Luigi Pirandello came closer to getting it right than Yeats. Walter thought so, even though he hadn’t read Yeats since high school and his only experience with Pirandello was the time, in Chicago in 1983, when Gloria dragged him to a performance of Six Characters in Search of an Author. He didn’t need much of a push to understand that illusion frequently masqueraded as fact. Worse still, illusion was often the accepted truth. To Walter’s way of thinking, the truth is not always beautiful. If you thought it was, and if that was all ye knew, you were lacking some important information.

For openers, he didn’t believe in God—not the God—the one true God so many said they were privileged to have some sort of relationship with and practically demanded you to do likewise. So Walter discounted everything said to be done in the name of God, for the glory of God, and most of all, everything done by men who had the balls to claim they were actually doing the specific thing God Himself instructed them to do. He could do without athletes who thanked God, or his son, for their victory. Did they really believe God chose sides? In a prizefight? Had Jesus taken the under or over in the NFL? Walter had no use for what masqueraded as God’s will. He didn’t think about it often, but when he did, he couldn’t bring himself to accept things like the Twin Towers or the great tsunami of 2005. What god would allow that? He could never get his hands around the idea that any god would want disgruntled, displaced Europeans to slaughter all the Indians in North America so they could establish a place they called “God’s best hope for mankind.” If there was such a God, He would be one to fear, especially if you were an Indian. And Walter had been in Vietnam. He’d seen and done things no god would tolerate.

He was comfortable with facts. There could be no fact for him without evidence. He didn’t believe aliens landed in New Mexico in 1947. He didn’t believe in demonic possession. He was confident Neil Armstrong really did walk on the Moon. Walter had no use for conspiracies. He told his friend Billy he’d believe in UFOs when they stopped being UFOs. Nevertheless, he understood why lots of people believed in lots of bullshit. They had faith, something anathema to Walter and his way of life. “Faith,” he told Billy, who lived in fear of the Catholic God every day of his life, “is believing in something for which you acknowledge there is no proof.” That’s why he said they had to be Identified Flying Objects before he would say they’re real.

“You don’t have any faith?” Billy asked. “Nothing?”

“You make it sound like I’m missing something.”

“Oh, yeah. That’s for sure,” said Billy, shaking his head like he just got a phone call with bad news. “I’ll pray for you, Walter.”

He remembered Billy’s pained comment, talking with Conchita Crystal. “What’s your nephew, Harry, going to do about this?” asked Walter. “You have any idea?”

She didn’t look up, not right away. She sat next to Walter on a bench near the ticket booth for the ferry that ran between St. John and St. Thomas. They were all by themselves. The ticket window was unattended. “I don’t know,” she said. “To both questions.”

“What is it then you want me to do?”

“I want you to find him. Before they do.”

“Before who does?”

“I don’t know.”

“And when I find him, do what?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you have to know. I can’t just walk up to him, wherever he is, put my hand on his shoulder and say, ‘Tag—you’re it.’ Once I find him I’ve got to do something. And, more important, he has to do something. He can’t carry this around with him. So . . . ?”

“Hide him. I want you to hide him, somewhere safe.”

Walter’s hand lightly touched Conchita Crystal on her soft, brown shoulder. A small gust of cool air blew in off the water. The smell of her was enough to drive a man mad, he thought. How could she have been the child she said she was? She looked up into his eyes. He smiled at her, a fatherly gesture, he hoped.

“I have to tell you,” he said, “I don’t understand why this is so important, so dangerous. If what you say Harry has learned is true, sure, it’s astonishing. It will be something people everywhere will be interested in knowing. But why would anyone kill him to keep it quiet—to keep it a secret? Can it be that big a deal?”

Conchita said nothing.

“Tell me,” said Walter. “Who killed John F. Kennedy? The CIA? The Mafia? Who?”

“A man named Frederick Lacey.”

“You’re kidding me, right? A man named—”

“Frederick Lacey. An Englishman. Lord Frederick Lacey.”

“What happened to the Russians, the Cubans, the right-wing wackos?” Walter shook his head in amazement. “Frederick Lacey?” he asked. “Who the fuck is Frederick Lacey?”

“I’m not sure,” she said.

“But he did it? You’re sure of that?”

“Oh, yes,” Chita said. “I’m sure of that.”

“Why? And what makes you sure of that?”

Conchita didn’t reply and Walter continued. “If he’s hiding now, why would you want me to find him just so he can hide again?” Walter took a deep breath—almost a sigh—and looked at Chita with unanswered questions all over his face. “Frederick Lacey, you say?”

“That’s what Harry said. I’m no stranger to trouble, Walter. Or danger. I’ve been dealing with difficult situations all my life. There are people who would kill to keep this from coming out—kill to keep Lacey’s confession a secret, to get their hands on it, to learn what it says. Harry has good reason to worry. He’s disappeared all right, for now, but they’ll never stop looking for him. Never. And eventually they’ll find him. He’s not the kind of man you are. Wherever he is now, I know he can’t be safe. You see that, don’t you?”

“You think I will find him before they do? Whoever they are.”

“I’m familiar with your reputation,” she said. “This is not flattery, Walter. I don’t think you’ll find Harry first. I know it. You’ve found other people before, haven’t you? You’ve found people no one else could. You were not the only one looking for them, but you found them, first. Right?”

“I have,” he said.

“And you have been successful because you know everything there is to know about hiding. Am I right?”

“Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that, but yes, I suppose you could say that, at least for the purposes of this conversation. But—”

“So, I’m asking you to reverse things. Walk on the other side of the street for a minute. Find Harry. Find him quickly, and take him somewhere no one else can find him, no matter how hard they look. You must know such a place.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know,” she said, sliding off her sunglasses so she could wipe her tears away.

My God! thought Walter. I’ve never seen eyes as beautiful as these, and where did these tears come from so suddenly? Can she do this on command?

“I’ll have to figure that out later,” she said, clearing her throat in an effort to regain her composure. “For now, I need you to find Harry and protect him until we can think of something, some way out of this for him. Do that, and when you’ve found someplace safe, and I know where he is and that he’s all right, I’ll think of something.”

Walter lowered his head, rested his hands on his knees, looked down at the wooden planks of the pier, watching the water reflect the light between the cracks in the boards. I must be crazy, he thought.

“Twenty-five thousand a week,” he said. “Two weeks minimum. Plus expenses. In advance. Cash.”

“You’re no Philip Marlowe,” she said.

“I’m no who?”

“You’re not an old movie buff either, are you?” Conchita was far more amused than Walter could make sense of. “Philip Marlowe was a private investigator, a PI. The Big Sleep? Humphrey Bogart?” She looked at him but he registered nothing. “Marlowe only charged twenty-five dollars a day,” she said. “You might as well be asking for the Czar’s gold.”

“Huh? What’s the Czar’s gold?”

“It’s just a saying,” she said. “You know, like all the tea in China.”

If she expected something from him, a reaction of some kind, she didn’t get it. Walter had nothing to say. Finally, Conchita Crystal flashed him one of her famous smiles and asked, “Cash?”

“Yes,” he said, acknowledging their agreement. A warm smile had already replaced his otherwise slightly bewildered gaze.

“I’ll have the money delivered to your home this afternoon. When will you begin?”

“I already have,” said Walter.