Billy’s father, Tiny Spencer, had been a bike racer in the late sixties and early seventies, racing the American circuit for Suzuki. For eight years he traveled the country, chewing up racetracks with the likes of Halsy Knox and the rest of the death wishers. Then his almost record-breaking stint as a corporate rider ended on an August afternoon in Bakersfield, California. The crash tore both legs off at the knee and Tiny’s racing days were over. So Tiny had bought a place in Montauk, because he hated Texas where he was from, and began building custom racing canopies in his garage. Within six months he was making more money than he had as a circuit racer. Jake recalled that the house had always smelled of fiberglass and solvent.

Spencer walked down into the living room and stared out at the ocean and Jake remembered how everybody who came here was always drawn to the same thing—the big line of the Atlantic that didn’t stop until it hit Portugal. “Dad died five years ago. Prostate cancer. He said it was from his ass sitting on wheels all those years. First bikes, then the chair.” Spencer’s shoulders slumped when he saw the weed-covered pool, lily pads and lush algae, a deep green against the perfect blue of the ocean beyond. “I remember when this place was like a TV show. Your mom wiggling around the place in Chanel, getting us sandwiches with the crusts cut off and letting us stay up late on Creature Feature Night. Mallomars and Pop-Tarts. And your dog, Lewis.” He paused, and the silence said he regretted bringing it up. “Remember those days?”

Spencer’s gaze shifted to the algae-lush surface of the pool, a monument to the past. “I remember that pool. Jesus, where did it go?” Of all of Jake’s friends, only Spencer had permission to use the pool owing to that Pablo Picasso had decorated the bottom with a large winking cubist vagina. Spencer had been appreciative of the painting until he had seen his first vagina in real life; he had been perplexed at—and grateful for—its lack of ninety-degree angles.

Jake shrugged. There was no conceivable way to answer the question—rhetorical or not—without opening things he wanted to stay closed. Things like his dog.

Spencer took another sip of coffee to fill the dead zone in the conversation, then said, in a documentary filmmaker’s voice, “How did Billy Spencer become Officer William Spencer? would be the next question. Hauser saved me. And I don’t want any jokes. I am not a born-again anything, Jake. After you left I tried to keep things the same. Kept shucking oysters for the yacht club, chasing the summer girls. You know, the same old same old. But that only worked for so long. So I floated. For a decade. But you know how time has that funny little way of catching up with you? Yeah, well, one night I’m driving home from work and I’m hammered. Hauser pulls me over and has me get out of the truck. I can’t even stand. He can arrest me. Have my truck towed. You know what he does? He gets in my Ford and parks it in a field off the road. Then he drives me home. It was one of those light-bulb moments you hear about; I realized that not everyone in this line of work is out to get people. Some of them—guys like Hauser, I mean—just want to make the place a little better. So a week later I wrote the police exam and did pretty good, well enough that they contacted me to see if I needed any encouraging to go to the interviews. After the interviews they went at me with a background check, psychological profile, polygraph test. I did the twenty-eight-week program, and Hauser hired me right out of the gate. Now here we are.” A lifetime summed up in a few sentences.

They stopped speaking for a few minutes, both listening to the sound of the ocean. Jake finally asked, “What can you tell me about Hauser?” He pulled out a cigarette, brought it to life.

“Born here, played ball for Southampton High. Football scholarship to the University of Texas. First string quarterback for three seasons. Went pro. Number six draft choice for his year in the NFL. Played four solid games for the Steelers before he had his right knee bent ninety degrees against design. You’d probably like him if you got to know him. He’s a capable guy, it takes a lot for him to go green like last night.”

“Last night would be tough on anyone.”

Spencer mulled the statement around for a few seconds, then held out his mug for a refill. “You seemed to be fine with it.”

Jake heard it coming out in his voice. The worry. “It’s what I do.”

Spencer nodded like that had answered it all, but his face was still playing around with a few questions. “History? Wife? That kind of stuff,” he said, changing the subject.

What could Jake say to that? Heroin, a cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillator sewn into my chest, drinking problem. NA, AA. Somehow got through it. Met Kay. Makes me laugh, makes me horny. A boy, Jeremy. “Her name’s Kay.” I figure out the event cascade at a crime scene faster than a team of battlefield anthropologists. “I’ve been with the bureau for twelve years now.” Half of them clean. “A son, Jeremy.” Who I call Moriarty because he thinks it’s a cool name and I am terrified he will someday find out that I don’t know if I am a good man. “Live in New York. Kay plays with the orchestra—cellist.” I am on the road eleven months a year. “I’m back because my father set himself on fire and smashed through the front window.” And pissed off that the bastard didn’t have the courtesy to die.

“I wish you would have said good-bye. Or sent a letter. Something. Anything. I went into the city to find you a couple of times.”

Jake stared at Spencer, wondering if he was supposed to say something here because Spencer had paused, like he wanted some sort of dialogue. Jake rinsed his mug under the faucet and placed it in the rack beside the sink. A few drops of water beaded on its surface.

“Everyone figured you’d come back some day. And here you are. More than half a lifetime later.”

Jake shrugged, as if that was some sort of an answer. He hoped Spencer would let it go.

“What’d you do when you got to New York?” Spencer pushed.

Jake remembered his visit to David Finch—his father’s art dealer. Jake had asked for thirty-one dollars, so he’d be able to stay at the YMCA while he found a job, got on his feet. He promised to pay it back when he could. Finch had said no. That Jacob wouldn’t approve. That he was sorry. And then he had closed the door in Jake’s face.

Two nights of no meals and no place safe to sleep later, Jake had sold a little piece of himself—the first of many. And learned, with an odd mix of horror and pride, that he was a survivor. The next part of his life had faded and been forgotten. The drugs helped. For a very long time they had helped. “Got on with my life.”

Jake’s eyes left Spencer and slid down to the safari pool out on the deck. In a way there was something serene, almost meditative about it. Maybe it wasn’t a sign of neglect after all. Maybe his father had been going Zen.

“What, exactly, do you do, Jake?”

“I paint the dead.” He looked back to the pond/pool.

“Another great American artist,” Spencer said, and poured his coffee down the drain.

8

His father’s jaw hung slack, cheeks dented in as if an invisible hand squeezed his face. Charred gray stubble flecked his skin and white specks of mucus hung at the corners of his closed eyes and open mouth. The left side of his face was a black-red mess of scab and antibiotic ointment bisected by a long sutured scar that ran from eyebrow to chin. His hands were bandaged knobs at the ends of his wrists, bloody gauze clubs. He snored loudly, the tremor of his voice shaking the air in the room. Even in medicated sleep the man commanded attention.