“Now, that’s hard.”

“No, it was a relief. I grew to hate that dog and his desperate whining. It made me feel guilty every time I looked at his red runny eyes behind the barred door of his crate.”

“What suddenly brought to mind your old family dog?”

“He should take the plea.”

“It’s his choice.”

“It’s a good offer. He should take the plea. His lover theory isn’t bad, but something’s not right about the money.”

“I know.”

“He’s not telling us something.”

“I know.”

“And when they find out about it, and they will find out about it, it’s going jump up and bite him in the ass.”

I didn’t say anything, but I knew she was absolutely right. It was going to jump up and bite him in the ass, and all I had to do was figure out what it was. All I had to do was figure out what it was, and I knew where to start the figuring.

Juan Gonzalez.

“Funny thing about that dog,” said Beth. “It wasn’t until I was already in college that I began to wonder. If little Pom Pom was always locked in his crate, how did that car manage to drive into our mud room and squash him flat?”

13

JUAN GONZALEZ.

A name that meant nothing, except that Leila had mentioned it offhandedly and then Guy had made quite a show of knowing nothing about it. Too much of a show for me to leave it alone. A name that meant nothing except that it meant something, surely.

Juan Gonzalez.

Beth had said it for me: Something was not right about the money. Why had everyone thought there was once so much of it? Why had Hailey, who was startlingly unsentimental about love and romance, allowed it to be put into a joint account? To where had it disappeared? Something was not right about the money, something that would cause grievous harm to Guy’s cause if discovered, and so my number-one priority was to discover it. I didn’t know yet what it was, that secret, but I knew enough to lead me to its shelter. I knew its name.

Juan Gonzales.

First name Juan, John in Spanish. Family name Gonzalez, might as well be Smith. Juan Gonzalez. John Smith. How was it possible to find a connection between such a name and Hailey Prouix? Was it business or personal? Was he a lawyer or a client? Was he a friend or a relative. Was he a lover of Hailey’s or Guy’s or both? The possibilities were endless. All I knew for sure was that he wasn’t the ballplayer, but whoever he was, he was important enough for Guy and Leila to want to hide the truth, and so he was important enough for me to find.

“Never heard of him,” had said Guy. “I would have remembered. The name rings no bell.” When he told us this he was lying. Guy thought he had a secret without realizing that there is no such thing. There is always a trail, always a betrayal of some sort of another. To say you have a secret is only to say that you know something no one cares enough yet to figure out, But I cared, I cared like hell.

“Leila,” I said into the phone. “I have a question.”

“How is Guy?”

“About as you would expect.”

“Did you tell him what I agreed to do with the house? Did you tell him what I said?”

“Yes, I did. I have a question.”

“What did he say when you told him?”

“He shrugged, Leila.”

“He’s distraught still. He needs time.”

“Yes,” I said. He needs about thirty to life, I thought without saying. “Juan Gonzalez. You mentioned that name.”

“Did I?”

“Yes, you did. Who is he?”

“I don’t know, Victor. You said he was a ballplayer.”

“Not the ballplayer.”

“Then I must have misspoken.”

“You didn’t misspeak. Who is he?”

“Do you have those papers for me to sign? Does it look like he’ll be out of prison soon?”

“Leila, if I’m going to defend Guy, if I’m going to do right by Guy, I need to know everything. I need to know about Juan Gonzalez.”

“No, Victor. No you don’t. I heard the prosecutor made an offer.”

“Yes.”

“If he accepts the offer, when would he be out?”

“Somewhere between eight and ten years. Maybe less.”

“I’d be forty-five or so.”

“I need to know about Juan Gonzalez, Leila.”

“Tell him I’d wait. Will you tell him that?”

“Why don’t you tell him?”

“He’s not taking my calls.”

“Isn’t that answer enough?”

“I have to go. I have to pick up Laura at school.”

“Juan Gonzalez.”

“Tell him what I said, Victor.”

In the Philadelphia phone book there were three listings for a Juan Gonzalez, five more for J. Gonzalez. I would call each one and ask if he knew a Hailey Prouix or a Guy Forrest. If that didn’t work, I’d expand my search to include the suburbs, then New Jersey, then Delaware, spreading out nationwide in a great arc of inquiry. There were also records to check, computer databases to consult, sources to pump. It would take days, weeks, it could tie up my office for months, but still I wouldn’t stop until I had the answer. And I would find the answer, I had no doubts, because Guy thought his secret was safe without realizing that no secrets are safe. A secret has weight, it feasts and swells, it fills voids, it invades sleep, it withers joy, it darkens the landscape and presses down upon the soul and grows ever larger until it is too great to be contained. Then it crawls out into the world, hiding in dark places, waiting to be found.

I would check the files and peruse the records and follow the slime trail. One by one I would turn over the rocks, one by one, until underneath some seemingly irrelevant hunk of granite there it would lie, like a fat, wriggling worm. A worm with a name.

Juan Gonzalez.

14

I WASN’T sleeping. I couldn’t figure what was the problem, but somehow my circadian rhythms had come undone, and I wasn’t sleeping.

At night, in my bed, I would feel myself slipping, falling delightfully into sleep. And then something would happen, something hard would seize my fall. I couldn’t figure what it was, but something would happen and I would end up staring at the ceiling, seeing the darkness separate into pinpricks of matter, each hurtling away from me with fierce velocity.

In desperation, to pass the night, I’d pick up the book on my bed-stand. In college, how many how many times had I fallen asleep at my desk, my head resting on the pages of a book from my Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature class? Just a few philosophical diatribes from one Karamazov brother or another and I would be gone. But such was not the case with Crime and Punishment. I found all of it compelling, all of it enthralling, all of it somehow resonant. Taking a breath and pressing his hand against his thumping heart, he immediately felt for the hatchet and once more put it straight. Then he began to mount the stairs very quietly and cautiously, stopping every moment to listen for any suspicious noise. I thought it would put me to sleep, the old Russian master spinning out his words by the bushelful, but each night, after hours of the toss and turn, I lit the lamp and opened the book and dropped into old St. Petersburg. And what does it tell you about my state of mind that, even as I struggled to ensure Guy’s conviction, I was rooting for Raskolnikov to get away with murder?

Then, in the mornings, more exhausted than I was the night before, I would wash the sleeplessness from my eyes and step out into the dreary morning and head to the diner. It was at the diner, in the netherworld between my sleepless nights and my surreptitious days, that I found some respite. I’d sit undisturbed at the counter, spread my paper across the countertop beside me, eat my eggs and home fries, coffee up, read the sports page and comics. The front page was too depressing, but the Phils were winning and though “Doonesbury” had grown tepid over the years and “Family Circle” was too cloying to bear, there was always “The Piranha Club,” “For Better or for Worse,” and that bastion of old values, “Rex Morgan, M.D.” And then of course there was the Jumble.