Hannah, A Witch 55203u

Uri Rogoza Hannah, a Witch

«Life- it ain’t at all what people think»

Colonel Dan Mitchell, US Army, Retired Known to many Manhattanites As the homeless man with the nickname The American Hero.

Vince Sherman had always been an idiot. But tonight he out did himself.

“Un-fucking-believable!” he blurted out again for the umpteenth time, spilling his whisky on his expensive designer suit. “No, really, a witch, I swear! Looked like a scarecrow- skinny as a rail, dark eyes, dressed in tatters… And the main thing is I don’t even know what made me do it! I was driving on I-95 when, like an asshole, I decided to take a short cut. But then, if I didn’t I wouldn’t have seen what I saw! And I’m telling you – Un-fucking-believable!

The party was just beginning, so it was no wonder that the crowd gathering around Vince, who arrived either already drunk or stoned, and mostly likely both, was quite large. They all had their smug faces, haughty smiles, and impeccable suits… I knew some of the people standing around him, some I did not. As usual.

I was at the antique gallery of Richard Mills (who was the type who couldn’t stand it when anybody called him Dick or Richie), a thin blond gay man with sad eyes who moved to New York from London four years ago, and having opened his gallery immediately decided to use it to organize a “Men’s Club”, as he called it. Once a month he gathered the glitterati from show-biz, artists, gallery owners, and wealthy playboys, who never knew what to do with themselves. Her Majesty’s loyal subject dreamt of creating a comfortable homosexual haven for himself, but instead he had to endure crowds of boorish drunken men, who at the

end of the evening, having had their fill of free booze and good times, would start calling their wives, girlfriends and mistresses to continue the fun.

“And you, Steve, what are you doing here?” I would have asked myself any other time. But tonight I knew exactly what I was doing at Richard Mills’ soiree. Everything was perfect. Everything was happening exactly as it was supposed to. Life had taken a wonderful a turn. The world was magical. It was an unfamiliar feeling, one of joyous trepidation.

I’d barely warmed a glass of rich whisky in my palm, and was putting it back on the tray when I first heard the words of the drunken, laughing Vince Sherman. Because so many people were not listening to his story, it was clear that it was really intended for only one person in the world. Me.

I had to hear it again, before Vince either became completely incoherent, or switched to his favorite subject- the joys of sex with hermaphroditic prostitutes.

Thankfully this hadn’t happened yet, and Vince was basking in the ironic attention of the other guests, still regaling them with his adventure. Once again. For the fifth or sixth time. I had already gotten the gist, as had everyone else standing around with drinks in their hands. Basically, Vince was on his way back to Manhattan from parts unknown when he decided to take a shortcut, exited I95, and while driving through some little backwater town (Don’t forget the name! Don’t forget the name! I repeated to myself like a mantra) he crashed his Mercedes full speed into a pile of metal from some old tractor blade or something.

“Son of bitch! It was right in the middle of the road!” Vince explained to his listeners, his eyes bright with enthusiasm “A nasty pile of rusted metal! No, seriously! Right. In. The. Middle. Of. The. Road! And I was going 60! Un-

fucking-believable!”

Whistleroad Town, if you believed Vince, was one armpit of a town. He had fallen into complete despair that he was forced to wait until morning to get help, when, for a few bucks, some local wino introduced him to the town’s only point of interest (I already knew I would never forget the name) – the local freak who could supposedly make miracles.

“The shack she lived in – Uncle Tom’s cabin had nothing on this place! Jesus Christ, what a dump!” Vince took a long swallow of whisky and his eyes glistened, but not in a good way- he had definitely taken something else besides alcohol tonight. “I went in. She apparently wasn’t sleeping, although it was 4 o’clock in the morning. Hoooweee, was she ugly! Beaten something fierce with the ugly stick! And how old – maybe 20, maybe 40, who the hell knows? And her name, fantastic – Han-nah!! I shat a brick when I heard it! So we spent a couple of hours together.”

“ ‘So what tricks can you do, Miracle Lady?” I asked her. She said nothing. Then it dawned on me. I said, ‘Can you turn ten bucks into a hundred? Here take this’… So I go to take a ten out of my wallet, and she doesn’t even touch it, and I look again – a C note! A real 100 dollar bill! What the hell are you all laughing at? I’m telling you, it was unbelievable… So then, I’m telling you, listen to this, my wallet is black, right? Can you make it turn green? I take it out again – and it is green…”

The crowd, already warmed-up from the free booze, laughed raucously and derisively. “I’m telling you!” protested Vince, dropping his glass which shattered into a spray of sharp fragments. He awkwardly pulled a big worn and disgustingly green wallet out of his back pocket. “Look! I swear to Christ!”

But the other guests laughed even louder, for a moment drowning out the live music; in the depths of the studio a string trio invited by the aesthete Richard was performing something understated and beautiful.

“Fine, screw you, then! If you don’t believe me, then don’t!” an offended Vince grabbed another glass of whisky off a tray. “Morons! And do you know how it ended? Well, listen!… ‘Fine,’ so I say, ‘That’s enough. Thanks. But maybe you can conjure up a tow truck right now, ‘cause in this shitty Podunk town my cell doesn’t even work.’ So she just sits there for a second then says, ‘You don’t need a tow truck. I fixed your car.’ So I look outside- and I’ll be damned! There’s my baby- all in one piece, good as new. And what’s more- that fucking plow blade, the one I crashed into, is standing right there a couple of feet away, and it hadn’t even moved. So right there I started believing in her miracles… Big Time… I even got a little scared…”

“Time to lay off the drugs, Vince, my friend. No, no kidding. If you start having these bad trips, they’re not a good sign,” suggested someone I couldn’t see.

“You don’t believe me?” asked Sherman, but he already had calmed down, and took another swig of whisky. “Well, I guess that’s to be expected. I wouldn’t have believed it myself either.”

“And what’s she doing living in that shithole, anyway, this Hannah of yours? Huh? If she can do anything?” asked a flushed pig-faced man standing next to me, “Something here doesn’t add up?”

“You won’t believe it, but I asked her that myself! She lowered her eyes and spoke so softly, “I can’t ask for anything for myself. It is not allowed. I can only ask for others… Or else the gift will disappear… So at the end of the night I gave her a fiver. I thought she might make a fuss, say that it was too little, but

she just lowered her eyes and said ‘Thank you’. I woke her up in the middle of the night, made her do some magic tricks, got a new car – and for only five bucks! And all she said was a pathetic ‘Thank you.’”

The crowd of listeners began to break up. Some were laughing; the majority already discussing something else, already having forgotten about the nonsense of Vince Sherman.

Except for me. I believed every word. I came here expecting a miracle, about which I had been forewarned. And it happened – I heard it, as soon as I entered the cozy, dimly-lit gallery. I had not even had time to take a sip of whisky. And now, I am going to keep it all to myself- it had been too long since I’d had any miracles in my life. Especially the good kind.

All that was left was to leave and not attract any attention. I moved closer to the door, and stopped by the window. Autumn in the Village was in all its splendor, and it was absolutely beautiful. It looked like a greeting card for a mysterious holiday which only a few people know about.

All of a sudden I felt the brush of a light, almost feminine hand. I turned around. The founder of the “Men’s Club” Richard Mills looked as he always did – in a silk shirt of an undeterminable color, narrow shoulders, with a shock of silky blond hair, thin fingers with an ideal manicure, puppy-dog eyes…

But Richard was much more pleasant than all of his guests – who were pushy and arrogant, drinking his whisky and breaking his glasses, swearing and shouting. I thought suddenly, “Why do you need all this? Manhattan is full of gay clubs where a refined man like Richard would find himself welcomed with open arms.

“Hi Richard,” I shook his long thin fingers, “Everything is wonderful. As always. And the music is just sublime…”

“But what’s the point of it all if you are already leaving?” he sadly sighed, “You haven’t even had a drink… Lee isn’t coming, of course?”

“He’s working.” Or having a threesome with a beautiful blond and a gorgeous brunette I wanted to add, but thought better of it. The sad Brit might have thought that I was being vulgar, which I certainly did not want. There was enough uncivilized behavior at his party already without my adding to it.

“Yes, Lee is now a national treasure!” Mills smiled widely, “An American Michelangelo! Soon, no one will believe us that we used to know him, will they? By the way,” he almost hesitated, “A lot of people still think that you two are lovers…”

“Really? Who cares?” I found this very amusing, “Don’t even bother to convince them otherwise, Richard. In fact, it’s actually quite funny! In any case, the word ‘lover’ is from the word ‘love’, and I do love Lee like a brother. So in a sense you could say that they are right…”

“Oh, I like the way you put that- ‘from the word love’,” Richard’s charcoal eyes lowered even more, making him look even more like a sad puppy.

I could not wait to leave- a feeling of sorcery was pulsing through my veins like warm electricity – but Mills was still standing there next me, more as if he were

just another guest, like me, than the host. Besides, I had the strange feeling that he wanted to say something more to me, but that he could not decide whether to do so or not. At least so it seemed.

“Stephen, my dear…” sighed Richard as he lowered those puppy-dog eyes, “You wouldn’t be offended if I tell you that I know something about your… your problems?”

“Problems?” I asked.

“I mean about work,” it was clear that the Englishman was uncomfortable, “You see, I have a good friend who also works in television… He is no longer young, but is very rich and powerful…”

“Great,” I thought to myself, “Typical…”

“And I mentioned you to him, just a word, without your permission, I know, my apologies…” Richard rambled on faster, as if afraid that I would not hear him out, or would punch him instead. “It’s just that he is a big fan of everything that you have done. He told me himself, and would never lie to me!… He would like to meet with you for a serious discussion. He is a very influential man in the TV world, really. I am very serious. And what’s more, he said that sorting out your issue with Paul is not a problem…”

My issue with Paul…

Paul Foxman, or “Paul the Couch” as he is also known – the son of a bitch! – was my boss, my curse and my slavemaster. He eclipsed my sunshine, poured poison in my morning coffee, he ruined my sex life!…

Then, snap!, just like that “your issue with Paul is not a problem…” It’s just that simple.

“So? You’ll meet with him?” Mills looked at me as if he was asking me for something rather than trying to do me an amazing favor.

To say that life is strange is to say nothing at all. Two hours ago, what the lovely English Richard Mills was offering would have made me the happiest I have been in the last four years. It would have been my salvation, a miracle of miracles, unbelievable and incredible. But at that moment the only thing pulsing through me, powerfully and incessant was “Hannah of Whistleroad Town, Hannah of Whistleroad Town…”

Compared to my absolute, blind faith in my miracle, Richard’s words seemed as empty as banal office gossip. “I don’t need to give you an answer right now, do I, Richard?” I put my palm on his thin adolescent shoulder, “Let’s discuss this another time, OK? But in any case, thank you. You are an amazing and wonderful man.”

“Even for a Brit,” Lee would have definitely added.

But of course I did not bother to add anything. I just smiled my good-bye and stepped toward the door – a luxurious oak door, which turned the lights of the “City That Never Sleeps” into a dazzling multi-colored kaleidoscope.

* * *

There are at least ten thousand reasons to live in New York. One of which is autumn. The particularly New York kind of autumn, when summer ends and takes its heat with it, but leaves a warmth behind, and the great city luxuriates in it, while at the same time still bustling along under the slowly falling leaves of hundred year old trees. The people, the buildings and the cars all know that this bliss is only a temporary one – that this tender time will end soon, to be replaced by freezing rain, slush, short and furious snowstorms, and then by the piercing icy wind evilly blowing in from the ocean until spring.

However, its fleeting nature does not diminish the wonder of autumn. On the contrary, it gives it a bittersweet sadness that infuses everything with more beauty and tenderness.

From my old wrought iron balcony, something I don’t think that I have bragged about yet, I have a view of Central Park. Not all of it, of course, just the narrow sliver that runs into West 86th Street. But it is enough to be able to go out with my morning coffee to ire the huge rusty canopy of foliage, among which burn spots of pure gold or piercing blood-red, like the seeds of a pomegranate.

Of course, it gets dark early and the beauty is hidden again until morning, but left behind are the smells of the dying grass and the dried leaves. The bouquet of my city’s autumn wine. Even now, leaving Mills’ gallery I don’t feel cold. There is an unusual warmth in the evening air, so I decide not to take a cab and to walk instead, even though I know that it will take a long time to get back home.

In the last few days I started going out without any real purpose. Just to feel like

a part of the miracle called the fall.

These days even cops didn’t seem menacing. As if they were familiar Manhattan ghosts, guarding warm autumn, soaked in the smell of fallen leaves and eternity.

looked up at Lee’s house as I was ing by. A muted light shone in the windows. He was working- of course he was working- so as it turned out I did not lie to nice, kind Richard Mills. For a second I was seized by doubt, and I desperately wanted to go see Lee and tell him about everything, but I reigned myself in. With friends like Lee, you need to go to them with the proof of a real miracle and not with some half baked story from a drunk like Vince Sherman.

“So… Whistleroad Town, her name is Hannah…” I repeated to myself one more time, just in case, although I knew that I could never forget either her name, or the name of the town- even if I wanted to.

I marched on ing that day, which began like any other. People were ing by, young and old, happy and sad, black and white. But none of them knew my secret. If I had tried to tell them, they would have all thought that I was just another one of the crazies, who roam the streets of New York by the thousands. But I wasn’t crazy at all. I was just an average 27-year old guy named Stephen Wright, for whom everything had been going great, and then turned sour. A guy who would have ended up in the gutter, or slit his wrists, if it weren’t for his friend Andy Lee, an amazing artist and the greatest person in the world. But New York is a thick, worn, old book, filled with a million stories like mine, and striding up the Avenue of the Americas towards home, I could only tell the story of everything that had happened to only one person- me.

Actually, today in and of itself had been nothing special, and was no different from yesterday or the day before. Well more accurately, it would not have been

any different if, while walking along Central Park on my way to the “Men’s Club” I had not been accosted by the “American Hero” – one of our local celebrities, an old homeless man with long hair, a ruddy face and a surprisingly lively look in his young blue-grey eyes. The American Hero was an integral part of our neighborhood, as much of a fixture as the corner bakery or the newsstand next to it.

In the last few years they had tried to clean up this side of the park and had placed some of the homeless in shelters, and just moved the rest on to somewhere else, but the American Hero never left (there were rumors that the cops were afraid of him, but this was just typical urban legend bullshit).

Sometimes he might disappear somewhere for a day or two, but he always returned, sitting by the curb every morning on an old wooden crate intently watching the crowd as it ed by. Every so often he would spot someone and shout, “Hey mister! Come on over here and let me rub your button for luck!…”

The strangers almost always just walked on past, taking him for just another street-corner crazy.

“Idiots!…” the locals all whispered after them. There were legends about what happened if you let the Hero “rub your button for luck.” This magic ritual was responsible for romantic conquests, curing disease, improving careers, and so much more. Of course, when I moved into my one-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side six years ago as a young, cocky executive on the rise I considered all this just silly superstition. I dismissed it for a long time. Until I realized that I believed in him, just the same as all the others. My belief strengthened even more as my life, which had taken off like a rocket and was exciting and wonderful, suddenly turned to crap – life’s losers always believe in miracles more than the winners. Even if it is just because they have nothing else to believe in…

I knew the American Hero. I’d bought him a hotdog a few times, a pack of cigarettes, a bottle of bourbon… Just as many others had done. But not once in the six or so years that I lived in the neighborhood did I ever hear his magic phrase. So today I almost did not turn around when I heard his voice.

“Hey, Stevie-boy!” the old bum croaked at my back, “What’s your problem? You hard of hearing, or you ain’t got no buttons?”

I froze, then I slowly turned around and made my way over to the Hero (when and why he got that nickname no one really knew).

He was sitting down on a creaky old wooden crate and looking up at me. There wasn’t a glint of anything special or magical in his gaze, but my heart starting pounding just the same.

“Where’s the fire?” he grumbled unhappily, “Don’t worry, you won’t be late… Come on over here for a sec. Come closer, don’t make me get up.”

I was in a suit, so not having buttons wasn’t an issue. The American Hero indifferently rubbed one of my buttons with a strong, dirty finger and smacked his lips with satisfaction.

“You think it’s time?” I asked, smiling unevenly.

“As if you don’t know!” croaked the homeless Hero, lighting up an old cigarette

and releasing a toxic cloud of smoke. “Oh, it’s time all right. I’m tired of watching you suffer…”

“And… how do you know that I am, well ‘suffering’, as you put it?”

I never complained about my life to the Hero, about that I’m sure.

‘I just see, is all,” shrugged the homeless man, “Life, it ain’t at all like people think, Stevie-boy. that. Not at all. There’s so much more to it! Oh boy, and when it really hits rock bottom, that’s when the real miracles happen!”

“Listen, how come no one else can see what you do?

“How come pigs can’t see the sky? Because that’s how they live, with their faces in the dirt. And that is how people live their lives, noses to the grindstone, don’t notice what’s going on around them… OK, forget it, go, find your fortune!”

He smiled at me, with a mouth full of big strong teeth, like a horse.

* * *

On the way home I was planning to head off to Whistleroad Town straight away, but once I opened the door and saw the clock I understood that autumn had played one of its tricks on me- despite the warmth it was already ten thirty, and

unlike that idiot Vince, I did not plan to go looking for my Hannah in the middle of the night.

But I did not feel like going to sleep no matter what I tried. I undressed, took a shower, turned on the TV for some background noise, but sleep just would not come. No chance- not today. They say that days like today come once in a lifetime, and certainly not to everyone. Although truly, I still did not fully comprehend what had actually happened to me, or what would happen to me, but it was not important- I literally felt pushed along by a powerful unseen current full of energy and joy. I did not feel anything even close to a doubt. Only the waiting was unbearable.

The idea to go find the American Hero came to me out of the blue, by itself, and a second later I felt like there was no way that I could not go. I had a bottle of whisky that was standing on the piano and been there for ages. The fridge was empty, so I decided that I would buy a couple of hot kebabs from the bakery on the corner- it was generally open all night. Quickly putting on some jeans and sneakers, I threw on a sweater over my t-shirt and grabbed the bottle and stuffed it in an old wrinkled paper bag and again ventured out into the cool autumn night.

The bakery was open. The young Lebanese guy behind the counter handed me a big, hot bag which smelled delicious and made me instantly ravenous. I took it and hurried off to the Park.

I did not have to search for the American Hero for long. To avoid any hassle from the cops he made his camp in an overgrown ravine close to the edge of the park. A roaring fire in an old oil drum cast a crimson light onto the thick but fading bushes. Standing close by was an old tent, so perfectly long and straight, that it reminded me of a picture from a textbook about the Civil War.

When I stepped out of the darkness into a patch of light the Hero was not startled or surprised. His lips faintly curled into a smile, a quizzical look in his eye.

“So, can’t sleep? It figures… Hang on, what’s that smell? It’s not a kebab is it? Excellent! Give it here!”

I gave him the bag of kebabs and the bottle, and dragged another wooden crate, identical to the one the American Hero sat on, over to the fire. He had already taken an enormous bite of the kebab and made a significant dent in the bottle as well.

“You gonna me?” he asked.

“You bet. I’m starving.”

“Then here you go,” he said as he handed back the bag with the intoxicatingly fragrant Arabian sandwich.

“How ‘bout a swig?”

“No thanks, I’ve got to be up at the crack of dawn.”

“So what?” remarked the Hero, “One sip of whisky won’t kill you, believe me… Don’t worry, you’ll be up tomorrow morning and off like a shot!”

I obediently pressed the bottle to my lips. I immediately felt a glowing warmth inside me, although to that point I had not even felt cold. The kebab was delicious. The fire crackled comfortingly. The planets had aligned.

Suddenly, sitting there in the woods, I came to the realization that wolves (and in general all animals) must be so much freer and happier than people, who were forced to look out at the world through the tiny windows of their stuffy little rooms and hardly experienced the wonders of the nature around them.

We sat in silence for a minute or two. I was the first to break it.

“Thanks for giving me this day, Hero. Thank you for the miracle.”

“Miracle?!” the old bum tore himself away from the bottle, turning toward me with a surprised look on his face, “What the hell do mean ‘miracle’? Who do you think I am, Mother Teresa? Here have another drink, it’ll help clear your mind…”

He reached the bottle out toward me, and I took a large swallow. Then, not taking my eyes off the fire blazing in the barrel, a second…

“A miracle!” angrily muttered the American Hero, “The hell you say!…”

And so we continued to converse with our mouths stuffed with kebabs and bourbon, but somehow managed to understand each other perfectly.

“I rubbed your button for luck! Get it, for luck!? And luck and miracles are different things, Stevie-boy. Completely different, don’t mix ‘em up…”

I thought of Annie and felt a pang in my heart, as if I had been stabbed by a long, twisted thorn.

“I’m afraid that just ‘luck’ won’t be enough for me Hero, I need a miracle…”

“Don’t give a shit what you need!” he said, finishing the last bite of the kebab. He scooted his creaking old crate closer to the fire, and threw the bag from the food into the barrel. “Sorry, but I don’t work miracles. And, in general, I would advise you to stay well away from them. Now ‘luck,’ that’s a different story altogether, Lady Luck has never caused anyone any trouble. Give me a drink, would ya…”

“Here,” I said handing him the bottle, “And how is a ‘miracle’ any different from ‘luck?’”

The American Hero took his time to answer. First he took a long pull on the bottle, and slowly screwed the cap back on, and then he lit up a cigarette from a wrinkled old pack and took a long drag with discernable pleasure.

“Well, at the very least, for a miracle you have to pay a very high price,” he said, at last, slowly and thoughtfully.

I felt the effect of the whisky, even though I had only drunk a little, just a few sips. In addition, following my thoughts about Annie, a tidal wave of memories and emotions came crashing down, somehow penetrating the thick forest cover around me. The main emotion I felt was anger- anger at the whole world. Then all at once my anger dissipated and I felt like a little child- unjustly wronged and thrown into a world of strange adults, who were evil and unfair. I was not even surprised to find tears in my eyes, for at that moment I was seven, not twentyseven, so to cry was not even the least bit shameful.

The American Hero just sat there smoking silently, staring into the fire.

“Why don’t you ever talk about yourself, Hero?” I asked him praying that he would not notice my tears.

“What’s the point?” he said not even turning around. “God already knows the whole story, and everyone else has enough of their own problems…”

“If you want, I can tell you my life story?” I offered, sniffing my nose.

“No, I don’t want,” sighed the Hero, “but you are going to tell it to me anyway, so you might as well get started…” and wistfully threw his cigarette butt into the fiery barrel.

* * *

I was born in Benningville, Oklahoma. This sounds crazy even to me now, but

that is the God’s honest truth. The funniest thing is that I never felt unhappy in this little town of identical houses with white picket fences. Childhood doesn’t know that somewhere, a thousand miles away, there is another world, so it is happy with what it has.

For his whole life – from the day he graduated high school until the day he died, my father worked as a mechanic at the electric power substation. My mother sent him off to work every day with a tender smile and a big sandwich in a rough brown paper bag.

Benningville was the kind of town where everyone knew each other and would say “hello” when they ed each other on the streets. Until I was ten I called Sheriff Powell “Uncle Jack,” just like all the other kids. Nobody locked their doors. On Sunday mornings it was a ghost town – everyone was at church, even the sheriff and his deputies, fat Doctor Butler and his nurses too.

By a unanimous decision of the City Council we had no cable TV, we just had eight, as I them now, of the most boring and conservative TV channels in the entire United States of America. Computers were only allowed to be used in school during Computer Science lessons.

There was no crime in Benningville (I personally can’t even one fight, except for a few dust-ups between the kids on the school playground). No one cheated on their husbands or wives. No one ever voted against Mayor Daniel Sutton, a kind, thin man who rode to work on his bicycle.

On the weekend every back yard had a barbeque, and the whole town smelled of grilled hot dogs and hamburgers. The Fourth of July and Christmas were celebrated with such dogmatic fervor year after year that everyone was afraid to change anything and make a fatal mistake.

The whole town turned out for every one of the high school’s basketball games and I that the people who lived nearby would bring their own chairs so that no one would have to stand.

All the weddings and the funerals also looked the same. People in Benningville only died of old age. They only married once. No one ever got divorced.

I don’t even that anyone had a strange name. My father was called John, and my mother Marsha. In my class we had 4 Johnsons, 3 Jacksons, 3 Browns and 2 Wrights (including me).

So that is how it was – in this little place on our great big planet, where the electrical mechanic John Wright and his wife, the homemaker Marsha, bestowed the gift of life upon me.

Now matured by the barbed insults of the world, I understood that only childhood could paint my town with the patriarchal and sunny colors of America in the 1960s. And that in Benningville, just like anywhere else, there were probably fights and affairs, divorces and robberies, some people, mostly likely, were into drugs, others were into porn and didn’t care less about church services on Sunday. Nevertheless, it remained in my memory as a ridiculous and theatrical little patch of Earth, on which people were born only to grow up, get married, have children, mow the lawn, and die.

But, oh how I the day that the whole world changed! It was Friday. Honking loudly and crazily, a sparkling automobile without a top screeched to a halt outside of our house. Out of it climbed a shapely woman with a shock of fiery red hair, who stretched out and cracked her back, then reached out her hand

and flicked her thin black cigarette with a golden tip right into the middle of the road (I was aghast – (I froze – if in Benningville we sometimes saw women who smoked, they did it much differently – usually off to the side, quietly, and a bit shy.) Her jeans were stretched so tightly over her legs that she looked like she was naked. The spiked heels on her fire-engine red pumps were as long as pencils. Huge dark glasses hid her eyes. Her nails were long and the same shade of red as her shoes.

Walking over to me, she bent down and slid her glasses down to the end of her nose revealing enormous green eyes, like a magical cat from a fairy-tale. She smelled amazing.

“Is that you, Stephen, you little punk?” asked the stranger in a hoarse laugh, “Eat all your vegetables – chicks love tall guys, got it?”

And that’s how Annie entered in my life. She was my father’s prodigal younger sister, the black sheep of the family, the skeleton in the closet of our respectable home, and the bane of Benningville. She was 16 when she left home, and hadn’t returned until this moment (she was 25 now). No wonder I didn’t know anything about her! Coming back from the neighbor’s, my mother almost fainted when she saw Annie. And she had absolutely no idea what to talk with her about until my father got home from work, and he didn’t know what to talk with her about either.

But it wasn’t a problem – Annie talked enough for all three of them. Having poured herself practically half a glass of whisky and smoking her beautiful cigarettes, she cheerfully told them about how she lived in New York, that she was married for the second time (“his name is Rodriguez, a gangster for sure, and a jealous bastard, but, boy, is he loaded!!)

In just one evening this eleven year-old heard a hundred times more swear words than I had in my entire life up to that point. Finally my mother, white as a sheet, came to her senses and quietly gasped with difficulty, “Stevie, sweetheart, go to your room…”

“Come on, really, what’s the big deal Marsha?” protested Annie, “It’s the weekend tomorrow! Let the kid hang out with us for a while, he might learn something!…”

Of course I listened to my mother, got up, wished everyone good-night, and went to my room. But I couldn’t fall asleep for a long time. I just tossed and turned. I was afraid that my father would throw his “indecent” sister out of the house, and tomorrow when I woke up, that fantastic otherworldly automobile would no longer be sparkling in front of our house.

But I was wrong. At the end of the day, my father was as afraid of Annie as I was. In a different way, of course, but not any less.

I know that Annie was sent to me from heaven. In order for me to become who I was meant to be. So that I wouldn’t spend the rest of my life working as a shift mechanic at the electric substation of Benningville – the town of white picket fences and eight television stations.

I only called her “aunt” two times – the first was at the table on the evening of the day she arrived.

When I called her “Aunt Annie” the next day, she sauntered over to me, sunk her taloned claw into my shoulder and said:

“You know what Stephen Wright? If you ever call me “Aunt” again I’m going to tear your skinny little ass off and feed it to the crows! You’re making me feel like an old granny, you got it, you little shit?”

I swallowed, frightened, but nevertheless I didn’t hold my tongue:

“You can’t be an old granny. You’re so young…”

Annie smiled crookedly, “Well, that’s already a little bit better. You’re improving before my eyes…”

And that’s how Annie appeared in my life. She stayed for two weeks, then she came back again after a couple of months. Then again… And she did it only for my sake. I knew it, I felt it. And she didn’t hide it.

I told Annie everything. She had the answer to any question and advice for any situation. With a generous sprinkling of strong language, she happily, and in an unassuming way, did what neither my mother or father could, nor could my school teachers or friends – she told me what this wonderful and boundless life was really about – about Good and about Evil, about money and sex, about success and failure… In a word – about Everything!

She taught me how to drive her car – a blood-red Mercedes convertible. Before I met Ann I knew, of course, that there were other cars besides just American and Japanese. However, the villains with their manly red faces and the saviors of the world who defeated them mercilessly crashed their Aston Martins and Maserattis

in a different cinematic dimension, which disappeared, as expected, erased by the credits crawling across the screen, and the real world, to which I was sentenced, moved around in Fords and Toyotas, as simple, reliable and faceless as their owners.

“ Stevie, real men only drive cars with a stick shift!” Annie succinctly explained as always, “because only driving a stick makes you feel like you are in control of your whole life! Automatics are for losers and back-seat drivers who are afraid to take the wheel themselves. Look here! You push on the clutch… First, second, third, fourth, fifth… Got it?”

I didn’t understand it at all. I had never even sat in a car with a “stick shift.” But in a week I was flying over the surrounding roads, screaming through intersections and leaving black tire marks on the asphalt.

“You’re doing great!” encouraged Annie. “You are going to be a big success in life… I’m sure of it…”

On my thirteenth birthday my father reluctantly allowed me to go visit Annie in New York (which was good, because I wasn’t taking “No” for an answer). By this time she had already managed to divorce the mysterious Rodriguez, and get married and divorced again.

The city just amazed me. It was so much better than my wildest dreams. It was the City of Cities, the Center of the World.

So many different cars from all over the world crawled and raced through its streets.

Its televisions had over one hundred channels, and every one showed sin with abandon, Good and Evil locked in their eternal conflict…

On my birthday Annie got me a call girl. She was expensive, very young, delicate and skilful.

In the morning I began to look at the world as if it belonged to me. And I felt that now, I would never be the same.

“Well, welcome to the real world,” Annie said to me, measuring me with a long attentive gaze…

Do I even need to express how unbearable it was to return to Benningville?

My classmates seemed like little children to me now, the grown-ups – losers and half-wits. The town itself, with its manicured lawns and picket fences, looked like ridiculous scenery for the school musical.

But most of all, I was surprised by my mother and father. Now, what I had noticed as child, but never really analyzed, would not give me peace. As before, they gazed at each other with a calm and tender love. My mother would smile as she ironed my father’s clothes. Dad always smiled while cleaning and polishing her shoes. They adored each other. And in this adoration I was obviously superfluous. Honestly, I thought that they would fight Annie for me, but they never did. On the contrary, they became even closer – they sat silently together on the porch for hours, gazing out at the street, on which those “losers driving

automatics” occasionally cruised by.

It didn’t upset me. I was used to it because it had always been this way. My parents didn’t love me.

“Don’t say that,” Annie told me seriously, when during her next visit, I shared my new conclusions about my life with her. “Of course they love you. It’s just that they love each other a thousand times more. It happens sometimes, or so I’ve heard…”

Several years ed by. Then one morning my mother was washing the dishes when suddenly she froze, then fell down dead – a blood clot had broken loose and blocked her heart.

My father died the next day while he was choosing my mother’s casket at Sam Peters’ funeral parlor. At one point he simply fell over and cracked his head on the heavy oak lid. Even the Medical Examiner from Lawton could not determine what killed my father – the heart attack or the blow to his head. But, honestly, it didn’t make any difference.

They were buried together – John and Marsha Wright, who had gone to school together since the first grade, declared their love for each other in the fifth, got married at eighteen and died on the same day.

Their only son Stephen stood next to Ann, who had flown in for the funeral, and I waited for one thing – when, at last, all of these things would disappear from my life – the droning voice of the pastor, the smell of the earth, the dull, sad faces of the people standing by the grave, in fact – the whole insufferable town

of Benningville, Oklahoma…

* * *

“Hey, time to get up!” the voice was not loud, and I woke up not from the sound, but more from the fact that the American Hero was insistently, but not too roughly, shaking my shoulder. “It seems that someone I know told me that he had to be off at the crack of dawn…”

I opened my eyes with surprising ease. It was another advantage of living in the forest. It was dark, but morning was announcing itself in full – the birds were singing, drops of dew were clinging to the blades of grass, the bushes and trees came out of the gloom like ghosts, in anticipation of the sun which was still not even close to making its appearance.

To my surprise, the American Hero was undressed to the waist, and beads of sweat were glistening on his no longer youthful, but unexpectedly strong torso. It would have never even occurred to me that he had a regular morning exercise regimen.

However, what was even more surprising was that I was still in my jeans and sweater, and was lying in an old, quilted sleeping bag which was torn in several places. I had absolutely no recollection of how I got in there…

“Well, come on, get up,” said the Hero, lightly getting up from his knees, “I’m off to the creek to wash-up… Now’s the best time.”

It was extremely cozy and warm in the sleeping bag, and I did not want in the least to get out of it. But I forced myself to bend my knees and stand up.

From my recollections of yesterday evening all that remained was the taste of whisky and kabobs. The rest was just a black hole.

“So tell me, Hero, did I tell you any stories last night?”

The bum chuckled. “What, you don’t anything? Well, that’s not surprising… You ed out with half a kebab still in your hand, Stevie-boy! You almost fell face-first right into the fire!… I had to pack you up out of harm’s way…”

“So, I didn’t even say anything in my sleep?”

I still couldn’t believe that the visions of my youth and childhood were just a dream. Most likely the homeless man had decided to be diplomatic. But his clear light-colored eyes looked at me with honest and slightly amused surprise.

“You slept like a baby! Didn’t even snore, and a special thanks to you for that… And for supper too, by the way. It was very tasty.”

Still unsure about what happened, I rubbed my eyes, stretched, vigorously shook my arms several times, and finally felt some of dawn’s energy creep into my body. And I still felt that yesterday’s faith in my miracle (or in my good luck, as the Hero insisted on calling it for some reason) had not disappeared. Moreover, it

seemed even more real to me than the things we are used to calling reality.

