An hour before he shot himself, my best friend Philip Strayhorn called to talk about thumbs.

"Ever noticed when you wash your hands how you don't really do your thumbs?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's your most important finger, but because it sticks out, away from the rest, you don't really wash it. A little dip and rub, maybe, but not nearly enough attention for all the work it does. It's probably the finger that gets dirtiest, too."

"That's what you called to tell me, Phil?"

"It's very symbolic. Think about it. . . . What are you reading these days?"

"Plays. I'm still trying to find the right ones."

"I have to tell you I bumped into Lee Onax the other day. Said he'll still give you half a million if you direct for him."

"I don't want to direct films anymore, Phil. You know how I feel."

"Sure, but five hundred thousand dollars would help your theater a lot."

"Five dollars would help a lot. But if I went back and did a film now, it'd be fun and seductive and I'd probably want to direct movies again."

"Remember in the Aeneid the hundred and forty thousand different kinds of pain? I wonder what number yours would be? 'I don't want to be a famous Hollywood director anymore because it'd make me confused.' Pain number 1387."

"Where are you calling from, Phil?"

"LA. We're still cutting the film."

"What's the title?"

"Midnight Kills."

I grinned. "Terrific. What's the most horrible thing you do in it?"

The telephone line hissed over the three thousand miles.

"Are you still there, Phil?"

"Yeah. The most horrible thing is what I didn't do."

"You were making a movie, man. Bad things happen sometimes."

"Uh-huh. How are you doing, Weber?"

"Good. One of my main actors is really sick, but you've got to expect that when you're working here." I looked at the small Xeroxed poster tacked to the board above my desk. THE NEW YORK CANCER PLAYERS PRESENT FRIEDRICH DЬRRENMATT'S "THE VISIT." "Our Opening night is in a month. We're all getting nervous."

"Theater's so different, isn't it? With movies, opening night means everything is finished: nothing you can do but sit back and watch. In the theater, though, it's all beginning. I remember that."

There was a worn-out echo in his voice that I took for exhaustion. I was wrong.

Sasha Makrianes called to tell me he was dead. She'd gone over to cook lunch and found him sitting on the patio in his favorite high-backed armchair. From behind, it looked like he'd fallen asleep while reading. A copy of Rilke's poetry was on the ground next to him, as well as an unopened can of Dr. Pepper. She called his name, then saw the book was covered with blood. Going over, she saw him slumped forward, what was left of his head spewed in a wide splintered arc over everything.

Running into the house to telephone the police, she found the body of Flea, his Shar-Pei dog, in the big brown wicker basket Phil brought from Yugoslavia.

Hearing he'd killed the dog too was almost as shocking as the news of Phil's death. Sasha often joked through gritted teeth that he loved Flea as much as her.

The first thing that came to my mind was our thumb discussion. Was he thinking about that an hour later as he loaded the gun and put it in his mouth? Why had he chosen that as the topic of our last conversation?

A few years before, we'd been through an earthquake together. As the ground rumbled, Phil kept saying over and over, "This isn't a movie! This is not a movie!"

We'd been creating or adapting scripts so long that all part of me could think of was setting and the last words this character, Philip Strayhorn, would have chosen. I was ashamed my mind worked like that, but if Phil had known he would have laughed. In the process of spending almost twenty years trying to get our names onto the silver screen, we'd lost parts of our objectivity toward life. When someone you love dies, you should weep – not think of camera angles or last lines.

After the phone call, I went out for a walk. There was a travel agent down the street; I'd book a flight to California the next day. But a few steps out the door, I realized what I really wanted to do was visit Cullen James.

Cullen and her husband, Danny, lived up on Riverside Drive, a good hour's walk from my apartment. Pulling up my collar, I started out with the hope exercise and the tiredness it'd bring would take some of the edge off the news of Philip Strayhorn's death.

In the last few years, Cullen had become famous in a peculiar sort of way. When we first met, she was going through what could best be described as an "otherworldly experience." Every night for a number of months she dreamt of a land called Rondua where she traveled on a bizarre quest after something called the "bones of the moon." I fell in love with her then, which was very bad because she was happily married to a nice man and nursing their first child. I am not a wife stealer, but Cullen James made me crazy and I went after her as if she were the gold ring on my personal carousel. If I'd been a sailor, I'd have had her name tattooed on my arm.

In the end I didn't win her, but during that confused and passionate time I began dreaming of Rondua too. Those dreams changed my life. Those dreams and the earthquake.

When I got to the Jameses' building I was cold inside and out. The death of a loved one robs you of some kind of vital inner heat. Or perhaps it blows out the pilot light that keeps your burners lit. Whatever, it took an hour of hard walking in the blue lead cold of a New York December for me to really hold in the palm of my mind the fact my best and oldest friend was dead. He had almost no cruelty in him. After twenty years I knew Philip Strayhorn was even better than I'd ever thought. He once said there are thirty-one million seconds in a year. So few of them are worth remembering. Those that are, thrill and hurt us without end.

"Hello?"

"Cullen? It's Weber. I'm downstairs. Do you mind a visitor?"

"Oh, Christ, Weber, we just heard about Phil. Of course, come up."

There was a giant holiday wreath on their door. The Jameses loved Christmas. For them, it started in November and went on well into January. They used their daughter, Mae, as an excuse for the festivity, but it was clear they liked it more than the kid. There were always oranges stuck with cinnamon cloves in every corner of every room, Christmas cards on the windowsills, a tree out of a 1940s movie like The Bishop's Wife or It's a Wonderful Life. It was a good place. Slippers belonged there, and a friendly dog that followed you from room to room.

Cullen opened the door and smiled. There are perfect faces. I've known and slept with some, but they were meant to remain placid and untouched, not shaken or distorted by the push and pull of great emotion or a long and full night in bed. They're tuxedos – you wear them only on special occasions and then hang them up carefully in the closet afterward; a stain or wrinkle on them ruins everything. Cullen's is not a perfect face. She smiles too much, and many times it's obviously false: her safe and easy defense against a curious and persistent world. But she is beautiful and . . . whole. When I first met her she was full of love and confusion. Even then I wanted it all but knew I'd never have any. Without trying, she handcuffed herself to my heart.