"Russell and Kirsch were two peas in a pod. Katzen hung with this old dude, Yitzhak Wasserstein, who was doing a long sentence for killing a woman. Boris and Amos were buddy-buddy. Thick as thieves, as the saying goes."

"So you were the odd man out."

"Yeah, I guess I was."

"Did the men like Mark?"

"They didn't like anybody. But they didn't have any reason to dislike him. The volunteers were just another fact of life. I thought Mark was a good guy. I'm sorry his wife left him."

"I didn't say she left. I said she disappeared."

She thought the slip might be significant, but Mickey Harvey just waved the distinction away with a swipe of his hand. "But that's what women do, right? They leave. Yeah, I knew guys who cracked up their marriages, had affairs, bullied their wives. I even knew guys who convinced themselves that they wanted some other woman, only to find out that marriage is marriage is marriage. But usually it's the women who leave."

"Men leave, too, you know." Tess's heat surprised even her.

"At any rate, my wife left me. And the thing is, she left after I got out. You see, she could take being married to a guy inside. That was theoretical. Plus, she got lots of points for that. Oh, Wendy, you're so brave. Oh, Wendy, you're so good. But when I came home, I was a reality again, a guy who had killed a child and run away, destroyed every chance I had in life, and my family's along with it. That she couldn't take."

"You probably changed, too, more than either one of you could anticipate. Even change for the good can disrupt a relationship."

"Yeah, I changed. I got better. I got sober. But the big change was, I stopped making sixty thousand a year. She was remarried within a year, to some attorney. So I guess I know what my wife really loved about me."

"I'm… sorry." She thought it was what he wanted to hear.

"Me, too. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I can't help Mark Rubin out. I'm sorry I can't help myself. I'm sorry I have two kids I don't see enough. I'm sorry for everything. But do you think I can ever be sorry enough for the parents of the kid I killed?"

It was an unanswerable question, and Mickey Harvey seemed to realize this. He gave an embarrassed smile and moved the conversation to safer ground.

"Hey, tell Mark I go to temple now. Not regular, every week, but I belong to a temple, and I don't miss the High Holidays. My youngest was bar mitzvahed last month. It was a big party. His stepfather paid for it."

She started to apologize yet again. "I'm… I'm-"

"Don't. I hear it too much. I say it too much. But it doesn't change anything. And you know what? If you find Mark's wife, that won't change anything either. Trust me, it's the one thing no one can fix. Hey, want to see what I'm making?"

Tess recognized the offer as his attempt to behave normally, to ape the superficial style more suitable to an encounter between two strangers. "Sure."

He led her to the back of his workshop. A small bookshelf stood on a dropcloth. Tess didn't recognize the wood-mahogany? Cherry? Something reddish and complicated, with a swirling grain. The design was simple, but she could tell it was a simplicity born of long hours.

"Hand-pegged," Mickey Harvey said, running his fingers lightly over the top. "It's for my son. His grandparents-my parents-bought him a set of The History of Civilization for his bar mitzvah, and I'm building this to hold them. He'll have it all his life. He'll give it to his sons, who will pass it on to their sons. I've given him something that no one else can."

"You also gave him life. Don't forget that."

"But I took another child's. You know, that's my biggest fear. That God will take my kid, an eye for an eye. Sometimes I think I should kill myself, just to even the score, keep Benjamin safe."

"I don't think it works that way." Tess was almost frightened for this man, stranger though he was, needful for him to believe in his future.

"But if it did, I would. You have kids?" She shook her head. "Then you can't really understand. Here's the worst thing." He lowered his voice, as if an omniscient God couldn't hear whispers. "If I had to choose between my kid and another kid, if God came to me and said I could have my life to live over-I could choose not to do what I did, but I'd have to give him Benjamin-I wouldn't think twice."

"You mean…?"

"I mean I'd do it all over again, make all the same fucking miserable mistakes to save my kid's life. Oh, sure, I'd try to cheat, find a loophole. That's what we all do when we bargain, whether it's with God or the devil. I'd take the deal, and then I'd try to wiggle out of it. And if I couldn't undo what I did, at the very least I'd stay there. I wouldn't run away again. I'd stay at the scene, take the Breathalyzer. I wasn't drunk, you know. And I wasn't even entirely at fault. I just was worried that I'd blow too high and that would be it for my job. For my fucking job. This time I'd help the parents get that little boy out of the car and hold him in my arms."

"I should go." She knew that the words sounded abrupt, even uncaring, but they were true. She should go. The longer Mickey Harvey spoke, the further he seemed to retreat into his own taunting memory. This conversation couldn't be good for him.

"Sure, I understand, you're a working girl. Hey-" He fished into the pocket of his painter's pants, pulled out a card. Tess gave him one of hers in exchange, just to be polite. She doubted Mickey Harvey had anything more to tell her. "If you need any woodworking. My ex is always telling me I have to learn to network. It's funny about exes. They know you, but they're not invested in you anymore, so they can be really honest. Know what I mean?"

Tess didn't, but she nodded her head anyway. Agreement was a small enough gift to give to Mickey Harvey, and he seemed grateful for it.

Chapter Twenty-four

"DO YOU KNOW WHEN I REALIZED I WAS GOING TO BE A thief when I grew up? When I stole the afikomen." Tan and fit, Larry Kirsch had prematurely silver hair and bright blue eyes, which sparkled with… well, Tess was still trying to determine what accounted for that glint. Since she had arrived at Kirsch's fragrant cigar store, he had been ladling charm over every word. Sometimes the effect was flirtatious and focused, as if she were the most fascinating creature in the world. But his energy lagged at moments, and his patter became perfunctory, as if he didn't want to put out 100 percent for a woman disinclined to pay forty dollars for a cigar. Then he turned it on again, and she was beguiled-almost. He was trying so hard to make sure she liked him that she didn't think she should.

Plus, Tess couldn't quite shake Mickey Harvey's gloom, not even after two bags of fresh-made Utz chips, one crab and one barbecue. She had read mat potato sales were down because of the mania for low-carb diets, and she wanted to help the farmers of the world.

"You're supposed to steal the afikomen," she said, brushing a fleck of salt from the corner of her mouth. "It's part of the Passover ritual. If every afikomen filcher ended up in prison, there wouldn't be any nice Jewish boys left."

"Ah, but I stole the afikomen from the kid who stole the afikomen. You see, I was the best negotiator among my cousins, and I always got more money for it. I hated seeing Adam and Jody give it back so cheap."

"I've seen your record. You weren't in prison for stealing."

"I stole tens of thousands of dollars from my employer to feed my cocaine habit." He laughed at Tess's arched eyebrows. "I know-cocaine was so over by the time I got hooked. A client gave me a little taste, to get me through tax season. By the time April fifteenth arrived, I was a full-fledged addict. Hey, but at least I was ahead of the curve on accounting fraud."