“It’s me who should thank you, Hero…”

“Sure,” he smiled warmly. “Come on, get going. Or else I’ll catch a cold. It ain’t Miami Beach out here…”

“OK, bye.”

I shook his rough, parchment-like palm, and turned and walked toward the street guided by the noise of ing traffic.

“Hey, Stevie-boy!” the American Hero suddenly called to me from a distance.

I turned around.

His naked torso and long hair made him look like a Neanderthal.

“I don’t know where you are going at the crack of dawn, but be careful, and don’t piss away your good luck!…”

“I won’t! I promise!” I yelled back and kept on walking.

The autumn birds were singing unnaturally clearly and beautifully. It was as if God put on his favorite record. I took a leak under an old sycamore tree, made my way through a secret opening in the fence, and dropped down from the barrier wall, frightening several pedestrians who jumped out of the way. Strangely enough, it was cooler on the street than it was in the park, so in order to warm up I ran, rather then walked across the street. The taxi driver who screeched to a stop just in front of me shouted curses at my back in some unfamiliar language.

Upon entering my apartment I wanted to take a shower, but I thought better of it – I felt too clean and energized after my night in the woods. So I just brushed my teeth, splashed some water on my unshaven cheeks, threw a jacket on, grabbed my keys and headed down to the garage.

My candy-apple red beauty gleamed invitingly in the darkness. A Porsche 911, the car of cars, which knows how to fly but is shackled to the road.

“So, will you take me on my date with destiny?” I asked silently, pushing the button to unlock her.

“No problem,” blinked the round eyes of my bull terrier. “Who else, if not me?”

I got behind the wheel, but before turning the key and hearing the familiar roar that I loved, I suddenly recalled the Hero’s strange words about luck and miracles. The strangest thing about it was that he was completely serious… I had wanted to ask him more about it this morning, but forgot about it when I woke up. Now it did not make any difference. I was on my way to Whistleroad Town to visit the woman with the strange name – “Hannah.” And I wouldn’t advise

anyone to stand in my way…

I love I-95! Only a degenerate like Vincent Sherman would exit it trying to find a shortcut. But of course, if he didn’t, I wouldn’t be on my way to meet my destiny, zigzagging around tractor-trailers and clunkers with automatic transmissions. They honked at me as I swerved around them, and returned a onefinger salute, the state bird of New York, feeling that my blood was filling up with those familiar bubbles of intoxication from the exhilarating ride.

Just on I-95 alone I received 5 speeding tickets in the time since I bought my Porsche, but Annie (my heart clenched up again, God, I still only see her as she was before!…) taught me to take it in stride.

“You pay for electricity, gas, water, right?” she sneered, shrugging her shoulders, “No big deal, that’s how it has to be. So, pay for speed too. At least you get some enjoyment out of it!”

My thoughts of Annie sent me back to reality. Without slowing down, I stuck my Bluetooth earpiece in my ear and by touch dialed the number I needed. I always tried to check up on that bitch Vesna whenever I could; whether I had a reason to or not.

She answered almost immediately.

“Hallo… Yes, Stephen, I listen you…”

She spoke English poorly, but confidently, pronouncing her words with a cute little accent, which probably would have seemed sweet and endearing to me if I had liked Vesna Vukurovich even the least little bit. But I didn’t like the young illegal alien from Yugoslavia. What’s more, I didn’t like her just because – I didn’t know why. It was unfair, but I just didn’t like her. Maybe it was because I wanted to see another kind of nurse by Annie’s bedside. I wanted an older, experienced American nurse with sure hands and a white apron crackling with starch. Unfortunately, this kind of nurse would not have agreed to work around the clock for a roof over her head and a thousand dollars a month like Vesna…

“How’s Annie?” I asked sternly.

“Fine,” answered the Yugoslavian. “She sleep all day. No shit and no eat… Vun time she open eyes, and zen close right avay…”

I felt that I was getting annoyed, but I tried to control myself.

“OK. Anyway, make her some fresh chicken broth in case she wakes up.”

“Yes. Ov courz. I make.”

“Good. Bye.”

I disconnected the call. But my thoughts of Annie- helpless, doomed, and now confined to the enormous bed in her luxurious house had conjured up more memories and continued my terrible dream from the night before. But had it

really been a nightmare? I still wasn’t sure. I had a vision of the half-naked Hero looking at me with his clear, too innocent eyes through the early dawn…

…Somehow I ed my final exams (my teachers, of course, felt sorry for me and inflated my grades) and I flew with Annie to New York. I moved into her house, which was a beautiful manor in Great Neck, Long Island. Every divorce made Annie richer, so we were not lacking materially, so to speak. However, the very thought of wasting four years in some asinine college seemed like complete idiocy to me.

Annie did not insist.

“That’s right. Of all of the real men I’ve been with,” she said back then, “none of them went to college. No, I’m lying… one did go, but only for a semester and a half…”

At first I worked for almost half a year helping her friend, a completely crazy designer named Steve. My namesake, as it turned out later, was an actual schizophrenic, and was eventually institutionalized. Then I suffered for two months in a call center on Lexington. Then I tried an internship at a real estate agency. Finally, I found something that made my heart leap like a hungry dog at his dinner bowl.

For that I should probably thank the puritanical mayor of my cursed Benningville and his eight TV channels. Because of the hundreds of programs, steeped in their golden syrup of sin, sex, and success, which had bombarded my fledgling soul since moving to New York, I was suddenly filled with absolute confidence that I could write a TV show. I understood that there were probably thousands of small-town boys moving decorations around the studios of New York, who dreamt of the exact same thing – but I didn’t care. Youth knows no

bounds, which is probably why it is invincible.

For a month and a half I didn’t sleep, and completely lost touch with the real world. Annie’s printer spat out dozens and dozens of pages, the vast majority of which, having read several times, I callously threw in the fireplace and picked up my pen and started feverishly to write down a new idea.

Annie anxiously looked after me, but did not say a word. She would just bring me enormous sandwiches, and sometimes took me out to eat, where nevertheless I could not relax and stop thinking about work.

Then there were the dozens of identical yellow envelopes, which I sent to the TV channels and the production studios, the numerous meetings with morons, idiots and time-wasters, and a few with some serious people who ponderously nodded their heads, thinking their own thoughts, and stealing looks at their heavy Rolexes and Longines…

And that’s how it went until I was called into the offices of Paul Foxman.

Paul was a very unathletic young man with a face like an enlightened Jewish Buddha.

“Listen, they already told you that you are a genius, right?” he happily asked me across the table. “No, they haven’t? Well then, let me be the first…”

The day I signed my contract with Foxman Entertainment I invited Annie to dine

with me at “Jean-Georges”. It was the most expensive restaurant I knew and I still had some money saved up from my odd jobs (Steve, the schizophrenic, had been especially generous).

“Jean-Georges” was so chic. Candles everywhere. Waiters moving without a sound. Guests all speaking in practically a whisper.

“I knew that you would do it,” beamed Annie as she raised her glass. “You’re a real man, Stevie. And I love you more than anyone else in the world. Only promise me – when you make your first million, don’t take me here, take me to Per Se instead. It’s even better…”

“I promise,” I answered confidently.

At that moment, if there was a man on Earth who was ready to make his first million in less than six months, it was me.

And so my life began. The very life that I saw in those distant Oklahoma dreams – vivid, fast-paced, and, so it seemed to me at the time, full of beauty and meaning.

I produced a dozen new ideas per week. Paul praised them all. We saw each other every day, sometimes even on the weekends – in some nice restaurant, or at Paul’s fabulous apartment on Riverside Drive.

Two of my ideas were made into shows. Then another two. One of them I

presented myself, and people started to recognize me on the street.

Truth be told, it was still too early to speak about my first million, but I wasn’t worried. In addition to my handsome salary, I constantly received bonuses and awards. I bought several expensive suits (which continue to serve me well to this day), a one bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side, and my most prized possession – my candy-apple red Porsche 911.

Of course, it wasn’t new when I bought it from Jason Bukashka – a gangster from Brooklyn who had the physique of Mike Tyson and prison tattoos across his thick fingers (Annie had introduced us).

But – I was only twenty years old. I was the wunderkind, superman, I walked on water, and the old Manhattan sidewalks ed beneath my feet without scratching the soles of my shoes…

I one day I was stopped while running through the corridors of the studio by Eugene McKarr, an editor, a tired looking man in eternally wrinkled suit.

“Steve,” he said hiding his eyes, “Sorry, probably it’s none of my business, but…Well, I’ve been working here for eight years and I want to tell you to watch out for yourself. Mr. Foxman loves to cultivate his pets. He brings in new blood, so to speak… but it all ends rather quickly, believe me…”

“You old asshole!” I thought to myself. “You old jealous asshole!”

Two years went by, then another. Life continued to be exciting and wonderful. At first I did not even notice the change. The most inevitable things happen to us gradually. The show that I presented was cancelled. Then another one. I stopped receiving bonuses. My salary was reduced. Apparently, that was written into my contract. I was informed of this not by Paul (who was now always in a meeting, or out of the office whenever I tried to reach him), and not by Max, his lawyer, either, but by Helen, a nasty clerk from the legal department.

I couldn’t understand what was happening, I tried to barge into Paul’s office but his secretary was implacable. So despising myself, I went on a stake-out of his reception area…

When the crisis struck, Max asked me to come into his office and explained that, in agreement with the contract that I had signed, I would no longer be receiving a regular salary, and also I did not have the right to offer any ideas for any shows to any other production houses or television channels for the next eight years.

Thunderstruck, I rushed to Paul’s office, ready to break down the door if necessary, but it turned out that he had just left the office for the West Coast.

Now I could sleep in as much as I wanted.

I couldn’t generate any new ideas – my head was as empty and full of air as a basketball. Of course, I sent five or six treatments to Paul’s office, but I received no answer. No, more accurately I received them back in cheap office envelopes. And I ed them myself with my notary automatically. In the good old days this was usually delegated to some lowly intern in the legal department.

My money ran out ten times faster than I expected. Annie, of course, didn’t know anything about this.

“Real men don’t whine,” she repeated to me often. “They just go and solve their problems.”

The only person to know about my misfortunes was Lee – an artistic genius and my only friend (we had met on my show). I wouldn’t have complained to him, but one night we had a little more to drink than usual and it all just poured out practically by itself.

Lee didn’t give me any sage advice or lecture me on how to live my life. He just ed me financially for the past three and a half years. Every time, I opened the notebook in which I kept track of the inexorably growing sum of my debt to him, I understood that this couldn’t last forever. And yet I just dutifully entered another number…

Then the most tragic thing happened. Annie got sick. She fell ill dramatically and hopelessly. It was not cancer or AIDS, but a rare blood disorder with an unpronounceable name. And with no chance of survival.

She was forty one. She looked thirty. Men ogled her as she walked by – dazzling, shapely and vivacious…

Annie did not want to die in a hospital. For a month I sat by her bedside. We talked about everything under the sun – life, death, God, cars… She wasted away before my eyes. Then she stopped being able to recognize me, and opened her eyes less and less frequently. It was at that point that the illegal Vesna

appeared in the house in Great Neck.

The American Hero said that you do not have to pay for good luck. Poor, humiliated and heartbroken – I had already paid for it in full. If it wasn’t for Lee, I probably would have steeled my resolve and tried to kill myself. It would have been better than waking up every morning in my small apartment on the edge of Central Park without a reason to get out of bed. I guess if you have already achieved great success at twenty, at twenty seven you had better be ready for anything…

So that is how I’d been living, until yesterday, when the Hero had said happily, “When things really look the bleakest, that’s when you wait for a real miracle!”

He was right. So as dawn was breaking over the highway, Stephen Wright was on his way to find his miracle.

* * *

Lost in thought, I barely had time to slow down and change lanes so I wouldn’t miss my exit. But another fifteen minutes ed by before the necessary sign appeared ahead – small, inconspicuous, an arrow befittingly, pointing the way to my good fortune.

Driving further it was impossible to make any mistake – there was only one road, straight and narrow, only occasionally slightly curving one way, then the other. However, there were some gravel roads which flashed by periodically on the right and left, but even an idiot like Sherman would not have turned down one of those in the middle of the night. And, of course, he would not have been

able to see them in the dark.

My cell phone rang. Lee’s weary voice sounded a little alarmed.

“Hey, what happened to you? Please, just don’t tell me that you spent the night at Mills’, or else I’ll have to consider that I’ve lost a friend,” he snorted into the handset, because, of course, he didn’t believe it himself. “I called you at home yesterday evening (evening for Lee began at midnight, that is if he didn’t completely lose track of time, which happened constantly).”

I smiled.

“No, Lee. To tell the truth I spent the night under the trees in Central Park. Only, don’t tell anyone…”

“Cool…” by the short pause I could tell that my friend was relighting the butt of his cigar, “You got wasted without me? Also not the nicest thing you’ve done to me in your life…”

“I didn’t get drunk, Lee. It just happened… Listen, I’ll tell you all about it this evening, OK?

“OK. Just be sure that you come over. I worked like a maniac all night and finished a new piece of work, and I want you to be the first one to see it. Because I can’t tell if it is good, or a total piece of shit…”

The man, who appeared on the cover of Time magazine this year, whose works were frantically bought up by old pretentious billionaires, whom the critics anointed the new genius of American painting, smoking the stub of a cheap cigar, was sincerely afraid that his new picture was a “total piece of shit”… This tells you everything you need to know about my friend Andy Lee.

“I’ll definitely come by,” I promised sincerely.

“And where are you now? At home? Come on over now… anyway I’m not going to do any work today, I’m too tired…”

I hesitated for a minute.

“No, Lee, I’m not at home…I’m far away.”

“Where?” Lee couldn’t hide his surprise. “Well, damn, man… You slept in Central Park, took off somewhere at the crack of dawn… Come on, you think I’m not curious?!…”

“Lee, buddy, I’ll tell you everything this evening, I promise!” I replied cheerfully.

“Mysterious Stevie…” Lee exhaled at the other end. “OK, I’m going to go eat something, I think I have a couple of pieces of pizza left over…”

“See you this evening,” I said and hung up.

There were no signs. The only thing that indicated that there was some kind of populated area approaching were the barrels, old boards and piles of rusted metal flashing by on the side of the road.

Then rows of dirty trailers with broken windows.

Somehow I had no doubt that this was Whistleroad Town. It was deserted, like in some outlandish horror film. Just one big pick-up ed me going the other way. I did not see who was behind the wheel. It was time to stop and ask directions from someone.

I parked near a small store. The lights were off, and a crooked hand-written sign in the window said “Closed.” However, it was still very early – ten minutes past seven. A Porsche and a good highway can play tricks with time…

I looked around and slowly walked along the street. In general, this little town was a typical piece of Americana; the kind of town I grew up in myself. Only it reminded me of a Benningville that had been occupied for two months by a division of invading enemy forces. The fences were dilapidated and unpainted, the lawns – overgrown with weeds and clover, the houses seemed abandoned, and all the dogs – from the tiny mongrels to the big strays, growled at me with hatred and bared their yellow fangs. I decided that it was better if I returned to the car.

If some fanatics wanted to make an anti-American propaganda film, they could not have found a better place than Whistleroad Town.

The first ers-by of the morning appeared – alone and frightened – faceless. All of the men seemed ferociously drunk. The women were disheveled and ageless. No one said anything to each other. They paid no attention to me whatsoever.

It looked like Vince hadn’t lied. Whistleroad Town was a real shithole. “Of course my miracle had to choose a dump like this!” said a voice inside my head. Although, who said that miracles are required to live in penthouses smelling of roses?!

Again, I got behind the wheel and slowly drove along the main street. I stopped, having noticed an unshaven wino, comfortably squatting on an old barrel holding two cans of beer. He, like all of the rest, did not notice me at all. As if bright red Porsches cruised along the streets of Whistleroad Town on a daily basis.

I wasn’t in a hurry. I let him open the first can with a hiss, and take a sip. He’ll be happier that way. Only then did I get out of the car and come closer. I couldn’t sit down next to him, so I stood over him like a cop. The stench from him was unbearable.

“Good morning, sir.”

“Sir” took another long pull and belched disgustingly, and only then raised his red eyes, like a rabbit’s, up toward me. But he didn’t say anything, again lowered his eyes, pulled a crumpled pack, like a piece of old newspaper, out of his shirt pocket, and started to take a cigarette out of it. It wasn’t easy. His dirty, twig-like fingers shook terribly. I gave him a couple of minutes to struggle, and then

finally said, “Here, let me help.”

The wino hesitated a moment in disbelief, but his desire for a smoke won out. I shook a cigarette out of the pack (even for me this turned out to be a difficult task), and he lit up. After his third drag he looked at me again.

“Who are you?” his voice was creaky, like an old board. I realized that I had been right – without a swallow of beer, he physically would not have been able to make a sound.

“I’m Steve.”

“I’m John.”

He reached out to me with a thin sinewy hand, which I really did not want to shake. I didn’t want to, but I had to.

After the act of making our acquaintance, John warmed up and offered me the unopened can of beer.

“A bit later, friend,” the style of our conversation had changed, and it was working. “Listen, I’m looking for Hannah…”

John the Wino thought painfully. A minute ed by.

“You mean that crazy bitch, huh? Hannah Duncan?” he finally asked surprisingly.

“Yes, the very same,” I confidently answered, having no idea what was the surname of the one I was looking for.

It amazed me that someone like John, this “divine creation” sitting in front of me, could think of my blessed miracle worker – no matter what kind of person she actually was – as nothing more than a useless “crazy bitch”. How could he not see this amazing being that lived under his nose for the treasure that she really was?

At least I felt like I was on the right track.

John was smoking the crumpled stinking cigarette, and again painfully began to think. I wanted to hit him as hard as I could in the head with my fist, but I doubted it would have helped his addled brain, which most likely could only work at this sluggish speed.

“What is it, far away?” I couldn’t help myself asking after two minutes.

“No, not at all, it’s close…” offered my new friend. “It’s only that you’ll never fucking find it on your own… Come on, I’ll show you…”

He stood up from the rusty barrel and belched again loudly. His tattered sneakers

were caked with dried mud; his jeans were spattered with something that looked like yesterday’s vomit. In addition, he was smoking, and he – as I already mentioned! – stunk to high heaven. The last thing on earth I wanted to do was let him sit in my car. But the American Hero didn’t speak in vain saying that every miracle has its price.

“Let’s go,” I sighed.

Hannah’s house really turned out to be quite close by. Many years ago it had been white, but now it was rust-colored and peeling, and like all of the neighboring houses, seemed neglected and uninhabitable.

“So, should I wait?” croaked John once we got out of the Porsche.

I wanted to kill him, but it wasn’t the time or the place.

“No, don’t bother Johnny,” I said handing him two ten-dollar bills. “Better yet, why don’t you get yourself whatever you want, and wait for me where we met, next to the barrel…Agreed?”

“You got it, bro!…” John took the money with a leisurely dignity and headed back down the street with an unhurried gait. I immediately shook out the enger floormat, wiped the seat down with handi-wipes, and sprayed the interior with the air freshener that I keep in the glove compartment.

And only then did I look around.

It was still desolate. A pick-up drove by and some indistinct figure shimmered in the distance… I had once seen a movie about a blind psychic from Eastern Europe who lived in a little village. Even during Communist times people came from many different countries and waited days to see her, craving salvation and miracles. There wasn’t anything like that to be seen in Whistleroad Town. Ever since the appearance of the dollar, Americans had stopped believing in other miracles.

“And would you be here yourself, Stevie, if someone left two huge suitcases full of crisp hundred dollar bills on your doorstep?” snidely asked someone hidden deep within myself.

I ed Annie – incapacitated, pale, with a string of saliva dangling from her lip…

“Yes. I would be here.”

And I confidently knocked on the dilapidated door.

Or rather, I had wanted to knock. But I didn’t have a chance.

“Come on, outta my way!” the woman, who pushed me, distinguished herself from all of the other people who I had seen in Whistleroad Town by the fact that she carried an old black overcoat, wrapped in thick twine, in front of her.

I politely held the door for her, which turned out to be unlocked.

“After you, ma’am…”

But the woman paid no attention to my irony – or to me at all, and unceremoniously swept inside and yelled, “Hannah! Hannah, are you home?!”

It was obvious that she had heard something inside because she went into the room located directly across from the front door. Deciding to follow the local customs, I also entered without an invitation and found myself in a small entrance hall, which was clean, but had not been renovated in at least twenty years. The ill-mannered woman had dropped her bundle here, but I did not dare sit on it, settling instead on an old lacquered shelf.

And here I realized, due to her audible voice, that the door to the room was not closed. I had trouble making out what the woman who pushed me was saying – she was babbling, blowing her nose loudly, and it seemed that she was even crying. It was strange, she sounded just like a sorting pig.

However, I could hear the other voice perfectly. Also, female, it was calm, clear and gave me the impression it was quite young. Hannah?…

“Please calm down, Mrs. Finch,” the unseen woman of the house said sympathetically, but firmly. “He’ll be back today, I promise… And he’ll never lay a finger on you, or on the children. Never.”

The woman hurriedly muttered something filled with insincere gratitude in answer, and the door opened almost immediately. The woman came out, picked up the package that she had brought with her, and pursing her lips ripped through the twine, and unfolded the heavy fabric. It was some kind of awful ancient overcoat – black, with frayed sleeves and a clump of thread where one button should have been.

“Here you go, sweetheart…” the woman rattled off. “This is for you. Good as new, you’ll see. Mama only wore it for two years before that cursed tuberculosis got her…Well, that’s it, gotta run…”

And she left quickly, slamming the door. If the words “Thank you” had been uttered, I didn’t hear them. Released by the exit of the woman, the girl put the coat down and looked at me. She did not recoil or shy away. We just stood there in silence, looking at each other.

Vince hadn’t lied about this part either. Hannah (there was no reason to doubt that this was her) was so unattractive that it was painful. I had never seen anyone so thin. Her scrawniness reminded me of the pictures of the famine in Africa and the UNICEF posters asking for help. An absolutely hideous home-knitted sweater hung on her as if on a broomstick. Her plump lips and enormous deep hazel eyes – the dark slightly reddish color of sherry in a crystal glass, were pasted on her pale bony face as if by mistake. Her threadbare skirt, which looked like a rag, was probably held up by some kind of cord, invisible to the naked eye. Vince did lie about one thing – there was no way that she was anywhere close to forty years old. She would have looked like a gangly teenager, if not for her dark eyes which looked at me intelligently and appreciatively. It was the look of a grown woman. But nevertheless, the impression that she was just a child did not disappear.

She spoke first.

“Are you here to see me? Do you need something?”

“Yes, may I come in?”

“Excuse me, yes, of course…

The same atmosphere of meagerness giving way to poverty that was evident in the entryway permeated this room as well. It was not surprising – I myself had just witnessed the kinds of remuneration brought to her by her thankful neighbors…

Hannah did not sit down; she stayed standing, and did not take her extraordinary sherry-like eyes off of me.

But I was not going to stay embarrassingly silent. Everything had already been decided and planned out many times, yesterday in fact, as I marched through half of Manhattan along the Avenue of the Americas, my heart jumping in my chest like a ball, feeling the approach of a joyous transformation.

“Hannah!” I began, and I then I began to speak more softly, frightened by my own almost soldier-like zeal, ridiculous and out of place in this small, humble room, “Hannah…Please, listen to me. I found out about you from a friend of mine…Well, really he is more of just an acquaintance, honestly, he was never my friend… In short, I know that you are a miracle worker.”

She wanted to deny it, she even placed her hand with her thin pencil-like fingers on her heart, but she restrained herself and said nothing.

“And you can do anything!… Well, almost anything, it doesn’t matter…” I quickly corrected myself, seeing another flight of her thin hand. “Please, don’t deny it, there’s no point, I only just heard for myself how you helped that, um, that, Mrs…”

“Finch,” finished Hannah quietly with just her lips.

“Yes, Mrs. Finch. So, as you said yourself, you can’t do anything for yourself. So that’s why you live in this shithole! Pardon my French… So, see, I will do everything for you. Everything that you want. Only, help me. Please. Because it is just that everything in my life has all gone wrong at the same time! I just can’t seem to get things straightened out. Come with me to New York City. You help me, and I’ll be able to show you my gratitude, you’ll see! Come on, do you think that this is the way that a miracle worker should live?”

“Don’t call me a miracle worker,” Hannah asked quietly, she turned even paler and sat on the edge of a wooden chair. “I’m not a miracle worker…”

It was as if all of the words that I had prepared suddenly got stuck in my throat, but, thank goodness, she spoke again.

“I’m a witch…No-no, a good witch, of course!” she quickly added. “It all comes from my grandmother…”

“You can tell me all about it later, we’ll have lots of time,” I said, feeling that I had to keep the pressure on. “But now, let’s go to the City. Have you been to Manhattan?”

“Oh, you must be joking…” Hannah grinned palely.

“Well, where have you been, except for this god-forsaken place?”

“Nowhere,” she answered, indifferently shrugging her extremely thin shoulders. “In 7th grade we were supposed to go on a class trip to Washington, D.C. for a weekend, but the bus broke down…”

“I see,” my faltering confidence was returning to me again. “Well, let’s go, right now! You hear me?!”

“But…I can’t…” murmured the good witch.

“What do you mean, ‘you can’t’? Oh, oh my God…” it suddenly dawned on me what she was talking about. “Don’t worry, I’m not some maniac or serial killer… Really, you have nothing to fear, I give you my word of honor!…”

“I’m not afraid.” To my surprise Hannah’s voice sounded confident. “You won’t hurt me. You are a good person. It is plain to see…”

“Then what’s the problem? Or…wait – you have a family, a husband? Or a

boyfriend?”

“Oh stop! Stop it!…” she embarrassedly waved her hands as if I had blurted out some absolute nonsense.

“Then what is it?” I felt that I was completely losing my ability to comprehend what was happening. The steely determination inside me had not abated, but now it was useless, like a tank with no controls.

Hannah stood up once more, and touched her pale cheeks with her pencil-like fingers.

“I’m afraid that you will be sorry later,” she said quietly, but clearly.

“You do need help. But I can only do so much…”

Only so much…I recalled Vince Sherman’s story about her tricks with the dollar bills, and was struck by a sudden flash of inspiration

“Well, what are you risking? Or, am I?! Huh?! So, you can’t do everything! So what, you will still help me. Take that lady, for example…”

“Mrs. Finch…”

“What’s the difference – Finch, Sminch!… You helped her out! In just a few seconds, without even trying, I heard it myself. We can help each other, listen, Hannah?! Or do you plan to spend your whole life sitting here in this shithole while it falls down around your ears?! You think that this is life – this shit all around you, trash, broken fences, winos, hand-me-downs from the women for whom you make miracles?!… Man, you can’t even imagine how much beauty there is out there in the world! Freedom! Luxury, for crying out loud!…

She pressed her plump lips together slightly.

“Why do you think I can’t imagine it? Of course, I’m not very smart, but I’m not an idiot either. And I have a TV. Well, I had one, at least until it broke…”

“You see,” I raised my finger, “you can’t even buy yourself a new TV! Those are exactly the kinds of things that I will do for you…”

Hannah was silent for a moment, fidgeting in her hideous sweater.

“But why would you bother? I would help you anyway. If I can, of course…”

Now it was my turn to say nothing. I hadn’t even thought about why I was doing what I was doing. And suddenly now I understood – I want to make this miracle my own, and to preserve it. Strangest of all was that this somehow seemed just to me. The miracle was mine; it had been ordained and I had suffered for it.

“I want everything to be fair,” I stupidly blurted out, not knowing what else to

say. “It’s amazing that you still haven’t left this nightmare behind…”

“How?” the girl smiled sadly (I somehow couldn’t call her “the good witch”, even to myself). “You think I don’t want to?…But no one ever came into my house before and asked me to go. Like you are doing now…”

I still couldn’t understand, was she agreeing or was she refusing. It was maddening!

“No, I’ll never come back here ever,” she said as she sadly she looked around the little room, “I feel…”

Then she took a thick dog-eared notebook off the shelf and something else – I didn’t see what. I still couldn’t believe that everything was working out so easily.

“So, this means we’re leaving?” I asked as softly as I could, afraid I would frighten away my good fortune.

“Why, did you change your mind?”

Hannah said this so simply, without any resentment or irony. Her saucer-like eyes looked at me with an absolute calm.

“No… Of course not!” I even started to fidget from the surprise of it all. “Only you…you aren’t bringing anything else with you?”

“There is nothing to take,” she answered simply. “And besides,” she blushed unexpectedly, “you said that you would buy everything for me…”

“Yes, I’ll buy it, I’ll buy it,” the confidence that I had in the morning came flooding back. “Let’s go!”

Hannah stopped in the entrance hall and looked around inspecting her home. It was as if she was saying farewell to the damp walls, cracked windows and old worn out furniture.

“How strange…” she slowly managed to say.

“What’s strange?” I didn’t understand.

“I felt that this would happen…Strange…I’m actually leaving…”

She took the gruesome overcoat brought by Mrs. Finch, but I emphatically grabbed it from her and threw it into the corner.

“Are you crazy? Let that old bitch wear it herself! Tuberculosis is contagious, by the way!…”

“But what if it gets cold?” Hannah asked tentatively.

“We already agreed – We’ll buy you a new one. I pushed the door open with purpose. “Let’s go!”

* * *

The girl did not react to the Porsche at all, but I already stopped getting upset. Obviously, here in Whistleroad Town, the people just didn’t understand what it is.

On the way out of town I shifted gears and the car roared forward, instantly pressing us back into our seats.

Hannah turned pale, clenching her bony little fists.

“Listen, you aren’t afraid to drive so fast in a broken car?” she said looking at me with real anxiety.

“Broken?!”

This was too much. My tires were a few years old, but Jason Bukashka knew what he was doing, and I took the car to him at least twice a year for a tune up. I changed every minor part that caused him the slightest doubt for a brand new one, smelling sharply of either metal or rubber. The fact that the parts were probably stolen didn’t bother me -at least half of the stars from Broadway and

TV serviced their cars in Jason’s garage.

“Well, it’s just that you are grabbing that lever all the time,” Hannah nodded her head at the gear shift, “and it’s shaking so terribly…”

I grinned.

“That is a manual transmission. Only 5% of Americans drive it. It is the coolest and the best. But it’s not for everyone. My car is German. It is called a ‘Porsche’. It is one of the most luxurious in the world, understand?”

And then I had an idea.

“By the way, if you are worried, you can make her brand new, like she just came off the assembly line. Can you do it?”

Hannah shrugged her shoulders, as if I had said something stupid.

“Wait!” I caught her in time. “Not like new just out of the factory, but like new after having been broken in already…”

“Broken…in?” Clearly the girl did not understand.

“Well, like it was new out of the factory but someone had driven it very carefully for about five thousand miles,” I explained.

“Oh, I see…” Hannah said sort of strangely, and in the next instant I experienced the first miracle of my life.

The Porsche shuddered and roared ahead, sounding a little newer, unfamiliar. The steering wheel was filled with a supple strength; the seats became softer and more comfortable. I felt a trickle of sweat down my temple. Not from the speed of course, I adored speed. But from what I had just witnessed, from what the skinny creature sitting next to me could do. The small-town simpleton in the heinous sweater. The good witch Hannah.

She turned herself sideways and pressed her tiny thin hands, and I think, the tip of her nose, against the glass like a first-grader riding the school bus for the first time. It was what I expected, actually – my miracle worker had never seen the world, and now she was greedily drinking it in, studying everything – buildings, trees, buses and beautiful trucks, which we ed like they were standing still.

After the miracle, the steering wheel of the Porsche also felt new and unfamiliar. And this upset me – Lee had brought me the old one from Europe. Lee…

I think that I already mentioned that we met each other on the set of my show. Even then he was famous, but not as much as he is now.

Then we met each other a few times at several parties (Lee hated them, but attended at the behest of his agent Mrs. Rosenfeld, a strong, calm woman in her early fifties, whom he simply called ‘Lizzy’).

And, as a matter of fact – I already don’t how Lee became my best and only friend, the second closest person to me in the whole world (the first, of course, was Annie). Loneliness in New York is sometimes capable of developing into a wonderful friendship.

.

He works constantly. He mixes up day and night. He always smokes cheap cigars and drinks expensive French wine. The glass never leaves his hand, and he constantly puts out his cigars and loses them in the multitude of different ashtrays scattered around his house. Then he finds them again, and relights them contentedly.

Sometimes, about once a month, we get drunk together. It was our tradition. To relieve stress. We drink only whisky. Lee, as far as I could tell, did not consider wine alcohol. It was just part of his work and his life.

He was tall, broad-shouldered and wore his hair fairly short. He didn’t play the bohemian. Although he related to money in his own special way. He usually went around in a pair of paint-stained denim overalls. Drove a lumbering ford Bronco from God only knows what year, until it broke down once and for all. Then Lee walked in to a Mercedes showroom and bought a new G-class – huge with a gleaming black finish. He just thought it looked nice. “But it was an expensive son of a bitch!” he complained to me sincerely the next day. “How can a car cost so much? It’s crazy!… Those Germans have no shame…”

Lee lived in the Village, of course. In an awesome new building, made up of only three enormous apartments, one on each floor (Mrs. Rosenfeld, of course,

chose it based on keeping up the Lee’s image). The first floor belonged to some sheikh from the Arab Emirates, who had never been to the States even once. The third floor was occupied by a charming elderly lady – restrained and refined, the former wife of a billionaire, with whom she had lived her whole life who then bought her off in order to marry one of the sweet young things from the office. I sometimes met her as she was descending to her limousine with her chauffer. I would politely nod my head, always impressed by the elegant dignity she emanates. If the world cannot get along without billionaires, then, at least, let them be like her…

Lee lives on the middle floor. I don’t know how many rooms his apartment had, and probably neither did he. We would periodically find new ones from time to time, then lose them and find them again… His living room is the size of a basketball gymnasium, and was immediately turned into his studio. Paintings stood in stands, drying and leaning up against the walls. The ones ruined by the artist were strewn about in the corner, mutilated with a scalpel. There were about forty ashtrays filled with unfinished cigars waiting for their chance to come back to life. There was also an old leather couch in there (on which Lee would sometimes sleep, regardless of the time of day), a dresser, upon which always stood a bottle of red wine so it would not get lost, and a huge number of dirty easels. And also numerous table lamps and spotlights. Lee hated sunlight and lived in an eternal electric twilight. Nevertheless, the critics wrote about his “unique feel for light and shadow”.

