If I hop over the white picket fence, I’ll find myself in the strobe lights of local law enforcement. That means getting detained, explaining the mess inside, losing the piece of paper Pete gave me, and, most important, not following up on my impulse: I know where I can find Grandma. Or, at least, I have an idea who might have taken her. And the extraordinary reason why.

I shuffle two houses down to a residence that has the lights off. I hoist myself onto its lawn. I edge along the side of the house.

Minutes later, I climb into the Cadillac, start the engine, and drive out of Sea Cliff.

Six blocks later, I pull over. I turn on the car’s inside light. I pull out the piece of paper from Pete’s DSM.

What I see is a laundry list of items:

1/0

Yankees/Dodgers

Cursive/Block

12/7; Radio/Word-of-Mouth

Chevrolet/Cadillac

Standard/Automatic

Paternal car; Chevrolet/Cadillac

Slaughter Self/Butcher

Kennedy/Nixon

Married uniform/tie

Husband married uniform/tie

Saw moon landing/word-of-mouth

Union/non-union

Polio in family/No polio

Pink Cadillac/Blue Cadillac

Purple Chevrolet/Orange Chevrolet

One sibling/no sibling

Two sibling/three sibling

Procrastinator/punctual

Audited/Meticulous with books

If cursive, then “saw moon landing”

If union, then Yankees

If Procrastinator, then Polio

As I look at the list, the first thing that comes to mind is that I’ve heard Grandma Lane talk about some of these things, both in her conversations with me and in her conversations with the Human Memory Crusade. For instance, on more than one occasion, she’s mentioned to me that her father drove a Cadillac. I recall that she told the Crusade that she heard about Pearl Harbor on a radio. One of the items on the list reads: “12/7; Radio/Word-of-Mouth.”

12/7—December 7, 1941. Pearl Harbor.

I study the whole list again. On its face, this looks like a list of possible memory options. Some people supported Kennedy, others Nixon. Some drove a standard car, others an automatic. But the list also seems so discrete, narrow, and confining. After all, some people probably supported neither the Yankees nor the Dodgers.

Grandma wasn’t a big baseball fan.

The word equations at the end of the list are another curiosity—“If union, then Yankees.” “If Procrastinator, then Polio.”

I do recognize the syntax as basic computing language, The “if . . . then” statement. Bullseye can make more sense of it.

It is almost midnight. I fold up the piece of paper and start the car.

I start driving across town to what I imagine will be a bizarre confrontation, one that has been a lifetime in the making.

The funniest teacher I had in med school was Dr. Eleanor Fitzgerald. She taught anatomy. We called her El Fitz.

One day, she brought in a picnic lunch for everyone that included beer. After lunch, she announced we would finally start dissecting the brain.

“No need to be totally sober for this,” she said. “We have no real idea what’s going on in there, or how it works. Come back in seven thousand years and we’ll have something to teach you.”

It is truly a wonder how we think, process information, store memories, and recall them.

Computers are a mystery too, at least to me. But, in general, I know that we know how to build them, and we know how information moves. We know that data gets held in a certain piece of hardware that is controlled by a certain piece of software. We know that tiny transistors attached to only slightly less tiny pieces of silicon transmit and calculate information when we ask our device to calculate a math problem or place a phone call. We write software that performs certain tasks, all dictated and understood by a computer’s creators.

Similarly, we know that various regions in the human mind have a lot to say about certain activities. The visual cortex and sight are linked. Injure the frontal lobe and emotional retardation follows, and so on. But most activities don’t just rely on a discrete region of the brain. Even a relatively simple task—picking up a pencil—might involve dozens of nooks and crannies; neurons firing in just the right amounts, cascading and cooperating in an organic alchemy that is truly one of life’s great mysteries.

But unlike a computer, we can’t well measure or dictate what’s happening. Our mind often has a mind of its own. Witness depression, joy, hand-eye coordination, ability to make music, or love. Or the sudden emergence of a memory, the synthesis of a complex idea, a brainstorm, or revelation.

Say, for instance, a revelation about the life of your grandmother.

Somewhere in the recesses of my brain, a theory bubbles to the surface. I have a feeling I know what triggered it: When I found Pete lying on the floor in a pool of blood, he confessed to me that he was living a “double life.”

Double life.

Why did that phrase trigger a theory about my grandmother? Who knows. But it did.

It made me think about her distant relationship with my father, and the yearning for freedom that has always been laced through our conversations, even when I was a child. It made me think about Lane’s childhood in Denver, the stranger nicknamed Pigeon, the way I always felt such kinship with Grandma even though she kept a distance from me, held something back.

The mysteries of my mind. The mysteries of my grandmother.

I drive by Magnolia Manor. The front entrance is dark. Only a handful of the windows inside are lit. I’m struck by the peacefulness of the place; I’m always so critical of Magnolia Manor but now it seems like a refuge of solitude and a quiet place to spend a few years playing bridge and watching reruns.

For good measure, I park three blocks away.

I walk along the quiet streets to the retirement home’s entrance. I slink along the side of the gardens that lead from the gates to the front doors. To get inside, I’ll need to convince the desk guard to buzz me in. More likely, he’ll not do so, or he’ll call the cops.

There’s an alternative. Vince lives in a flat detached from the Manor, on the right side of the property. His residence is a two-story brownstone that looks like it belongs in a swanky Boston or New York neighborhood. Like Vince, it is well kept and austere. From the porch light, I can see the grass cut precisely along the stone path that leads from gate to front door.

I walk to the red-painted door. I reach for the handle, and I find it open. I enter.

Vince sits in a deep, upholstered recliner in his living room. There is a book across his lap. The Human Asparagus doesn’t look surprised to see me.

He is surprised, however, when I bullrush him. Without a word, I hurl myself toward the chair as he reaches for the telephone sitting next to him.

I smack the phone out of his hand and reach for his throat, then pull back, gulping for air, standing over him. I have the upper hand, physically. He cannot match my anger or drive.

“If you hurt me, you won’t find your grandmother,” Vince says, trying to stay cool.

“You took her.”

“I protect my residents.”

“Where is she, Vince?”

“I don’t know.”

“Bullshit. You just said . . .”

“Plausible deniability. I helped take her. To protect her. but I don’t know where they put her.”

“Who?”

I’m asking the question, but I already know who Vince is referring to.

A voice confirms my suspicions.

“She’s safe,” the gravelly bass voice says. It comes from behind me.

I turn and am struck by the interloper’s lean face, serious, with thoughtful eyes, like you’d imagine from a troop commander whose squad took a few too many casualties.

I look down at his feet. I see the toes turned just a tad inward.

“Hello, Pigeon,” I say.

“I haven’t been called that in many years.”

“I have a strange question for you.”

“Your grandmother is okay. She’s fine.”

“I know that, Harry.”

“I can take you to her.”

“No,” Vince says.

“It’s okay, Vince,” Harry responds. Harry has clearly led men.

He looks at me. “What’s your question?”

I clear my throat.

“Are you my grandfather?”

A tear wells in the corner of Pigeon’s eye.