When does that come on?

It’s coming up next, he says.

What’s your name? I say.

Sam, he says. My whole name is Samwise. Samwise Cody.

Samwise, I say. Your mom and dad must have liked The Lord of the Rings.

The boy’s face lights up. Yeah, he says. Except I don’t have a mom. But my dad reads me that book, sometimes. When I go to bed. How did you know?

I read that book when I was a boy. It was one of my favorites.

He nods. It’s my favorite, too.

Your dad’s name is MacDonald Cody? I say.

Yeah, he says. Most people call him Mac.

I nod. Your dad seems like a good guy.

The boy gazes at me, hopeful. Are you a friend of my Dad’s?

No. I’ve never met him. But I’ve seen him on TV.

The boy nods sagely, and I figure he’s used to hearing people say that. After all, his father is a senator from California. He plays one on TV.

I sit with Sam for another half hour or so. We watch Johnny Bravo together, and he laughs a time or two. Or he laughs when I laugh, that is. The kid has a sweet voice, soft and a little hoarse. I ask him what kind of toys he likes to play with because I notice there are no toys in the room except for the stuffed bear. He says he likes action figures, mostly. I tell him I’ll look into getting him some, and then I say it’s time for me to go. He looks so heartbroken that I am tempted to just sleep down here with him, but I have a feeling that Jude wouldn’t stand for that. But I promise him I will be back soon. I tell him to stay up as late as he wants and to watch cartoons until he’s sick.

The boy looks concerned. Do cartoons make you sick? he says.

No, I say. They never made me sick.

Jude is waiting for me in the library. She sits high atop one of the shelves, still reading about Jim Hawkins. When I come through the secret door she drops to the floor like a cat.

What is wrong with you? she says.

What do you mean?

You let the kid see your fucking face. And then you hang out with him for over an hour. What were you doing down there?

I shrug. We were watching cartoons and eating animal crackers.

Motherfucker. You were bonding with him.

He’s five, Jude.

Jude begins to pace back and forth.

He’s five, I say. Five.

I know how fucking old he is.

The kid is scared, I say.

I suppose you told him your name, as well.

I shrug. He broke me down.

I’m so glad you were thinking straight.

That’s funny, I say. The only thing worse than a sociopath is a funny sociopath.

Fuck you, Phineas.

And how much do you suppose the kid is worth? I say.

Jude stops, her eyes narrow. A million, easy. Maybe five.

His father is the senator, MacDonald Cody.

Jude shrugs. How did you figure that out?

I’ve seen the kid before.

Where?

One of Miller’s creepy video tapes.

Jude nods. He does enjoy the home video.

What the fuck is going on between you and him? I say.

I told you. I don’t want to talk about Miller.

What makes you think Cody has five million lying around?

He’s a politician. Fat cats pay a thousand dollars a head to have dinner with him. He’s got more dough in his war chest than your average third world country.

I light a cigarette.

Okay, I say. Here’s the way I see it. If I try to fuck this up and return the kid to his family before we collect the ransom, you will…what? You’ll kill me?

Jude shrugs. Maybe.

That’s nice.

Nothing about this is nice, she says.

I shake my head. No shit. Have you read Miller’s script?

No, she says. Not really.

Molly has. She read the first draft, I say.

So what? Jude says.

So, she says the kid dies in the second act. He dies, Jude.

He’s not going to die.

Then he might as well be comfortable, I say.

How comfortable?

Cozy, I say. I’m going to hit Toys-R-Us, get him some action figures to play with. I’m going to make sure he eats once in a while and I’m going to hang out with him in the afternoons, when we’re not shooting this goddamn film.

That sounds like an unhealthy level of attachment, Jude says.

Why don’t you come with me? I’ll buy you something pretty and pink.

Jude smiles, a glimmer of affection in her eyes.

It might be fun, I say.

Miller owns us, baby. Best not to aggravate him.

I grab her hands. Let’s just kill the crazy fucker and get lost.

Jude pulls away, cold. It’s not half that easy.

Why not?

Jude takes the cigarette from me and takes a fierce puff. She crosses her arms, backs away from me, her face so miserable I don’t recognize her.

Because, she says. I’m kind of married to him.

Bullshit. That’s not even funny.

I’m not kidding, she says.

Jude and I sit in silence in the library for almost five minutes. A long time to go flatline with a person who’s got your heart in their fist. Miller’s library is plush as hell, and I could think of worse places to torture myself. There’s a nicely stocked liquor cabinet along one wall, for instance. I pour myself a glass of gin, retreat into a corner and crawl into a leather armchair and smoke one cigarette, then another. Jude’s face is very pale. She drifts around the library a minute and I think she’s looking for something to hit, really. I shake my head. She is so pretty it’s stupid. She climbs the ladder and dives back into Treasure Island. One long leg dangling, a curved blade. I watch her turn the pages. Her hands are amazing, I think. Very strong, and elegant as twin birds of prey. A stray lock of hair keeps falling down over her eyes and she brushes it back with a long finger. I stand up and Jude snaps the book shut.

Explain this to me, I say. When, for instance?

Nine years ago, says Jude. After I left the Army. I met him at a casino in Morocco. He was…well, you’ve seen him. He was powerful, mysterious, he was rich as God. He was the most arrogant man I’d ever met. And he had…certain appetites that appealed to me.

Fucking hell, I say. What are you doing to me?

Back off, she says. You were married once, too. Your wife died under mysterious circumstances and have I ever fucked with you about that?

This shuts me up like a charm. I sip my drink.

Anyway, says Jude. I liked the twisted shit, for a while. And then I got tired of him. I got tired of his lifestyle. Everything was protected by his money. I wanted to get outside and get dirty. I had spent my whole life training to be…what I am. I wanted to work, you know. Miller just wanted me to eat room service and go shopping and be his little psycho playmate, his windup fuck buddy. So, one night when he went to the opera with a client, I got spontaneous and disappeared myself.

twenty-five.

WHAT WAS AND WHAT WILL NEVER BE ARE NOTHING TO ME. My head and heart are upside down. Jude is a married woman. She’s married to John Ransom Miller. The way she explained it to me, she got bored with him. She left him but never got around to divorcing him. Why would she bother, she asked. A divorce required paperwork, and paperwork creates a trail. She had simply disappeared, erasing her identity behind her. Jude had been expensively trained by the government to become a fucking shadow in the rain. People generally did not find Jude unless she found them first, and the people she found were generally sorry.

But it’s a small world, and six degrees of separation are like a ticking clock. She had never told me about him, and I suppose that should hurt me somehow. Maybe there’s something wrong with me but everything I feel right now can be gathered into one cupped hand. I feel the fading rush of being surprised, the stupidity of not knowing, which tastes a little like dogshit in my mouth. The most clear and present thing I feel is the residual echo of Jude’s shame and self-hatred. And I am not one to judge. I had been married before I met her too, and I had rarely spoken to her of Lucy. The only difference was that Lucy was dead.