He was a great artist. Not just popular or well-promoted. Even I, an uneducated upstart from a small town, understood this. I that I caught him painting a television. He was absorbedly changing the channels, and then would suddenly he grab his brush. His behavior smacked of madness, but I suddenly saw that the painted screen, in an incredible manner, layered on top of one another, but without disappearing, was showing everything – the news, hockey games, comedy shows, breaking reports from the world’s hotspots, game shows, political programs – everything that you would expect to find on different channels, not suspecting about the existence of each other. I simply saw it.

And then this was seen by the leading critics in the United States. And then by the trendsetters of the European art world and the auction houses. “Tee Vee” was the first work that Lee sold for more than a million dollars. But far from the only one.

They wrote and talked about him constantly. He was ambushed by the paparazzi and filmed by TV journalists. At least once a week another channel or newspaper would claim that he was a serious drug addict because without LSD it was impossible to see the world as it was portrayed in his paintings. But Lee would stuff another relit cigar butt into his mouth and work and work…

Well, he didn’t just work. He loved to order girls from an exclusive escort service. Sometime two or three at a time. For a day, maybe more… After having sex for the first time they wouldn’t leave, but would hang out in the apartment – take baths, make coffee, laugh and gossip, sometimes take a nap… It made Lee’s place almost always fun and cozy.

The service was completely legal, and the girls were young and charming. They sometimes changed of course, but often the same girls returned who had already been over to the genius’ home. They all adored Lee, adored me, and adored roaming around the apartment (it was actually them, by the way, who once found a cleverly hidden room with a real fireplace).

Often while Lee was working or sleeping, I would climb into Lee’s swimmingpool sized bath with two of the beauties. It was exquisite.

Naturally neither Lee nor I had anything resembling “a serious relationship with a respectable girl.” In our happy state of affairs it would have just been ridiculous.

I crashed over at Lee’s often. Both on the leather couch in the studio and in the enormous luxurious bedroom with a bed the size of landing field.

Lee, by the way, returned the favor. Sometimes he would spend the night at my apartment on the Upper West Side when we had too much to drink. Sometimes he would drop by unannounced and collapse onto the bed still in his shoes, which I would dutifully remove. Often I would come home in the evening to find him sleeping (he had his own key). What made him act that way? I had no idea…

Lee, of course, was rich. More accurately – he was filthy rich. He was tied to Mrs. Rosenfeld (I could never bring myself to call her ‘Lizzy’) by some kind of cryptic and confusing contract. It was one-sided, but it made him richer and richer. He was the favorite at every auction…

When I started to have problems at work, I told Lee about them. We were sitting on the rug next to the fireplace that the girls found with the ubiquitous bottle of red wine and two glasses.

“That sucks,” said my friend softly, not taking the extinguished butt of his cigar from his lips. “You shouldn’t have signed anything without Richie…”

Richard Mirsky – an elegant elderly man, who wore astronomically expensive suits – was Lee’s lawyer. One of the most expensive in New York.

“But it’s not fatal,” Lee continued, pouring the rest of the wine, “Everything will

be OK, you’ll see…And until it is, I’ll share with you. Of course Lizzy, that old bat, hardly gives me any cash for out of pocket expenses, the rest is all in tied up in some s, deposits, assets…whatever…” he said wincing, “but it should be enough for us. I only spend about half of it anyway, I don’t have the time…”

The “crumbs” which Lee gave me were several times more than my salary from Paul during the very best times.

By the way, Lee’s name is actually Andy. His surname was funny and unusual“Li-tov-kin”.

For a long time I thought that it was Korean. In addition, Lee had big eyes, which were beautifully tapered at the corners.

So I was completely surprised to learn that he was half Russia, and half Sioux Indian! It was such an unheard of, thermonuclear combination, but he just mentioned it to me matter-of-factly, as if he said that he was Jewish or Irish.

I thinking then that there should be a law requiring Russians and Native Americans to form families in order to give birth to the best friends on the planet.

“Excuse me? Is it possible for us to stop?”

Hannah’s voice jerked me out of my reverie about my friend. I was back behind the wheel of the car, heading up I-95 toward New York City.

“Why? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, really,” her lips quivered into an easy smile, “it’s just that I’ve needed…

Witches, as it turns out, also go pee. Somehow this thought strengthened my faith in miracles even more; it became completely real and tangible.

“No problem! Perfect timing, we can have something to eat too,” I said as I switched lanes and exited into a big truck stop, in front of which stood a mighty rank of eighteen wheelers.

* * *

The truck stop was cozy and warm. Every now and then truckers appeared from the back, having taken showers and changed their clothes. They were big strapping men with the scent of baby shampoo wafting off them. They sat together in groups at the tables, and, some quietly, some with bursts of laughter, talked among themselves about whatever it is that truckers talk about.

The waitresses worked quickly, but without any undue elegance. They were ordered about by a stout woman with kind, but vigilant eyes – like those of a policeman.

I belatedly realized that a truck stop was probably not the best place to take a girl, there were other places nearby just down the highway, but Hannah looked around with such delight, like she was in “Tavern on the Green” or “Daniel”.

And she ate with undisguised enjoyment. I ordered a club sandwich, some cheese sticks, 2 glasses of orange juice and 2 coffees. I got an espresso for me and a vanilla cappuccino for her.

“My goodness, it’s so delicious!” exhaled my witch during a short pause, and again dug her teeth into her sandwich, adding to her already full mouth. “It’s probably terribly expensive, right?”

“No, it’s actually pretty cheap,” I answered and thought that in that rotten Whistleroad Town there probably wasn’t even a McDonald’s. How much you want to bet?…

Hannah finished her food, and like a little child, licked her fingers and then finally ed to use a napkin.

She inhaled the aroma of the cappuccino that they brought her with her eyes closed with pleasure.

“Listen…” I had been wanting to ask her something for a long time now.

“Yes…” she responded, looking up at me with her enormous sherry eyes. She held her coffee cup cozily with both hands, as if she was warming them up. I

tried not to pay any attention to her terrible sweater.

“So how did you become…well, a witch?”

Actually, I wanted to ask her about something completely different, but to grab the bull by the horns straight away would have been crude.

“It’s all because of my grandmother…” Hannah took another sip and again blinked her eyes with pleasure. “Actually, because of my great aunt – Davina. She was really old, but was not able to die. At least not until she ed the gift onto someone…someone female in the family, that is how it is with us, Scottish witches.”

“So you are practically immortal?” I smiled.

“Immortal, why?” she shrugged her narrow shoulders. “I can drown, for example. Or someone could kill me. Witches don’t just die from old age.”

I looked around carefully just in case. A truck stop was clearly not the place for such a conversation.

“Forget it…” I joked so that the girl would not notice how confused I was, “Kill you? Even in New York that doesn’t happen to everybody. And what about your mom, did she also? Well, practice witchcraft?”

“Are you kidding?” Hannah smiled sadly. “My mama lived a very different life. And also…” she hesitated just for a moment, “my mama had known men.”

“Meaning what?” I did not understand.

“Meaning sex,” Hannah answered completely calmly, not hiding her eyes. “A Scottish witch is not allowed to love. It is the law.”

I must have had a totally idiotic look on my face because the poor girl came to my rescue herself.

“I know what you must be thinking right now. Yes, I am a virgin. I’ve never been with anyone. And, believe me, it doesn’t bother me at all!”

“I’m sorry,” I still couldn’t get a hold of myself having heard all of this, “But… how old are you? Again, sorry…”

“I’m twenty-eight,” Hannah answered in the same calm way. “But that doesn’t mean anything, believe me. Anyway – for a miracle you always have to pay a price.”

“Strange,” I recalled last night, the light of the fire flickering on the branches, the smell of the kebab… “Strange…Just recently someone else told me the exact same thing.”

“Really?” Hannah looked at me intently, surprise springing from her eyes, “But this person…”

She suddenly stopped mid-sentence. At first I didn’t even understand why, until I realized that she was wasn’t look at me, but at something behind me, over my shoulder.

Besides, the din of the voices around us suddenly fell silent. Sharply, as if by command.

I turned around.

He stood there with his legs slightly apart staring at us, not blinking. He was a little past forty, I think, with long unwashed hair, in a filthy jean jacket with fake fur lining. An unexpected character.

“You ain’t taking her anywhere, got it?” he whispered nastily, his angry eyes boring into me.

“You know him?” I threw a quick glance at Hannah, who had gone pale, but he spoke first.

“I’m her father! Got it, sonny!”

“That’s not true!” The voice of the virgin witch rang out loud and clear.

“Shut up, bitch!” croaked the long-haired man, “Your mama screwed everyone, but I knocked her up, you can ask anyone! She came round chasing me while I was still in school!”

Hannah turned as white as a sheet and dropped her head.

I got up, pushing the plastic chair making a horrendous sound. The truck drivers roared in approval.

“If you boys wanna mix it up, do it outside,” said the plump lady in charge authoritatively.

But this unwashed putz continued to just stand there, as if he was nailed to the floor, and I was able to get a better look at him. He wasn’t tall – no taller than me – but he was wiry, and very, very, angry.

“Sonny…you think I wouldn’t catch up to you? A little punk in an old Japanese car! And a red one at that!”

One of the truckers obviously knew what kind of car a Porsche is and chuckled merrily behind me.

“Well, then, if you caught me, you caught me… So let’s step outside,” I said quietly, looking the newest guest of the establishment in the eye.

“No, you don’t need to! I’ll go back!” cried Hannah.

“Be quiet!” I barked a more harshly than I wanted to and more than was necessary, but the truckers once again roared in approval.

The long-haired guy shuddered strangely, and then moved, finally, toward the glass door. I followed in his wake. Even his back radiated anger. Being a New Yorker since I was seventeen, I’ve seen lots of different types of people, and I knew that this guy was dangerous. But I was no creampuff either – I’d been arrested 4 times for fighting (3 times with Lee and once on my own), and had at least three times more that I didn’t get arrested for, but I lost count. Manhattan is a great school of courage, full of delinquents and cocky assholes, for those who love to wander its streets and venues at night.

The truckers left their tables and gathered in an unconcerned crowd in the doorway – obviously, this was a common occurrence, and no one wanted to miss the fun.

Standing across from her unwelcome “daddy,” I took off my watch and slipped it into my pocket.

However, he did something even better – he slid his skinny hand behind his back and pulled out a hammer. The most common kind. A plain old carpenter’s hammer. A scary weapon in a fight.

One of the truck drivers swore. They clearly would have taken the tool away

from this moron to make it a “fair fight”, but he didn’t wait to give them the chance. In one smooth jump he landed next to me and took a swing.

By some miracle I got out of the way of the hammer – it flew past my temple with a sickening whistle. I might not be so lucky a second time. Almost certainly I would not be so lucky. So my body reacted instantly – I gouged the bastard in the eyes with my fingers, grabbed him by the shoulders the moment he was blinded, kneed him between legs and head-butted him in the face.

His hard body softened. There was the muted sound of the hammer falling to the ground. And I savagely threw my enemy on the ground, and holding him by the throat with one hand, began to punch his unshaven face with the other – one, two, three, four times…

I probably would have killed him, but the trucker drivers, smelling sweetly of soap, came to the rescue by pulling me off and dragging me to my feet. I tried to break free, but their hands were steely and callous, like vice grips.

An elderly trucker wearing an old jacket with “ Milwaukee ” written across the chest patted me paternally on the shoulder.

“Ok, enough, calm down…calm down…You the man, buddy. But now you better get the hell outta here. And I mean now.”

The fury was still pulsing through my body.

“I didn’t finish my coffee. I didn’t pay…”

“Don’t worry about it, I got you covered,” the driver answered calmly. “It won’t break me. And drink your coffee somewhere closer to home, agreed?”

Strangely enough, Hannah was standing next to me. I didn’t even notice how she got there.

“Please, let’s go,” she pleaded, “I’m begging of you…”

…The trembling of my nerves did not abate for at least another five minutes, so I was trying to drive extremely carefully – cars like Porsches aren’t forgiving tonervous drivers.

Hannah, sensing the state that I was in, sat quiet as a mouse.

Soon, I settled down – the tremors in my hands, the convulsive internal spasms, the spots in front of my eyes, all went away. I was back to being my old self.

It was as if Hannah felt it too (maybe she really did?).

“You need to treat your wounds.”

The split knuckles of my right hand hurt terribly.

“It’s nothing. I’ll make it home.”

She didn’t try to argue. She was strangely silent only for a moment, and I suddenly realized that I no longer felt any pain. At all. I even wiggled my fingers on purpose – there was no pain.

“I hope that he wasn’t really your father?” I asked belatedly.

“No, of course not!” I saw from the corner of my eye that she had shyly lowered her head, “but now you know that my mother… that she led a different lifestyle. So that’s why Grandma Davina could not the gift on to her.”

“Stop it! Who am I to judge you mother?”

It was the truth. If I had been forced to live my whole life in Whistleroad Town, I probably would have ended up sniffing glue, having sex with farm animals, and stealing children to sell to the gypsies.

But now the time had come to discuss the most important thing.

“Listen, Hannah…” I coughed full of worry, “you said that you ‘can’t do everything’. What exactly does that mean?”

She shrugged her skinny shoulders.

“People somehow think that witches can do anything.”

“And what, you can’t?”

“No, of course not. Witchcraft has its rules. I can’t create evil, cause death, or disturb the order of things.I am powerless when faced with absolute evil…”

“Absolute evil?” I didn’t understand what that meant, but for some reason a prickly chill ran over my skin. “And what is ‘absolute evil?’”

Hannah paused to think. However, not as you usually would, but in a completely childlike manner, as if she were a schoolgirl who had not learned her lesson.

“It is hard to put into words…” she finally answered. “but it is very easy to feel…”

“And ‘the order of things’, what’s that about?” I asked carefully.

“Well…” Hannah fell silent for a long time, obviously looking for the right words, but couldn’t find them. “For example, I can’t make an old person young again. I can’t turn a man into a woman or vice versa.”

“Well, you can do that now in a hundred clinics without any magic,” I chuckled, “and what about money?”

“Things with money are easy,” she answered lightly. “It’s only that I just don’t understand why everyone wants money so badly?” She said this with such sincere bewilderment that if someone had been listening to us, they would have taken her to be simple-minded. “Take Henry…”

“Henry?”

“Yes, Henry Taylor, the guy that you had the fight with. Why do you think that he got so angry? Every week he comes to my house to turn a piece of old newspaper into a ten or twenty-dollar bill.”

“Why only a ten or twenty?”

I tensed up a little, but it was all for naught. Hannah shrugged her shoulders. “It doesn’t matter how much. There is so much money in the world! Too much. Much more than what you could buy with all of it…”

Satisfied, I decided to ask the most important question, trying to speak as evenly as possible, so that my voice would not give me away.

“Can you heal a sick person?”

“Of course,” the witch answered easily. “If, of course, his time hasn’t come…”

Annie was forty-one years old. Her “time” was somewhere in the coming decades. I wanted to jump for joy, like an idiot. Meanwhile, we got back to Manhattan, and I happily cruised around past of the most beautiful places, all throughout the Big Apple, which I myself adored – Battery Park, and Rockefeller Center.

Hannah pressed against the window so strongly, that I feared that she would push it out. “Well, how about that – not everyone can cast a spell on a hereditary Scottish witch,” I thought pleased with myself, relaxing completely.

But it was time to finish our little tour.

“Hannah…Hannah!…Listen, Hannah!…”

The girl heard me only on the third time, and tore herself away from the window with difficulty, like a child from a favorite cartoon.

“Ah?…What?… Everything is so amazing, isn’t it?”

I ed the first time that I came to New York many years ago and answered sincerely:

“Yes, it is.”

“There are so many people…” Hannah gasped from either shock or wonder, and I noticed how strangely her eyes were shining.

“Yeah, there’s plenty of people, all right,” I agreed, “but you’ll get tired of seeing them all soon enough. Now, we have to go do a few things.”

“Right now?” asked Hannah quietly with submissive disappointment, and I realized that she was ready to ride around for at least another ten hours. Regardless of the traffic jams appearing more frequently as the day progressed toward afternoon.

But I had everything all planned out already.

“Now we will go over to Macy’s – it’s a great store – and we will get you a few things to wear.”

A soft blush rose in her cheeks. When she had spoken about her protracted virginity, I hadn’t noticed anything of the kind.

“I look really weird, yeah? Although, what am I asking for? There, look at the people around…”

“No, you don’t look weird at all,” I definitely did not want to look like the

typical big-city snob in her eyes. “And as a matter of fact, New York is quite an open-minded city…”

“To put it lightly,” I added, but didn’t actually say it out loud.

“It’s just better to dress a bit more like everyone else. And, well, that sweater…” I nevertheless couldn’t help myself. But at least I didn’t add, “and the skirt is also no prize.”

“You don’t like it?” asked Hannah practically in a whisper with a touch of hurt in her voice.“I knitted it myself. Only took me a week. Mrs. Kennedy gave me the yarn. She lives…lived next door.”

“Ah, so that’s whose fingers should be chopped off,” I understood, “Mrs. Kennedy…”

“So anyway, let’s get you a few things, and then I’ll get you a room in an inexpensive hotel.”

“You…you are abandoning me?…” her enormous sherry eyes looked at me with fear and child-like hurt, “Here?!”

“Hannah, ‘The Wellington’ is right near my apartment,” I tried to make my voice sound soothing, “It’s a twenty minute walk. Fifteen, even, if you walk quickly! It’s comfortable there, it’s nice…”

The look in those big eyes like saucers, looking straight at me did not change.

“So what, you thought that you would live at my place?”

“Yes,” she said plainly and loudly.

I always thought of myself as a liberated guy, but no way did I expect this Scottish witch, a 28-year old virgin in a hideous sweater, to stay in my one bedroom apartment on West 86th street.

“Listen, my apartment is really not very big,” I uncertainly fired off my last arguments, somehow knowing in advance that nothing would come of them. “There are only 2 rooms… You, excuse me, would have to go through my room to go to the bathroom. And really…”

“I can sleep on the floor!” Hannah spoke hurriedly, “or in an armchair…that is if you have an armchair…”

I couldn’t help but laugh. The one from whom I expected unbelievable riches and awesome miracles, was convincing me that she was capable of making everyday simple sacrifices. There was something wildly surreal about it.

“Calm down. You won’t have to sleep on the floor. And anyway, I hardly ever use the other room…”

It was true. I spent almost all of my time in the living room. In it were a desk, 2 armchairs and a big old couch, and a flat-screen Panasonic hung on the wall. And there, finally, was the very same balcony from which you could see a patch of Central Park.

The second room would have been unnecessary if not for the bed, upon which Lee, having come over without a warning, slept drunkenly (or sober, I still failed to grasp the pattern), and the wardrobe in which I stored my clothes.

Upon moving in, I renovated the bathroom (trying to keep the style of the old house), but I did not even touch the kitchen – it was cozy, strong and oldfashioned the way it was.

“So, do you…agree?” the witch tried to look me in the eye, which in the Porsche is not so easy to do.

“As you wish,” I shrugged my shoulders.

Suddenly the idea popped into my mind that, in general, I should never argue with her. I should just go with the flow. Maybe miracles only happen to people who don’t make decisions?

In any case, I wasn’t ashamed to bring Hannah to my place – my small-town neatnesses always distinguished me from the sloppy New York masses. You might not believe it, but once upon a time, I had a complex about it…

Neither the gloomy entranceway, nor the flimsy door put my guest off. And upon entering, she threw her hands in the air and exclaimed, “Oh, you have such a wonderful place!”

I didn’t say anything. I was intending to share my plans for the ideal apartment, or even better – a house near the sea, a little bit later.

“Excuse me, but may I use the bathroom?” Hannah asked in a slightly frightened way.

“Listen,” this was starting to get a little bit annoying, “Seeing as you didn’t want to go to a hotel, you are now my guest. And you can do whatever you want. As long as you don’t ask every time!”

“I won’t,” she squeaked, disappearing behind the bathroom door.

I sat on the couch and doubted for the first time that I was doing the right thing. Even worse – everything that had happened seemed like crazy delusions. I slept in my clothes in the park, I brought some big-eyed hillbilly, dressed like a ragamuffin, back from the wilderness, expecting miracles from her… Or, maybe, having been conquered by the Great City, I was going mad from grief and failure? The very thought of it was unbearable…

The sound of running water was coming from the bathroom, and I suddenly realized that she hadn’t even brought any underwear with her. Then I was hit by a different thought – that now she turned out to be filthy too… Gross… And I was a piece of work myself! I hadn’t even offered her a clean towel.

It all became too much for me to take, and I went out onto the balcony, and stood breathing the warm autumn air. I looked at my watch and ed that it was still in my pocket. By the way, the watch was the only thing I kept for myself in memory of my father. Andof my miserable life in Benningville. It had a featureless steel body, strange name, and a worn leather strap. The mayor had ceremoniously presented it to my father for twenty years of perpetual service at the substation. During my halcyon years most people – if not all – thought I was putting on airs by wearing this surprisingly accurate hunk of metal. Probably that is why I continued to wear it.

I fastened the strap around my wrist and threw my head back to see a piece of the paper-like New York sky. It was five minutes after twelve. Time continued playing its tricks, and dragged on slowly and reluctantly. It was the perfect time to call Vesna to find out how Annie was doing, but I didn’t have time – I returned to the room, suddenly hearing Hannah calling my name. What now?

She peeked out of the bathroom through a narrow crack in the door.

“Sorry, there’s a robe here…but there is only one…”

“I told you – use whatever you need and don’t ask!”

I was angry at myself, but she bore the brunt of it, the strange bug-eyed creature, whom I myself foolishly dragged here. Into my little apartment. Into all of my complexes and problems. Into my life.

She came out after several seconds – wet hair, my robe wrapped around her tiny thin body – and sat down very business-like in one of the armchairs.

“What’s with you?”

“Nothing.”

Hannah seemed unusually serious and confident in herself. And, what’s more, very mature. Like a twenty-eight year old.

“It’s just that you needed my help…”

“Oh, what, just like that?” It wasn’t that all of my recent doubts had just been shattered, but a timid crack had appeared.

“Why wait for something good?” Hannah calmly asked.

She seemed completely different. Not like she had been before. I didn’t know much about Scottish witches. Maybe they needed to wash up in order to perform witchcraft?

“Hang on, just a minute…”

I quickly went into the bathroom and locked the door. I didn’t need to go to the toilet. I just splashed some cold water on my face, and felt the scratchy stubble on my cheeks. I wasn’t pleased by my reflection in the mirror – unshaven, bloodshot eyes…

Huddled together on the clothesline were a tiny pair of wet black panties, which looked like a child’s, tights, and a disproportionately large bra, also black. I recalled how, just a short time ago, I had thought nasty things about the girl, and I felt ashamed.

Her skirt and ugly sweater were neatly folded and lay right here, on the white plastic shelf.

It was quiet on the other side of the door. I took a deep breath and came out.

Hannah, it seemed, hadn’t moved a muscle during the time of my short absence. She just now raised her enormous serious eyes up at me.

I plopped down into the other armchair across from her and decided to treat everything like a joke, but it didn’t really work.

“Annie, Annie…” was pulsing in my temples. But I needed to warm up with something else. Something simpler.

“You said that money – that it’s easy…” I glanced at Hannah, belatedly trying to understand who she was – a Scottish witch sent to save me, the village idiot, a

con artist, a thief?

“Yes, it’s easy. You need money? How much?”

“Not just a twenty made from a piece of crumpled newspaper,” I thought with mirthless glee, “A hell of a lot more…”

And I stated slowly and clearly:

“Ten. Million. Dollars.”

Hannah, sitting across from me, wasn’t the least bit frightened. Instead – very surprised.

“So much?”

“Exactly. I need ten million dollars.”

“To start,” I really wanted to add but held back.

“Well, OK…” the witch said uncertainly and became strangely quiet – exactly like when, on the road, she made the Porsche new again.

I was also silent. Now everything would become clear…

The telephone rang. My cell. The solemnity and gravity of the moment were lost.

“Excuse me,” I got up from the chair, walked over to the coat rack and pulled my phone out of my pocket, “Hello?”

In reply I heard the sweet, syrupy, but very clear voice of Alice, the secretary of Paul the Couch:

“Mr. Wright? Hello! Oh, I was worried more than anything that you had changed your number, or had moved altogether!”

“Uh-huh. To Alaska,” I wanted to say.

“Mr. Wright, Mr. Foxman would like to ask you to come for a visit today at whatever time is convenient for you. If you are going to need some time, no problem, he’ll wait for you…”

I couldn’t believe my ears. Just in case I asked, “He’ll wait? Until what time?”

“As I already said – until whatever time is convenient for you. Of course, you

can reschedule the appointment for tomorrow, but Mr. Foxman would be very grateful… “

It all seemed like a strange dream. But it definitely wasn’t a dream – everything, except the conversation itself, was somehow almost too real.

“I’ll come, Alice. In about an hour,” I said firmly into the receiver, “but I’m not going to wait around, I have plans this evening.”

“Of course not, you won’t have to wait! All his other meetings have been rescheduled…”

Alice continued to chatter on but I disconnected the call. It wasn’t very polite, I agree, but I ed all too well how she told me dozens of times that, “Mr. Foxman is in a meeting, and immediately afterward he has to leave the office, therefore he is not able to see you now, I’m sorry…”

Something strange was going on.

I looked around the room, trying to get my bearings. The thin figure of Hannah in my bathrobe loomed on the balcony – the witch probably did not want to eavesdrop on the conversation. She was a well-mannered girl.

On one hand, I needed immediately to take a shower, shave and get down to Foxman Entertainment. On the other, I wasn’t sure what to do about our interrupted magic session.

I went out onto the balcony.

“Your place is so beautiful,” said Hannah. “You can even see the park…”

But I wasn’t interested in the nice view.

“Sorry, but we probably have to take a break for about three hours.”

“Take a break?” she looked at me perplexed.

“Yeah, about the money. It’s just that, you understand, I urgently need to go somewhere…”

“Sure, right now you are going to see the people that owe you a lot of money. They will give it to you.”

I froze.

“Wait a second, you mean to say…” I stammered with surprise.

“Of course I could make ten million appear in cash, but that is really a lot, and it

would take up all of your space, right…”

I suddenly felt a little light-headed and my mouth went dry. Everything was mixed up – my belief in miracles, my disbelief in everything, fear, reality, hope…

I even grasped the railing of the balcony to stop myself from reeling.

The answer was simple and clear, and I came to it suddenly, all by myself.

“What about half a million?” I blurted out.

“What about half a million?” Hannah looked at me, obviously not understanding.

“Half a million in cash, can you make it right now?”

Hannah looked away, and, again, silence fell over the room.

I could hear how difficultly and unevenly I was breathing.

The pause seemed like an eternity.

‘Well!” I couldn’t contain myself any more.

“What?” she looked at me again. “Oh, it’s all done. A while ago now…”

I pushed the balcony door open, practically breaking the glass, and rushed into the room. The money was not there.

“It’s in the bedroom, on the bed…” Hannah said softly, walking into the room. ‘It’s more convenient in there.”

I banged the door open.

The whole bed was strewn with brand new packs of crisp Ben Franklins.

I froze for a moment. Then I grabbed three packs from the bed. They were solid, weighty, and pungent smelling.

I decided that I wasn’t going to shave or take a shower. When you’ve got thirty grand cash in your pocket, those kinds of things don’t seem so important.

* * *

Little had changed in Paul Foxman’s company, which as alwaysoccupied an immense section of an office tower on Columbus Circle.

Nevertheless separate little things surprised me.

The security guard (he was extremely young and could not have ed me) didn’t ask even one question, just nodded indifferently and pushed the unseen button opening the door.

By the muted footsteps that I heard on the carpeted hallway, Alice was hurrying to meet me. Paul’s secretary was a lanky girl with a pierced nose and short spiky hair, which she dyed every week to a new wild color. Today her do was flaming orange, like a barbed tangerine.

“Mr. Wright!!…” the secretary’s voice was so filled with such rapturous love, that she just had to throw herself around my neck in an embrace. Instead she settled for taking me by the hand and practically pulled me into the reception area saying:

‘I’m so happy that you were able to come… To find the time… Thank you so much…”

‘Where are we racing off to, Alice?”

I slowed my stride on purpose, and, softly but firmly, took her clawed paw off the sleeve of my jacket.

Alice changed to a loud confidential whisper:

“He…He has been waiting for you!… Mr. Foxman, I mean… Waiting so much!!…”

“Well, he’s been waiting for so long…” I tried to sound as casual as possible, “he can wait another couple of minutes. Better yet, why don’t you tell me how things are going for you all here?”

“Ahh…” Alice gestured disappointingly, “Things are terrible – the old guys are afraid to get fired, so they sit quietly, and the young ones – well, the ones who they recruited – are all the same, untalented and useless…”

I saw, of course, that she was fidgeting with impatience, but I, personally, was in no hurry.

On the way here I stopped at a bank and asked them to check one of the bills I had randomly taken from the pack. Of course it was absolutely, 100 per cent, genuine.

Then I made two calls. First, of course, I called Vesna. In the house on Long Island Annie had opened her eyes just once, in the morning. She had eaten a few spoonfuls of chicken broth. The nurse had come and given her an injection. I had sworn to Annie that no matter what, I would not take her to a hospital and I had kept my word, even though I am sure that now it would not have made any difference to her. The Yugoslavian said she hadn’t even asked about me.

I also called Lee. He had clearly been asleep, but then I heard that painfully familiar sound – my friend lit up a cigar, even more likely – a butt found in the nearest ashtray.

“Lee, sorry that I woke you. Listen, I urgently need Mirsky. Seriously…”

Richard Mirsky was one of the most powerful attorneys in New York. He was about sixty. He was stately and silver-haired. He dressed the most expensively of anyone that I knew. He was driven around in a sparkling black Bentley by his chauffeur. He handled all of Lee’s dealings – from sales of works to galleries in Europe, to bailing him out of jail after another fight. If anyone had ever got the better of him, I had never heard it.

“Dick?” this even woke Lee up on the other end. “What happened, Stevie?”

I never completely understood what I did to God to deserve such a friend. No, I would have died for him, of course, without a shadow of a doubt, but who needed my sorry life?

“No, Lee, everything is OK… No, really!” I added, hearing a familiar incredulous pause. “I need him for business.”

“For business?” Lee, finally relaxing, yawned at his place in the Village. “Then why do you need Dick? You know how much he charges, the bastard? Man, if it weren’t for Lizzy, I would have never gotten involved with him.”

I didn’t have time for long explanations.

“I know that he’s expensive, Lee. But right now it’s very important for me to make sure that I’m not being screwed.”

A sleepy little sigh came from the phone, then several puffs.

“OK, as you wish…” Lee never asked any unnecessary questions. “You need him right now?”

“Yes, as soon as possible…”

“OK, I’ll call him now. Wait for his call…”

The call came a minute later. His assistant informed me with the crisp voice of a newscaster that Mr. Mirsky, unfortunately, was busy all day today, but was sending his second and partner, Mr. Katz. She took down all of the details expertly, like a police officer, and hung up the phone.

“Mr. Wright, please… I’ll get…”

Again Alice grasped me by the sleeve and pulled me in the direction of reception. And I also decided that it was enough showing off.

The reception area had not changed at all. It was as if I left there just yesterday.

“May I hang up your jacket?” orange-headed Alice continued to fuss over me.

“Just watch out, there’s thirty grand in the pocket,” I almost blurted out, but I bit my tongue in the nick of time.

And, not waiting for her to press her intercom button to announce my arrival, I opened the beautiful, studded leather door with a shove. It was impolite. I agree, but, after all, I came here to be brazen…

Paul, wearing a stylish brown sports coat (it was very fashionable this season), jumped up to meet me as if I were his long lost brother whom he hadn’t seen since the First World War. He was next to me in literally a second, hugged me like woman, with his soft hands, scented, by the way, with the aroma of an expensive perfume, and patted me on the back. Finally, he pulled back, and examined me from head to toe.

“You look great!” he concluded.

It was hard to say what exactly he meant. The old jeans?…The stubble on my face?…My sweater smelling of smoke?…

But I didn’t bother to contradict him. If maybe I did not look my best, I certainly felt fantastic. And surprisingly relaxed. So I sat down without an invitation and

looked around.

Paul’s office, as opposed to the reception, had changed. In fact, significantly. New oak furniture, new prints on the walls, a beautiful Tiffany lamp on the desk. However, the couch was the same – old, with creases in the leather, reclining on which Paul loved to discuss his plans in the company of his minions. At one time I had thought that the nickname “Paul the Couch” had come from this ancient, creaking good luck charm of Foxman Entertainment.

But I was enlightened very quickly by people in the know. It was a different story altogether. When he was a kid, after school all of the boys, of course, would go outside to play basketball, shoot off their BB guns, terrorize the old man selling hot dogs from a street-cart, and fight with the boys from the neighboring block… Childhood is filled with so many fun things to do.

They also called Paul Foxman to come with them. But he wasn’t interested in any of those things. From the third grade, having come home and changed, he would lie on the couch thinking about how to earn his first million. They asked him to come out to play, then tried to convince him, then teased him, and even beat him up a little. Nothing helped. So the only thing that stuck was the offensive nickname “Paul the Couch.”

Today Paul Foxman’s classmates, once athletic, brave, popular with all the girls, worked in construction and sales, wearing holes through their pants sitting in offices which they are sick and tired of, crying in their beers to each other, complaining about their boring lives and lack of money…

And the Couch-Boy was the owner of the fourth floor offices in one of the Time Warner Towers, a luxurious apartment on Riverside Drive, a house in Vermont (and probably much more, which I knew nothing about). He drove an enormous

Mercedes, ate in the most expensive restaurants, flew to Europe and screwed models, who dreamt of careers in television.

I was sure that his classmates couldn’t even dream of having such a life. Why is it that you have to pay so dearly for having a normal childhood?

“Coffee, juice, whisky?” Paul offered, smiling broadly.

