City on Fire Read Free

how to find him. I hate to impose, but maybe I could leave this with you?” She approached to place something on the desk, and as she retreated a little pain rippled through him. Out of the great silent sea that was William’s past, a mast had appeared, only to tack back toward the horizon.
    Wait, he thought. “I was actually on my way to the lounge for coffee. Can I get you some?”
    Disquiet lingered on her face, or sadness, abstract but pervasive. She was really quite striking, if a bit on the thin side. Most adults when they were sad seemed to fold inward and age and become unattractive; perhaps it was some kind of adaptive thing, to gradually breed a master race of emotionally impervious hominids, but if so, the gene had skipped these Hamilton-Sweeneys. “I can’t,” she said finally. “I’ve got to get my kids to their dad’s.” She indicated the envelope. “If you could just, if you see William before New Year’s, give him that, and tell him … tell him I need him there this year.”
    “Need him where? Sorry. None of my business, obviously.”
    “It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Goodman.” She paused at the door. “And don’t worry about the circumstances. I’m just happy to know he’s got someone.”
    Before he had time to ask her what she was implying, she had withdrawn. He stole out into the hall to watch her go, her heels clicking through the squares of light on the tile. Then he looked down at the sealed envelope in his hands. There was no postmark, just a patch of corrective fluid where the address should have been and the hasty calligraphy that said He hadn’t known there was a Roman numeral.
    HE AWOKE CHRISTMAS MORNING feeling guilty. More sleep might have helped, but years of Pavlovian ritual had made this impossible. Mama used to come into their bedrooms when it was still dark and toss stockings engorged with Florida oranges and gewgaws from the five-and-dime onto the feet of his and C.L.’s beds—and then pretend to be surprised when her sons woke up. Now that he was theoretically a grown-up, there were no stockings, and he lay beside his snoring lover for what felt like the longest time, watching light advance across the drywall. William had nailed it up hastily to carve a sleeping nook out of the undivided loft space, and had never gotten around to painting it. Besides the mattress, the only concessions to domesticity were an unfinished self-portrait and a full-length mirror, turned sideways to parallel the bed. Embarrassingly, he sometimes caught William looking at the mirror when they were in flagrante, but it was one of those things Mercer knew he wasn’t supposed to ask about. Why couldn’t he just respect these pockets of reticence? Instead, they pulled him closer and closer, until in order to protect William’s secrets he was, perforce, keeping secrets of his own.
    But surely the point of Christmas was to no more turn aside and brood. The temperature had been dropping steadily, and the sturdiest outerwear William owned was the Ex Post Facto jacket, and so Mercer had decided to give him a parka, an envelope of warmth that would surround him wherever he went. He’d saved fifty dollars out of each of his last five paychecks, and had gone into Bloomingdale’s still wearing what William called his teaching costume—necktie, blazer, elbow patches—but it seemed to make no difference in persuading salespeople that he was a legitimate customer. Indeed, a store detective with a rodential little moustache had trailed him from outerwear to menswear to formalwear. But perhaps this was providence; otherwise Mercer might not have discovered the chesterfield coat. It was gorgeous, tawny, as though spun from the fine fur of kittens. Four buttons and three interior pockets, for brushes and pens and sketchpads. Its collar and belt and body were three different shades of shearling wool. It was flamboyant enough that William might wear it, and hellaciously warm. It was also well