'What's the matter?' Jennifer asked. 'You're not having a coronary on me, are you?'
   'It's that Chinese food. I don't know how they do it. They chop it up into tiny little 
pieces, and when we eat it, we masticate it into even tinier pieces. So how come it's 
sitting in my stomach in one huge homogenized stomach-shaped lump?'
   That's because you ate so much, it's all been compressed back together again. They 
make chipboard the same way.'
   John took a mouthful of tepid Chablis and swilled it around his teeth. 'Don't say 
things like that. I feel bloopy enough already.'
   Jennifer swung her legs off her basketwork lounger, and came over to kiss John on the 
forehead. 'It's your own fault. You have too much guilt when you eat. You seem to think 
if you leave even the teeniest piece of  | noodle on your plate, you're going to upset 
the   j starving millions of Ethiopia or something. Well, John -I'm here to tell you that 
if you leave two spoonfuls of soft-fried noodles, it's not going to be a cause for 
international concern in Ethiopia or anywhere else.' She kissed him again. 'I still love 
you, though, you greedy hog.'
   The corners of the patio were gradually filling up with shadows. The sky behind the 
treeline was the color of dying lilacs. Jennifer walked across to the pool and stood 
looking around, and said, 'Isn't this perfect? What a house.'
   'I sure wish we could buy a house like this,' said Lenny.
   'Well, maybe one day,' John told him. He looked at his watch. 'Hey, it's bedtime, 
champ. Upstairs and brush your teeth. You may not have school tomorrow, but you still 
have to get your sleep.'
   Lenny went inside to brush his teeth. A couple of minutes later he came down one last 
time to kiss them good night.
   'How are you feeling?' John asked, hugging him close.
   'Okay,' said Lenny. 'Can I watch TV for a while?'
   Ten minutes, and that's all.'
   'Okay, Dad.' He paused. 'Dad?'
   'What is it?'
   Lenny squinched up his face, the way he always did when he wasn't sure he ought to be 
asking what he was asking.' Dad, why did that detective say that to me?'
   'Which detective? What?'
   That detective in the brown suit.'
   'He didn't say anything; he only whispered. What are you talking about?'
   'But he said something to me,' said Lenny.
   'Well, I sure didn't hear him. All I saw him do was whisper.' Lenny shook his head. 
'He spoke out loud. It was real clear. He said, "Better watch out, kid. You're one of 
them.'"
   John felt a sudden pang of uncertainty. 'I sure didn't hear him say that. I didn't 
hear him say anything.' He turned to Jennifer. 'Did you hear that detective say anything? 
Not the sergeant; the other one, his twin?'
   Jennifer slowly shook her head. 'I didn't hear him say anything at all, honey.'
   But Lenny was adamant. 'He said, "Better watch out, kid." He said it real clear. 
"Better watch out, kid. You're one of them."
   'And that was all? He didn't explain what he meant?' That was all. He said it like I 
was supposed to know what he meant.'
   John clasped his hand over his mouth for a moment. Then he said, 'I don't know. This 
gets wackier by the minute, I mean, if he'd said something out loud, if he'd said 
anything out loud, I'm sure I would have heard him. I was paying so much attention to the 
fact that he whispered all the time.'
   Jennifer laid her arm around Lenny's shoulders, and smiled, 1 think you're suffering 
from wearyitis. We've all had a bad night and a long day. It's easy to imagine things 
when you're tired.' 'But he said it,' Lenny insisted. 'All right,' said John. 'I'll tell 
you what I'll do. I'll call police headquarters tomorrow and talk to Detective Clay, and 
ask him what he meant. And if he denies that he said it, or if he doesn't want to discuss 
it, then I'll talk to the police commissioner in person.'
   Lenny said, 'You do believe me, don't you? I'm not telling lies.'
   'Sure I believe you. Just because I didn't hear him, that doesn't mean beans. I'm over 
forty now, champ, over the hill. The old eardrums are wearing out.' Lenny went up to bed. 
John and Jennifer sat in silence for a while, their loungers pushed together so that they 
could hold hands, watching the stars come out.
   A shooting star flared briefly, over toward Conshohocken.
   'Isn't that supposed to be an omen?' asked Jennifer.
   John nodded. 'Actually, it's a warning. If I don't take half a glass of Pepto-Bismol 
before I go to bed, I'm not going to sleep tonight, either.'
   John woke up in the very smallest hour of the night and opened his eyes. For a long, 
disorienting moment, he couldn't think where he was. The window was on the wrong side of 
the room and something unfamiliar was shining on the opposite wall, and the bedcovers 
felt puffy and suffocating.
   He sat up, and suddenly understood that he was in Jack Felling's guest bedroom. 
Jennifer was breathing quietly and deeply just beside him. The shine on the opposite wall 
was nothing more than the moonlight, reflected in the glass of a large Italian print. The 
Church of San Carlino by Borromini, at Daybreak.
   He looked at the digital clock on the marble-topped bedside table: 2:17 AM. He reached 
across for his glass of water, and drank almost all of it without taking a breath. He 
felt as if Chablis were oozing out of his pores instead of perspiration, and the roof of 
his mouth was coated with grease. The Chinese seemed to have perfected a special kind of 
grease that stuck to the roof of your mouth and wouldn't come off: Hong Fat, he thought 
wryly.
   He lay back and stared at the ceiling. His stomach growled, but he knew he wasn't 
going to be sick. That feeling of nausea was just going to stay there until tomorrow 
morning. He lay awake, his mind turning over like a flag-decorated Ferns wheel. He 
wondered if he could find a way to improve the News's distribution in Camden, on the 
Jersey side of the river, where they always ran second-best to the Inquirer. He began to 
think about a four-page supplement, folded around the outside of the paper, with a strong 
Camden lead on the front and Camden sports on the back.
   After a while, his mind revolved around to thoughts of Lenny, and to Lenny's belief 
that he had seen Virginia. John guessed that Dr Hendriksen was right, and that Lenny was 
suffering from nothing more alarming than long-suppressed guilt and grief. All the same, 
it seemed strange that Lenny should have started hallucinating so suddenly, and for no 
apparent reason.
   The fact that they had finished decorating the house might have had something to do 
with it. Maybe Lenny had finally come face-to-face with the fact that his mother was 
really gone forever, and that his new life with Jennifer was permanent.
   All the same, there was still the bewildering vandalism of their bedroom to think 
about. For about ten seconds after they'd discovered it, John had entertained the 
possibility that Lenny hadn't really been asleep that evening, and that he had crept into 
their bedroom and torn it to pieces. But quite apart from the fact that he didn't have 
the physical strength to inflict all of that damage, especially in the short time that 
had been available to him, Lenny hadn't come out with any protestations of innocence -