“Thanks, I’m good.”

“Right! Straight to business!”

He plopped down in a huge luxurious armchair, clearly designed to show who was the boss here. I shuddered, just now noticing Max Varlow, Paul’s attorney, seated on chair in the corner. Max, in general, was a bit of a pretty-boy, but there was something elusive in his face that made him look like a deathly tired serial killer, to whom it is already clear that no matter how hard his lawyer tries, the jury will be implacable, and he’ll soon be hanged. In addition, he had a strangely elongated skull, which gave his face a donkey-like quality.

“Hi Max. You won’t believe it, but I didn’t notice you over there. Sorry.”

Max answered something quietly. He always talked like that, as if his mouth was stuffed with shredded paper.

“OK, let’s not beat around the bush!” Paul began enthusiastically and turning toward me, “Stephen, you’ll keep me honest – I never tried to con you, right?”

I could have answered that a million ways. But I wasn’t going to. After all, I came here to get my ten million dollars, and not carry on a discussion about honesty and creative ethics…

“And I won’t try to con you now!” Paul slapped his plump hand on the table, “It’s the right thing to do, correct?” – (I noticed that Max wiped his sallow face with his palm) – “We treated your last few synopses a little casually, like fools, really! You won’t believe it, but we didn’t even them…”

“Why not? I believe you,” I smirked, looking Paul right in the eye, receiving satisfaction from the sparks of confusion dancing in his eyes, “However, I ed everything very carefully.”

“And that idiot Alice sent them out with all of the others. And of course it just had to happen that several of the channels were interested specifically in those…” Paul smiled as if he was giving me a present. “Didn’t expect that, did you?”

At the end of the day he was an impudent bastard. He handled himself well, you have to give him that.

“Didn’t expect it? I didn’t expect anything else!”

“Well, great then,” The Couch was still counting on his own cleverness and my small-town gullibility, which the cold winds of Manhattan had blown out of me a long time ago. “Then there is just the small stuff left – to agree on and off we go! We’ll be a team once again!”

I stretched my legs and crossed my feet in my worn sneakers. To great effect. And I tried to say the following phrase as indifferently as possible:

“Listen, Paul, since we are discussing business, maybe it’s better to meet with Dick Mirsky?”

Sitting in the corner, Max coughed so sharply and unexpectedly that I jumped. And just as sharply cut it off, mumbling:

“Excuse me…”

Paul Foxman did not cough. He abruptly jumped up and ran around the office (people unacquainted with him were often surprised that this very unathletic, to put it mildly, man could move so swiftly and impulsively), then leaned against the wall and began peering at me slyly, clearly trying to deduce whether or not I was bluffing.

I wasn’t bluffing. And he grasped that immediately.

“You know, you’ve changed a lot, Steve, good boy,” he said approvingly, and for a second I thought he would add, “You’ve become as much of a smooth operator

as me.” Paul the Couch didn’t say that. But he probably thought it.

I looked at my watch.

“You know, I think I’ll have that coffee, Paul. Just to kill some time. Dick himself, of course, won’t be coming to our first meeting, it’s a bit below his pay grade, but his second in command will be here shortly. After all, I have a hard time making sense of all those papers, you know… Although, it would be interesting to have a look at the list of interested channels. It seems to me that there are more than just two or three…”

“I’m sorry…” Paul again flashed like lightning across the expansive office, almost immediately flew back, but the evidence of the crime was on his face – a barely noticeable stain of powder under one of his nostrils, a defiant glassy shine in his eyes…

“So, here we go with the drugs,” I noted gloatingly to myself.

Then Alice entered with my coffee. Paul waited for her to exit, then immediately began speaking excitedly.

“Steve!…Stevie!… Listen, come on, Richard Mirsky!!… What do we need him for, you and I, this Mirsky!?… We can settle everything quickly and easily, can we not?!… As they say, as friends…”

“Your friendship, you asshole, has cost me several years ripped from the heart of

my youth,” I almost told him. But I nevertheless held my tongue. Today was not my turn to play the resentful victim.

Max came to life. I had been waiting for when this would finally happen. From anger, or from worry – and probably from both – his voice sounded almost loud.

“By the way, our previous contract gives us the right of first refusal to use any…”

“Be quiet Max!” Paul, inspired by the coke, continued to search for the easier way. “How much do you want for the rights to your last four shows?”

Again, I stayed silent for a few moments. Simply just to torture him.

“Well, it’s not quite that simple, Paul, my friend…”

“Come on, how much?!…”

“Ten million dollars,” I answered ionlessly.

I didn’t count the half a million lying on the bed in cash on purpose, I had decided earlier, that this was compensation for the years of pain and suffering.

Max coughed again. This time loud and thunderously, wiping away the tears running down his cheeks with his handkerchief. Like the victim of a gas attack.

“Come on, cut it out, I’m talking seriously with you here,” sighed Paul, tiredly falling into his command chair.

Following which, Max loudly blew his nose and put away his handkerchief.

“Within the bounds of a possible compromise,” he murmured from the corner, “Your previous salary, a raise of twenty five percent, plus a one-time bonus of one hundred and eighty thousand dollars… Maximum two hundred thousand…”

“Max,” I cut him off in mid sentence, “you have such big gristly ears, but you don’t seem to hear me at all. It seems that I said, quite clearly, ten million dollars.”

Max froze. For a second I thought he was going to raise his hand and scratch behind his ear, but not all dreams come true – Paul Foxman’s attorney only winced, as if from a painful tooth, and made some fleeting note in a thin file lying on his knees, and again murmured from the corner.

“The amount of the one-time bonus cannot be more than two-hundred thousand…”

“Three fifty! And double your salary!” barked Paul the Couch and turned toward me, “Will that do it?”

He obviously decided to change tactics and was now fulfilling the role of the benevolent magi, simultaneously all-powerful and kind.

“OK, you guessed it. Stevie… Dozens of channels are interested in your shows! And not only in the States… They are all conspiring together, sons of bitches!… Even the Chinese want them! So again, three hundred and fifty thousand and double your salary for the next five years!”

“Under the condition that you provide eight new show ideas per year…” Max began in an academic and listless tone.

“Without any conditions!” Foxman threw him a glance, full of cocaine fueled fury.

And he looked at me with increasing confusion. All of his clever experience told him that I should have been ecstatic with the global recognition, and with the incredibly generous bonus. And simply with the huge salary, for that matter!

The poor bastard didn’t know that I came here for my ten million. And I knew that I would get them. So I just sat on the couch, calmly bored, sipping the coffee Alice made for me. It was very tasty, by the way…

No one said anything for two minutes. Paul was thinking feverishly, Max, petrified, hopelessly looked at nothing, which made him look even more like a doomed inmate.

The Couch broke the silence.

“OK, Stephen, let’s just accept that you proved everything to everybody. It’s possible, that we didn’t treat you in the best way possible…”

“Not the best way possible…What a bastard!”

“…but then we were dealing with a bright-eyed boy from the sticks, and today we are talking to a smart businessman. You want your revenge on me, I understand… Maybe, that’s even fair to some degree… But enough already, we’re all grown-ups here. Name your conditions. Just be serious, OK?”

I didn’t have to seriously name my treasured amount again. The intercom came to life.

“Mr. Foxman, Mr. Katz is here, the junior partner in the firm ‘Richard Mirsky Group’. He claims that his client is in your office and that you are expecting him…”

Paul the Couch aged two years right before my eyes, and growled something into the intercom. Max stood up and straightened his tie.

My lawyer, appearing on the threshold, examined the office in a business-like manner.

If Dick Mirsky was the general, then his partner was the energetic forty-five year old colonel, going from victory to victory. The style of his clothes was on par with that of his boss, therefore something elusive and wretched suddenly appeared in Paul’s and Max’s eyes.

In this company I looked like I could have been mistaken for a garbage man.

But I was His Majesty’s Client. Unmistakingly determining this, Mr. Katz approached me, and shook my hand, nodding curtly. His hand was strong and indifferent. Like an executioner’s.

Only after this, leaving his crocodile skin briefcase on the couch, did he smile with reserved bloodthirstiness and introduced himself to my ashen interlocutors.

* * *

To describe the negotiations between Mike Katz and Paul and Max would be boring and serve no real purpose. It wasn’t a fair fight from the moment that the expensive studded leather door squeaked open. My television tormentors resembled two natives, beating their spears against the steel of a modern tank that had entered their domain.

Max weakly listed some chapter headings and sub-clauses of our contract. Mr. Katz, in turn, cited articles of the law, turning them into silly illegitimate phrases, and the contract itself into a scrap of paper, which you could have safely used for hygienic purposes, if the ink used by the printer did not contain lead which is

harmful to the skin and rectum.

Paul, depressed, first with a gentle insistence, and then quite shyly, tried to find a compromise.

In the end, at five o’clock, when I declared that it was time to go, I was the owner of seven and a half million dollars and the rights to a share of the profits from the use of all of the TV content that I created.

Saying good-bye, Mr. Katz shook my hand with a smile and assured me that my interests would be protected to the very end, and that I had nothing to worry about. His hand felt exactly the same. Paul and Max, sitting across from me, looked like slightly deflated balloons…

It was already dark outside. It was fresh and crowded. It smelled like autumn and the perfume of the ers-by.

“Well, now you are a millionaire, little Stevie from Benningville…” I said to myself, expecting to feel some kind of special feeling that I never felt before.

But I didn’t feel anything of the kind. I felt the same as usual, like before, maybe just a little overwhelmed by the events of this never-ending day.

And I also thought that business is also witchcraft. Boring, in an office and suit kind of way, but still able to turn ten million into seven and a half… But then, honestly, I realized that the difference was probably ed for by the

astronomical fee of Mr. Katz and his partner, and it soothed my soul. Glancing at my watch once again, I saw that it was already five fifteen, and I threw out my hand to flag a cab…

It was dark and quiet in my apartment. Throwing the keys onto the table, I flicked on the light switch, feeling alarmed for some reason. But I calmed down instantly – Hannah’s familiar silhouette was visible on the balcony. Interesting, what was she looking at in the narrow black slit of 86th street?

The bricks of dollars were laid out in an uneven, but tidy cube on my desk. Of course I didn’t have a safe. I could only hope that none of the lonely freaks, who lived in the building across from me, were, at this minute, spying on my treasure with a pair of binoculars, planning to gather their courage to come over and slit my throat. And Hannah’s as well. A good miracle can very easily turn into an evil miracle, and my beloved New York adored these kinds of tricks. Just in case, I covered the money up with some newspaper.

The witch entered the room, and I saw that she was still in the same god-awful outfit.

“We are definitely stopping by Saks or the Gap on the way,” I decided firmly, “Definitely!…”

Hannah looked a little distressed.

“Please don’t go out for so long…” she said quietly. “Please…especially when it is dark out, OK? There is so much evil in this city! Of course there is good too…

When she spoke about good, her face lit up.

Interesting, how did she calculate the balance of Good and Evil in the greatest city in the world? Standing on the balcony of my apartment?

“Is everything alright?” Hannah asked a bit anxiously.

I flopped onto the couch, folding my arms behind my head.

“Alright?!…Alright?!…” I couldn’t help it, laughing nervously. “Girl, today you made me a millionaire!! A millionaire, do you understand?!… Even a multimillionaire?!…” The word was such a television cliché it sounded somewhat ridiculous coming out of my mouth. “So now I’m going to go shave quickly, take a shower, and then you and I are going to see my friend Lee, the greatest guy in the whole world!"

“And…I’m coming too?” she asked again timidly.

“Don’t be afraid, he is actually quite wonderful, you’ll see. And besides, you can’t just sit around by yourself in this cramped apartment! This is New York!!…”

Pulling off my sweater, I rushed into the bathroom, but realized, just in time, that I needed to get my underwear from my wardrobe. I don’t know what a young man feels while walking around naked in front of a twenty-eight year old virgin

(-who is also a witch), but I wasn’t planning on finding out.

I had more than enough new impressions for one day.

“Stephen…” Hannah reluctantly began, when I had a stack of clothes in my hands and was all ready to lock myself in the bathroom.

“What?”

She hesitated a little and blushed.

“Can we ride to your friend’s house in one of the big yellow cars? The ones that drive all over the city…”

And she blushed as if she had asked for something indecent, or difficult to obtain.

…But it was a while before we got into a taxi. I decided to walk over to 5th Avenue (on the way to Lee’s) in order to buy some normal clothes there for my witch – under the electric lights she seemed even more wild, like she was wearing a carnival costume.

We walked slowly. Hannah stopped every now and then, looking around and tossing her head with childlike delight.

“Goodness, it is so beautiful…” she sighed from time to time. “Everything is so big and fancy!… Just look at it all!!…”

It didn’t even occur to me to laugh at her. Manhattan in the evening was truly glorious. And in any case, who am I, born in small-town Oklahoma, to laugh at the provincial joy of someone seeing this splendor for the very first time?! Seven years ago I was choked up with puppy-like excitement myself walking along these same streets!…

What concerned me more – no, not concerned, simply surprised, was something else completely. The happiness from my newly found riches still had not hit me, even though everything was connected to this – a completely different life, still unfamiliar to me, freedom, and the ability to enjoy absolutely anything, for me and for those close to me…

Annie…of course, the whole problem, probably had to do with her, but I had sincerely promised myself not burden Hannah with that today (I had only called the illegal immigrant, Vesna, from the taxi on the way home).

“One day – one miracle.” It was a good principle.

I thought that if Annie died tonight I would simply throw myself out of the window. But it was as if something was holding me back from addressing the issue, and it, of course, had nothing to do with any stupid principle. I was just simply afraid that Hannah couldn’t do it…

Finally, the glass window of the fashion boutique was glowing up ahead.

“OK, we need to go in here! Don’t worry, it won’t take long…Hannah, are you listening?”

But looking back, I didn’t see the girl. A mob of indifferent New Yorkers flowed around me like a living stream. Hannah was nowhere to be seen. I started to panic, but immediately exhaled with relief seeing a familiar silhouette about ten yards away. Pale as death, my good witch was leaning, eyes closed, with her back against the wall. The people ed right by in an uncomionate river. I made it to her side in a second.

“You idiot!! Moron!!…” I cursed myself in my thoughts.

She was now in no shape to go shopping. Grabbing her with one arm – she seemed like she only weighed twenty pounds, and not an ounce over – I pushed my way to the curb, and raised the other to hail a cab…

As Murphy’s Law would have it, there were no free cabs-then we got lucky. A large African-American lady with two kids pulled up next to us, just a couple of yards away, and got out of a cab.

I told the taxi driver where to go, but Hannah sat for a long time on the seat of the huge yellow Caprice, in which she had dreamed of riding, curled up with her tiny delicate hands covering her pale face. She calmed down a little and opened her eyes only when the whimsical and festive lights of the Village flashed by the window.

I asked the driver to stop two blocks from Lee’s house. I often did this, in order to stroll through one the most beautiful neighborhoods of my Megapolis, where I too will have a place to live someday…

“Stop. Why is it ‘someday?!… If I want to, I’ll move tomorrow!…” I reminded myself with annoyance. The Millionaire Stephen Wright still couldn’t get rid of…of the favorite phrase of all losers – ‘someday’… But as before, I still did not I feel rich and all-powerful – not in the least. Now it was starting to annoy me.

“This is the most beautiful place that I have ever seen in my life…”

Hannah, walking along side me, sighed with amazement and looked all around. Having delved into my own thoughts, I had forgotten about her for a few minutes. You swine…

“Are you cold?” I asked, seeing that she had wrapped up in her horrific sweater, which was buttoned all the way up, and was shivering a little bit.

“What?” She turned toward me and looked at me with her big, dark eyes, the beauty of the night reflected in them for a second. “Oh…Don’t pay any attention to me…I’m always cold…”

“Not surprising”, looking at her emaciated figure and match-stick legs beneath her skirt. “She is probably cold all of the time indeed. No big deal, tomorrow we’ll get her some clothes…”

Despite the wonders of the past day, as we walked along the road, separated by two immaculate flower beds, my mood worsened, as usual.

You see, the three story building of the wealthy residents (one of whom had never even been to the States, as I already mentioned) where Lee lived was protected by a security guard – he was tall, around forty, and a real piece of work. It was always the same one. It was as if he didn’t sleep, didn’t eat, didn’t go to the bathroom. He had a face like Kirk Douglas. His steel-colored eyes were hard and vigilant. The huge revolver on his hip seemed unnecessary – the fitted beige uniform was stretched across a scary landscape of muscles.

So this guard hated me. And the craziest part was that I completely had no idea why! I never fought with him, never yelled, never tried to be rude. I swear, I never said a cross word to him! I even said hello every time. Until I stopped, having been offended again, for the probably hundredth time.

I couldn’t attribute his treatment of me to some instinctive rage or classist jealousy – he sincerely smiled from ear to ear at Lee, and at the billionairess and her chauffer (I saw it myself!)

Moreover – herds of girls from the escort agency came over with absolutely no problem, as did Margarita – Lee’s gloomy fifty-year old cleaning lady – a Cuban, who practically couldn’t speak English. She appeared without an any schedule, and even though she didn’t keep Lee’s palatial apartment completely spotless, at least she kept him from turning it into a garbage dump, full of old cigar butts and empty wine bottles.

Lee was also often visited by various workmen, carrying in large frames

smelling of wood, buckets of clay and other joys of the creative process.

And this didn’t include the delivery of all kinds of pizzas and take-out, couriers from the wine shop carrying tinkling boxes, tele-journalists with their huge cameras and God knows who else…

All of these people went through to visit Lee with absolutely no problem, and only I was stopped by the polite, concrete palm of the middle-aged body builder with the pistol.

“Mr. Lee,” he called Andy on the intercom every time I appeared. “Mr. Wright is here to see you. Shall I let him up? Of course, sir…”

And with a strictly condescending gesture, he would indicate that I could go through. As if he was a prison guard and I had just finished my sentence for a terrible and heinous crime.

To tell the truth, more than once I wanted to go up to that middle-aged musclehead with the revolver on his hip, and ask, looking into his implacable leadcolored eyes:

“So just why do you hate me so much, you son of a bitch? Well, why, tell me! I’m just curious…”

But I didn’t do that. I just stopped talking to him altogether, and nicknamed him “The Terminator…”

He was at his post right now, same as always. Huge, powerful, calm. Like a gladiator.

The Terminator had already taken the receiver of the intercom.

“Mr. Lee, Mr. Wright is here to see you…And he is with a young miss…Yes, of course…”

This was followed by the traditional condescending nod. The bastard did not just demonstrate his power once again, but he stole my pleasure in being able to surprise my friend – I thought that, upon seeing Hannah in all her splendor, Lee would lose it.

As we walked past, the pumped-up jerk even smiled.

“Good evening…Welcome…”

He, of course, addressed only Hannah. He looked right past me. Interesting, what would he do, I thought happily, if I asked my good witch to turn him into a mangy cat right now, which I would kick all along the hall?…

Hannah froze again in the marble elevator, and, stunned, whispered:

“Look, there is an elevator!… Only three floors and there is an elevator!…”

“I have a few acquaintances that live in two-story houses with elevators,” I chuckled.

Hannah looked sideways at me suspiciously, but said nothing, and timidly stepped into the elevator cabin which opened soundlessly…

Lee was waiting for us right next to the open doors to his entrance hall, which was bigger than my entire apartment, including the bathroom, closet and balcony. The message from the Terminator about my “young miss” must have definitely intrigued him – he usually just opened the door and waited for me inside.

He looked comfortable, as usual, in paint-stained denim overalls on top of a Tshirt of an undeterminable color, his hair still rumpled from sleeping. He had a smoking cigar in one hand, and the other was squeezed around the neck of wine bottle of wine.

“Hi, Stevie, my friend…” he growled as usual. He looked not at me, but at my companion. Looking, what is more, not at all as I expected – not with playful mockery or the irony of a playboy spoiled by too many stunning girls, but with a thoughtful and welcoming kindness.

My good witch also relaxed suddenly – I practically felt it physically.

Lee continued, “Hi. I’m Andy. My friends call me Lee.”

“A…delaida…” she quietly introduced herself. But her voice lacked its customary fear, the familiar readiness to flinch and run away, her hands covering her cheeks burning with shame. “I guess you’re remodeling, right?”

She was so relaxed it seemed beyond the bounds of her familiar behavior. I was completely flustered.

“Exactly!… I just can’t seem to finish…” Lee lied merrily. “But that won’t keep us from opening a bottle of good French wine… In honor of our acquaintance, OK?”

“OK,” Hannah answered quietly, but not shyly at all, and I understood that there are definitely things in life that I don’t understand.

“Please, come in!” Lee made a sweeping gesture like the master of the house, and Hannah entered his spacious entrance hall. My friend pushed me in after giving me a wink along the way.

“It smells wonderful in here!” the girl said as the door closed behind us.

It was true. Lee’s apartment was never filled with smoke. Hidden from the naked eye was space age technology that extracted the smoke, along with odors of various thinners and other chemical agents.

But the aroma of the cigars still lingered.

It permeated the spacious living quarters, and made them warmer and cozier. I got used to this smell a long time ago, and would have known it anywhere.

Wine goblets were left by the well-trained Margarita right here, in the hallway, on a beautifully polished cabinet. I took one. Hesitating slightly, I handed Hannah another. How was I to know whether Scottish witches drank alcohol or not?

And Lee poured the wine.

“As they say – Welcome!”

We drank. To my surprise, Hannah did not think about it, and took a long drawn out swallow, her eyes closed with enjoyment. And then she said, without a trace of embarrassment:

“M-m-m-m… Wonderfully delicious!…”

“We don’t serve shit here!” answered a satisfied Lee, and mysteriously lowered his voice slightly. “And today – in honor of our acquaintance – we are drinking quite the little bottle! There were only two dozen in all of New York! Seriously! And no one knows how many are left. Maybe a couple in someone’s collection. And maybe – this is the very last one…”

I could only guess how many thousands of dollars that “little bottle” cost, which Lee so easily killed off in the course of the evening…

“Can you just give us a couple of minutes? To gossip. OK? We boys also love to gossip sometimes…” Lee smiled and spoke to the girl like to an eight-year old, but she, it seemed to me, even liked it. I didn’t even recognize her anymore…

“Oh, yes, of course!” Hannah even waved her tiny arm. “I won’t touch anything, I give you my word! I…I’ll sit over here, if that’s OK…Is it?”

“You don’t understand…” Lee tried to take a puff, but his cigar had gone out and only made a whistling sound. By habit he put it in the bronze ashtray standing next to him.

“We live in the freest city in the freest country in the world. So you can do anything that you can think of – drink wine, go anywhere – this place is full of interesting places, by the way! – swim in the bath… In a word, whatever you want, do it. You can touch everything! Absolutely! Except for the paintings…”

“Paintings?” Hannah did not understand.

“Lee is a painter,” I decided that it was time to come to her aid. “A very famous painter, by the way…”

“Steve…” absolutely shameless, Lee was still painfully embarrassed when he was praised. Even by me.

“I understand perfectly, don’t worry,” Hannah said calmly. “May I have some more wine?”

“Please, allow me – your glass miss…” with a mock seriousness he grabbed the bottle by the neck and poured the girl some more wine. “OK, we’ll be quick…”

I knew where Lee was taking me. For several years already, from the time we met, I was always the first one to appraise [review?] every one of his new works. Of course, it was a ridiculous tradition – an under-educated hick from the boondocks, who learned by accident from a TV show that Monet and Manet were different people, told Andy Lee, the most expensive and fashionable painter in the US, whether his work was any good or not!…

But Lee said that I bring him luck, and from this praise alone I could die a happy man! Besides, I was really proud of this game that we played, and I often thought if I was destined to become an old man sitting on the porch of my house in a rocking chair, that it would be this privilege to be first that would be the only thing I would with pride…

I couldn’t lie – Lee immediately made me swear to be absolutely honest. So far, out of hundreds of works only one, about a year ago, evoked any doubts. After a long pause I didn’t even have time to make some ambiguous comment before Lee grabbed a scalpel, and slashed it into ribbons, removing the frame and throwing it callously into the corner. Maybe I’m a complete idiot, and I destroyed one of the greatest paintings known to man. I hope that Andy’s biographer never finds out about it. At that moment, I clearly that I wanted to die. But Lee casually lit up another half-smoked cigar and smiling, patted me on the shoulder.

“Hey, don’t worry Stevie! To be honest, I didn’t like it either. Come on, let’s go drink some wine…”

…I saw the new picture – it was quite large – as soon as we strode into the large workshop. I froze. It was awesome. A man with a pained expression on his face rushed along the street in the New York evening. His fingers squeezed an old cheap briefcase, his thin unbuttoned overcoat resembled wilted, flightless wings. The people ing behind him were completely indifferent, as if lifeless. I felt how the hurried man was sweating, how his left shoe was chafing his foot because there was something in it…

But, as always, the main wonder of Lee’s works was not this. I knew things about the running man which I could not have known. Clinging to a ghost of a chance, he was late for a business meeting, which nobody needed, except for him. But no one was waiting for him anymore. An aging loser, an abandoned husband, a budding alcoholic… By the way, he was late because he took too long choosing a tie to match his strange colored shirt and suit, which were out of fashion ten years ago…

Standing next to me, Lee seemed to read my thoughts – at least I felt that he relaxed and brightened up.

“Well, as I understand – it’s ok,” my friend wet his lips with wine and skillfully lit half a cigar, the same one which went out while we were in the entry way.

“OK is not the word, Lee,” I answered completely honestly. “Only…it’s just so absolutely hopeless…”

Lee shrugged his shoulders.

“I don’t divide the world up between the successful and the failures…”

“It doesn’t matter,” I answered angrily, still feeling that I was on the wrong side of that divide. “This world doesn’t have much time left. Have you seen those guys down in Zucatti Park?!… Six or seven years ago?…?”

“No…What happened down there?”

This was Lee in spades. In all of the time that we have known each other, he only watched television one time – when he painted the famous “TV”, about which I already told you.

I opened my mouth to tell my friend about what was going on in New York, but I didn’t have a chance to continue.

“Oh my goodness, how awful…” Hannah looked at Lee’s new work with sincere horror from the doorway to the workshop. “That poor, poor man…”

Lee and I exchanged looks in silence.

“It is so terrible… He has absolutely nothing to hope for. And nothing to believe in…” she said mutedly, and then suddenly looked at Andy with hope in her eyes.

“But wait, you are the one who painted him! Which means that you know him, right? I can help him. It’s true… I’m not trying to fool you-. Let’s go find him! Soon it will be too late!”

Lee took a deep breath.

“Calm down little one. And give your glass here…” he poured more wine for everyone – Hannah, me, himself – and the empty bottle rolled clattering to the opposite wall. “You can’t help him.”

“Why not?”

“You see…” Andy thought for a second, “You – you and he – live in different worlds. And these worlds intersect only at the moment you look at this work… Well, I mean, at this picture,” he hastened to explain, “and in the picture the man still hasn’t spent his last coins of hope, therefore, he is rushing to the place where – only we know! – he won’t get a job, or money, or a happy future…”

“It is so terrible…” whispered pale Hannah, “terrible and cruel…”

“Oh, come on now!” Lee light-heartedly took a sip of wine. “There are lots of other works here. Ones that are happier than this one. Walk around, have a look…”

“Can I?” Hannah practically gasped from happiness, and again seemed like a

child, who is allowed to go to the amusement park.

“Yes,” I answered instead of Lee. “Besides, we haven’t finished gossiping yet…”

* * *

I told Lee everything.

I never hid anything from him.

We were lying on the carpet in the room with the fireplace – behind its grate the damp wood crackled cozily – sipping wine, and staring at the fire.

“So that’s it then…” Lee said thoughtfully after a silence that seemed to me to last an eternity. He released an enormous cloud of blue smoke which hung for a moment in the air, trembled, and moved up toward the ceiling to disappear forever, “A good witch… Now it makes sense…”

“What makes sense?”

“Why she is like that…”

“Like what?” I didn’t understand.

Lee looked at me strangely, before taking another deep drag.

“Just don’t tell me that you didn’t notice that she is amazingly beautiful!…” “Who – Hannah?!…” I burst out laughing. “Lee, are you kidding?! This is you telling me this?! You – the guy who screws the hottest chicks in the city?! And who taught me to do the same, by the way…”

“I mean something else entirely, how can’t you understand!” Lee sat up sharply, his knees cracking. “Girls are wonderful, no one would argue with that!… And, come on, sex too, of course… But Hannah, she…” my friend fell silent searching for the words, “she is very real… She is beautiful like the sea, like the sunset, the like the cherry blossoms in D.C…”

“Listen, are you putting me on?” I couldn’t contain myself. “Hannah is a real miracle worker, true. Meaning a witch… In one day she saved me from poverty, and will, I hope, do even more… But in the looks department she is a monster! Gigantic eyes and lips on a little pale face, and she is just skin and bones, which that ridiculous sweater hangs on like on the cross of a grave…”

“Oh, yeah, that sweater is absolutely unbearable!” Lee readily agreed. “It’s so grim. Like someone mixed shit with shit in different proportions. I even tried not to look at it, averted my eyes… Stevie, what do you think, will she sell it to me? Or trade me for it? I have a fantastic sweater, I just brought back from Belgium…”

“Are you having a laugh?” I almost laughed myself, although Lee was speaking

completely seriously. “She would be swimming in one of mine! Your Belgian sweater will suit her perfectly to use for a blanket.”

“But I can’t stand that sweater for much longer, seriously… What should we do?”

“We’ll think of something, don’t worry.”

I still had one more thing to take care of. To repay my debt to my friend. And in addition, to find the words to express at least a fraction of what I felt. The tapesealed plastic bag with the cash was lying on the rug next to us.

Four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It was the cost of three years of normal human life, which he gave me simply and casually, as if breaking a piece of bread in half. Moreover, I am sure that even if he wasn’t the great Andy Lee, star and millionaire, he would have done exactly the same. Only the amount, of course, would have been a bit more modest…

Ask yourself honestly – do you have a friend like that?

I picked the plastic bag up off the rug, tore it open a little with my fingers shaking with nerves, the tight bricks of banknotes formed an uneven pile on the rug that looked like an anthill.

“What’s this?”

“It’s money… Your money, which saved me…” I felt tears welling up in my eyes and tried to get a hold of myself. “Four hundred and fifty thousand dollars…”

(In actual fact the figure in my loathsome notebook of debt was exactly fourhundred and twenty two thousand, but you would have to be a total asshole to repay a debt that saved your life with a bookkeeper’s accuracy).

Lee, pushing himself up on his fists, abruptly sat up on his knees, grabbed a couple of bricks in his hands. He didn’t even bother to hide his delight.

“Holy shit! What a pile of dough! And the best part is that old bat Lizzie doesn’t know shit about it! We need to stir up something really unbelievable with this!”

“Lee, brother,” I paused, feeling a lump in my throat, “You know, I wanted to tell you so many times…”

Andy’s face winced painfully, like those times when he was called a “genius” or “the greatest artist in America ”. But he controlled himself. And I felt his strong hand on my shoulder.

“Then consider it said. Because I’ve become a sentimental old fool! Now, damn it, I’m gonna start bawling!”

Lee’s mocking tone helped me regain my self-control. I felt better. But still, I didn’t say what I wanted to.

“No, man, I meant something else,” I lowered my voice. “You understand that Hannah is a witch! And that means she can do anything, well, almost anything, actually…”

“I understand, so what?” Lee looked at me with childlike surprise.

“What – so what? What do you mean – so what?!” I sputtered. “You are the closest and dearest person to me, and I want you to have your wishes fulfilled! Get it?”

“Not really…” Andy lit a new cigar.

“Stop it, Lee,” I calmed down a little. “Everyone has their dreams. And I want yours to come true, right now. So what do you want more than anything else in the world?”

There was a long pause. Lee smoked thoughtfully, sending puffs of smoke up to the ceiling.

“I don’t even know…” he said finally, shrugging his shoulders. “For children not to suffer, for there not to be war anywhere in the world.”

“That won’t work, sorry. She can’t ‘change the world order’, or something like that. I mean something personally for you.”

Lee shrugged his shoulders again.

“For me? Everything, I think, is fine. Thanks, Stevie, my friend.”

“Man, you don’t get it!” I smiled. “There is nothing that is impossible! Hannah can make more people, a hundred – a thousand times more people, come to your showings! Your work will increase exponentially in value! You’ll be written about in textbooks. Screw the books! If you want – the Louvre will buy one of your paintings! Or several of them! As many as you want!”

“Oh, so that’s what you mean…” Lee fell silent again, and I noticed that he was smiling at the corners of his mouth, but not really in a good way, but sort of bitter. “Don’t be offended, but I…I’m just who I am, Stevie. I’m happy when people like my work, I get upset when they don’t. But what you are talking about… It’s the same as breaking into the Louvre at night and taking a Rembrandt off the wall to hang on your own. Do you understand? I’m not some anti-establishmentarian asshole – of course, I want fame and money. But I won’t drag my work into the Lourve through the shithouse window, sorry…”

I felt like my cheeks erupted. It was a good thing that Lee couldn’t see me in the half-dark room.

“So that means I dragged my shows into the channels through the shithouse windows?

Lee returned to the way he had been before.

“What are you talking about, Steve? How do you figure that? A hundred channels wanted your shows before you ever even heard of Hannah! She just made those fat bastards pay honestly, and not keep everything for themselves, it’s different. Although, I won’t lie to you, still, I’m a little nervous…”

“Nervous?” I was surprised.

“All these miracles… You still have to pay for them somehow. And how, with what, when – you don’t know… No one knows…”

I recalled the exact same words of the American Hero (God, it was only yesterday, but it seemed like a year ago!), but I didn’t say anything. Lee, of course, had heard about the infamous bum from me, but for some reason never liked him, even though they had never met. At least that was how it seemed to me.

“Better yet, why don’t you tell me,” Lee asked quietly and clearly, “if Hannah can help Annie?”

My favorite name echoed around the corners of the empty room and melted into the darkness under the ceiling.

“I don’t know yet,” I answered honestly, “So I’m afraid, actually I’m scared shitless, Lee… I’ll find out tomorrow.”

