“A lifetime,” June finished for her.

“Yes.”

“Roberta,” I said, “Lucas told you he was working on something, right?”

“I’m sorry, Irene, everything he told me remains confidential.”

“But now that he’s dead-” I said.

“It doesn’t matter,” she insisted.

“My son talked to you?” June asked.

“Yes. But I’m afraid whatever Lucas said to me in counseling sessions is privileged.”

“Whose privilege?” June asked. “Yours?”

“No, Lucas’s. He never told me anything intending that others would know of it. Except in cases where I believe someone may be in physical danger from a client, I have to respect confidentiality. Lucas’s death doesn’t change the fact that he trusted me. It’s not up to me to judge what he would want others to know now that he’s no longer living.”

The silence which followed stretched out until I could hear the marching click of the second hand on Roberta’s quartz wall clock.

“When Roberta told me that Lucas had been missing,” I said, “I went looking for him. If not for her concern, I don’t know how long it would have been before anyone thought of searching for him.”

June Monroe nodded. “Thank you for taking care of my son,” she said to Roberta. “I would like to see where he stayed.”

WE MADE A BRIEF TOURof the shelter. It offered spartan but clean accommodations. A simple bed or cot-perhaps nothing more than a floor space on a cold night. But to someone living on the street, I suppose its hot showers and flush toilets made it look like the Ritz. It seemed it would almost be like living at one’s high school gym. There was no real privacy, and yet I could not help feeling that we were intruding in someone’s home, and was glad when we walked on to the dining area.

One of the men in the kitchen had been a friend of Lucas, and as he told June Monroe how much he would miss her son, Roberta pulled me aside.

“Thank you for sticking up for me, but I didn’t really search for him or even take very good care of him,” she said. “And I wasn’t very encouraging when you talked to me at Ben’s funeral. Of all the people who asked me about Lucas after that SOS meeting, I think you were the only one who really cared about him.”

“Who asked about him?”

“Oh, let’s see. Ivy, Marcy, Becky, and even Jerry and Andre.”

“Jerry and Andre? They weren’t at the meeting. How-?”

“The morning before Andre’s heart attack, Andre called and asked if Lucas was living here. I guess Lisa must have mentioned it,” she said. “She’s staying with Jerry, you know.”

“Shit. I didn’t realize that many people overheard us that night. And if word spread beyond-What did they want to know about Lucas?”

“How he was doing, why he was at the shelter, what had become of him, and so on.”

“What did you tell them?”

“Nothing. No one seems to understand my position-”

“No, you’re wrong,” I said. “I understand it. There’s a version of that in my business, too.”

“Of course. Your sources.”

“Right. It just makes it a little irritating when I want to know something and somebodyelse wants to invoke confidentiality. Think of Lucas, for example. I know he was involved in something important-something that was important not only to him personally, but also to the city, to the people who live here. But now he’s dead. So what happens to that important information he had?”

“It dies with him,” she said. “At least as far as I’m concerned.”

I crossed my arms to keep myself from reaching out and shaking her. “For your sake, Roberta, I hope everyone believes that’s true.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, maybe someone realized that Lucas had to be sober to stay here. They overhear you say that he wants to get in touch with me-a newspaper reporter. You said…” I thought back. “You said, ‘The things he wants to talk to you about areimportant,’ then you added something about ‘When he makes his case this time, he wants to do it right.’ Doesn’t that sound like Lucas was on some kind of quest?”

“Well, perhaps.”

“Think, Roberta! Suppose someone didn’t want Lucas’s quest to succeed.”

“But that can’t matter now. He’s dead.”

“Don’t you get it? No one is certain that Lucas died a natural death.”

“The police said it was a heart attack!”

June Monroe turned toward us when she heard Roberta say this. Her eyes narrowed, and she began to walk back to where we stood.

“Be careful, Roberta. I mean it. Please.”

I suddenly realized that I sounded just like Frank. I hoped Roberta wasn’t as stubborn as I am sometimes.

“You should be careful, too,” she said. “I heard about, well, his street name is Two Toes.”

“You know him?”

“Yes, he’s much brighter than he may seem, and that’s partly why he’s dangerous-he’s delusional, not dumb. Most schizophrenics are intelligent, a few are violent. He’s both. Without discussing particulars, let’s just say a person may not be violent because he’s schizophrenic. Perhaps he’s like other violent people: he grew up with it, worked with it, or lived with it. Often it’s in his history long before the onset of his schizophrenia. Even when he’s not on medication, Two Toes can be lucid and rational. In those times he controls his anger. At other times he’s childlike or just withdrawn. Most of the time he’s harmless, but he has had episodes of becoming extremely brutal. Don’t underestimate him.”

“Thanks, I won’t,” I said, just as June reached us. “Ready to go?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she replied, studying us.

“Wait!” Roberta said. “It just dawned on me. Lucas’s things.”

“His things?” June asked.

“From his locker. We-we cleaned it out yesterday. But I didn’t know where to send his things. I suppose you should have them, Mrs. Monroe.”

She took us back to her office, and opened one of the file drawers. She pulled out a brown paper grocery sack, gave it to June.

JUNE DIDN’T OPENthe sack until we were back in the car. As we sat in the parking lot near the shelter, I watched her examine Lucas’s meager legacy.

At first, it appeared to contain nothing more than a few articles of clothing. She pulled each carefully folded item out of the bag and placed it on her lap.

A gray T-shirt.

Two pairs of white socks, one dark pair.

Three pairs of briefs. Perhaps someone else would have been embarrassed, or even thought it comical to see underwear pulled out of a bag. I only felt sad when I saw them. A T-shirt could have been worn by anyone. Not these most intimate items. Death with dignity. What a laugh. This kind of accounting of personal belongings is due to all of us some day, I suppose. Perhaps it’s best if it comes to us only after death.

June kept reaching into the bag. Next came a handful of AA tracts. I was looking through them when I heard her moan softly. In her hand was a little Bible.

“I gave this to him,” she said, and pressed it to her lips. She was crying as she handed it to me.

There was a piece of paper in the Bible, marking the Twenty-third Psalm. I was trying to make out something scrawled on the paper when June Monroe pulled out the last item in the bag.