It’s about my friend,” Mortimer told him. “The one you’re helping out.”

“Did he give you more information?”

Mortimer shook his head. “The thing is, he’s in a bind. Complications. He’s got complications.”

Stark said nothing. Instead, he worked to conceal the raging sense of betrayal he felt in the certainty that Mortimer had lied to him.

“So, that’s what we need to talk about,” Mortimer said.

Stark faced him squarely in the foyer’s shadows. “Talk,” he said.

MORTIMER

Talk.

That was all Stark said, and at that instant Mortimer thought, He knows.

But he was not sure what Stark knew. Only that he knew something, and that what he knew was very bad. He could see how bad it was in Stark’s pale blue eyes. Because of that, Mortimer knew that his own next words were crucial, that they had to give Stark the impression that it had all been a mistake, that whatever Stark had discovered, Mortimer had also discovered it, that they’d both been fooled, not that one had attempted to fool the other.

“I’m not sure he’s playing straight with me,” Mortimer said. His fingers squeezed the hat. “My friend, I mean. What he tells me, I can’t be sure it’s on the up-and-up.” He watched Stark, straining to see some sign of a reaction, but the man peered at him silently, and with what now appeared a sad contempt. “About the job, I mean,” he added, trying hard not to sputter or to cringe despite the fact that he felt like a third-grade kid before a disapproving teacher. “The thing is, I ain’t sure we’re the only players.”

“The only players?”

“I get the feeling he might have some other guy working this thing.” Mortimer stopped and waited, but Stark continued to stare at him without expression. “You ain’t seen no sign of that, right? Some other guy?”

“Why would you think your friend had a second man?” Stark asked.

“I don’t know,” Mortimer answered. “Just a feeling that—” He stopped again, staring now into Stark’s stony features. “Anyway,” Mortimer said quietly. “That’s where I’m at in this thing.”

“Which is where, exactly?”

“Where I said. I don’t think I’m getting the straight story.”

“So your friend is lying to you?”

“Well, maybe not exactly lying. Just not telling me everything.”

“There’s no difference between those two,” Stark said sternly.

Mortimer saw something register darkly in Stark’s face, a look he’d never seen before, that of a man who’d suddenly glimpsed another man’s demise, knew the hour and the manner of his impending death. “I wish I could get you off this thing,” he said.

“It’s too late for that.” Stark said it grimly.

Mortimer glanced down the darkened corridor that led to the right and noticed a black curtain hung across it.

“What’s the matter?” Stark asked sharply.

“Nothing,” Mortimer answered.

“In that case,” Stark said. He opened the door and a wide swath of light passed over them, deathly pale, with swirling flecks of dust. “Unless there’s something else.”

Mortimer faced Stark in the mottled light. “No. Nothing.” A grave premonition swam into his mind, the dreadful sense that he would never see Stark again. “Sorry for how this turned out,” he said.

For an instant, he thought he saw something move across Stark’s face, some glimmer of affection shaded by regret. Then it passed, and Stark stepped back into the shadowy depths of his apartment, and closed the door.

Mortimer had never been so coldly dismissed, but there was nothing to be done about it. And so he walked out of the apartment and down the stairs, where he turned right, thinking that he could use a drink, maybe a little talk with his best friend, Abe. At the corner he glanced back toward Stark’s apartment, recalled the black curtain that hung over the corridor, and wondered if his first suspicion could possibly be correct.

The light changed, but Mortimer remained in place. He knew he had to focus on the situation, and so, walking now, he started first with a chronological arrangement of events, recalling how Caruso had brought up the missing wife. No. It hadn’t begun there. It had begun with his owing Labriola fifteen grand, and what that meant was that everything that followed was his fault. If he hadn’t bet on Lady Be Good, he’d never have gotten into this position. But Lady Be Good had been a good bet. Several of the old stoopers at the track had told him so. So, when you looked at it, it was really their fault for giving him a bad tip. He shook his head, realizing that he’d done it again, gotten completely off the track.

And so he started again, this time carefully recalling the stages by which he’d gotten into this bind. Sure, it came back to owing Labriola fifteen grand, but that really didn’t matter now. What mattered was that at the end of the process, everybody would be okay. Except the woman, of course, because what happened to her didn’t really matter. Why should it, because when you got right down to it, it was all her fault anyway. If she hadn’t taken a fucking hike, none of this shit would have happened.

Bullshit, he thought. He shook his head at the absurdity of his own conclusion. It wasn’t the woman’s fault at all. Like everything else, it was his fault, goddammit. Every fucking bit of it was his fault and nobody else’s. He’d gotten into debt with a rotten old hood, then tried to pay off that debt by lying to Stark and cheating him, and now he had to fix it because Stark had gotten wind of something screwy in this thing, and God only knew what dark and bloody thing he’d done to the guy he’d caught following him.

Mortimer’s mind raced through the grim possibilities—everything from kicking his ass to cutting his throat—