I asked Miri what they had all been laughing about when I came in and she retold the story of the world-famous actress and the woman famous for breasts-and-appearing-on-talk-shows and how they were getting face packs at the same high-end salon when their tiny dogs got into a dogfight, and it was a fairly amusing story about dripping mud and flying fur and screaming homosexuals, and she continued it as we went down to the dining room and sat around the oval teak and glass table. Amalie had cooked our dinner herself, a kind of cassoulet made with chicken sausage, lamb, and white beans, one of my favorite meals as it happens, with an artichoke salad and a bottle of Hermitage. Given what her time was worth nowadays, it was probably among the most expensive meals on earth. Niko had his bowl of Cheerios, which foodstuff comprises 90 percent of his diet.

During dinner, Amalie and I struggle to keep the conversation flowing, and some of what we talk about is business. My wife, despite her disdain for making money (or perhaps because of it), is a financial whiz. She publishes an on-line report called Mishkin’s Arbitrage Letter, in which she tells her fifteen hundred or so subscribers where the currency markets are going during the next week. Naturally, the smart players take her info into account, which changes the market, and the even smarter players are taking that into account and planning their yen-dinar-renminbi swaps accordingly, in an infinite regress that makes some of them billionaires. I consider myself a useless parasite compared with people who do real work, like writing songs, but I am a civil engineer compared with these guys. Amalie, however, has no problem charging twenty-five grand a year for a subscription, since she pumps maybe a third of her profits into good works. I occasionally run into people who have business in this rarefied world and they often ask me if I know that Mishkin. I always say no, but feel an odd pride all the same.

The meal ended and Aunt Miri went off to play with the kids, as is the custom. Having none of her own she has her fill of adult conversation. Lourdes served coffee; Amalie and I could now talk companionably about our children. We are civilized. She asked about Ingrid. She knows about Ingrid, we are very open about this aspect of my life. I said Ingrid was fine, and she said, “Poor Ingrid.” I asked her why and she said, “Because you have a new woman.” I felt the blood rise to my face, but I pasted on a smile and asked her why she thought that, and she sighed and said, “Jake, I am neither stupid nor unobservant. In the years when I trusted you, of course, I never looked for these signs, or misinterpreted them, but now that I know to look it is all very transparent. Who is she?”

“No one,” I lied. “Honestly.”

She stared at me for a long moment, then dropped her eyes to the table and sipped her cooling coffee. “Whatever you say,” she said. She put the cup down and rose and walked out of the room without another word or look. Lourdes came in and started clearing the plates, also ignoring me.

Then the Invisible Man went upstairs to the children’s playroom. Niko was at his computer with headphones on, and Miri and Imogen were watching MTV, sitting closely together on a ratty velvet love seat, made rapt by glitz.

Feeling more of a jerk than usual, I upped the fool ante by asking Imogen if she had done her homework and without taking her eyes off the screen she answered in a tone laden with tedium, “I did it at school.” I thought of asking for it. I also thought of taking the aluminum ball bat in the corner and smashing the television, and the computer, and holding the children hostage until they gave in to my demands. Which is for everything to be different, for me to have the love and admiration of my children and the devotion of my wife, but also the thrill of romance, and to never grow up and forever fly in and out on a wire, dressed in green tights…

Instead I sat down next to Miri and studied for a while the tiny scars of her face-lifts and the peculiar shiny dead areas left by the Botox and I was nearly overcome with compassion and I reached out and grabbed her hand. Miri is, I suppose, the person I feel closest to in the family now. We were a refuge for each other all during childhood, and she turned out even worse than me, so we have a basis of understanding. I was thinking about how she always came and grabbed my hand when Dad was on one of his rampages; I have no idea what she was thinking now, if anything, but she squeezed my hand back, and we stayed that way for a while watching the soft-core porn that our civilization uses to entertain the young. Then a little tune played and Imogen pulled out her cell phone, checked its tiny screen and disappeared for an episode of chat with some acolyte.

Miri muted the set, turned, and gave me an appraising look. “So who’s the new lady?” she asked.

“You too?”

“It’s obvious. You have that fevered look, and you’re less morose than usual. You need to grow up, Jake. You don’t want to end up like one of those old farts chasing little girls.”

“Oh, that’s rich, getting recommendations on continence from you.”

“Don’t be nasty, Jake. We’re a pair of sluts, you and I, but I at least don’t have a family I drag into it. And especially doing it to someone like Amalie.”

This was not a conversation I wished to have at the moment, so I said, “How’s Dad?”

Miri is the only one of we three who retains any contact with the old gangster. She is parsimonious with information about this relationship, however, perhaps at his insistence. That would be like him.

“Dad is fine. I saw him about three weeks ago. He looks good. He had to get a stent put into a coronary artery.”

“I hope they used an especially corrosion-resistant material. Brick would be my suggestion. Where was this meeting, by the way?”

“Europe.”

“Could you be more specific? Cannes? Paris? Odessa?”

She ignored this. “He asked after you and Paul.”

“Oh, that was kind of him. I hope you conveyed to him that he’s always in our thoughts. What’s he up to nowadays?”

“This and that. You know Dad, he always has some kind of hustle going. You should go over and see him. Take Amalie and the kids.”

This made me laugh. “That’s a good idea, Miri. I really can’t think of anything that would be more sheer fun than such an expedition.”

“You know,” said my sister after an offended pause, “have you ever noticed that your wife is never sarcastic? You might take a tip from that. You might try a little forgiveness too. I mean you sure get a lot of it.”

“And religious advice tonight as well. Are you sure you’re not Paul in drag?”

“If you’re going to be shitty, then I’m leaving. I need another drink anyway.”

She tried to pull her hand away from mine, but I held on and she fell back on the love seat.

“What?”

“I just thought of something I needed to ask you. In your dealings with the demimonde have you ever come across a Russian gangster named Osip Shvanov?” I was watching her face closely as I asked this and I saw a little tremor run across its sculpted surfaces. She licked her lips with a pink tongue-tip.

“Why do you ask?”

“Because his goons are after me. He thinks I have something he wants. I think.” I provided a brief explanation of the Bulstrode/Shakespeare affair as background, omitting to identify Miranda by name. “Do you know him?”

“We’ve met.”

“A client?”

“In a way. He entertains a lot. Some of my girls have been at some of his parties.”

“Could you get us together? I mean socially.”

“I don’t think you want to do that, Jake.”

“Because he’s such a bad guy.”

“He’s pretty evil. I mean evil guys think he’s evil.”

“Bad as Dad?”

“The same type of person, the two main differences being Dad never played rough and Shvanov is not our dad. Why do you want to meet him?”