The Germans call it a Pistole-08, a null-acht, but everyone else calls it a Luger. This is in fact the very item brandished when Mom and Dad met: yes, she lied about that, for here it is. It is a special presentation model awarded to old granddad when he won the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. God knows what it’s worth, thousands and thousands to the peculiar little men who collect this shit. On the left side of the walnut grip is an inlaid diamond lozenge quartered red and white with black letters inlaid in the center

and on the right side we find an inlaid miniature in silver of the decoration; the recipient’s name, his rank, and the date are engraved on the receiver. Himmler apparently conferred it with his own pudgy white hands. My mother was unclear as to what the medal citation was, but it involved killing a truly spectacular number of Russians while commanding a panzer regiment on the eastern front during the late summer of 1943. It still makes me sweat a little to look at it and hold it, it is so totally awful a thing, but for some reason I have never been able to sell it or toss it in the river. It’s loaded too, with the original Parabellum 9 mm. And I know it works. Perhaps I will do some plinking with it later. I am a pretty good pistol shot as a matter of fact. My brother, Paul, taught me how during a leave after his first tour. I met him down at Fort Bragg and we went out into the piney woods one afternoon and blazed away with a military Colt.45 and a Soviet Makarov 9 mm he had picked up in Vietnam. He taught point-and-shoot combat style, speed above everything because the average pistol target was seven feet away or less.

Anyway, I dropped Mickey off at Columbia, and as he left the car he said, “Let me know when the niece calls-if she finds that manuscript, tell her I’d love to have a look at it.”

I said I would and we drove off south. On the ride back I thought about my long relationship with Mickey Haas, especially its sexual aspects. I had to acknowledge a certain contempt for the man, which is, I believe, inevitably a part of any really intimate long-term friendship. My brother, Paul, would call this feeling part of our fallen state, that we cannot love unreservedly, that we must consider the beloved less than we believe ourselves to be, in at least one way. I suppose this is, though hurtful, a good thing. We all have a tendency toward self-worship, and one of the prime functions of a good friend is to keep this in check. I know he thinks I am a dull old dog, and not nearly as smart as he is. Perhaps true; certainly I am not nearly as famous. I don’t write popular best-selling books, I am not worshipped by legions of students, I am not a premier member of the National Academy of Arts and Letters, nor do I have his Pulitzer Prize. He must also think I am something of a fool for love, or at least sex. He is certainly privy to the tale of my peccadilloes, save the three exceptions I have noted. He was terribly affected when Amalie and I broke up. She’s perfect for you, he said at the time, listing her virtues. He was correct. Too perfect for me by far, but it’s hard to get that notion across to another.

Several days later, according to my diary, Ms. Maldonado put through a call; I had alerted her to its possibility and stressed the importance thereof. The voice was young, pleasant, somewhat throaty. You know what this is about then, eh? The aboot and the terminal syllable marked her as a Canadian. Foreign-nearby, as the ads used to say. I found it immediately attractive, and I invited her to drop by the office, but she demurred. She’d rather meet me in a neutral place, for reasons she would explain when we met. Where, then? She was working, she said, in the New York Public Library, in the Brooke Russell Astor Reading Room of the Rare Books Division. I said I had some things to clear up, but that I could meet her there at four. She said she looked forward to meeting me.

I resumed my task of the day, which was suing some poor slob of an artist on behalf of a giant corporation. This is the daily bread of the IP lawyer. Someone had appropriated the logo of a national chain to comment on the madness of consumerism. The original logo is a little risqué (tits), and the artist had made it more so, and it had shown up on popular posters and T-shirts and the corporation was not amused. I can do cease-and-desist orders of this type in my sleep, or on this occasion, with my mind on my coming date with the mysterious heiress of Bulstrode, whose name I now knew was Miranda Kellogg.