“Well, then don’t torture yourself until tomorrow. And anyway, let’s go back to the studio,” Lee jumped up easily onto his feet. “It’s not polite to leave a lady alone for such a long time,” he grinned widely, “even if she is a Scottish witch in an absolutely hideous sweater…”

* * *

Usually I sleep in until around ten (since I lost my job, naturally – before that I would go days without sleeping!).

After nights out drinking with Lee I would wake up God knows when, go to the bathroom, chug a huge glass of water with an Alka-Seltzer, and fall back in bed again, only to wake up a bit worse for wear, but functioning, the next morning. Then came an ice cold shower, a shave, a couple of cups of strong coffee – and, with a shudder, life would return to my meager body.

Strange, but this morning I woke up early. Extremely early. There was no midday buzz of voices on the street, cars honking, or babies crying. Besides, I simply felt that it was still very early.

But, strangely enough, my head did not hurt, I did not want anything to drink at all, and wasn’t drawn to stretch out sweetly and fall back asleep again, wrapped up in my blanket.

Even the cursed morning light – of course I had forgotten to close the curtains tightly last night when I got home – did not seem, as usual, bleached out and grey, harsh and unforgiving, even though last night Lee had set out candles on the wooden table on his huge millionaire’s balcony, and we killed not one bottle,

but four. Truly he did not lie – the wine was not just amazingly delicious, but smelled mysteriously ancient and foreign.

I lay awake and alert, and not sleepy at all. And I kept thinking of Annie. My dearest Annie… I must have been dreaming of her as I slept, because I woke up together with thoughts of her, and they did not disappear.

Annie had been skydiving four times, travelled with extreme scuba divers to exotic islands, ridden a Harley (her only ion with which she didn’t manage to infect me), flown in a hot air balloon, bungee jumped over a narrow mountain river. She had an enormous garage which housed a Mustang and a Corvette, both from 1975. She was awarded them, together with the house, in the divorce from her last husband – some old fart millionaire. She drove them like a kamikaze. She was constantly in traffic court.

She changed her lovers constantly. She dressed sexy and expensively. She looked ten years younger than her actual age.

And now the best of woman-kind had to die only because the egghead scientists of America had not yet learned how to treat some kind of rare blood disease! It was bullshit…

I how Annie fell ill (as a matter of fact, I was the first person she told about it). We met on the corner of 55th and 8th and went into a bar. Annie, looked fantastic (all the men were checking her out), drank a cocktail, and laughing, told me how serious and scared the bald doctor looked while he was telling her about the disease.

I that I laughed heartily, although invisible needles pricked my heart a couple of times.

She was already bed-ridden just a week later. But we were still joking. Annie was drinking a margarita from a thick glass. (I made the margarita myself, getting fresh lime all over the kitchen). We joked about death to show that we didn’t believe in it. And, of course, that we weren’t afraid of it.

“Don’t get your hopes up that I’ll kick the bucket, squirt!” Annie said taking a huge swallow and smiling. “Although you’ve probably already got your eye my Mustang, don’t you? I know…I know…”

“And what, you left it in your will to the Arizona Society of the Guardians of Morality?” I teased back.

“Better! The Monastery of St. Anne in Bolivia! So don’t be in a hurry to smother me with a pillow, got it, squirt?”

After a week we weren’t laughing any more. Ann still got up to go to the bathroom by herself, but her steps were unsure, and she had to hold on to something. Just in case, I tried to stay close to her.

The time for laughter came to an end. Ann tried to hold my hand all of the time. Disheveled and exhausted, I sat next to her for days at a time, trying not to let go of her hand, even when she fell asleep.

Doctor Winsler came by several times. He really did have a bad comb-over, but it failed to amuse me at all.

One time he asked me to see him out. We went out onto the big porch and the doctor lit up a cigarette. Not an electronic cigarette, not a “super light” – just regular old cigarette pulled from a pack of Marlboro Red, like back in the good old days. He raised his eyes up to me. They were kind and intelligent, like those of everyone who has seen a great deal of other people’s grief.

“You shouldn’t torture yourself like this, Stephen.” he exhaled, together with the smoke. “You still have a lot of hard times ahead. What I mean is that maybe you should allow yourself to hire a care worker.”

“No, doctor. I will stay by her side,” I answered harshly.

“I understand, I understand.” He took another deep drag. “OK, then until we meet again…”

My eyes followed his sloping back as he left, and I believed every word he said, but didn’t want to believe a single one.

The next day Annie suddenly squeezed my hand with her previous strength, and looking me in the eye, suddenly started to give me instructions for her funeral in a harsh voice. I wanted to interrupt her, to try to make a joke of it, but I was completely at a loss.

When Annie was finished, her hand became as before – limp and weak, and her eyes closed. As if she did what she had needed to, and now could relax…

Red-eyed and unshaven, I sat for days over Annie; she was pale as alabaster, not moving – like a statue. Sometimes I slept right next to her on the humungous bed.

I only called Lee once – to tell him how things really were.

“I’m coming right over,” he responded immediately, “just tell me the address.

Lee and Annie adored each other, but he had never been to her house, not even once.

“You don’t need the address,” I answered him hoarsely, “and you don’t need to come over either.”

“Wait a minute, what, am I not your friend?” I heard the hurt and tension in his voice.

“My best and only,” I answered him honestly. “It’s just that, it’s not at all like you think it is here…”

Soon, Annie practically stopped opening her eyes. And, if she did, she looked somewhere off into the distance, as if she didn’t notice me. She did not respond

to what I said anymore. In all this time, she only muttered a few completely unintelligible mixed-up words. Only the promise I made to her kept me from taking her to the hospital.

I understood that soon I would lose my mind, and that Dr. Winsler was right.

The ad of Vesna, the Yugoslavian emigrant, was the first one I saw in the classified section.

Returning to my apartment on west 86th, I froze when I saw myself in the mirror. It wasn’t me. I didn’t even know this bedraggled, stubbly beast with the haunted eyes.

I got undressed and smelled that I stank. Like a person who hasn’t washed for a month is supposed to stink.

I shaved on autopilot. Like a robot. And then I soaped up frantically, and stood for a very long time under the spray from the shower. Until I felt it turn ice cold.

That evening Lee and I got drunk. But before reality lost its usual features, I had time to tell him:

“Lee, I can’t do this anymore, you’ve got to understand. I was only alive when I changed Annie’s diapers. The rest of the time I just sat there losing my mind…”

The eyes of my friend looked at me with a wise sadness.

“You’ve done everything right, Steve. You were there with her when she needed you. But now…now, what’s the point? The dead die so that the living can live. It has always been that way. Annie is already not Annie, you’ve said it yourself.”

“But what should I do?” This came out sounding completely childish. “Live for myself, like nothing has happened?”

“Yes, exactly. And stop feeling sorry for yourself!”

I hadn’t known that Lee could be so cruel. At least not to me.

“Ann would definitely not like it. Tell me I’m wrong?” he added more softly.

We drank a lot. I don’t even how I got home. But waking up around noon with a headache, the new Stephen Wright was different from yesterday’s. He understood bitterly that he had to keep on living – cherish his loved ones, pay his debts, joke and hate, go grocery shopping and buy gas for his car. He felt that life goes on.

But this morning, I thought only about Annie. Paralyzed, doomed…

And the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to believe in Hannah’s magic. I just didn’t have any other choice. I just couldn’t imagine that the world

would continue to exist, and Annie wouldn’t. No matter what Lee said about the laws of life.

I stretched out my arm and looked at my watch. It wasn’t all that early -five to nine. The coming winter has the simple ability to turn morning into dawn, and early evening into night.

My cell rang. I jumped with surprise, but grabbed it off the nightstand, so that the ring wouldn’t wake Hannah.

“Good morning, Mr. Wright,” the voice of Mr. Katz, Richard Mirsky’s junior partner, contained neither sleepiness, nor special morning energy. It sounded exactly like when we parted ways the evening before. He was an iron man. If I had been in his shoes, I would have d electric batteries.

“Good morning, Mr. Katz,” I tried to say sounding sleepy, but it didn’t come off that way; my voice sounded clear and energetic.

However, Hannah the witch woke up anyway. She darted out from behind the door in my old bathrobe and threw a "good morning" at me on the run, and disappeared into the bathroom. I sighed and realized that I would have to take a leak in the kitchen sink. “Call me Stephen, Mr. Katz, OK? After all, I’m only twenty six…”

“It does conflict with the corporate etiquette of our firm,” the lawyer faltered only for a moment, then gave in, “But as they say, ‘The client is always right.’ Ok, Stephen, I would like to ask you to be at Foxman Entertainment exactly at ten thirty this morning for the final arrangement of the financial issues by the

parties. Please don’t forget the necessary documents.”

My previous plans for the day were broken, like a ruler across the knee of a schoolyard trouble-maker. The very thought that money could be more important than Annie, even for an hour or two, was unacceptable.

“Listen, Mr. Katz…” even I felt that I started too uncertainly, but now I couldn’t do anything about it. “Could we not postpone all of these formalities until, say… tomorrow? Or at the least until this evening?…”

“We cannot even consider it, Stephen!” the voice of the attorney sounded calm, but categorical. “This afternoon I have an extremely important business meeting. And in the evening I must fly to Chicago to pay a visit to an old client. Besides,” he coughed delicately, “please allow me to remind you that we are discussing, while not astronomical, a very tidy sum indeed…”

I , I … But I ed even better the pale, paper-like face of Annie, who was completely helpless and did not even resemble herself any more. In bed in her house, which had always been large, now was quiet and sorrowful, and began to seem cavernous…

The lawyer was patiently silent.

I was tempted to ask how much money I now had, but for some reason decided not to. Mr. Katz himself came to my rescue. Obviously, mind reading was part of the standard range of services provided.

“I am happy to inform you that in several hours you will become the recipient of eight million seven hundred and twenty thousand dollars. In addition to several other benefits that I would prefer not to go into on the telephone.

“And how much do I have to pay you, Mr. Katz?” Really, I wasn’t all that concerned with this; I was just curious how much money people in those kinds of suits make.

This time the pause was even longer.

“I stated the amount, which you will personally receive, dear Stephen,” the sweet sounding voice on the other end of the line finally said. “My percent in this transaction is paid by the opposite party. Please, do not think that I am being secretive! It is just that our corporate etiquette does not allow…”

“I understand. I will be on time Mr. Katz, don’t worry. Thank you for a job well done.”

I disconnected the call and jumped out of bed, crumpling the blanket. The shower behind the flimsy door to the bathroom continued to run, so I headed for the kitchen – I couldn’t hold it any more.

…The idea to get some clothes for Hannah before the business meeting was scrapped right from the beginning. We just did not have time. There was a lot of unexpected traffic, and the roaring Porsche was frozen, stuck in another traffic jam. Therefore, in my peripheral vision I caught glimpses of my favorite sweater, which I already dreamed of not only throwing away, but of dousing in gasoline and setting on fire. The thought that we were not headed to Annie’s, but

in the other direction, was completely unbearable. I knew how much time the banking procedures would take when such a large sum of money was involved. Of course, there was another option…

“Hannah, listen,” I said as evenly as possible. “Let me drop you off near Saks… it’s a big store, and I’ll give you my cell phone… You take your time, walk around, and pick out whatever you like, and we’ll meet up in a few hours…”

The girl’s face warped with such genuine horror that I was immediately sorry that I had said it. What’s more, her pencil-like fingers dug so imploringly and violently into my arm, pinching the skin as well, that I almost screamed out from the pain.

However, my little Scottish witch had absolutely nothing against sitting and waiting in the car for a few hours outside the Time Warner Towers.

Upon seeing the thickness of the contract, I understood that the legal department had been working all night while we…

Paul the Couch looked fantastic in an expensive casual suit and snow-white shirt from Cardin. He was smoothly shaven and smelled of something unbelievably expensive. His entire look said that he knew how to lose.

Mr. Katz, on the other hand, was striving to show that he knew how to win. Therefore, he was in a more conservative, but no less expensive suit, a crimson tie decorated with an enormous diamond tie clip, and elegantly smoked an electronic cigarette, which I first thought, from afar, was real.

Due to the carnival costume of Hannah, I was not able to wear a suit. I felt that I must maintain fashion solidarity with her so as not to make her too uncomfortable. Therefore, I was limited to a different pair of jeans and a jacket that Annie had given me.

…Is it really worth describing all of the endless financial procedures? Moreover, they all seemed the same as each other. The only difference was the absence of Max, but after all he had been through I would have not been surprised if the poor bastard had come down with something. Or even died. Finally, after g hundreds of papers, we all took turns shaking hands, and I thought that I needed to go buy a new wallet as I had about a dozen new bank cards bouncing around in my pocket with a plastic clicking sound.

Suddenly it became crystal clear that both Paul and Mr. Katz needed to say something to me alone, confidentially.

The Couch was first to make his delicate move. He pulled his cell out of his pocket and stepped away to talk. Mr. Katz immediately leaned over to me:

“In three days, on the eighteenth, I will be returning to the city, Stephen. I very highly recommend that you visit our office in order to discuss the secure and profitable investment of your funds. Do you understand?” he paused slightly. “These kinds of sums only seem vast and everlasting, but believe me…”

“Oh, I believe you!” I thought, looking at his tie pin with the diamond the size of a button.

When Mr. Katz left, it was Paul’s turn. But he stayed gloomily quiet, spinning a top emblazoned with mysterious symbols used for fortune-telling on his spacious desk.

I looked at my watch.

“Did you want to say something to me, Paul?”

“Not really, well, actually…” he said, finally leaving the top alone. “The fact that you robbed me, well, you know that yourself… What’s surprising is something else. You won’t believe it, but I only you being happy, Stevie. Poor, tired, and worn-out, but happy! And now? Do you ever even look at yourself in the mirror? A millionaire for fuck’s sake…”

Paul, of course, didn’t know anything about Annie. But it wasn’t just about her – he was right. When had I lost the ability to be happy? Wandering the streets of the vast, noisy city without a nickel to my name? Borrowing yet another pack of dollars from my friend, not knowing if I would be able to pay it back? Assuring Annie, before she got sick, that everything was just “super”?

Anyway, it didn’t matter how things were. Paul the Couch was not my spiritual guru.

“Is that it?” I asked.

“Almost.” Paul picked up the top again. “If you ever want to – just drop by.

Once upon a time you did some great work, Stevie the small-town boy… And you looked completely different, by the way.”

“I doubt I’ll stop by, Paul, you understand that yourself. But, thanks for the offer.”

“You’re welcome…” The Couch didn’t raise his eyes up from the top, as if it really was magic.

“Tell Max I said ‘Hi.’” I said maliciously, and left quickly, almost knocking Alice over in the reception area with a huge stack of documents.

* * *

I saw my favorite ginger sweater from afar – it really did look like a sack of shit that some kind soul had dumped onto the front seat of the crimson Porsche. But Hannah herself looked calm and peaceful. Only a little sad.

“Sorry. It took longer than I thought. Are you hungry?”

“No,” the witch shook her head.

“Do you need to use the restroom?”

“No. It’s just that my leg fell asleep. Can I get out?”

“Jesus, yes, of course.”

I offered her my hand, and she got out of the car, wincing a little.

“What’ve you been doing all this time?”

She shrugged her tiny shoulders.

“I don’t know. I was watching the people. They are so strange here. Not at all like the ones in Whistleroad Town. And, it’s true, they don’t dress like me at all…

“So you see!”

But Hannah, it seemed, was worried about something else.

“It’s very difficult to live here, isn’t it?” she asked thoughtfully.

“Well, yeah, it’s not easy…” I tried to be honest. “Especially at first. But now

you and I don’t have anything to worry about.”

It was a simple statement of fact. Neither puppy-like happiness, nor prideful joy beat in my heart. Quite the opposite – for some reason I recalled the words of that scoundrel Paul about how I had been completely different – fun, indefatigable, happy…

“Now you can buy an apartment wherever you want. Or a house. Or both. Basically, you can have whatever you want…”

Hannah’s face became pale and drawn. She looked right at me with her dark eyes.

“I…embarrass you, right? And you just won’t say anything?”

“Listen, cut it out! That’s nonsense! Whatever gave you that idea?”

Most interestingly, I hadn’t lied. I was not embarrassed by Hannah at all. In fact she had entered my life, and my apartment, comfortably and easily, like my little sister (even though she was older by a year). The fact that I had to pee in the kitchen sink a few times wasn’t a problem at all. Lee and I had relieved ourselves in more exotic places – on Lexington in the middle of the night, for example. In the subway station on 42nd Street. Off the Brooklyn Bridge…

“It’s just…Well, it’s expected that people with a lot of money live in luxurious apartments! Penthouses, for example. Or lofts…”

“What’s a loft?” Hannah’s voice sounded sincere and naïve.

“I’ll explain later. Better yet, I’ll show you…” I looked at my watch and slammed the door. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“To a store that sells clothes. There is one nearby.”

I decided that it would be easier and faster to walk several blocks, than to waste time trying to park. Hannah obediently walked by my side. We walked in silence for a few blocks, and then she said:

“Please, don’t wear that watch, you shouldn’t. I wanted to tell you that right away, but I was afraid…”

“Why?” I decided, for now, not to explain anything to her.

“Well…that’s the watch of someone who stood in place. I don’t know how to explain it… He never hurried anywhere… And you are so…driven… It slows you down… honestly.”

I was taken aback with surprise.

“Are you serious?”

“Very serious. You have to understand, that watches are magical.”

This last phrase she said very quietly, practically in a whisper.

“Actually, I know this very well – watches are magical.”

It was true. Once Andy and I were wandering around Brooklyn and found the workshop of an old Jewish watch-maker from Poland. He must have been a hundred. Mischievous eyes and smile… For some reason he liked us, two drunken idiots, and let us rummage around his shop while he went back to working, hunched over yet another job with a jeweler’s loop stuck in his eye. There were hundreds of hands spinning around and around – they were all either old or extremely old. It seemed like we had entered some kind of wonderland…

Then we spoke to the old man. In fact, we spoke specifically about the magic of time and clocks, which keep track of this magic remorselessly winding down, bringing us closer to our old age and death…

I that Lee bought an old wall clock with chimes from him. I didn’t buy anything.

Then sometime later we had wanted to pay another visit to the old man, but we couldn’t even find the street where his workshop had been. In New York a lot of

things only happen once.

“You know, this is the watch of my dearly departed father,” I answered her rather harshly. “What do you suggest I do, throw it into the Hudson? Right off the bridge?”

“Why off the bridge?” Hannah asked quietly. “Especially if it is your father’s watch. You can just take it off and leave it at home in a drawer. In his memory…”

“Utter nonsense!” I thought, but my father’s watch already seemed like a bad luck charm, suddenly tight and uncomfortable. I inconspicuously took it off along the way and slipped it into my pocket. An ATM appeared up ahead.

“Hang on a second…” I grabbed the witch by the sleeve of my favorite sweater and pulled her over to the wall. Her sleeve was rough and prickly, as if it knew that I hated it.

Feeling in my pocket for one of the cards – at random – I stuck it in the slot, carefully took out the list of the PIN-codes, and pushed the buttons. The number of zeros was shocking indeed. But the warm wave of satisfaction that I expected did not wash over my heart. Better luck next time… I had heard on some television program that scientists had proven that cocaine, money, and sex all stimulate the same reaction in the human brain. I never snorted coke, but I can say that the long number displayed on the dim screen didn’t have anything at all to do with sex. Thank goodness.

Having withdrawn a thousand dollars out of my , I pulled the card out

and walked on, listening to Hannah mincing along behind.ATMs limit the amount of $ able to get – $500 is usually highest

Despite it being a weekday, there were quite a lot of people in the store, and my companion timidly backed away.

“Hannah, come on, enough already!” I got angry. “You’re not some savage from an uncharted island! At the end of the day, you have to get used to this!”

“There are just too many people,” she said quietly, turning pale.

“Ain’t that the truth,” I agreed. “Seven billion. Soon there won’t be enough food on the planet to feed them all. But that isn’t reason enough to refuse to buy some normal clothes. Or soon I’m going to shred your awful sweater with my teeth!”

We entered the huge women’s department. Realizing that time was slipping away, I grabbed a salesgirl by the arm (her blouse was decorated with a large nametag saying ‘Cindy’), and in five minutes she came over to the dressing room with a towering stack of clothes. It turns out that even though it was dying of an epidemic of obesity, America was still making clothes for the emaciated. Maybe “selling” instead of making – most stuff is made overseas

“Get changed,” I ordered sharply. “Choose whatever you like best and get changed into it. We have a long way to go.”

But having been hunched over what had the salesgirl had brought, Hannah stood

up straight, holding the tag of a light overcoat in front of her face.

“What is this? The price?”

She said this loudly. Everyone, standing nearby, looked over at us. A guy with short hair chuckled, saying something to his girlfriend. In the dressing room??

“Hey, baldy, you got some kind of problem?” I got wound up right away.

The guy was big, and moved toward me, but, probably, something in my eyes hinted that this little adventure would not end well for him, and he acted like his girlfriend convinced him not to get involved “with idiots like that.”

I grabbed Hannah strongly by her firm miniature shoulders and pushed her against the wall. The shit-colored sweater vindictively glared at me from under my fingers.

“Listen, why are you trying to wind me up, huh?! Yes, that is the price – that is the fucking price! An hour ago you made me eight million seven-hundred thousand dollars and change! Listen to that number!”

The witch turned pale, and lowered her eyes. Her voice sounded quiet, but firm.

“That is your money. All of it, to the last cent. You earned it honestly…”

“So it’s mine? And what about our agreement? Or are we going to share it? Fifty-fifty? Sure, no problem!”

“You…you’re abandoning me?… No, you…you can’t…”

The tears poured from her large dark sherry eyes so copiously and unexpectedly that I was taken aback. I let go of her frail shoulders, which were shaking.

“Listen, stop it. No one is abandoning anyone…”

I looked at my watch, and my gaze ran smack into my blank wrist.

“Hey! Better yet, let’s buy you a watch! The…the right one! Do they sell watches here?

“I don’t know…”

I had no idea that it would be so difficult with her.

“Well, you said that we are running late. Let’s just go right now. The shop isn’t going anywhere is it, right?” so no new sweater again? Doesn’t run too true

…In the car I told Hannah about Annie. Everything. Beginning with the prehistoric day when I saw her for the first time in front of my parents’ house in Benningville. Hannah did not interrupt, and I just talked and talked. And I felt much better.

It was ninety miles to Southampton, but even the longest journeys come to an end.

The Porsche stopped with a screech on her wide driveway.

“What a big house…” said the witch without any expression. And, after a brief silence, added:

“Big and sad…”

Vesna came out to meet us – looking sleepy and rumpled. She did not react to Hannah’s sweater or skirt at all, probably having seen a lot worse than that at home in Serbia.

We exchanged a few words, and I told her to wait outside while Hannah and I went in.

It was unnaturally quiet, like during a game of hide and seek. Everything was steeped in darkness. Only band of light streamed out from the kitchen. I entered the bedroom first and flicked on the switch.

The frosted lamps on the nightstand lit up. But she did not move. My Annie. My dearest… Pale and motionless, she looked like a beautiful plaster statue, which for some reason had been laid in the bed. The huge bedroom, despite its size, still managed to smell like a hospital.

“Hello Annie…” I said as usual, knowing that I wouldn’t hear an answer.

Annie was dying. Yesterday, the doctor had said, “Two weeks, maximum.” But he did not know about Hannah Duncan, the hereditary Scottish witch from Whistleroad Town who was able to work miracles…

I didn’t look at her. I was afraid. I looked at the immobile alabaster profile of the dearest person in world to me. And next to me it was so quiet, as if I was in the bedroom by myself. I didn’t even hear Hannah breathe. And this was even more frightening…

I can’t say how much time ed. Maybe two minutes, maybe fifty. Finally, I felt the whiff of a warm breeze and I turned my head. I was in the bedroom alone. Not counting my alabaster Annie. For several minutes I waited, like an idiot, for a miracle, holding my breath and not taking my eyes off her motionless, stony face. Then rushing out after her, I almost knocked Hannah over, as she stood frozen on the porch with her back toward me.

Vesna feverishly put out a cigarette in the tin ashtray standing on the table and slipped past me into the house.

I knew that she smoked, but I wasn’t against it, so long as she didn’t do it in the house. And right now, I could have cared less about her.

Hannah didn’t move. Also, like a statue, but different – frozen in the twilight on someone else’s porch.

I walked around her and saw the death sentence in her large sherry eyes, which she did not hide. And right then it was as if something exploded in my heart. I fell to my knees, banging them painfully on the floorboards, and grabbed her thin sliver-like hands…

“Stop it! Don’t…” the witch was frightened, but I didn’t hear her.

“Hannah, sweetheart…” I did not even recognize my own voice, but it didn’t matter, “I’m begging you!…Save her, you hear me! I’m begging!! You can do it, I know you can!”

“No, I can’t,” her voice was comionate, and, what was surprising, hard. “Her time has come…”

“What time?” I didn’t want to go on, but I just couldn’t give up. “She is only forty-one! She was never sick! Save her, you hear me? Take whatever you want in return! Take all of my useless millions! Forget the millions, take everything that I have! Take it all, every last penny…I beg you! I’ll be a homeless cripple! I’ll never even see her again! Please…You can do it, I know you can!”

“Don’t cry. Please…” Hannah said quietly.

I was sure that I wasn’t crying. But my face was as wet as if someone had splashed me with a glass of water. I didn’t care in the least, but for some reason I started to wipe my face and eyes.

“Her. Time. Has. Come.” The witch repeated it quietly and plainly. “And everything that you are asking for is evil…”

“Oh, yeah, well, evil… You can’t do…” I realized feverishly. “But don’t I have the right to save a human life? One human life? Tell me! Don’t I?”

“Please, stand up.”

I forgot that I was on knees. Getting up, I felt a muted pain in my bruised ts.

“You will save a life, I promise,” Hannah said almost solemnly, ‘but it won’t be hers…”

Vesna emerged out of the dusk (I'm sure she was listening the entire time, standing beside the door), but when she saw me, disheveled and tear-stained, she immediately slipped back away, further from sin.

I flew through Manhattan at over a hundred miles per hour, skirting the oncoming cars honking with terror, hoping that we would crash. But, of course, to spite me, we made it back in one piece and unharmed. The whole way home neither the witch, nor I, uttered a single word.

And the same in the apartment. Waiting until I went to the kitchen to splash some water on my face, red from the tears, Hannah noiselessly slipped through the door and I heard the sound of running water – she was drawing a bath.

I grabbed my cell and in a second heard the voice of my faithful friend Lee…

Usually our drinking sessions were happy events. Like samurai rituals with their laws and traditions. But tonight I just got shit-faced. Like a pig. Throwing back one glass of whisky after another.

I don’t where we were. I don’t what the bartender looked like. I don’t Lee’s face. I don’t even if I told my friend about my grief. All that was left in my memory was the image of a herd of thirtysomething sluts with tired faces, who tried half-heartily to come on to us, but quickly, gave up…

And then the whole world disappeared…The best of all possible worlds…

* * *

My head hurt so much, as if someone had hit me in the head with an ax, but was too lazy to pull it out and left it there. My throat was as dry as an emery board. Nausea came in powerful waves, and then subsided. Just a little. I didn’t have any arms or legs – or at least I couldn’t feel them. And the most frightening thing was that all of this was happening in a dream – I sailed past terrible otherworldly phantoms, each of which seemed vaguely familiar to me, but each of which promised eternal torment. I had never, ever felt so bad.

In addition, some idiot had been ringing the doorbell insistently like a maniac for a very long time now. This was, of course, the lesser of the evils (especially since the ring of the doorbell would drown in the darkness of my dreams, then break through them with an intrusive, but far away and meaningless sound).

What was much more annoying was Hannah, who, frightened, was running around the room in my bathrobe, whispering something loudly, and then completely losing control, grabbed me by the shoulders with her bony fingers and began to shake me.

“Wake up! You hear me, wake up! Someone is at the door! For a long time already…”

It was intolerable. Anyway, I didn’t wake up, but even in my dreams the shaking was completely unbearable and made me nauseous, and made my head hurt. If I could have, I would have killed the little bitch. Whether she was a witch, or not. But I was as helpless as a newborn infant.

“Come on, wake up already!” Hannah’s voice already rang out in desperation.

I wanted to say a lot to her – that she should piss off, for starters, that she shouldn’t dare touch me, and that she should forget about me until I wake up on my own.

And, of course, not to let anyone into the apartment. Everyone was already home.

Of course, like a grey butterfly on my soul, the thought occurred to me that last night in my drunken stupor I could have killed somebody, and now a group of police was standing outside the door, guns drawn like in the movies. But in comparison to how I felt, this was unimportant business of a lower order, not worth paying attention to.

“I’m begging you!” Hannah shook me so hard that I groaned in pain, and almost threw up all over her.

“You’ll have to talk…” I realized resignedly, however the phantoms in my dreams told me the opposite.

I made a noise, which sounded like a rusty shovel dragged across asphalt. And then another, exactly the same. On the third try Hannah understood me. Or just guessed correctly. She was a witch after all!

Having taken one swallow of the beer she brought, I immediately fell back onto my pillow. It was happiness, enjoyment, salvation… I suddenly comprehended that I wouldn’t die – at least not today.

The doorbell, truly, did not stop, and after the can of beer its sound became part of the world – normal, expected, and in its own way, even pleasant. I felt that I was falling into a divine slumber…

Apparently, Hannah understood that there are some things that are outside the power of the Scottish school of witchcraft. Falling back asleep, I heard her walk

across to the door. Fool…

Somewhere far off in another world, in another dimension, the chain on the door rattled cozily, the lock clicked open… I was already far away, therefore I was not surprised that the phantoms lingering in my dreams were brushed aside by Annie – full of life, like she used to be. She was also a phantom, only beloved and dear. I heard her voice, but it didn’t matter what she said – just as long as she did not disappear yet…

“Aha, so that’s what’s going on! Hi, baby, I’m Annie.” I heard through the magical fog.

“I…I’m Hannah…”

“Damn – what a name! Ok, stop shaking, I’m one of the good guys…”

Then my couch creaked. As if someone had sat on the edge of it. It occurred to me that I must have wandered far away into dreamland…

“However, I have a bone to pick with you, squirt! Got it? I will teach you how to love and respect your closest relatives!”

There was definitely something strange going on here. My previous hangovers were much different. “The witch is brewing up some kind of witchcraft…” I decided, and immediately heard her voice.

“Listen, don’t do that… It’s just that yesterday he…”

“Shut up, Aphrodite! Or whatever your name is. I will manage with this young man without you!”

Right then someone’s strong hands sharply tilted the couch, and I fell onto the floor. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but it definitely wasn’t a dream. I even opened my eyes from the unexpected collision, but I closed them again straight away – the morning light slashed through them like a razor.

The floor was painfully hard. Straining, I pushed myself up and sat with difficulty. Very carefully, I opened my eyes…

It wasn’t a dream, just unadulterated insanity. Not even insanity, but a complete hysterical nervous breakdown. Towering over me was…Ann. In leather pants and an expensive motorcycle jacket, which she had bought not all that long ago. Her thick red hair was stylishly tightened into a ponytail. She smelled of Chloe perfume, her favorite. On the chair next to her was a biker’s backpack. Hannah was frozen in the armchair behind her, her feet touchingly tucked underneath her.

For witchcraft what was happening was a little prosaic – for reality, it was absurd. One thing, however, was clear – my attempt today to disappear into oblivion was not meant to be. I tried to get up, swaying, and abruptly threw myself into the bathroom – my vision went black from the sudden wave of nausea…

I don’t know how long I hugged the toilet for, but it was probably a long time. And I didn’t even turn on the water. After all, isn’t that what people do, either

out of tact or embarrassment? But I didn’t give a rat’s ass about these little bourgeois niceties – I didn’t even know what planet I was on.

However, with each spasmodic seizure of vomiting my head cleared, and in it mixed-up thoughts and guesses began to swirl feverishly. But it hardly helped.

Finally, I decided to break away from the toilet and get into the shower. It was ice cold, but, if I could have, I would have made it two times colder. Almost immediately, the stream of water, which beat down mercilessly, made me feel better. Of course, I did have to rush to the toilet once again, but then I felt even better. Furthermore, I could think again. And it became clear as day to me, as I awakened, that Hannah had tricked me and saved Annie. It was unclear, however, at what price, but I promised myself then and there that I would never ask her about it. If she had taken away twenty years of my life in order to give them to Ann, then God bless her heart!

Having rubbed myself off with a big towel until I was red, I brushed my teeth for a long time, and carefully combed my hair. I decided not to shave, however – my hands were still shaking, and most likely I would have scraped off half of my face. I sprayed half a can of air freshener around to eliminate the odors of vomiting following me, and I realized that I had left my bathrobe in the living room, and I would have to go out in just my underwear, which were really quite funny – a bunch of smiling sperm on a bright red background.

However, after everything that had happened today it really didn’t matter. I pushed the door open.

The girls had arranged themselves like in the theater, having pulled a table over to the couch, on which stood steaming cups of coffee and a plate of some kind of wondrous little cookies.

They both applauded together – obviously having agreed it in advance.

“Hello, my name is Stephen Wright and I am an alcoholic!” Ann said loudly, and they clapped again. Although in truth, Hannah only smiled a little. Sort of uncertainly, and even sadly.

“Well, come to me, baby!” Annie stood up and moved toward me, spreading her arms.

“I’ll go get changed,” Hannah said, barely audible, and left the room silently.

I looked at Ann. Yes, it was her. The one and only. My Annie… It was impossible to believe, that the sexy beauty standing before me was the very same white statue, which yesterday was lying on the enormous bed in the silent house. But it was so.

Of course, she had lost some weight, but it had made her even more irresistible. We embraced. I felt that body, so dear, the scent of her perfume and the leather jacket, and dug my hands into that, which had seemed to have already been lost forever…

“Hey, what’s with you?” Anne asked, surprised, pulling back a little.

“I thought I had lost you, Annie,” I answered simply. “You were dying…”

“Dying, my ass!” Anne laughed loudly. “So, I was a little sick, it can happen to anyone! Oh, and I forgot to say a special ‘Thank you’ for that little foreign bitch that you stuck me with!”

“Why, did something happen with her?” I was worried.

Anne turned red with indignation.

