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mysteries of life and death as much as I do. It was followed by And to my wife .
    Not even her name, her lovely name. The bastard pasted her in there as an afterthought. How could she read that and not be appalled? How could he expect her not to be upset? I didn’t understand it and knew I never would.
    I read the first ten pages leaning against the window of a nearby bodega, and read another twenty walking back to Stark House. I sat outside on the front steps for a half hour and let the paragraphs slide by under my gaze. I didn’t know what the hell I was reading. I was too full of my own anger and past to even see the words. I flipped the pages by rote. I looked at the dedication again and tried to see the substance and meaning behind it. Corben didn’t love the mysteries of life. I wasn’t sure he loved anything at all. I left the book there and went inside.
    The cops had put up little orange cones around the murder scene, with yellow tape cordoning the area off. The tape didn’t say “Police Line, Do Not Cross” so I tore it down and got my mop, gloves, scouring pads and sanitizers out of the closet. It took me two hours to do an even halfway decent job of it. I had thought it would take longer. There was still a bad stain. I kept having to stop when my hands started to shake. I didn’t know if it was because of all the blood or because I’d been so wrapped up in my own problems that I hadn’t seen someone else’s desperate loneliness. I’d thought I had it bad, but Jesus, dying with the dry facts of aluminum foil on your lips because you wanted to get laid, it was a whole other level of heartbreak.
    ~ * ~
    Ferdinand the Magnifico and Mojo put on little shows for the neighborhood kids in the garden behind the building. It wasn’t much of a garden, but by East Side standards it was practically the Congo. The monkey grunted with certain inflections and Ferdi appeared to honestly believe Mojo was chattering like he was playing Bridge with the Ladies Auxiliary Club. Mojo went “ook” and Ferdi, with childish glee, raised his arms out and said, “You see there, clear as the chimes of St. Patrick’s! He said, ‘I love you.’ You heard it yourself! Did you not?” The kids said that they could. They giggled and clapped and tossed pennies and nickels. They chased the chimp and then ran away when the chimp chased them. It brightened the place up.
    I didn’t quite get how Ferdi made enough to pay Manhattan rent while nickel and diming it, but maybe he had tours booked. He could’ve really cleaned up in South Dakota. It seemed possible. For all I knew, Mojo’d sold out Fourth of July at Madison Square Garden.
    I’d used three different bleaches and detergents doing additional clean-up work over the course of a week but still hadn’t managed to get all the blood out of the tile in the lobby. It had become ingrained, as deep as the aluminum foil liar’s guilt.
    Something had happened to me that day. My usual brooding and pathos took a left turn into a darker, calmer sea of purpose. I had the increasingly powerful feeling that my life held a greater intent and meaning now, though I didn’t know what the hell it might be. I watched the front door. I waited for more murder. I could feel it hovering nearby in every hall. I thought about all the lies I had told to get laid, and wondered if they’d come back to haunt me in the end. What would be my last words? And would they sound dreadfully strange to whoever might be there holding my hand?
    The media caught wind that Corben lived in the building and the camera crews started floating around. He showed up on television and made up stories about how close he’d been with the aluminum foil guy. He claimed to have a theory about the killer and said he was working closely with the NYPD to solve the case. They asked if he was afraid of potential retribution. He claimed to own a Derringer that he always kept on his person. A lovely reporter asked if he had it on him at