"Milton's worried," Schreck says.
"Milton's worried. This is nothing. Next to Riverside Drive this isn't peanuts."
"He wants you to take care of Krivit. Krivit's doing a lot for you. Milton just wants you to finish it off, you know, follow through with things. He wanted me to pass that along."
"Krivit's doing a lot for me?" Nathan glances at Ruth, but she is looking down at her feet, embarrassed, ashamed, or both. Nathan settles on a different thought altogether: Escape. It's late," he says, and shuts the door.
Car and dog are one. The silvery hair is everywhere, woven into the seats and carpet. The paneling oozes dogsmell and rainy runs throu h the East Hampton woods. Beach sand sprinkled under the dash. The damp and sinewy pointer, his legs planted firmly in the back well of the vehicle, drapes himself over the front seat and rests his paws on Nathan's shoulders. His tongue now and again sneaks a swipe around Nathan's cheek into his eye; his hot breath in Nathan's ear; panting jowls resting on the top of Nathan's head. Like a person he demands attention, and when refused, takes it anyway.
It is eleven o'clock. And Nathan doesn't understand, anything, it seems. Quickly, like an addict hurrying the hit, he feeds a CD to the dashboard, then floats away on the streetlight's amber glow, the night before him stretching out like a rolling sea on which one sets sail primarily to be disoriented and lost.
But beeper then phone go off one after the other.
"Dominicans, Serena. It was Dominicans, not Puerto Ricans."
Still, he is relaxed. It is the music, the swell of spontaneous inspirations, emotional tremors. He leaves the silent phone on the dash and digs through a pile of bagel wraps and coffee cups, res cuing a remote control for a stereo six inches away. He points, fires, cocks his head, listening, and his hand lifts off the wheel, as if of its own accord, to conduct the grim opening strains of Don Carlo.
"No look, Serena, it's not that I'm just in a car. I'm sitting in traffic look… Who? I told you I'm with Oliver… No. Really. My partner. Yes I have a partner. Oliver."
Nathan blithely holds the phone toward the dog. "She doesn't believe me," he says. "Say something."
The dog pricks his ears, cocks his head. Nathan's eyes fall on the empty passenger seat, and for a moment he wonders why someone-he wonders who-isn't actually there.
In the rear-view mirror, the red sedan has pulled out thirty yards behind him. Its headlamps swing wide, then lock on the mirror. Nathan stops along the curb. The sedan stops half a block back, idling in the middle of the street. The two figures smoke steadily in the darkened car, the fringes of their hair and collars glowing behind the glass.
Nathan brings the phone to his ear, in case they might want to talk, but he hears only crackling silence and slips the phone into his pocket. His car creeps from the curb. "Isabel," he whispers. Baron barks at enemy apparitions, ghosts of dogs and figments of dog imagination, at nothing, anyway, that Nathan can or will ever imagine. In this city a thousand million lights come on, a thousand million lights go off. Passengers on the woollen sidewalks tip into the snow, clutching at hats and scarves. But Nathan feels in the air a sense of black conspiracy, as in a cove full of boats slowly turning together before a storm. Turning, as the winds shift, toward him. He accelerates past an office tower, the illuminated news aloft passing around the corner of the building, news of mass slaughter in Burundi, an orphanage bombed in Sarajevo, fortytwo Dominican illegals drowned in a boat disaster, the Knicks' afternoon loss to the Celtics in Boston, of, suddenly, nothing, snapping off into muteness, as if something-the world, his own capacity for information-has come to an abrupt end, and there is news of nothing at all.
Santos leans solitary and lamplit against his car, sucking his coated teeth. In the shelter of this block the snowflakes swirl softly. Across the street the address Nathan left for him on his message service stands dark save a single window, on the ground floor, dimly lit behind a thick curtain. A figure passes before it, passes again. Someone small, someone's child. Three stoops down an old man spends this cold night in a doorway in bewildered repose.
Santos is considering giving up as Nathan's car stops and Nathan himself climbs out. "Cold enough for you?" Santos says.
"What-?"
"It's Errol, Nathan."
Nathan takes a step toward him, looking about, hesitant.
"You told me to be here," Santos says.
"Of course."
"I didn't realize you had an uptown place, too."
"I lost track of the time."
"This is a terrible day to do that."
"I know, I'm sorry-about Isabel. It's-" His hands move slightly with the wooden smile he manages. "It's unspeakable. I don't know what to say. I don't see you once in five years, now twice in one day. But over this-"
Santos shifts a little on his feet and watches him. "You know why I called. It wasn't for you to express your grief."
Nathan just looks.
"You sent the flowers," Santos says carefully.
“l did?”
"It was your father."
Nathan shrugs. "He doesn't do anything. Maybe his secretary-"
Santos pinches his eyes. "Jesus Christ, Nathan, just do me the fucking courtesy."
Nathan looks away and Santos lights a cigarette, points to Nathan's wrist. "Tell me about the scratches."
"Is this an investigation, Errol? Are you interrogating me?"
"It is what it is. Answer the question."
“Is it your investigation?"
"Answer me."
"Because if it's not, you won't be able to use a thing."
Santos watches the cigarette smoke spiral and unwind in the snow. The rope pulls through his chest, the knot in his lungs tightening. He reaches for the bulge in his coat pocket but looking at Nathan leaves the inhaler alone. "Just tell me about the scratches."
“It was a cat."
Santos looks back at the car. All the windows have fogged. The ghost-shape of the dog hovers in the rear, nosing the glass, his huge pink tongue pulsing. "You hate cats."
Santos doesn't mean to, but he feels it coming-reaching up, he touches his eyes with the balls of his fingers. Then he grabs Nathan. "What the fuck did you do? She was my sister."
"You don't know what you're saying," Nathan says.
Santos presses a finger into his own chest. "Who are you talking to here? She was like the others, and the others, and the others. It's not like I've forgotten anything. You think I'd forget all that sick shit? I know, Nathan. I know you were with her last night. "
"I was, but we saw Figaro at the Met. We had dinner at Gambone's. We went up to the New Haven."
"Jesus, all your haunts. You were working her over, giving her the business.
"I know what this looks like, but I have nothing to hide."
"Don't" – Santos lets the shout out into the night, but it dies in the snow, falls at their feet -"Lie to me." He pulls Nathan down a step. Their breath mingles and coils and Santos can smell it in him, sweet death at the edges. No one's but his. "You don't exactly look like an innocent man."
"We both know it's not how someone looks, Errol."
Santos says, his voice giving way, "This is no time to be playing lawyer. I'm talking about my sister. You never had a secretary you didn't fuck."
A strange smile crosses Nathan's lips. "And she's been my secretary for four years. What finally brings you out tonight?"
Santos breathes. "What-?" His arms drop like a stricken puppet's. "She's dead, Nathan."
"I've known for hours."
The tightness has spread from Santos's chest to his arms now, his hands. "Maybe you've known longer than that."
"You're no saint, Errol," Nathan says. "None of us are. But you've done well. I'm sure Claire would say so."