“Happen?! Not only did she call home to Croatia from my phone every night…”

“ Serbia,” I corrected her, but Anne, it seemed, didn’t even hear me.

“She also was in the habit of trying on my things every night! Can you even imagine?”

Actually, I could. There was even something touching in it. The poor Yugoslavian illegal, cooking fresh chicken broth and changing the diapers of her dying landlady, pirouetted in front of the mirror, trying on expensive clothes, which she had never had, and, most likely, never would…

“And, what, Annie…you saw her?”

It was impossible to believe.

“You’re damn right! But it was so strange… As if I was looking down on her from above…” Annie was lost in thought for a moment, and then waved her hand impulsively. “Well, that’s probably just way it is when you are seriously ill.”

I said nothing.

“Fucking Albanian…” she exhaled, calming down. “I wanted to turn her in to the police, but I didn’t. I just slapped the shit out of her and kicked her the hell out.”

The door to the other room opened, and Hannah appeared in her one and only outfit. Now it was Annie’s turn to fall silent mid-word.

“What are you wearing?” she asked dumbfounded, after a long pause.

Hannah lowered her eyes and clasped her fingers, like a schoolgirl who had not learned her lesson.

“Well, what do you expect from the short ones?” Anne said angrily. “All my life I told him to eat his carrots!”

“No, no, Stephen is not to blame! He wanted to… Insisted even… It’s just that I didn’t want…” Hannah exclaimed. It all sounded extremely childish.

“Well, it doesn’t matter what you want or don’t want!” Anne laughed. “They don’t ask us! And rightly so! Ok, hold this…” She threw her motorcycle helmet across the room, which Hannah caught with unexpected dexterity.

Ann pulled a patterned black bandana out of the backpack and tied it around her head, put on a pair of sunglasses and became absolutely irresistible.

“Hang on, you what, came on your bike?” I asked stunned, ing how she was yesterday. Even miracles had their limits…

“Yeah, for some reason I wanted to ride with the wind! It’s a sensation I’ve missed so much,” Annie answered as if nothing had happened to her, and turned toward Hannah. “What are you standing around for? Let’s go! And take the backpack- you’ll be wearing it.”

“But…I don’t need any new clothes…” the witch babbled uncertainly.

“Yes, you do. Today, you see, Stevie the Squirt is taking us to ‘Daniel’, and they don’t let people in dressed like you.”

“What do you mean, ‘Like me?’”

“Dressed like a hooker from some underdeveloped Asian country,” Annie was able to formulate succinctly and vividly. “By the way, why do you have credit cards scattered all over the floor? I almost slipped on them.”

I only now noticed the cards which were strewn all over the floor.

“That’s probably how I got undressed. I forgot to tell you. While you were sick I became a millionaire.”

“Are you serious?!” Annie had always respectfully treated money with special attention, considering it the modern manifestation of valor in men and the equivalent of female beauty.

“Good boy! And how millions do you have? One?”

“Eight and a half. More or less…”

“Wow! See, I was spot on with ‘Daniel!’” Anne’s voice wasn’t shocked, nor did it contain any special surprise, in her conception of a real man it was completely normal for him to have eight million at twenty seven and a half years old.

“OK, we’re off. Go put on some pants. He’s got eight and half million and he’s standing in the middle of the apartment all covered in spermatozoa… Although, on the other hand, why not, indulge yourself!”

When the girls had closed the door (it was not surprising that Hannah had listened to Annie, everyone listened to her), I poured myself the rest of the coffee and called Lee.

“You?!” declared my friend with pleasant shock in his voice. “You somehow survived? It can’t be!”

“Lee…” I began.

He laughed with restraint.

“No, you are now my personal hero, Stevie! And know this – if I had drunk only a third of what you went through last night, the world would have lost a major artist.”

“So what, you were skipping rounds?” I asked surprised.

This was not allowed during our rituals. We always drank at the same pace.

“You must be kidding…I didn’t have anything to drink last night. I just had a can of cola to keep you company, which you clinked you glass against. If I had also let loose, we wouldn’t have had a chance, believe me. I wasn’t even planning to call you until tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow. You should have seen yourself last night!”

“Lee, bro, listen…” I began carefully. “The fact that I threw up and took a cold shower is the most understandable thing that I have to tell you…”

“Then hang on, I have to get a new cigar,” Lee said on the other end, and soon I heard the familiar sounds puffing sounds. “OK, tell me all about it…”

He didn’t interrupt me once. I found something disturbing in his silence, though sometimes with a hangover you don’t feel things quite the right way. But my friend was still silent after I had finished talking.

“Lee, my friend, what do you say?” I asked worriedly, feeling that the pause was drawing out cruelly.

“For now, only this – to get a reservation at Daniel you need to call at least a week in advance. But don’t worry, I’ll call Lizzy now. She’ll sort it out.”

Andy tried to sound light-hearted. Precisely, he “tried” – I knew him too well not to feel it.

Therefore, having hung up, I sat for a long time in my funny spermatozoa underwear with an empty cup, not understanding why I was curling into a ball instead of jumping through the ceiling with the greatest joy in the world…

* * *

Everyone is familiar with the phrase about how all of us have our fifteen minutes of fame.

Maybe, we also are allocated fifteen days of absolute happiness in the same exact way. At least, that was how it was for me. The days that took place after Annie got better will always remain in my memory as a happy streak, full of laughter, love, hilarious antics, and the confidence that it would always be so great forever.

My vague anxiety about Annie disappeared, in not even the next day, but in a couple of hours. It was clearly just spawned by my intense hangover, that’s all.

The girls – flushed and happily excited – came home with new things in bags from the most expensive stores on Fifth Avenue. What’s more, they laughed and whispered to each other like they were old friends. And, although the big, dark eyes of my Scottish witch seemed, as always, sad and full of guilt, ionate sparks flashed in them every now and then. Trying to fight Annie’s merry onslaught was hopeless, I knew that for myself.

“So, we are off now quickly to ‘French Beauty’, to perfect our already unearthly beauty,” she informed me, expertly applying her lipstick in front of the cloudy mirror in my vestibule. “You already ordered a table, right, Squirt?”

I don’t know in which exact Manhattan trash can the prickly, ginger sweater and cucumber skirt died, but at Daniel, Hannah was almost unrecognizable – and not only due to the new amazing outfit from Burberry – maroon jodhpurs and a warm golden jacket stitched with a square pattern. For the first time in her life her face had been touched by the hands of a professional make-up artist – they touched the shocks of dark hair, skin, eyes, and made that which she herself had done all her life for others – an ordinary miracle. I simply would not have recognized her – a slender well-groomed young girl with a piercing sensual face and sherry eyes sparkling like deep red rubies.

Lee – perfectly shaved in a simple, but obviously very expensive suit, smelling of something incredibly fashionable – arrived at the restaurant with an enormous bouquet of roses. For some reason I thought that poor Hannah would fall in love with him without fail.

He smiled warmly, hugged Annie, and kissed her on the cheek.

“Hi…Well, you certainly had us all scared. Don’t do that anymore, OK?”

“OK,” smiled Annie, “I promise…”

“Hannah, you look marvelous,” Lee remarked reservedly, settling at the table.

“So, are they ever going to bring us any champagne?” Annie asked with goodnatured indignation. She was an amazing woman – even having lain under the white shroud of death for two months, she remained herself. As always, she couldn’t stand it when another woman was complimented in her presence, no matter who she was.

Then there were the long candles with their motionless tongues of flame, the Dom Perignon, the black caviar on warm Russian bread…

“I have never had anything so delicious in my whole life…” Hannah itted childishly. “Never, ever…”

“And what does he do? Feed you hotdogs from a street vendor for dinner? What a redneck! That’s right I’m talking about you, Stephen Wright, about you, draw your own conclusions…” Annie turned and looked at me with playful anger. “From now on, you take this girl to an excellent expensive restaurant every evening, got it?”

“Yes, ma’am!” I smiled.

“I’m not kidding,” Annie swallowed some more champagne and closed her eyes in delight for a moment. “What, you don’t see what you’ve done to her? She can easily put on ten pounds!”

“Not ten, but a good forty, just for a start,” I almost let slip. But bit my tongue in time.

“And make sure that you always have caviar in the refrigerator, you can afford it now!”

“Lizzy says that Andy Warhol ate caviar every day,” added Lee, playing with a wide half-full glass.

“Did they really know each other?”

I had wanted to ask him about this for a long time. I had heard rumors. But I never quite understood whether to believe them or not.

“And how!” Lee spread caviar on a piece of newly brought black-bread toast and appetizingly took a crunchy bite. “Back then she was totally different – part of the punk generation and all that. She walked around in ripped jeans, took LSD. At one point she was even his lover and agent. Then, of course, it just didn’t work out, I don’t know the details…”

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t imagine Mrs. Rosenfeld in ripped jeans dropping a tab of LSD.

Then we ate our entrees with fancy French names, joked and laughed. It was fun and so good, good, good…

The evening ended, but the next day brought the same sensation of cheerful joy. And all of the following days too. As if the whole world, apropos of nothing, had suddenly changed, becoming more cozy and affectionate.

Annie came over almost every day. For some reason she preferred her motorcycle more and more. But when it was time to reveal another little secret of big Manhattan to Hannah, her sparkling 75 Mustang would pull up down below.

It was hard to recognize Hannah. No, of course she remained the same fearfully shy small-town girl with big frightened eyes, but, in just a few days, Ann had taught Hannah how to dress with the same chic elegance that always differentiated her from the New York hash of human figures.

I was no longer surprised when, in the morning, I saw light traces of cosmetics on her washed face.

She even didn’t seem so scarily thin anymore. Either I had gotten used to it, or the cheerful order from Annie had worked – every evening we ate at a restaurant, and what’s more, Hannah ate a lot, and with pleasure. In addition, she often raided the fridge in the middle of the night to make a sandwich with caviar, a huge jar of which now stood next to the French butter and a thick loaf of longlife black bread. I always listened to Annie. She was always right.

Besides, Hannah loved new experiences. After twenty eight gloomy years in that idiotic Whistleroad Town it is not hard to understand why!

We went to Liberty Island, to the top of the Empire State Building, travelled to Niagara Falls, where an angry little old-fashioned ferry seemed helpless, but still took us, along with the cries of the children, for a ride in bright raincoats, right under the big cold streams of water.

We went to Broadway (I bought the tickets, naturally, from a scalper for a crazy amount of money). Seeing how Hannah grabbed onto the armrests, and watched what was happening on the stage without blinking, I laughed to myself, and only on the way out did it dawn on me, like an idiot, that it was the first time in her life that she had been to the theater!

I gave her a card which had two hundred thousand on it. I had already stopped going crazy whenever she went out on the street by herself. I was more worried about her conversations with Ann, who had no doubt that we were lovers, and of course, badgered the poor girl with questions and unsolicited advice. But Hannah didn’t say anything about it to me.

We continued to live like brother and sister, not disturbing each other and we

didn’t even worry about little household matters -the fact that we both used the same bathroom and shower did not bother either one of us. It was surprising how quickly this happened.

I didn’t have any inspiration for any other miracles. We had a lot of quiet and free time. I even followed the advice of Mr. Katz, and dropped by the offices of “Mirsky and Partners” to meet their financial consultant, Bart Denny!!! – a sullen polite person, who divided up my money between banks and funds with a magical alacrity, insuring me against poverty forever. Of course, we couldn’t have managed to do it all without Switzerland. So for the first time, I broke the financial laws of the United States. The feeling was unfamiliar and worrying.

Every time I left the apartment on 86th Street to go to the park, I searched for the American Hero with my eyes, who, no matter how you looked at it, started it all. Why? What was I planning to do? Tell him all of the details? Give him a million in cash? Treat him to a kebab, which he loved so much? I didn’t even know myself. Once I even climbed up the retaining wall and found his hollow. It was all clear and well-groomed like the rest of park, as if the tent and barrel with the fire, and that entire night was just a dream…

Somehow I worked up my nerve and asked a young cop about the Hero as I was walking past the place where he usually placed his creaky crate.

The cop looked at me for a minute clenching and unclenching has jaw (in my opinion, Occupy Wall Street had made them all a bit neurotic), then uttered firmly:

“Let me see some ID, son.”

He studied my driver’s license for a really long time, as if it had been issued by the People’s Republic of China. But then gave it back calmly.

“Where do you live?”

“Umm, nearby…” I answered a bit impudently. Clients of Mr. Mirsky had the right to be reckless.

“Then why don’t you go on home. And don’t go looking for trouble for your sorry ass,” the cop snapped rudely, spat, and turned away…

In the end I didn’t find the Hero.

One day, out of the blue, I got the ideas for two new TV shows. Having sort of worked them up, I sent them to Paul the Couch. He bought them both, but at the end of the day I wasn’t sure whether he actually liked them, or that his meeting with Mr. Katz had left too strong an impression on the poor bastard…

We also, finally, made it to Zucatti Park. All four of us – Hannah, Lee, Annie and I. It was amazing! The unique atmosphere of rebellious freedom, the feeling of belonging to something great and very just, the sour faces of the cops…

“Don’t believe him!” Annie laughed, pointing a finger at me. “He is a millionaire!”

Everyone around laughed – thin and long-haired, wearing old jeans, in no way did I pull off looking like a millionaire. We were frozen and some girls with armbands on the sleeves gave us each a cup of soup. Some guys with bright faces sang the “Internationale”.

I could not believe that this was happening all around me, moreover in the business capital of the world. My head was happily spinning from the multitudes of people, whom I didn’t know, but who seemed inexplicably close to me, from the helplessness of the cops, from the prevailing sense of bravery and kindness. My heart did not want to recognize any contradiction in the fact that two days ago Mr. Denny, the financial consultant, moved my millions into more sound and profitable investments, and now the bright-eyed rebels of my country were warming my soul with free soup, singing the “Internationale”.

…One night I woke up from the feeling that someone was watching me. Hannah – her silhouette silver in the moonlight – was sitting on the very edge of my sofa. She was wearing nothing but a long nightshirt.

“Here we go…” I thought with trepidation.

Sooner or later it was bound to happen. Witches are women too, and in addition, mine was drunk on the intoxicating New York autumn – on her grandeur, beauty, luxury, freedom and the seeds of sex, sex, sex in everything all around! And at 28 – not the best age to be a virgin…

I raised myself up a little on my elbow, frantically searching for the right words. But Hannah spoke first.

“Don’t be mad. I just thought that you weren’t sleeping yet…”

“What’s wrong?”

I tried to speak as softly as possible, nevertheless my question sounded harsh, like a slap in the face.

“No, no, nothing, just please don’t get upset…” my witch, in her nightshirt, faltered and fell silent abruptly. And then she spoke again, slowly and softly, “It’s just that I have wanted to tell you for a long time, but I was afraid… You are so kind. It’s true, it’s true! Kind and good. You haven’t asked anything from me, except for money and…” she stammered, “good health for someone close to you. And you have done so much for me! My goodness! I never imagined that I would ever be so happy in my life! Honestly! Thank you… Goodnight…”

She got up, a silent white apparition, glided across the room and disappeared.

I couldn’t fall back asleep for a long time, harboring the ridiculous feeling that I had somehow, for no real reason, gravely injured her…

Lee and I continued to see each other constantly.

And things with him continued to get better and better. He became the next Warhol. “Time” wrote a gushing article about him. The Guggenheim Museum was planning a personal exhibition. Ironically, even the “Financial Times” wrote about him – stating that acquiring one of his paintings was one of the ten best

investments of the year. He was invited to appear on the talk show of Silvie Grace, a rising star who was the most popular with younger audiences.

He lived as he had always done. He even, it seemed, started to come around to my place more often. He was calm and relaxed. Only his bloodshot eyes gave away the fact that he had been working the night before.

“You should take a vacation,” I suggested to him.

We were sitting in the living room of my apartment on West 86th Street drinking coffee. Lee sent a plume of fragrant blue smoke up to the ceiling. I, of course, allowed him to smoke in my place, secretly hoping that my apartment would also absorb the cozy aroma of the cigars, but nothing happened other than it became a lot harder to breathe, and my eyes watered a little. It got so that I had to open the balcony to let some fresh air in – my small old fan couldn’t handle the job, and it also made a disgusting, wheezing, noise. What can you do -it was the apartment of a loser. A lair of disappointments…

“Are you crazy?! A vacation!” Lee looked at me as if I had suggested something completely insane to him, like murdering the neighbors just for fun. “I am way behind as it is…”

“What are you behind on? Huh?” I couldn’t contain myself. “No really, explain… You are only 30 year old, and you are already the most successful painter in the States! In the World! They’re probably going to make a movie about you soon! You have loads of money, you said so yourself. So why not take a little break, I don’t understand? Nothing is forcing you to push yourself like a racehorse!”

Lee thoughtfully wrinkled his forehead as if he was thinking about what I had said for the very first time. A column of cold ash fell from his cigar.

“Well, in general, yes. Nothing is making me…but it’s driving me… You know, I am always afraid that I won’t be able to paint what I am supposed to paint…”

“You’ll become old, decrepit, lazy…” I said mockingly.

“No, the opposite.” Suddenly, I anxiously saw that Lee was not joking. “You know, for some reason it seems that I’ll never get to be old.”

“What do you mean?” I said surprised. “What are you talking about?”

“How should I know?” Lee finally smiled. “It’s just that I guess I can’t imagine myself as old. No matter how I try…”

“And so what! Neither can I!”

“Why not? You, as a matter of fact, will make an excellent old man. Scrawny, with a beard… Only, probably, too strict, a mean old geezer…”

“You’re the mean old geezer!” I laughed indignantly.

We were, of course, just shooting the breeze. Like we used to do. But only now I attentively listened to my friend’s every word, and tried with all my might to understand if it was worth it for me – that is, for Hannah – to make for him the only miracle which I could think of…

The thing was that Lee had a secret. And, most likely I would have never found out. If, one night, when I returned home and found him sleeping in my bed still in his shoes, he hadn’t woken up suddenly.

Lee was very drunk, but his eyes sparkled excitedly, and his sleepiness flew out of him into the maze of Manhattan like a frightened nighttime bird. He didn’t go to take a shower and didn’t ask me to make him coffee. He didn’t even light a cigar, which he always did when he woke up.

“I never told you, sorry…” he sighed, then looking not at me, but at the black square of the window, in which far off lights were twinkling, “I was in love once, Stevie. I was in love…”

He was silent for more than a minute, he didn’t even blink, and I had the impression that he already regretted starting this conversation.

“Lee,” I mumbled uncertainly, “if you don’t want to, you don’t have to talk about it…”

“Be quiet!” he snapped, immediately softening his tone, “If I’m telling it, it means that I want to. We met on the subway… I was staring at her. And she – would you believe it – was staring back at me exactly the same way! I don’t even what I said to her, but in half an hour we were in bed. At my

place. Back then I lived in a ridiculously tiny apartment on the East Side. I showed it to you, ?”

I didn’t say anything because Lee wasn’t expecting an answer.

“It was… I don’t know how to describe it… Well, you know this idea that sex and love are separate things, two sides of the same coin?

“Yeah, of course, I’ve heard that,” I declared from the dark. We hadn’t turned on the lights.

“So,” Lee looked at me at last, “it isn’t just bullshit, it’s true. I was born to be with her. And she with me…”

“My parents were like that. Exactly like that…” I said for some reason.

“They were lucky…”

Lee said it with such sadness, that my heart sank. I was ready to hear anything.

But Lee, again looking through the window, smiled suddenly.

“I didn’t want to let her leave at all. But she said that her father would worry, and

she promised to come back in the morning. She came back… and for two weeks I didn’t work at all, and she played hooky from some kind of courses. We didn’t only just make love. Sometimes we went outside. Back then I wasn’t famous at all, and didn’t have any money. We ate hot-dogs, ice cream… You know, I held her hand the whole time, I couldn’t not hold on to her! As if I felt… As if I felt…”

Again Lee fell silent. And sat in silence for so long, that I was the first to break it.

“Something happened to her, yeah? Something bad?”

Again the pause seemed endless.

“I don’t know!” Lee finally screamed. “Can you imagine – I don’t know! We loved each other. And then she left. She promised to come back around noon. I kissed her and put her in a cab…” There was another long pause. “She didn’t come back, you understand, Stevie, my friend? Not at noon, not that evening, not the next day… I sat in the window, and, of course, would have jumped out of it, but I was afraid that at just that second she would come around the corner. I sat on that window sill for about two months. It was five years ago. This very day, but five years ago…” Lee suddenly grabbed me by the shirt with his huge strong hands, “Believe me, it would have been easier if I had known that she had died! Or didn’t love me anymore… Or anything! It was the most terrible pain, terrible, but pain is also life! And so…I’m not really living, Stevie. For these five years, I haven’t really been living…”

“Why didn’t you find her yourself?” I asked surprised.

“I didn’t know her last name, or her phone number, or her address… I didn’t even know if she was from New York or not. It was all just useless, Stevie… I know that it is hard to understand… Her name was Nancy. Nancy…”

Lee, not moving and not even blinking, looked out the window. He looked like a black statue killed by sadness.

I left the room after about ten minutes. Andy didn’t stop me…

When I woke up, the wrinkled bed was empty. Lee called in the evening, as usual, and happily invited me over to kill another bottle of French wine with a name that was impossible to pronounce. As if last night had not occurred, and my bedroom was not home to his darkest secret, old and unsolved…

I stopped being surprised by the fact that despite the hoards of girls from the escort service, there was not a single female portrait in the studio, but we never spoke about the vanished Nancy again. Not sober, not drunk.

Naturally, I never told anyone else a word about what I had found out. Hannah was the first. “The witch doesn’t count,” I decided, in order not to be ashamed.

Amazed, she was silent for a long time, looking off at one spot. Just like Lee on that night long ago.

“What are you, paralyzed?” I got angry. “You, by the way, are the only person that I have shared my best friend’s innermost secret with! Only for you to tell me

whether it is worth it to tell him the truth or not!”

“That’s the whole trouble,” Hannah said in a low voice. “You think that I am smart, since I’m a witch. But really I’m quite dumb. I’m just a small-town idiot…”

Annoyed, I cursed her to myself in anger, but she unexpectedly continued.

“But even to a total moron like me it is completely obvious that Andy has to know the whole truth. Or else – as you said yourself – he isn’t really living! And that’s not allowed. It changes the order of things…”

“Changes the order of things”. Therein lies the rub…

I didn’t try to tell Hannah that I was even dumber than she was, the skinny witch. And I was far from certain that it was worth reopening the wound in my best friend’s heart if it still caused him pain…

* * *

A few days later, I was sitting with Lee drinking coffee – it was still too early for wine. Andy clearly had not slept – a work of unparalleled beauty he had created during the night stood drying on a stand against the wall – but did not look tired at all. True, it didn’t mean anything – I should know. With coffee or without, the maestro could lie down on the couch and switch off at any moment and fall into the sleep of the dead. Or, quite the opposite, go take a shower and emerge clean-

shaven and indecently energetic and drag us around the city.

I had an uneasy feeling – I still didn’t understand if Hannah and I were about to do something very necessary and good, or we were preparing to do something very painful to the most wonderful person in the world.

My good witch didn’t seem to have any doubt that she could do it, but she was waiting for my command, and throwing me extremely meaningful looks from across the old table every now and then. It was a good thing that Lee was so tired, or else he certainly would have noticed us exchanging glances…

But he was smoking blissfully, sipping strong coffee from a big mug. I tried to Lee’s eyes and his voice on that night three years ago. And gave an imperceptible nod to Hannah, still not knowing whether or not I was doing the right thing…

Instantly something started ringing.

Not the telephone, no, something whimsically melodious, soft and insistent at the same time. Before I could figure out what was ringing, Lee pressed the button on the intercom.

“Good morning Mr. Lee. You have a visitor. A Mr. Minton…”

“Minton?” Lee was thinking, enveloped in smoke, “Minton, Minton… And what, he says that we know each other?”

“Quite the opposite, sir…” you could feel that the Terminator wanted to add something else, but he was uncomfortable – it was clear that this Minton was standing right on top of him. “Believe me, I wouldn’t have even thought to bother you, but he showed me his identification and allowed me to search him…”

“I bet that you love those kinds of fascist procedures,” I thought, getting upset with the Terminator as usual. But, of course, I didn’t say anything. After all, I couldn’t wait to find out what was going on myself.

Lee transferred his questioning gaze from me to Hannah.

“So, shall we have a look at this Mr. Minton?”

I shrugged my shoulders as indifferently as I could, Hannah didn’t say anything.

“Thank you. Let him up,” Lee said, and pushing the button disconnected the intercom. “God, please don’t let him be some kind of nut job. Because once I let two fruitcakes up here, and had such a hard time with them that by the time I got them out of here I was at my wits end!”

But Mr. Minton, who appeared after a minute, wasn’t a nut. That much was clear at first glance.

Quite short, shorter than me, fifty five years old, he paused in the middle of the

huge workshop-living room, rocking back and forth from one leg to the other, and it was clear that he didn’t know where to begin. He was dressed very neatly, but unbelievably out of fashion, as if he came not from the first floor, but straight from the early nineties in a long synthetic jacket, a short wooly scarf with some fringe, and a ridiculous little hat. My father dressed for work just like that once the warm days of summer had left Benningville behind.

Lee, the truth be told, frozen in front of his guest, wasn’t the shining example of elegance either – of all the denim overalls which made him look wide-assed and amorphous, like a deflated hot-air balloon, he was in the oldest and dirtiest. Tousled hair and lead-colored stubble completed the portrait.

“My name is Minton. Mark Minton…” the stranger said in a low voice, not moving.

“Bond. James Bond,” I almost blurted out. But I noticed a fluffy bright raspberry colored notebook in Minton’s hand. “Clearly some kind of crazy self-taught artist,” I thought. “My little witch didn’t do something quite right…”

“Please, take off your jacket, Mr. Minton,” Lee offered easily, puffing on his cigar. “It is warm in here, you’ll be hot… And have a seat and drink some coffee, OK? Would you like some coffee?”

But he didn’t move, staring at my friend. He didn’t even take off his silly hat.

“No, don’t bother… I will just be a minute… I debated coming to see you for a long time… And then I decided to…” he paused for a long time and then firmly offered Lee the raspberry notebook, which I had noticed right away.

“What’s this?” Lee stopped smiling, but did not hurry to take the notebook.

“It’s the diary of my daughter…” Minton swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple jerked sharply. “She wasn’t a very modern girl. Didn’t love computers…”

Lee winced, obviously regretting his decision to allow the Terminator to let the stranger in. He, of course, was not dangerous, but clearly he was not quite all there.

“Mr. Minton, I don’t read other people’s diaries,” Lee answered harshly. “You only came here for this?”

“But…it is practically all about you…” The small arm of our guest shook, but did not lower.

“Then even more so.” Lee, annoyed, mashed out his cigar butt in an ashtray with a crunch. Periodically, idiotic women in love with him wrote hysterical love letters filled with indecent proposals, and even threatened to kill themselves if he refused. Fathers, it’s true, hadn’t sent him anything. This was something new…

Minton’s shaky hand, squeezing the notebook, finally, lowered resignedly.

“Yes, of course, I’m sorry…” his face turned grey, and his shoulders slumped even more, as if he had aged five years before our very eyes. “I knew it wasn’t worth searching for you. Moreover, to come here. Stupid and useless… You are

a great artist, a celebrity… And so much time has ed…”

Lee suddenly froze, like a statue, gazing attentively at the old man. The silence was absolute, lifeless, it hurt your ears.

“Wait… – Finally, Lee said hoarsely, somehow strangely peering into the face of a mysterious little guest – Are you… Are you Nancy ’s father…?

Instead of answering, Minton began to cry – not quietly, like old man do, but bitterly, uncontrollably, as if he was holding on and not crying all these years. Andy stepped up to him, clasped his shoulders with trembling shoulders, hugged him…

“Where?! Where is she?!… Tell me, for God’s sake! Don’t cry…”

“She’s gone…” Minton sobbed loudly -My girl… Going on a date with you, was in a hurry… She started to dry her hair right in the bath, and the hairdryer… hairdryer…

“It can’t be! That just can’t be Mr. Minton!” Lee almost picked the old man up, still squeezing his shoulders with his big strong hands. “I had a friend in the police… I went to him. I begged him. I offered him all of the money that I had. On that day in New York not a single Nancy died. I saw the report myself!! And the one who died the next day was 62 years old…”

“Her name was Pamela,” Mark Minton spoke with difficulty, wiping the tears

from his face like a child. “ Nancy was her nickname… From her school days… Tell me Mr. Lee…”

“Andy. Call me Andy, please…”

“Did you love her…Andy?”

“Did I love her?” Lee looked not at Minton, who hid his red eyes on his chest, but somewhere in the distance, probably in the past, which today had brought him a bright pink girlish diary. “I was planning to spend the rest of my life with her Mr. Minton… Buy her flowers… Dedicate everything I ever achieved to her… I wanted to have children with her… I wanted to call you ‘Dad’… I wanted…”

Lee also started crying. For the second time in his life.

Of course, it had long past time for us to leave, disappear, evaporate… but we were afraid to even move, frightened spectators, shameless voyeurs of other people’s grief…

But it didn’t matter. I was sure. I felt that for Andy and Mr. Minton we did not even exist. They – two sobbing men, one young, one old – were alone, just the two of them in that moment. Their third companion was their enormous grief, which could have been enormous happiness, if, a long time ago, on a summer’s day, a plastic hairdryer had not slipped out of the hand of a happy girl hurrying to get ready for a date…

Nevertheless, we left. Hannah, regaining her senses first, pulled me by the sleeve. And Lee, huge and paint-covered, and Minton, whose fallen hat lay on the floor, remained behind standing in the middle of the workshop like a strange quivering statue…

I had not planned to call Lee for at least several days. But he unexpectedly called me that evening and invited us to go out.

We dropped into some kind of old wine bar in Soho, which I had never been to before. The owner – an old Frenchman who spoke with an accent – took us into a separate room on the second floor, lit some candles on the wooden table, opened the window and allowed us to smoke.

I was amazed by the way Lee looked. He was not just cleanly and nicely dressed. His eyes glowed with youthful energy and happiness, although in their depths lurked a slight sadness. He seemed younger and full of strength, like he had taken off a heavy backpack which he had worn for many years.

The wine which was brought was exquisite, the candles flickered on the table… We talked about art and beauty, fashion and prices, Europe, where Lee had been many times, and Hannah and I had never been… About everything, except about what had happened earlier that day.

A slight uneasiness arose only once. Hannah went to the restroom, and Lee looked me in the eyes and asked:

“Stevie, tell me honestly, was this your and Hannah’s miracle? I mean, with Mr. Minton…”

Anyone who thinks that they should always tell the truth in any situation is an idiot.

“What are you talking about, Lee!” I even widened my eyes in surprise. “We didn’t have anything to do with it!”

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry…” Lee said and reached out to pour more wine…

* * *

Silvie Grace’s studio was fantastic, and I, as a television professional and former presenter, appreciated this with my first glance. It was understandable – you don’t pinch pennies with ratings like that.

The TV star herself was even more striking, meeting us backstage. She was taller and slimmer than she appeared on the screen. In addition, she radiated charm and sexuality. The surprising beauty of her face, the attentive, kind and almost mischievous eyes gave off the impression of inner strength. I immediately understood why she won every conceivable television award last season. And I felt that I had fallen in love. And that I hated her husband – a tall handsome man, a famous football player who looked like a poster boy for the Marines.

We had come ahead of time, before the studio was packed with the audience, and met with the hostess backstage. As always before any live broadcast, a nervous giddy commotion reigned over the studio, and I even felt the sweet longing for the old days when I myself used to prepare to walk out into the sights of the

cameras. I even thought that I saw a familiar face, but in the end I was mistaken.

Silvia took us aside, and smilingly introduced herself, letting Lee’s hand linger in her beautiful palm.

“Welcome, welcome… These are you friends? Don’t worry, they have the best seats in the house, as you requested…”

She didn’t say a thing about Lee’s outfit, although he turned up in a worn out Tshirt complimenting his denim paint-stained overalls, over which he wore an old tweed sport coat. His feet were adorned with beat up sneakers.

Silvia also smiled at me too.

“I think I know you as well. You work for Paul Foxman, don’t you?”

I really did not want to reminisce about the Couch, but I wanted this wonderful woman to think I was just a staffer for him even less.

“I worked for him. Now we are more like partners…”

“I understand…” Silvia Grace said in the strong velvety voice that all of America knew so well, and added politely, “Although, I would return to the screen if I were you, you were so fantastic!”

“Thank you, Sylvia,” I answered, and turned to the side so that she couldn’t see how excited I was. In the pure, animal sense of the word…

The presenter no more than politely nodded hello to our girls, but was very restrained. Although they looked like they themselves were about to take part in the TV show – unrecognizable after a light application of make-up, Hannah, was wearing denim breeches, short suede boots and beautiful dark brown top with a fancy collar.

What can you say about Annie? It seemed like the top couture designers in the city had paid her top dollar to their products tonight. But I realized right away that the much more modestly dressed Silvia Grace did not react to such details. Or rather, reacted in her own way.

A girl with a nametag on her chest came up and said something to Silvie in her ear, and the presenter smiled at us even more charmingly.

“Well, that’s it, excuse me, but our hero needs to get to make-up. Jane will take you to your seats. Wish us luck boys and girls…”

Hannah mumbled something in a soft voice. My sweet Annie smirked silently in reply. And only very quietly said to me with iration, as we were moving through the labyrinth of the studio behind Jane, “She is one cool bitch…”

Our seats were excellent indeed. A young assistant warmed the crowd up, teaching the audience to applaud when the sign saying “APPLAUSE” lit up, to

laugh when the sign saying “LAUGHTER” lit up… Hannah was turning her head like an eight-year old school girl.

“Close your mouth, girlfriend,” Anne said, “Or at least make an intelligent and a little more mysterious face. What if you get caught on camera?”

Hannah immediately flopped frightened into the chair, and, scared, curled up into a ball.

…As soon as the show started, I instantly comprehended that I would never host another live show again. Because I could never host it like Silvia Grace.

She was brilliant. Smarty, pretty, uninhibited, both ruthless and understanding, and willing to forgive everything, she was born to make millions laugh, cry, and argue.

