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Arthur saw Milly return to her office. She looked better than when she’d gone to the washroom, but the difference came out of her purse. She’d thrown up. Like yesterday and the day before. The flu, she told him. Uh-huh, he replied.

Arthur was standing in Milly’s office. He carried a fistful of paper. The flu, she repeated. I’m Donald Duck, he answered.

“There’s something going around. I’ll go to the doctor, all right? My job’s getting done.”

“I’m not complaining and I’m not an enemy.”

“Then don’t act like one.”

Arthur wanted gentle treatment from Milly. He knew he should be angry that she’d jilted him. He should feel aggrieved and affronted. But there it was. Instead of the tough-guy emotions, he found bereavement, tenderness and compassion. He needed consoling and reassurance. Maybe he wanted her to say she really loved him after all, that she’d made a mistake.
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Carrie strolled along the canal in despondent humour. She giggled periodically. A couple of muggers approached, weighing the opportunity to exercise their art. Carrie considered the odds. She slowly raised one high heel onto a bench. Her skirt slid up. “I’m lucky tonight,” a mugger said.

“You’re lucky?” called the second. “He is indeed,” shouted an onlooker.

“No, she is,” rejoined the first. “It’s too cold,” the second murmured bitterly.

I, you, he-she-it, we: Carrie’s encounter was modeled after verbal conjugation. She verged on hysterics and therefore, by the inapposite, ineluctable rules of her grammar, she appeared morose. From her thigh level skirts, she drew a pistol and fired a round at each mugger, trying hard to miss. She barely succeeding. “You’re idiots,” she muttered. The onlooker stared. “They really are,” added Carrie. She felt tears well up. The muggers ran. “I’m out of here, and you’re crazy,” called the onlooker. A matronly figure shook her head. She’d caught only scraps of the conversation and her fluffy dog needed walking. She hadn’t seen the shooting. Carrie responded by turning one side of her mouth up and the other down. “I hate to miss,” she commented conversationally. “Don’t you?” The woman told her dog that the world was nuts.

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Brendan woke up and banged his knee on the dashboard as Pam started her car outside the Governor’s house. As he cursed, he recognized Andreas Rinehart, a businessman from Europe who spent a lot of time with the Carreras. There was a deal of some kind in the works that might or might not be police business. Brendan knew Sam Carver, an old buddy of the Governor’s, absolutely trustworthy. And this Chinese fellow was the man from the reception, Steven Lin. Brendan used Albany’s new photo equipment to capture some images of Lin. It was early, but he felt tired and old and stale. He wouldn’t be much good if he went back to headquarters or followed one of this group. It was time to go home and sleep.

Twenty phone messages were waiting for Brendan in the morning. He hadn’t slept well, though the other officers looked no better: bleary-eyed, comatose and clumsy. What would they do without coffee? Most of the messages went straight to delete, proof that nobody should call a police station at night. One of the calls Brendan returned, albeit reluctantly, was from a Wanda Furness. She was responding to a newspaper photo of the unidentified man found dead in a car. Her message said he looked like someone she’d met on holiday, but the picture wasn’t clear. Brendan thought Wanda was the type who phoned the police to get attention, but he couldn’t ignore the chance she might know something. He’d visit her quickly before picking up the real work of the day. The real work was the body in the park. His cases were growing so stale he’d soon grow mould.

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Pam despaired after such visits. Disappointment at the end of human life, frustration at its inevitable collapse, horror, sympathy, sorrow, fear and rage all entered the mix. The emotions hurtled against one other like ravens inciting one another to madness. Sometimes they were blanketed by gratitude, more often not. For hours at a stretch, the people Pam met bore the brunt of this emotional thunderstorm. She couldn’t help it. Tonight it was the Governor’s turn.

Governor Albert T. Brull was in jubilant mood. He rode high in the opinion polls of the Republican Party and the nation as a whole. He was 54 and his unwrinkled face and full head of light brown hair made him appear more like a high school football coach than the Governor of New York. His innocent, open expression inspired confidence. In politics, he knew, it was ingenuity more often than reason that carried the day. Successful politicians have committees that prepare policies for speeches and debate. When the time comes, the politicians read the script. In the meantime, a politician’s task couldn’t be easier: smile, let others sweat the message.

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On her way home, ostensibly, Milly’s Porsche growled its satisfaction. Light clouds dotted the spring sky. Milly drove aggressively. She opened the car window; cool air inspired her. If Pam had drug ambitions, it wasn’t in America. She could get all the money and power she wanted here legitimately, through the construction business and the influence of Brull’s entourage. Yet Pam was pushing the envelope on drugs. The reason had to lie elsewhere. Ernest wasn’t behind it; Pam’s husband was a research chemist. Consumer goods didn’t interest him. Say, for argument’s sake, Pam wanted influence in Paris. What steps would she take? Her drugs, after all, came from France. Who did she know there and how did she acquire the connection? Milly could tap that planchette and see what ghosts emerged on the ouija board. She had no better ideas.

France was a dark corner in Pam’s history. The traditional biographical sources all included Pam, but uniformly ignored any country in her past bar the United States. Milly didn’t think this was chauvinism in the compilers. She couldn’t explain France’s absence from the record or from the surface of Pam’s life. There was some connection; that much Milly knew. And as she geared down to take a corner at speed, Milly admitted that the connection was both alive and concealed. Read Episode

Milly’s 10:00 o’clock meeting passed like a knife through butter. There was neither argument nor misunderstanding. Boredom would describe the 90 minutes. Milly had plenty of opportunity to reflect on the rest of her day. Lunch, however, brought a grand surprise. The event took place in a Chinese noodle shop. The food came quickly and in abundance. Carrie was supposed to attend. The surprise was that Raylene took her place.

“Carrie is on special assignment. I’m standing in,” said Raylene. A circle of sunshine electrified the air around her. The sun poured through the window as though drawn to her seat and the patrons of the noodle house, denizens (if they were poor) or cogniscenti (if upwardly mobile), couldn’t take their eyes off her. Raylene basked in the double glow.

“Are you handling all her duties?” Milly asked. Read Episode

When Milly woke, it was still dark. Spasms of delight raced up her spine. Every cell in her body laughed and sang. Her skin tingled with joy. She felt free, happier than she’d been in months. It was unaccountable, or nearly so. Milly knew what had changed. The stalemate with Pam was broken. Peace or war; Milly didn’t care which, but to have the issue decided was everything. She leapt from bed and ran to the shower, eager to face the day. She would turn the heat up till steam blanketed the walls. Then down. She wanted cold against her skin. She imagined the torrent of a waterfall, the noise, the foam, the turmoil, the speed and avalanche of sensation. She threw open the shower door and there her delight toppled heavily and lugubriously to the ground. There under the water stood a younger Milly who resembled the image from the locket, but emaciated and worn beyond caring. The image became Pam. Then the young Milly again, smiling sickly. Milly brutally forced herself awake. She’d had enough of dreams.

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And yum, I chose well too, thought Lin. Sleep could wait. He had work to do. He’d tinted his hair and canvassed the bars for Raylene and Sylvia, striking pay-dirt on his second attempt. There they were, sultry Raylene with unforgettable legs and dressed to undress; Sylvia looking even younger, with perfect profile and innocent expression. Twins in spirit. And Lin could hear their frontal lobes ticking behind the artifice of attraction.

Raylene fingered her camisole disingenuously.

“I’m not here to play. Nor are you,” said Lin. He had the women to himself for a moment. It wouldn’t be long before someone else came over.

“We just want a good time. What’s wrong with that?” Read Episode