Omar dropped me off at the Fifth Avenue entrance to the great beaux arts pile of the library at a quarter to four. The two stone lions, Patience and Fortitude, who according to New York lore are supposed to roar when a virgin ascends the steps, were mum. I took the elevator to the third floor and arranged admission to the locked Astor room, just off the main reading room. Memories here: I spent a significant portion of my middle-school years sitting at those long wooden tables. I would subway up from Brooklyn and stay the whole day, supposedly researching a school paper (this was before the Internet, of course, and before Mrs. Polansky struck) but mainly enjoying the anonymity, the company of strangers and scholars, and the utter un-Mishkinity of the place. My first really adult experience.

I spotted her right away, at a long table in one corner. Apart from a gentleman manning the official desk, she was alone in the richly paneled room. Her hair was blond, worked into two miniature braids pinned up over the ears. Amalie wore her hair that way when we were courting, and absurd as it is I have always been a sucker for that style. Her neck was bared and deliciously vulnerable; women’s necks are, in my view, the most underrated secondary sexual characteristic in our culture, and one that always gets me in the vitals. I stood there for minutes just watching her turn pages. Then, in the mysterious way that has never been successfully explained to me, she became conscious of my stare and turned abruptly. Our eyes met. I nodded. She smiled dazzlingly and rose and came toward me. She didn’t really look like the young Amalie, not feature by feature, but she had that same leonine grace; somewhat shorter than average, she wore a short gray skirt and a beautiful glowing pink silk blouse. Dark stockings, elegant ankles. She held out her hand and I grasped it. She had grape green eyes, just like Amalie’s. She said You must be Mr. Mishkin. I’m Miranda Kellogg. I couldn’t speak for a moment. Electricity ran up my arm and I am afraid I held the grip a little too long. This is ridiculous, I recall thinking.

THE BRACEGIRDLE LETTER (5)

As I neared my house that even I hearde the noyse of womans cryes & entering therein I found my father laying harde upon my poore mothere with his sticke, which I had never seen before now nor ever thought to see. The case was this: Margaret the mayde had founde in my motheres presse a papiste crucifixe & beades & brought them straightways to my father, & hym thinkynge all these yeares he had tabeled & bedded a secrete papiste grew mad with it & stroke oute in a furie, my mothere protestynge that such kickshows were alle she hadde of her mother mere keep-sakes, yet it availed naught. And though I knew my father was in his rights I could not beare it & made to stay his arm saying have mercie she is your wyfe: but he cryed she is no wyfe to me anie more & stroke at mee too & at that I coulde not holpe but presse hym away & he felle harde upon the floor. Wee two-I mean my mother & mee then kneelt to aide him if we could: in truth he was not hurt sore but in his pryde & he cried plague take you both, you shalnot stoppe a night more in my house, I have not wyfe nor sonne no more.

So weeping both full bitterlie I left with my mother & a few thynges of our own, me hyring a barrow to carry these fornitures, she near dieing for shame. Now by chaunce I had the gold from the Ordnance that payed for the gonnes £68 12s. so wee were not paupered & could hyre a room for the night in an inn the Iron Man in Hart Lane by the old Crutchedfriars, 3d. the night & keep. The next morn leavyng some smalle monnaie with my mother I took boat to Gravesend & then back to Titchfield as I had come up. My maistre was well-pleazed his gonnes had assaied well but frowned harde when I told hym what had come to pass at my fatheres house & harder stille when I sayde I had uzed his gold to keep us the night & my mother some daies after: & promised I would paye it back everie pennie, & pleadeth the necessitie. But he gave me the lie saying I had gamed or drunk it up & hoped to gull hym with this tayle of papistes: in short, we fought, me not able I feare to keep Christian forebearance as I should nor honor my maistre as I should, for I could not beare his cantings hym being hymselfe a greate liar & keeping a whore besydes. Which I tolde oute to the whole house & his wyfe there too & was greate dissensioun in that house after. Next day I was dismissed with but the clothes on my backe & no ticket of leave neither.