At one point I was even sorry that I had talked Lee out of refusing the invitation. But very quickly I realized that I was worried in vain. Lee felt uninhibited sitting in one of the most important chairs in the country, and it seemed to me, was even having fun.

“You’ve come to the studio in a rather unusual get up, Andy. Like you just finished painting a fence. So, in light of the recent troubles, are millionaires trying to look like thenot an amrrican expression use commoners?”

“I dress the way I dress,” Lee interrupted without malice. “No, of course, I could

have worn an expensive suit, but I like to look like part of working-class America. The part which robs assholes in gold cufflinks. How many of them are there? I heard about one per cent?”

But it wasn’t easy to knock Silvia Grace off course.

“Ok, but ask yourself – do you have the right to do so? Yes, you were noticed on the mass protests. You were singing the ‘Internationale’, lots of people saw that. But, how many millions do you have personally? Ten? Twenty? Forty?…”

“Well, to be honest, I didn’t sing the ‘Internationale,’” Lee itted, and the audience emitted a collective sigh of disappointment. “I only pretended to. You see, I have a terrible voice, and I couldn’t carry a tune if you put a handle on it…”

This time the applause was explosive, mixed with joyous laughter.

“And with regard to those millions, I am ready to happily exchange them for a just United States. We can consider ourselves the greatest nation in the world, but as long as one American sleeps on the cold asphalt, and another drives by in a golden Bentley…”

They weren’t just clapping and whistling in the studio, they even started chanting something unintelligible.

“Great speech!” smiled the hostess unperturbed. I still couldn’t look at her

calmly. “You’re not planning, in secret, to run for President, are you Andy? To build a more industrially developed North Korea in place of the USA? With tyranny, torture and coupons for cheap sausage…”

“What does North Korea have to do with it? Stop it,” Lee winced a little. “Freedom is synonymous with the word ‘ America.’ And people are unequal by their very nature. There are talented and untalented, hard-working and lazy… Sick and healthy, for crying out loud! But even the sickest, most untalented, donothing has the right not to go to bed hungry, and to a roof over his head.”

The audience didn’t just react. It went crazy. And my friend continued.

“So I’ve been to Amsterdam a few times. It’s the capital of Holland, for those who don’t know… And so, I didn’t see a single Ferrari or Bentley while I was there. But I also didn’t see any homeless. It’s time to build our lives based on kindness and fairness, or else it could all end very badly…”

“So it appears that you are a Communist!” the charming presenter laughed, although I could tell she didn’t think it was a laughing matter. “Maybe, this can be explained by your Russian roots? You are, after all, half Russian, correct?”

However much her staff writers were being paid, they were worth it. Silvia Grave knew everything about Lee.

“And half Sioux Indian. Correct me if I’m wrong… So who do feel you are, Mr. Lee?”

“I feel that I am an American,” Lee answered firmly, and the audience reacted with thunderous applause and shouts. “By the way, my ancestors, who you referred to as my “Russian roots”, came to America a hundred and fifty years ago. My great grandfather was a naval officer who was killed by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. And my great grandfather on the Indian side was working in an auto plant in Detroit at about the same time, and not running around with a spear on the reservation. So, I am an American, dear Silvia. An American, who believed during all his life that he lived in the greatest country in the world. And only found out at thirty that this greatness, it appears, has been stolen by a bunch of greedy gnomes who have entrenched themselves on Wall Street…”

The audience jumped to its feet. Some applauded, but the majority was chanting something. I would have also ed in, but I couldn’t make out the words in all of the noise. The glowing “QUIET” sign seemed like a sad and unnecessary element in the scene.

By the laws of the genre Silvia needed to change the subject. TV presenters don’t get paid to start revolutions on live television.

“So you, it turns out, are not just a great artist but a wonderful orator. I didn’t expect it, I have to be honest… By the way, you mentioned the Dutch city of Amsterdam. This is the capital of narcotics, for those that don’t know…” She turned Lee’s phrase expertly. “Many people, even including many of your irers, don’t believe that you have never tried, as they say ‘to broaden your horizons…’”

Lee didn’t hurry his answer and the audience fell silent.

“I…how do say…see the world very sharply…” finally Lee said quietly, as if he was entrusting mankind with a terrible secret. “Sometimes – unbearably

sharply… Drugs, probably, would make me lose my mind. Or on the contrary – they could turn me into an anesthetized idiot. I don’t know… In a word, I’ve never used them and I don’t plan on it. Sorry, if I’ve disappointed you…”

Reviving the show, Silvia Grace acted superbly.

“No, but it’s definitely time for me to retire!” she said as she gracefully threw up her arms. “I invite a great painter on the show, and I talk to him about everything under the sun, except art!”

Some beautiful music began playing. Beethoven? Tchaikovsky? Chopin? I had no idea. High school in Benningville wasn’t exactly Harvard, and these kinds of moments reminded me that I am still just a hick from the sticks.

Along with the music a huge screen appeared, and on it images of Lee’s works. Beautiful and very high quality, they were nevertheless lifeless, like in a museum…

The audience applauded again – this time with respect and iration.

“Jim Garfield from the New York Times said that you were not happy when he called you a ‘modern American impressionist,’” now having successfully shifted the theme from popular rebellion, Silvia relaxed completely and exhibited all the facets of her gift for television. “So what is it that you don’t have in common with the Impressionists, Andy?”

“I don’t have anything in common with them.” Lee also livened up, talking about painting. “The artists that you call ‘Impressionists,’ are wonderful painters. It’s just…how to say it more precisely… All major painters are impressionists. This term, after all, is from the word ‘impression,’ naturally. Look at the famous “Night Watch” by Rembrandt! Look, look at it! You will suddenly understand that you know more about each of the soldiers marching in the watch than his own brother!” And Breughel’s ‘Hunters in the Snow?’ It just smells so strongly of wet snow and dog fur that you involuntarily recoil from it. This is what impressionism is – the gift to see and capture this unique moment, this enormous living truth about the world and its people…”

Lee was so carried away and relaxed that he pulled a cigar out of his pocket and skillfully, without interrupting his own talking, clamped it in his teeth and prepared it light it. I had gotten used to this motion long ago, but poor Sylvia, it looked like she almost fell off her chair.

“Oh, excuse me! You can’t smoke here!” she almost screamed, even losing her charming imperturbability for a moment.

Lee, coming to his senses, pulled the cigar out of his mouth.

“Sorry. I forgot myself for a moment… But don’t worry, I can wait. Now it seems that you can’t smoke anywhere.”

“Is that a bad thing in your opinion?” Silvia asked mockingly. I already understood – she could recover in a New York minute.

“Of course it’s bad,” Lee grumbled, “and very unfair. This world, by the way,

was built by smokers. Roosevelt and Churchill smoked, and Hitler did not. But that is by the by… Almost everyone smoked – the ones who built the buildings, laid the roads, built the bridges, assembled the cars, fought the wars, delivered the babies… And so it was for several hundred years. And then a few fat-assed geniuses from the N.I.H. or C.D.C or someplace, suddenly decided, ‘Damn, this is totally unacceptable! How can it be?’ And now you can’t smoke like a man anywhere… It’s complete hogwash!”

“But you don’t refute that it is harmful, right Andy?” Silvia Grace smiled indulgently.

Lee shrugged his shoulders uncertainly.

“Yeah, probably… But a person can, by his own choice, trade a few years of his life for the pleasure of…dopamine, nicotine… In a word, for a tasty puff on a tobacco leaf! And for some reason they have to interfere. On what basis, I wonder?

This time the opinion of the audience was divided. Part of them clapped, but many groaned disapprovingly. Silvia clearly approved of this.

“Yes, but I am not obliged to breathe your smoke!” She ducked her head a little. “And other people too! It is harmful and disgusting.”

“The harm of ive smoking has still not been confirmed by one scientific study,” Lee interrupted sharply. “Disgusting – maybe that’s true, it’s a matter of taste… Which is exactly why in some countries in which I have traveled, in every café and restaurant there are two areas – one for smokers, one for non-

smokers. This, to me, is true democracy…”

“So, that means,” Silvia called out over the noise of the audience, “that we must calmly look on as a man shortens his own life?”

Lee smiled mirthlessly.

“Today in your native New York about…well, let’s say around a thousand people lost their jobs. Non-smokers! So what do you think, by how much have their lives been shortened by this happy event? Thinking about how they are going to feed their families and pay their bills? That they won’t be able to buy their little girl the doll that she dreams about? Ten years, I think, at least! Without any cigarettes… By the way, the statistics say that every minute and a half one woman in the United States is raped. Maybe she would prefer to smoke quietly a good cigarette instead? What do you think?”

In a word, the show was a hit! The guests in the studio were on a rampage. Sylvia Grace was triumphant. An hour and a half ed like ten minutes.

“The ratings hit the roof, and then you hit the town…” I thought in the old tradition of the television world.

When we were already heading to the exit with the crowd – (we agreed to meet with Lee in the café on the corner), I did see a familiar face after all, and realized that I hadn’t been mistaken. Nick Monroe – an old cameraman, who once upon a time shot several of my shows at the same time – was at his usual workplace, behind the camera. I always liked him; he was one of the best professionals and just a nice guy.

We embraced. I noticed that he looked older, but, of course, I said something completely different:

“Great job you have, Nick. And the talent – just a dream…”

“Who – Silvia?” Nick’s voice did not sound kind. ‘She’s a crazy bitch. Someone should tear her head off… I’m going to transfer over to the news, I’ve already got it all sorted.”

“Why, what’s the problem?” honestly I was shocked, “She doesn’t pay enough?”

“She doesn’t pay, the studio does. Like they all do…” Nick, a little tired, took off his headphones and hung them on the camera. “That’s not the problem. It’s that she looks like a sweetheart, Steve, but that’s not the case. She loves to humiliate people, fires someone every week. Did you see her show about the young programmers?”

“Sorry, Nick, I don’t watch too much TV right now…”

“And right you are. It’s all turning into garbage… But that’s not what I mean. We shot this really young computer genius. I forgot his name…

“So what?”

“So, that bitch, among other things, repeated about twenty times that he is gay. And even lives with an older man. Although, she saw that the guy was confused…

I smiled.

“Nick, come on, get with it! There are more gays in this town than there are people like you and me…”

“Yes,” Monroe agreed glumly. “But his father, a farmer from Iowa, saw the program, stuck his double-barrel shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. And the kid, hearing about it, climbed into a hot bath and slit his veins… Nice one, huh?”

I was glad that the girls had gone on ahead, and Hannah didn’t hear any of this.

“Sorry, I gotta go, Nick. Good luck to you.”

“You too, Steve. Take care of yourself…”

It was a terrible story. But I forgot about it very quickly.

Lee’s Mercedes flew up to the café in about five minutes. Spots of poorly wiped off make-up gleamed on the painter’s face.

“Onward!’ he commanded excitedly.

We didn’t bother to argue or ask any extraneous questions. Today was his day. Rather, his evening.

A helicopter was waiting on the roof of a skyscraper on the besieged Wall Street, where we arrived. It was beautiful, glistening with an immaculate finish under the signal lights. The doors were open, the steps in place. There were two bottles of champagne and four plastic cups on the seats.

When we heard the muted hum of the engine, and the rotors began to slowly crawl around in a circle, Hannah turned pale and curled into a ball. I, if I am honest, was also at a little bit of a loss as I climbed aboard a helicopter for the first time…

But after only ten minutes we were drunk with happiness. A wonder, even a dangerous one, still knows how to delight. Sailing over the ocean of lighted streets so close to the famous towers of the city, we were happy as children. Aledaida’s eyes beamed so radiantly with happiness that she didn’t seem like herself. We laughed and shouted things to each other, not hearing a single word. We drank very expensive champagne from cheap disposal plastic cups, breathless from the beauty and joy. And again we pressed up against the windows in order to see the world in which we lived, and to be amazed once again, that for the birds of the night, it resembled pulsing streams of melted gold.

…Of course the morning of the next day was a late and lazy one. Hannah took a shower around eleven, but stayed in her bathrobe – already not mine, which hung off her, like the hood on a hanged man. She and Annie had bought one of

her own – maroon and crimson stripes, beautiful and clearly expensive. Then she went to her room and watched TV, turning down the sound until it was barely audible. So as not to disturb her precious one, me.

And “the precious one” got up off the couch only once – to go to the bathroom. I treated the toilet to Clicquot’s Grande Dame, climbed back under the covers with great enjoyment, and then would either fall asleep to the barely audible babbling of the TV in the next room, or would wake up and lie in a blissful half-sleep.

The only thing that conquered this perfect state was hunger. Not getting out from under the covers I rang the nearest decent restaurant and ordered a few club sandwiches and two bottles of orange juice.

My good witch enhanced the menu, toasting up some bread and taking an open jar of caviar out of the fridge. We had breakfast right in my bed. I didn’t even get out from under the covers, I just fluffed up my pillow and rested comfortably on it. And then fell asleep again to the lullaby of quietly tinkling dishes being cleaned up. I even had a chance to dream about something very kind and almost childlike…

The phone – not my cell, but the landline, which I almost never use – rang so suddenly, that I jumped to my feet. The phone was old, without any new-fangled ringtones or anything, and it rang like the alarm bell for a prison break.

“Hello…” I gasped, wincing, sure that someone had dialed the wrong number, and promised myself that I would yank the cord out of the socket as soon as I had finished the conversation.

The voice on the other end was older and precise, like a TV news anchor.

“Excuse me, I need to speak to Mr. Wright, Mr. Stephen G. Wright.”

The last time someone had called me by my full name was the principal at my school in Benningville, when Tom Jackson and I were throwing a baseball back and forth during recess and broke a window in the girls’ locker room. Either due to that, or due the abrupt awakening, I felt that my body was covered with goose bumps, like invisible needles. I would have climbed back under the covers with the phone, but the cord was too short.

“I’m sorry, can you hear me alright? I need Mr. Stephen Wright,” the caller repeated with extreme clarity.

“That’s me. What do you want?

“You are speaking with sergeant McEnroe of the State Police. It is concerning

your relative, Mrs. Gonzalez…

In the instant before he said anything, I somehow knew what I was about to hear.

Annie didn’t die.

She was killed. Riding on her motorcycle on a crowded highway she crashed into a giant metal backhoe. Sergeant McEnroe asked me to come down to the police morgue to identify the remains, letting me know that it would be difficult and very frightening – the body had been torn to pieces in the crash.

“You are a real man! A man with brass balls!” Annie had repeated often. She was probably right. Because I didn’t just die on the spot, and I didn’t lose consciousness. I didn’t scream like a wounded beast. I didn’t cry. I even, it seems, promised the sergeant with the newscaster’s voice that would be there soon…

I came to from the cold. I was sitting on the floor in wrinkled underwear and was holding the receiver, which was emitting short loud beeps. How much time had ed? A minute? Two hours?

I got up abruptly. Put on jeans, a sweater, socks and tied my sneakers. I stuffed my wallet into my back pocket. I was moving surprisingly quickly and precisely, as if my grief had imparted my body with a strange wooden confidence.

“Hannah,” I thought, “I have to tell her…”

I thought automatically, exactly like how I had gotten dressed. Probably, that’s how the robots that the Japanese love to show off at exhibitions think.

I couldn’t hear any noises coming from behind her door. Was she sleeping? That would be worst of all. Not really knowing what I was going to do, or say, I pushed the door open.

Hannah wasn’t sleeping. She was standing by the window with her back to me in her bathrobe and cozy woolen socks.

And she turned around before I could open my mouth.

Her face was red from tears, her eyes swollen. In her hands she grasped a wrinkled handkerchief. It was mine – big and checkered.

And in within a second, in a short unfeeling moment it became clear to me – she hadn’t eavesdropped. And hadn’t worked any magical telepathy. She knew! She knew that Anne would leave us now – a day earlier, a day later…

Hannah wiped her face with the handkerchief, blew her nose, and raised her swollen eyes to me. I didn’t see any shame in them, or any fear. Instead, she was angry at me…

“I told you! I told you that my powers wouldn’t work! I told you from the start! It’s forbidden, forbidden to change the order of things! You can conquer a

disease, but you can’t save a person whose time has already come… I told you! And now… And now you will never forgive me, I know…”

I still felt wooden. The sensation was unfamiliar and sickening.

“Don’t talk nonsense,” I said, not recognizing my own voice. “And wash your face with water, don’t rub it. Or else it will swell and look ugly. And Annie wouldn’t want that for sure…”

And I turned away, went to the front door, and, still on autopilot, grabbed my jacket and keys.

* * *

On the day of Annie’s farewell I did not dare to be sad. She made me promise. Back then, when, lying in the huge bed, she gave me the terribly clear orders in her weak little voice.

I didn’t forget a thing. I intended to do everything exactly as she had bid me.

It had gotten cold the previous evening, but the day was summertime clear, an unbearably bright sun lit up the apartment, reflecting from the windows of the building across the street.

Carefully shaven and showered, I put on a white shirt and a black suit, which I had bought yesterday on the way home. I looked in the mirror, rubbed some expensive eau de cologne on my cheeks – her favorite, Hermes. I was missing a black tie, but I didn’t have one. I didn’t wear ties.

Emerging from her room Hannah was also in all black – a sweater from Ferre, tight jeans, elegant shoes… I had no idea when she had bought all of that. Probably together with Annie, during one of their endless trips to Barney’s or Saks, when else! Her hair was pulled back by a tight black hair band with a fake Swarovski diamond in the center.

She hid her eyes guiltily, as before. I didn’t feel like searching again for some idiotic words about how she wasn’t to blame. I just took her by the hand, like a child, and felt how her cold little bones thankfully dug into my palm.

“That’s it. Time to go,” I said without any expression. “Put on your overcoat, it’s cold.”

Hannah obediently took another of her new things off the hanger.

“And what about you? You are dressed very lightly!”

“Don’t worry,” I answered, putting on a pair of sunglasses and opening the door. “I won’t be cold…”

…Lee arrived in the Hamptons right after we did. He was dressed exactly like

me. Only he seemed strangely bigger and more grown up. Or now being an orphan, I felt suddenly felt smaller and so helpless…

I drove the Mustang, and we slowly headed in the direction of Park Way. I was slightly worried that it would be packed with cars – traffic today would be, as if to spite us, incredible.

The urn and crimson box stood next to me on the front seat. The blinding sun threw crimson-gold spots along the hood – even the glasses didn’t help. Lee and Hannah sat silently behind my back. I felt some kind of strange calm, I didn’t even feel any grief in my heart, as if a living Annie was sitting right next to me, and we were going together to a ceremonious and very important celebration.

I had been worried in vain – Park Way was empty, as if they had closed it especially for us. Well, of course, God loved the sinner Annie, and forgave her all her sins, and gave us a gift… It couldn’t have been any other way!

I drove about ten miles outside the city, turned around at the first over, slowed down and stopped on the shoulder. I moved automatically, like a soldier before a battle. I lowered the top to the convertible. I put an old cassette into the stereo, got Anne’s cell – it was incredibly large, red and gold, and wrote a message to everyone in her list – ‘Farewell. I’m gone.’ – but I didn’t send it, and put it on the seat next to the urn and the box.

“Lee…” I looked back, but my friend was already opening the champagne with a firm and abrupt motion. Hannah skillfully held the glasses in her thin fingers. I put the crimson box on the seat between them.

The glasses were ice cold. The champagne was even colder.

“Farewell, Annie…” I said not recognizing my own voice.

“Farewell…”

“Farewell…”

There were two echoes to my good-bye – one male, and one female…

I pressed the ‘Send’ button on her phone, chugged the champagne, through the glass on the floor – it didn’t break – and, laying rubber, tore out of there. Anne lived in flight, died in flight, and wanted to go out forever in the same way. The Mustang flew with a roar towards the city, which she considered hers and had made mine…

“It’s time! I shouted over the roar of the engine, for a moment taking my hands off the wheel, I tore the top off and raised the urn, clenched in my right hand up in air, as high as I could. Lee opened the box. It was filled with rose petals – fresh and soft, which this morning had still been roses…

The ashes mixed with the rose petals, flying straight into the sky, to the sun, to God! That’s how she wanted to go, and that’s how my Annie went, whose time had come. She left as she had lived – dramatically, a little operatic, but happy and painfully beautiful!

A group of bikers, came out of nowhere and ed us, and having formed a cortege, started a prolonged honking. But of course! Anne had departed, and a group of muscle-bound men rapturously saluted in her wake, just like it had been in life a thousand times…

The bikers ceremoniously honking their horns in good-bye, ed us and disappeared up ahead in a roaring herd. And right then my heart burst with pain. There was a terrible ringing in my head.

I didn’t just cry – I screamed hoarsely, stepping on the gas even more in order not to hear it, and tears flooded my eyes, and the ringing didn’t stop. I should have stopped, of course, but I drove on faster and faster, as if trying to run away from the world that killed my Anne, into another. As if it existed…

And then I suddenly felt a thousand times better. I slowed down, and pulled off the highway at our exit. It also became clear that it wasn’t my heart, blown apart with grief that was ringing, but the phone lying on the seat – the SMS message clearly perplexed many of those who had received it.

“Listen, I’m going to turn it off, OK?” Lee said reaching forward to grab the handset. “It’s going to cause us to crash, I swear…”

“No, don’t, Lee. Don’t turn it off,” I asked him hoarsely. “Let everyone who wants to, call. Just turn the ringer off, if you know how…”

Lee pressed on something and the phone no longer rang, just buzzed barely audible on the leather seat. But it was buzzing non-stop.

We stopped near her house. I quickly took off my glasses to wipe away the tears, but my face was completely dry – the cold wind had done its job.

I looked back. Hannah was sadly staring off into space. She lifted her eyes up to mine for a second, the lowered them again.

Lee deftly stretched out having gotten out of the car. He took out a cigar, but wasn’t in a hurry to light it.

I also climbed out, and bending over, helped Hannah out too. Her fingers were frozen.

“Are we going to go inside?” I asked.

Lee shrugged.

“What for? Although, whatever you say…”

“Oh, honestly I would like to go in,” Hannah said in a guilty voice. “I have to use the bathroom. Sorry…”

I gave her the key, and Andy and I were left alone.

Unlike the witch, he didn’t look away.

“So how am I supposed to live now, Lee?” I asked, feeling inside, throughout my whole body, not pain anymore, but a dead, frightening void.

“Stop it, you’re not a little boy,” my friend tried to say as softly as possible. “You know yourself, that in some instances you just have to endure…”

I suddenly, completely subconsciously, reached for him, and he didn’t back away, he embraced me. I smelled the aroma of his cologne, cigars, and felt the strength in his broad shoulders… As if I was hugging the big brother that I never had.

“Come on, come on, you OK?” Lee, embarrassed, patted me on the back, but did not push me away.

I let him go myself, also embarrassed. These tender moments weren’t part of our repertoire, despite whatever they gossiped about in Greenwich Village…

“Now, I don’t have anybody left, except for you…” I said mutedly.

Lee, who finally lit his cigar with obvious pleasure, threw a glance at me with surprised eyes.

“What are you talking about? What about Hannah?”

“What about Hannah?”

“Cut it out,” Lee said almost sternly. “Even a puppy who’s housebroken doesn’t shit on his own doorstep…”

“Yeah, but Hannah isn’t a puppy, Lee, she’s a grown up twenty-eight year old young woman. What’s more, she is an all powerful witch, in case you forgot! No, of course, I’ll give her everything that she wants…”

“Without a doubt. I’m talking about something else, Stevie,” Lee exhaled a plume of smoke, looking through it attentively at me. “This all powerful girl feels more or less sure of herself only when you are holding her hand, like a child. Just, please don’t tell me that you haven’t noticed it…”

“Of course I noticed it,” I shrugged my shoulders. “So what should I do now – live with her for the rest of my life? I can’t even marry her off, they’re not allowed to, I explained that to you…

“Yeah, yeah you explained it…” Lee inhaled deeply, “it just that…”

He shut up in mid sentence. Hannah was descending down the front steps.

“Ok, never mind,” he put his hand on my shoulder, “Come on, put the car away.

We’ll finish this some other time. Today is not the day…”

* * *

The road back was awful. At first the cab went some strange way, and then at the entrance to the city we ran into a dense wall of traffic, as if half the state decided, on this particular day, to drive into Manhattan from the Hamptons.

We went forty feet in half an hour. At most.

Lee was glumly silent, and still hadn’t taken off his unnecessary sunglasses, which made him look like a movie star. Hannah still had the same worn and unhappy face, so it was better just not to look at it. Neither one of them said a word for the entire trip.

I, probably, had it easiest of all – the emptiness, which appeared in my chest while we were still at Annie’s house, froze in me like a rumpled blanket, and, I think, was getting bigger. It made it seem like I was looking at everything that was happening around me through a strange murky haze, and it was not completely real.

“Good Lord, is this really how it will be forever?” I thought horrified. “This is exactly how people must lose their minds…”

The taxi hadn’t moved a foot in ten minutes. The people walking along the sidewalk seemed swift and free.

Lee could not resist, and finally broke the silence.

“Stevie, my friend, let’s get out here, huh?” he suggested, taking off his sunglasses looking around at the street signs. “As far as I can tell, we aren’t quite there yet, but we’re also not that far away. We would have been there a long time ago if we had walked. Also, honestly, I really want to smoke…”

“And I’m feeling a bit carsick…” squeaked Hannah, “For a long, long time already. I can hardly stand it anymore…”

“Why didn’t you say anything? Buddy, hang on, we’re getting out here.”

I stuffed some money through the slot in the plastic divider, not even seeing the face of the driver, and opened the door.

It was cool outside and easier to breathe, but my numbness did not dissipate. Lee, with a smoking cigar, marched in front, holding Hannah by the hand -not by her bony fingers, but higher, by her thin wrist, like you do with very small children. I was bringing up the rear, not seeing anything around me, and from time to time ran into ers-by and mumbled something, probably an apology…

We were somewhere around Prince Street. Annie – the other one, pale and thinking she was going to die in her bed – had told me, “Walk like you mean it.” We were in some establishment with the strange name “Brother Will”. It was the first restaurant she had eaten at, having run away to New York twenty five years ago – a spoiled young girl, an embarrassment to the family, the most wonderful

woman on the planet… She ordered a Coke (they wouldn’t serve her alcohol) and a meatball sub.

She could everything in those days, on her deathbed. Clearly and in detail. She just forgot to explain how I was supposed to live without her. How not to go insane and perish from grief…

The crowd of people became even denser. Several times I buried into the unfeeling backs of strangers, trying to find a way through, but wasn’t able to.

“Hey something is happening here. Come on, let’s go have a look!” Lee commanded, looking back at me and squeezing ahead.

A building on the corner was on fire.

I had seen a fire in New York once before, but then it was something completely different. Two dozen firefighters in red helmets, cool as cucumbers, communicating by radio, shot water from powerful hoses a few times into the places that they supposed the secret fire might be lurking, more to please the onlookers than anything else.

That time I didn’t even see the flames, I only the suffocating smell of the fumes, and the beautifully shining scarlet fire engines and helmets.

Now it was totally different. There were no firefighters – their beautiful engines could only anxiously and helplessly rev their engines somewhere very far away,

obviously trying by some miracle to break through the wall of traffic.

Now there were flames, which raged high above, burning two floors of the old twenty-story building – the kind that makes New York New York.

“Holy shit!” Lee looked at the raging flames directly above us, not hiding his delight. “What a beauty…”

Hannah also lifted her head, like a child, biting her thin finger.

We didn’t notice, but we found ourselves in a large crowd, squeezed in on all sides by the same kinds of onlookers like us. New York was celebrating yet another spectacle. Three or four police officers shouted something energetically and waved their arms, obviously trying to convince the people to back up further, but nobody paid any attention to them.

Behind me, two young black teenagers were arguing, swearing, about which floor was burning – the twelfth, or the thirteenth.

“Yo motherfucker, learn to fucking count, ai-eet?” they argued loudly.

“Man, fuck you motherfucker!” the second responded.

The fire, feeling no repercussions, suddenly erupted so violently it was like it had been splashed with kerosene. The windows shattered with terrible crash. The

crowd, screaming in horror, surged back, but wasn’t able to scatter, even if it wanted to. The broken glass rained down on hunched-over backs, and somewhere off to the side we heard screams…

“Get a doctor!”

“Help! He’s bleeding!”

“Let me through, goddamit! Let me through!”

I understood what was happening, but my insulated heart generated neither delight, nor fear for my life. It was as if I was watching a report about a fire on the news. I didn’t feel anything even resembling interest. If I could have, I would have gotten out of there fast, dragging Hannah and Lee with me. But we were so firmly squeezed in by hundreds of others just like us – quickly losing interest, but doomed to stand in a thick people-jam. Suddenly the crowd screamed again. But this time in a completely different way. Louder. In fear. Someone started screaming hysterically…

There, on the top of the hundred year old brick cliff, in the glow of the flames, a live figure appeared. Moving along the ledge to the side, it froze again, scared by an enormous tongue of flame, reaching out from the next window, like from the mouth of a fairy-tale dragon…

It was a woman. Even from here, down below, it was visible that it was a woman. She was carrying a big, white bundle in her hands. As if she had wrapped everything that was dear to her in an old towel.

It was clear that she was doomed. The fire was licking at her, breaking through the narrow windows. Licking before devouring…

“Oh dear God!” said Lee frozen next to me.

But it seemed that nothing could break through the frozen void inside me. My brain and heart were living separately from each other. My brain understood everything, but my heart did not react, just continued to pump blood around my small wiry body. I only noticed the TV cameras pointing up at the sky because of my experienced eye. These guys were just earning some money, nothing more…

“A baby! It’s an infant!” someone just nearby suddenly screamed.

The crowd writhed in convulsions. Women screamed in horror.

I grabbed Hannah by the wrist, in order not to lose her, and saw that Andy was holding her the exact same way by the other wrist.

Suddenly the woman – there, up high, took a step right toward the fire. She cried out something with all her might, but it was, of course, impossible to understand what it was. And then she lifted up her baby, which I had at first thought was just a bundle, over her head and suddenly everything became clear. Even why she was marching right into the fire – she was trying to get around some kind of metal construction, which was on the level of the fifth floor, and get right over the crowd.

She did it. She was right above us. Only very high up. Too high…

You don’t need to think in a crowd. It tells you everything itself.

“She wants to throw him down!”

“Throw him!”

‘Throw him!”

The living mass swirled around us like a whirlpool, backing up…

I felt how Hannah’s wrist slipped through my grasp. And it didn’t slip by accident, she freed herself twisting her thin shoulder.

“What are you doing?” I reached for her, but the good witch hid her hands behind her back.

“She…She will throw him to you…Try. Please…”

“What?!” I felt like I had completely lost my mind. “Why me? I…what are you

talking about! Why me exactly?”

Hannah shrugged her shoulders innocently, her huge sherry eyes looked at me seriously and anxiously.

“I believe that you can… You can do it.”

I still didn’t believe her, but the crowd, so unmovable a second ago suddenly backed away and I felt the emptiness behind me. Lee tried to stay with me, but the human whirlpool washed him away together with Hannah, and swept them to the side.

I was alone on the patch of asphalt. And then I saw what transpired on every screen across the world. A powerful and fierce wave of fire, like it was shot from a flame thrower, hit the woman, incinerating her before our very eyes. She turned into a human torch for about two seconds, no more, immediately collapsing into a cloud of black soot. But in the instant before that she threw the infant down, like a heavenly pitcher, making the most important pitch of her, already expiring, life. She threw him strong and confidently, as if she knew that he was destined to live.

I knew that I wouldn’t catch him. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to hold him even if I caught him. Of course, the living bundle would slip through my hands onto the asphalt with a sickening crunch turning into a horrible bloody-meaty mess, hidden under a diaper, on which crimson-black stains would immediately appear…

But before I had a chance to think about any of this I threw out my arms.

He was warm and very alive. And absolutely tiny. The unfamiliar, until now, milky smell of the infant body even penetrated through the fumes emanating from the diaper. He weighed practically nothing, and, of course, he was crying. Obeying incomprehensible animal instincts, I rocked him back and forth a few times to calm him down. Lee and Hannah were already next to me, and the TV reporters surrounded us in a circle and shouted out some questions…

And I held this orphaned miracle dropped from heaven, carefully hugging him to my chest and felt how the emptiness which had been dwelling inside me all this time was quickly disappearing with every second. It was melting like ice, heated by the warmth of the strange little bundle fallen from the sky.

The world was at peace again – with its sounds, smells, voices of people, and ing cars…

The police cordoned off the alley. Paramedics from an ambulance ran up and carefully removed the little living body from my hands.

Barely visible from below, firefighters standing picturesquely on gigantic steep ladders were killing the fire. It was what it deserved – it was a killer itself.

They threw a blanket over me, forced me to go over to the ambulance, shined lights in my eyes, and tested my reflexes. Lee and Hannah were with me the whole time, they did not leave. As if they were afraid that something else would certainly happen to me.

And I no longer felt like a godforsaken idiot. I was myself again. Stephen Wright. I was just sad because only a short while ago I buried the most beloved person in the world to me. But I already knew that I would be able to carry on.

The police also began to ask me questions, but Lee exchanged a few words with an elderly gray-haired sergeant, who nodded understandingly, handed me a business card (I automatically tucked it into my breast pocket), stopped with the questions, and even helped us get away from the TV reporters, who with each ing minute became more and more.

* * *

We, of course, got a little lost in the spider web of streets. And not surprisingly – I wasn’t sure that I’d ever been to this part of the city, or Lee either. This wasn’t our neck of the woods.

But none of us were in a hurry. In order to Ann, each of us had half a lifetime, but to raise a glass of whisky to her memory and order a meatball sub – we had only half a day. Now that the world had come back to life and made me myself again, I understood this all too well.

We didn’t need to hold Hannah by the wrist anymore. She, like a child, grabbed onto my sleeve herself. Now, that she looked not just normal, but, I would say – expensive and stylish – this, probably, looked strange. But I couldn’t have cared less.

Lee, walking next to me, was calm and thoughtful. He even put his sunglasses on, again making himself look like an attractive movie star. He spoke only once.

“God, that was just so beautiful! Scary and beautiful… You’re a star, Stevie!”

“Are you crazy?!” Hannah squeaked with a shudder. “It was so horrible! Really, how could that be beautiful?”

“Horrible?” Lee stopped for a few seconds in order to relight his cigar. “Of course it can… how many wonderful films are made about war. And how many pictures painted. The English, the bastards, basically refined that genre to perfection! What paintings they painted about battle! And they are everywhere. No matter where you go…”

“And you… What did the English do that you don’t like them so much, Andy?”

She hadn’t decided to ask right away, we had had a chance to walk about twenty feet.

“And why should I like them?” Lee grunted mirthlessly. “They’re cruel, cynical bastards. For three hundred years they robbed half the world and drowned it in blood… As well they should have!”

“But that was a long time ago…” Hannah uncertainly proposed.

“But, even now they haven’t changed,” my friend said, casually puffing on his cigar. “They’re fat-faced, impudent…”

I ed the sad eyes and narrow shoulders of Richard Mills. At least, he could not, by definition, be responsible for the crimes of his pirate ancestors.

“For variety’s sake turn on the TV once in a while, Lee.”

“What for?” surprised, he glanced at me over his glasses.

“You’ll hear that now the States are fighting on four fronts. And everyone accuses us of being on a quest for world domination.”

“Really? Thanks, for telling me. Now I definitely won’t turn it on. Better yet, why don’t you tell me – do your arms hurt? Because I heard that it happens after an intense strain – at first nothing, but then…”

I saw the restaurant that we were looking for from a ways away. It was not, as Annie had assured me, a hole in the wall – at least not now. Noticing from afar a big crowd of people at the entrance, I even thought wistfully that we would have to wait in line, which, today, I definitely did not want to do. Our pushy Annie hated lines. “Waiting in line is a hobby for losers,” she often said.

But my worry was unfounded. They found us a table, even though the place was practically standing room only. We did have to sit on the upstairs landing by the railing, but the entire first floor was visible.

“I wonder where sixteen-year old Annie sat, having happily run away from

Benningville?” I thought, although I was sure that it would have been near the window. Greedily devouring the sub and watching the people go by, New Yorkers, mysterious, like Martians that did not resemble the inhabitants of our little town at all…

There was music playing. A big flat screen TV, hanging on the wall, was on with the sound turned off. It showed us in front of a fire engine. Hannah, the poor thing, looked even thinner than she was in real life. Lee every now and then tried to take a step away, as if he didn’t want to steal someone else’s glory, but didn’t quite pull it off.

The smiling waiter, a guy about our age, was a professional – with practically circus-like movements he managed to simultaneously push Hannah’s chair in, fix the napkins lying on the slightly shabby wooden table, and flick an invisible crumb off the corner. The name on his nametag was Andy.

“Listen, Andy,” Lee grabbed him by the elbow, “Be a good fellow and bring us a bottle of Jim Beam right away. Or else we’ll have you running back and forth all night. Honestly…”

“And four glasses, if possible,” I calmly asked.

Andy the waiter was no idiot. He understood everything. He didn’t ask if we were waiting for someone else. Just politely stopped smiling and became reserved. It seemed to me for some reason that he, probably, had also had to place a glass on the table from which no one would take a drink…

“Of course, sir.”

“And one more thing… Tell me, Andy, do you still make those meatball subs? Like years ago?”

I asked this just because, speculating, knowing already that it was almost impossible.

But Andy surprised me.

“Of course! It’s the specialty of the house. Almost everyone orders it. I’ll also bring a fourth sandwich, correct?”

I promised myself to come back to “Brother Will”. Maybe not often and not regularly, but once a year on this day – for sure…

The table next to us wasn’t empty for long – a noisy company of Chinese was coming up the stairs. Not small neat tourists with cameras, but four guys who were very large, and obviously drunken idiots. The long hair of one of them was colored with two bleached white stripes. The second had very short hair. The other two were indistinguishable from each other.

The were dressed, as crazy as it might seem, exactly like Lee and me – black suits and snow white shirts. But they clearly weren’t in mourning, completely the opposite – they were having a good old time. Moreover they were speaking English.

“So I gave it to her and stuck it right between her tits!” the blondish one happily shouted over the music which wasn’t very loud. Pulling out the wooden chairs and sitting down, his companions burst out laughing like idiots after a good joke.

“We need to ask Andy the waiter to sit us somewhere else,” I thought.

“It’s always like that with the ones who pretend to be virgins!” the short-haired one continued the conversation vociferously, with inexplicable Chinese joy. “I’m telling you, that what makes them sluts! And, man, do they love to suck! Oh how they suck!”

Lee, sitting with his back to him, turned around a little, turning his chair.

“Hey, friend, watch your language, OK? Maybe you didn’t notice, but we are here with a lady…”

The longhaired one with the stripes responded. Among them, he must have been crowned the king of Chinese humor.

“Yeah, we see! Looks like you have a three-some going!”

His friends laughed so nastily and loudly, as if he had really said something funny. Well, what should you really expect from the sons of a nation that eats dolphins?

“They completely fucking wore the poor baby out!” Stripes cheerfully shouted, encouraged by the laughter of his knucklehead friends. “Man, I’m telling you, they fuck her and don’t feed her! Look, look! She probably hangs on it like a monkey!” he playfully winked his cloudy samurai eye at Hannah. “Don’t worry baby, I’ll buy you a nice big piece of meat that you’ll never get from these two faggots! Of course, you’ll have to work it hard with your little mouth, but no worries – look at those lips!”

I thought I had moved very quickly. But still I wasn’t first. Lee was already on his feet, holding a heavy wooden chair in his hands. He hit the shaggy one with such brutal force that the chair shattered with a sickening crunch into shiny wooden sticks. Just like in the movies…

The guy crashed to the floor with a heavy dead thud, like if you knocked over an old dresser, and from under his head a small snake of blood slithered out. The laughter of the Chinese instantaneously turned into shrill battle cries. One of them hesitated, jammed in between the table and the railing. However, the other two threw themselves at Lee with unexpected agility. But I was already at his side with a heavy wooden leg from the broken chair in my hand. I swung it around, but did the opposite and kicked with my leg, and connected. Life experience shone through. And then it all kicked off…

We probably would have killed each other, but it was cramped on the landing, and the fight turned very quickly into a furious mass of bodies. And then some police uniforms appeared, someone’s strong knee pressed my face to the wooden floor, and my twisted left arm stopped obeying my commands…

“Strange, New York cops aren’t all that fit, but they do how to twist your arms beautifully…” I managed to think before my right arm also went numb, and from behind my back I heard the metallic click of handcuffs. “I wonder, do they train them especially to so that?”

The cell at the police precinct was spacious and freshly painted. And would have even seemed cozy in its own way, if the caustic acetone smell of cheap paint would have had time to air out.

Everything else was the same as usual – two tattooed black gangsters who looked exactly like Mike Tyson, squatting in the far corner, a rich white guy obviously scared of them, intuitively huddling toward us, but still undecided whether to speak, a bum who was oblivious to the whole world was up against the wall, and a few other types that you would typically find in this kind of place…

The cops didn’t treat us with any special favors, they were malevolently tired, but still let us make our phone calls. Both of us. It’s good to live in a free country.

Lee, naturally, made Mrs. Rosenfeld’s day once again, and I, practically without hope, dialed the number of Ann’s cell, which was still lying in Hannah’s handbag. My good girl not only heard the vibrations, but even answered uncertainly. I told her to take a taxi and go home. She could rest until morning…

We sat, leaning with our backs against the cold wall.

“Man, what assholes they were,” Lee grumbled without malice, touching his split lip and checking his teeth (he, nevertheless, managed to take a serious punch during all the commotion).

“Just don’t worry… I mean, about the wake for Annie. We didn’t go there to eat, after all, right? But we marked the moment in full, I think…”

“Are you kidding?” It was the last thing that I was going to worry about. “Annie would have ripped half the face off of one of those idiots with a fork…”

“I would have too…” my friend sighed sincerely, “but they hadn’t brought us any forks yet… I wonder, the blond…the comedian…I didn’t kill him, did I?”

“No,” I lied, although I had no idea whether the long-haired asshole would survive that blow, which could have crippled an elephant. “When they dragged him downstairs he moaned and even rolled over onto his stomach, I saw it myself.”

“Then I can relax…”

Lee straightened out with a sigh, pressed the back of his head against the wall and closed his eyes. We were silent for a few minutes.

“Listen, Lee, that stuff that you made up about Hannah, I didn’t get it?” I asked before he fell asleep – Andy had fallen asleep in a cell before, filling me with absolute wonder.

“I didn’t make anything up,” Lee answered, not opening his eyes. “It’s you who pretend for some reason…”

“Pretend?” I sincerely did not understand.

“Geez, she is in love with you, like a teenager! You’re such a dumbass… And she would gladly give up all her fucking spells if only you would fuck her!”

I was dumbfounded. For a second I had the fleeting hope that my friend was only joking, but he seemed completely serious.

“And where did you get that idea?” I asked so loud that the rich boy sitting near us jumped. I said quieter, “No, seriously! You, of course, are a great painter, ladee-da, with special vision and all that shit, but…”

“Fucking ‘vision’ has nothing to do with it,” Lee laughed shortly, grimacing a little from the pain of his split lip. “Any moron can see it from a mile away… Will she, by the way, think to order or buy something to eat? Or will she just sit there and starve until you get home?”

“There is bread, butter and caviar in the fridge. She loves it. Just like your Andy Warhol… So don’t worry.”

Again we were silent.

“Another endless day,” I thought. “Like two months…”

But I wasn’t especially surprised. Not so long ago I had another day like this –

the day that I brought Hannah to New York.

“So and what, in your opinion, should I do?” I asked, like an idiot.

“You are asking me?” Lee opened his eyes a little, briefly glancing at me. “How should I know? I’m not your sexual guru…”

“And who is my sexual guru?” I said offended. “You are my only friend, by the way…”

“Well, give your ‘only friend’ a chance to sleep a little,” Andy yawned. “Damn, I want a smoke…”

And he enviously looked at the gangsters nestled in the corner, who were taking deep drags.

“And I will definitely paint her…” he said barely audible, again closing his eyes.

“Who – her? Hannah?” I didn’t understand.

“The woman in the fire, Stevie,” Lee yawned and totally sleepy muttered, “The woman in the fire…”

After a minute he was already snoring hoarsely. And I sat there for a long time, feeling the cold institutional wall against my back, and turning the events of this never-ending day over in my head.

The wake was worthy of my Annie. She would have been happy with it.

I tried to convince myself that she saw everything from some mysterious heights above the clouds, which priests talk about, but I couldn’t. If her soul, flying out of her body – those very same 29 grams – is alive, then probably she is not interested in a fire on Prince Street, or the salvation of infants and the terrible deaths of their mothers, or in fights with drunken Chinese idiots.

Immortality is something else. It means that I am thinking about her now. And I never will forget her.

My thoughts somehow turned, by themselves, to Hannah. I imagined her alone, in my empty apartment on West 86th Street. Of course, she didn’t turn on the TV and is sitting right now, scared and lonely, in the half-dark – or in the total darkness, if that’s the case – on my couch, with her knees pulled up under her chin like a child. She’d be chewing an enormous caviar sandwich, afraid that I will somehow hate her because of Annie’s death. She’s such an idiot… I felt something like anxiety and pity.

Really, Lee wasn’t kidding? Forget it, it’s nonsense… Of course, I grew attached to my thin little witch, but, love, no way. That is something else all together. And what about sex? Lee knows perfectly well that I like expensive sluts – slender, skillful, charmingly shameless… And who said that I would no longer need any ancient Scottish witchcraft? Who’s to know? My life was not over yet…

No, let her stay my thin little sister with slightly frightened eyes and fingers that look like pencils…

* * *

I must have fallen asleep after all because the clatter of the opening of the cell door scared away some kind of tender and naive vision, and painfully filled my ears…

“Wright! Litover! You’re out! You made bail!” the cop practically shouted. He was a fresh one who had just started his shift. I can’t ever anyone pronouncing Lee’s real last name correctly, so we weren’t surprised. I guess he needed to officially change his name…

Andy slowly got up to his feet, stretched languidly, and rubbed his face. I also pushed my hand into the floor and stood up, feeling disgustingly numb from the cold and the uncomfortable position…

In addition to the young cop, Mr. Mirsky was present in the cramped office to which they took us. In person.

“What, he never sleeps?” I thought sleepily, looking at his beautifully shaven face, the ment-perfect knot in his tie and energetic glow in his eyes.

The attorney shook our hands. His hand felt exactly the same as that of his junior partner, Mr. Katz, only a little more indifferent to the suffering of the world.

“Sign here,” the cop growled not especially angrily, pushing two pieces of paper toward us.

Lee looked inquiringly at the lawyer, who nodded his head in a dignified reply. And he nodded to me as well. I was his client now, and, for the money he was getting, of course, required a separate nod of consultation. Strangely enough, I felt something like conceit.

“I hope that you aren’t planning to leave the city in the near future?” asked the cop sternly, carefully placing our signed statements in some kind of file.

I shrugged my shoulders, but just in case, coughing, answered, “No.”

“You, Mr. Lee?”

“Well, I am supposed to go to Europe soon. To Paris. In three weeks…”

“Well I hope that everything will be settled by that time,” snapped the cop.

“I have no doubt,” Mr. Mirsky added in a rich baritone, “The case seems very clear to me.”

“On the whole – yes,” the cop said, trying with all his power to appear to be the

one in charge in the small office. “Eight witnesses gave written s in your favor…”

This he actually addressed to Lee and me – sleepy, tired, in torn suits.

“But, obviously, there will be a trial. One of the participants of the incident, Mr…” he consulted some papers lying on the table, “Nobu…Nobugata is still in the hospital.”

“Better than in the morgue,” I thought, recalling the sound the half-blond made when he collapsed to the floor of the restaurant.

“As I understand it, my clients are free to go, officer?” Mr. Mirsky stated, more than asked.

“Yes,” the cop tossed out and looked at the lawyer with what was almost hatred in his eyes.

…Dawn was the color of cheap toilet paper. But as anyone who has ever been freed from a jail cell understands, we weren’t interested in the petty antics of imbeciles like the cop. Lee immediately lit up one of his cigars that he had gotten back and practically moaned with pleasure. I, on the other hand, inhaled deeply, taking a swallow of New York in the morning.

“Can I offer you a lift, gentlemen?” Mr. Mirsky asked.

His Bentley, as long as a bus, decorated the wretched police building, frozen in the parking lot.

We amicably refused.

“Then, I bid you good day,” the lawyer smiled predatorily, “and I assure you – you don’t have anything to worry about…”

“Thank you, Richard,” Lee mentioned to Mirsky, who was already getting into his car. I did not say anything.

We walked slowly along the street, shivering from lack of sleep and the chill of the dawn.

“Call Hannah,” Lee reminded me. “She’s probably not sleeping. And if she is sleeping, she’ll still be glad…”

“I’ll call later, from the cab,” I was not able to be mad at my friend, but these conversations about Hannah were starting to get on my nerves. “What do you think, is there anything open around here at this time? I mean a coffee shop or something…”

“Forget the coffee shop! I already painted her! Completely!”

“Painted who?” I didn’t understand in my sleepy state.

“The woman in the fire,” Lee had a familiar look in his eye – like bright lights shining through fog. His eyes were always like that when he worked. “I already told you yesterday. So, now let’s get a move on – home, home! Before I forget something!”

“OK. Work is sacred,” I reached out my hand to Andy, “OK, til tomorrow. And thanks for everything, Lee…”

“OK, cut it out…” he was embarrassed, but spotting a cab, he jumped, with unexpected agility, to the edge of the curb right away, and stuck out his hand. The car, rocking forward, obediently froze right next to him, and Lee opened the door. “And why tomorrow? Come this evening, we’ll go out somewhere. I told you – I already painted it…”

I escorted the cab with my gaze, feeling a wave of envy. Once upon a time I also felt that way about my work, but it was a long time ago, and the sensation was already forgotten…

I wasn’t in a hurry to catch a cab. I wanted to walk, despite the chill. My tingling body had only just rid itself of a million nasty little needles, and once again felt normal and familiar. And I should call Hannah – I was sure that she hadn’t slept all night – so that she could relax and go to bed.

So I slid my hand into my pocket to get my cell…

It was the last thing that I .

Filmmakers lie when they deliberately slow down the pace when filming scenes of abductions. They do it in order for the audience to feel satisfied. What happened to me only took a second and a half, no more. A short blinding pain coursed through my whole body. The hands that grabbed me seemed like iron. A square of duct tape closed my mouth before I had time to scream. The sack, smelling like an old couch, was on my head before I could raise my eyes. The rumble of the sliding door of a minivan was the musical accompaniment.

My thoughts were short and fragmented – they whirled around my brain while they were already taking me somewhere.

“You idiot! Why do you think that millionaires hire bodyguards, huh? Spend thousands of dollars on home security systems? So, are you finished now, Stevie, you egalitarian? Fucking activist of the street protests…”

I hated myself at that moment.

Now, of course, we’ll arrive at a dirty warehouse in some abandoned industrial area, with rusty iron beams sticking out of the ground, and the sound of dripping water in the background. Cinematographers had shown us these pictures more than once. Preparing us for real life…

And these iron hands, I wonder what they will do in order to make me talkative and obedient? Cut off my ear? My little finger? My dick?

I suddenly understood why they call it ‘spine-tingling horror.’

How would I be able to control myself when the worst starts to happen? Would I give them everything I have, like an obedient dog? Would I fall to my knees and beg for my life? Would I give the leader a blow job?

“I don’t know,” I honestly itted to myself.

And suddenly I hated myself so much for this honestly that my fear was replaced by a wave of fury. Primeval, strong enough to make me puke, a white veil in front of unseeing eyes…

The hands of my executioner remained strong as iron, but when the minivan finally stopped, and they pulled me out into the fresh air, I was so filled with shame from my recent thoughts and animal anger, that there simply was no room left for fear.

I flinched sharply, in anticipation of another blow. But no one touched me, just the claw-like hands dragged me somewhere – I slipped on some stairs, began to put one foot in front of the other, and managed to hear the noise of the street before the sounds disappeared altogether – only the sound of our footsteps echoed dully around the blackness of the sack in which I lived.

Then the steely hands suddenly unclenched, and without any fury, threw me backwards into the emptiness. I instinctively scrunched into a ball, but the blow did not follow – I fell onto something comfortably soft, even enveloping.

The sack flew off my head as if by itself (I blinked from the light, although it

wasn’t bright, but soft), gasped hollowly from a pain like a short burn – which was from someone else’s fingers swiftly tearing the strip of tape off my mouth…

There were no rusted beams. Or any other of the expected horrors from the movies. I sat on a luxurious sofa in a richly furnished room in front of a huge desk and chair with a high back.

My head started spinning so fast from the unreality of what was happening to me that I had to grab onto the soft fabric of the sofa.

One of the people with the steel hands was next to me – I didn’t see him, I felt him, like a bat or a snarling wounded wolf could.

Turning around sharply to my left I saw him, standing a few steps away – six foot five, two hundred fifty pounds of muscle, neat haircut, grey suit over a black turtleneck, expressionless face.

He wasn’t looking at me, but straight ahead, barely rocking from his heels to his toes, as if he had nothing to do with me.

And he said nothing.

I also didn’t make any sound. I didn’t have anything poignant to say, and I wasn’t about to just babble pathetically – the shame from my recent cowardly thoughts still burned in my heart like fire…

I tried to sit up higher, but it didn’t work, the sofa was too soft. You put this kind in your recreation room, not in an office.

The following minute of silence seemed never-ending to me. Thoughts – each stupider than the one before – whirled around in my head, but not one grew into a guess. And it wasn’t surprising – all nonsense has to have its limits.

I would have thought that this was simply just all a dream, but no, the details were too real – the pain in my lips from the tape being torn off, the figure of the thug next to me, and even the couch, the unnatural softness of which my numb body was enjoying after the night in the cell.

The chair, standing behind the desk, turned around so quickly, that I involuntarily jumped back. It turned out that it was not empty. A man was sitting in it, with one leg crossed over the other. And now we were face to face.

The stranger was handsome, like a movie star. He had a tanned face, snow white teeth, extremely precise three-day old stubble, and long chestnut hair, combed straight back. His light hazel eyes looked at me with condescending curiosity.

He was in a beautiful brown suit over a sparkling white shirt, under which a thick gold chain with a square weave was visible. His shoes, made from some unimaginable leather, shone as if they had been covered in lacquer. A heavy Rolex was hanging from his relaxed wrist, matching the stylish ring on his little finger.

“Well, hello, Stephen Wright,” he said with a smile, which seemed devoid of humor, “I am Eugene. Eugene Andersen.”

His voice was like it should have been – sweet and velvety, ringing with notes of authority.

He didn’t offer to shake hands. And rightly so – because next to this wellgroomed bastard I felt like a little shaggy mutt, which made me even angrier.

“You know, Eugene Andersen, that in the State of New York you get twenty years for kidnapping?” I asked him hoarsely, trying to keep my voice as firm as possible, “As a minimum?”

“Kidnapping?” his surprise seemed so sincere, that I even believed him for a second. But only for a second. “What kidnapping are you talking about, Stephen? No, I really don’t understand! You ed out and fell right in front of my door. I couldn’t just let you lie there on the ground! My employees very carefully brought you inside. I was just about to call the ambulance, when you suddenly came to your senses… You don’t believe me, ask anyone you like! A bunch of witnesses saw the whole thing. A bunch!”

In the end I was able to get out of the over-soft couch and sit up higher. “You mean to say that I can get up and go with no problem?” I asked with an unkind, evil grin. “Right now?…”

“Yes, of course.” A huge cigar had appeared in Andersen’s long manicured fingers. It was completely different to the ones that Lee smoked – light-brown, a little thicker in the center. The master of the office skillfully and carefully cut off the end with a silver “guillotine”, and lit it with a DuPont lighter, inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

“He really does love himself, the bastard!” I thought angrily, “And boy does he love his expensive gadgets…”

“Although honestly, it would be better for both of us if we cleared up one especially important issue first…” said Andersen, emitting an unfamiliar smelling trickle of smoke up to the ceiling.

“What issue is that? And how the hell do you know who I am?” I barked, already with a stronger voice.

“Oh…” Eugene smiled broadly through the wafting smoke, “You can’t even imagine how much I learned about you in the last six hours!” he elegantly reclined in the chair. “So much, Stephen, it’s like we’ve been friends for all of our lives. But it is understandable – after a month of anxious waiting and intense searches…”

I sat there completely thrown for a loop. I probably had a corresponding look on my face because Andersen leaned forward a little and looked sympathetically into my eyes.

“You don’t understand? Goodness, it is all so simple! I was also at the gallery of that queer Brit, when that drunken buffoon, you him, of course! – told his story about Hannah…”

My heart skipped a beat at the mention of the familiar name, but the pretty-boy Eugene Andersen, so satisfied with himself, obviously didn’t notice it.

“Most interestingly, I, of course, do not frequent such low class establishments in the Village. But this time I attended because I had nothing better to do. Funny, no?”

“Yeah, I’m pissing myself it’s so funny,” I finally got a hold of myself. “One thing is still not clear to me – what do you want from me, stubble face?”

It sounded rather rude, but, if he was offended, he gave no sign of it. He just paused, releasing more smelly smoke to the ceiling, like he was choosing his words for the most important part of the conversation.

“In general we are surrounded by cowardly losers and idiots, Steve, you, I’m sure won’t argue with that. These kinds of people simply can’t believe in miracles. And rightly so… let them watch ‘Harry Potter’ and eat their hot dogs, am I right?… In a word, I was overconfident – my people went to Whistleroad Town only after two days. Can you imagine what I felt when I found out that she had been taken away by ‘a long-haired little punk in an old red Japanese car?’ Sorry, but those are not my words; that is how you were described by the zombies from that town… Idiots…”

He puffed on cigar with pleasure, blowing yet another cloud of smoke, and I was inevitably filled with an eerie understanding of what had happened.

“Oh how I searched for you! Goodness, how I searched for you!” Andersen sang in a sweet melody. “You cannot even imagine! For you and our miracle worker… It was good that at least we had found a photograph of her! But even so, I will honestly it, there was a moment that I thought that all was lost. Although, I hate to lose more than anything in the world…” he paused for a

moment, “And then here you are! It’s a great thing – television!”

I ed the news clip that we saw in the restaurant of a frightened and lost Hannah next to me…

“Yes, yes… Good deeds sometime end up costing a great deal, Stevie,” the prick said, as if he read my mind. “Which is why I never commit them myself, honestly… By the way, she is so thin – it’s terrible! And uglier than in her photos…”

“So wait, you need something from Hannah?” I still did not understand where he was going with all of this.

Eugene Andersen smiled condescendingly.

“Could say it that way… But it sounds rather like a one-time thing, don’t you think?” his voice became dry and evil, as if another person had spoken. “You are very lucky, you little shit-kicker from the boondocks… In short, the girl will work for me now,” he bent forward sharply, and I saw that the whites of his eyes were a little bloodshot – probably the result of sleepless nights. “The right to miracles is only given to the chosen few, Stevie.”

“And you, of course, have been chosen…”

I tried to say this ironically, but I don’t know whether I pulled it off or not. The thought that Hannah was sitting at home by herself kept pulsing through my

head. And, of course, she would open the door to anyone who rang the bell, thinking that it would be me…

“You can’t even imagine how much so.”

“Somehow, I never once read about you in Forbes,” I chuckled.

“Don’t worry, soon you will,” he crushed out more than half of his cigar in a huge crystal ashtray. “I have ve-e-e-ry big plans. Little people like you do not even have the power to imagine. Billions – are just the beginning, by the way, and anyway I am already a very wealthy man. Although, very soon, I will become even wealthier… So, do you understand?”

“Fuck you, Eugene,” I answered calmly. “You are just a deluded, unshaven asshole, who for some reason decided that you can tell me what to do…”

“I can, my friend, I can…” Andersen smiled.

“I’m not your friend motherfucker!” I replied automatically.

He acted as if he hadn’t heard me, and continued on dreamily.

“I understand, I understand everything…Of course!! The girl conjured up a little money for you, you are client of Mirsky’s firm and all that… And you can hire two dozen bodyguards ready to shield you with their powerful bodies.

Something like that, yes?” he sighed condescendingly. “So what, it will be like that for your whole life, huh, Stevie baby?” You’ll startle at every loud noise, jump back from every unfamiliar person! Anyway, none of that will help you, believe me… No matter how many guards you have, in any city in the world, a sniper can blow out your knee caps. So that amputation will be a necessity. Horrible, isn’t it? And I haven’t even mentioned our modern-day genius, Andy Lee. Imagine what would happen if one fine day he has his eyes gouged out? He’s not just a man – but an outstanding artist! And most importantly, no one would be especially surprised – New York is a city of maniacs. Everyone would blame it on some jealous failed painter… It’s a pity that I can’t add Annie Gonzalez, your charming aunt, to my list. By the way, please accept my condolences…”

I threw myself at him very quickly, despite the soft couch. But the blow from behind was even quicker – short, precise, perfected by hours of training. The pain was piercing and paralyzing. Collapsing to the floor, I was mad at myself for, in my anger, forgetting about the muscles standing next to me. The world dimmed for a moment, but I did not lose consciousness.

“Stephen, Stephen, come on! Watch yourself…”

Getting up to flop back into the couch, I tried, successfully, with all my might not to moan.

“And you’re not scared?” controlling my breath after the terrible blow and fall was not easy, “…That I will do the same thing, huh? I mean, hire a sniper, who will shoot you in the…kneecaps? Or immediately blow your brains out, so he doesn’t have to go back to the well, as they say…”

Eugene Andersen smiled a brilliant white smile.

“No, I’m not afraid. First of all, you won’t do that, you know it yourself. Secondly, you would have to wait in line… I am used to working outside the law, Stephen. You are not. That makes all the difference… Tell me that I’m wrong? All the same… And if you try to tell the truth to the police, you’ll spend the rest of your days in an insane asylum. You understand – a witch, miracles… The cops will have a field day!”

“And, what if, say, Hannah turns you into a pig?” I tried all I could to smile. But it must have turned out to be a pitiful smile. “Or into a rat, to run around the garbage dumps of Brooklyn?”

Now Andersen spoke with a business-like calmness, without a smile.

“Come on. She has never done anything of the kind; her idiotic neighbors told me all about her. But, you know, your naïve courage has touched me. And, you also believed in miracles… So, let us do like this – you will speak with the girl and explain to her what I have been trying to explain to you for the last half of an hour, and you will receive five percent of every multi-million dollar deal I make for the rest of your life. And we’ll be friends. Deal?”

I understood one thing – I needed to get out of there as fast as possible. But anyway, I couldn’t help but ask:

“Well, let’s say… Why don’t we just decide everything in one go? How much do you want? A billion? Two? Ten?”

“Oh how paltry…” he winced, “paltry and pathetic… Two, ten… I already told you, you can’t understand! Even my own head spins when I think about what I am going to do, if you want to know. So, just agree and we will consider it a deal, OK?

“I need to think about it. Talk with Hannah…”

“You’re lying,” his eyes looked at me openly and merrily. “I think that you are lying. Of course, it is probably makes more sense to chain you to a pipe in the basement and cut your dick off with a blowtorch so that girl would be more amenable – but I’m not a gangster after all! All that is left is to believe that you are smarter than you look. And that you understand that I’ve already won… Everyone whom you love, or will ever love, is already my hostage.”

He fished another cigar out of the box, and rolled it in his long fingers, but did not light it.

“I’m leaving…” I neither stated, nor asked, feeling that I could no longer stand – I was reeling.

Andersen shrugged his broad shoulders.

“By all means. Just one more second… As a last argument. Call Henri,” he said to the guy in the grey suit.

He left obediently. It was the perfect moment to jump on the handsome unshaven

Eugene Andersen, believing in miracles, and tear out his Adam’s apple. But I had neither the strength, nor anger, nor simple confidence in myself – only bewilderment and a slight feeling that everything that was happening was surreal.

The familiar muscle-head entered the room. This time he was not alonefollowing him absolutely silently came a very thin (he reminded me of Hannah) round-shouldered man with dark hair. He was dressed in all black. His eyes – two dull pieces of coal – photographed me and indifferently looked off to the side. Despite the lankiness of Henri, he exuded a cold grave-like terror, which you could feel physically.

“ this man, Henri,” Andersen said simply. “His name is Stephen Wright.”

He nodded shortly, not saying a word.

“You may go. Both of you. Thank you.”

We were left alone.

“I have a lot of faithful people,” Eugene advised, “Faithful and…how to say… not too choosy in their methods. But they are like children compared to Henri. Muscle-bound symbols of power! Yes! Well said…” he laughed, but somehow quickly, cutting himself off abruptly, and he became very serious. “But Herni… Henri is simply death. Without any romantic notions…”

“OK, we’ll agree that I am scared,” I didn’t pull off a smile.

“Rightly so. I am afraid of him myself, to be honest,” Andersen, finally, clicked open his DuPont, and lit up his smelly cigar. “So for God’s sake Stephen, don’t disappoint me. And don’t try to run. No matter what, everything will be as I wish. First I will kill the painter…what’s his name…Andy Lee, then you…”

I, not having said good-bye, turned to the door. But I stopped on the threshold and looked back. “And what if Hannah refuses nevertheless?” Eugene Andersen looked me in the eyes, forgetting about the cigar.

“I very much implore you to explain it all to her in a way, so that she does not refuse. And do it today, OK? Not that… Understand, witches, are also mortal. They just die last. Together with our blessed faith in miracles…”

* * *

The air outside was chilly and, after being in the office filled with smoke from the smelly unfamiliar cigar, piercingly unnaturally fresh. It smelled, only just a little, just the tiniest bit, of decaying grass and the fallen leaves.

Of course, I wasn’t in Manahattan – expensive single-family houses lined with old trees, frozen lawns, expensive cars parked in the driveways…

Three thugs in cheap suits, standing on the porch of one of the huge house, from which they pulled me out, stared after me, but strangely enough, didn’t move.

Mr. Andersen was sure that now I would be a good boy, living on five percent of a miracle…

Walking quickly, having practically covered half a block, looking back just in case, I pulled out my cell. My fingers shook terribly – I wanted to think it was just from the sleepless night and morning chill.

Hannah did not pick up.

“Where are you, you fool? Where… Where?!” I screamed hysterically to myself, listening to the long beeps. “Just be home, I’m begging you!”

But the long tones continued to spread loudly through my skull, confusing my already chaotic thoughts even more. Of course, Hannah could have been in the shower, or on the toilet, or could have not picked up out of shyness, as she often did – although that was more and more rare…

I stuck out my hand seeing the first cab in all this time.

I warmed up in the car, and calmed down a little. I didn’t even ask where we were, I didn’t care. I just told him the address.

I dialed Lee’s number – another one of the two people I held dear. I absolutely couldn’t have cared less about anyone else. I understood this very clearly now. Thank you Mr. Andersen, you helped me to better understand myself…

Lee answered immediately. He sounded excited and even happier than usual.

The back of the taxi driver shivered nervously, he even looked back quickly several times.

However, I wasn’t able to break Lee’s happy mood. He laughed.

“Listen, better yet – the Vienna Boys Choir! It’ll be funnier…”

“Lee I’m not joking!!” I shouted.

Lee finally stopped fooling around.

“Something happened?” he asked anxiously, “To Hannah?”

“I don’t know, she doesn’t answer the phone…”

“Where are you?”

“In a cab on my way home. Listen, Lee…”

“No, you listen to me,” relaxed again, Andy would not let me get a word in edgewise. “I don’t know if I’m as great a painter as everyone says, but… “The Woman in the Fire” is the best thing, in my opinion, that I’ve ever painted. Or so it seems to me at least…” he added uncertainly. “I’m waiting for you and Hannah to come round this evening so that you can see it first.”

“We are not coming round in the evening Lee!” I yelled, and the back of the taxi driver jumped again from surprise. “We will be there very soon! We are in trouble! All of us! You too!”

“So are you going to tell me what happened over there or not?” Lee asked completely calm.

I glanced at the back of the taxi driver. Well, I think he had heard enough for one day.

“I’ll tell you when I see you, OK? Until then, I beg you not to go anywhere. OK?!”

“Hey, don’t yell like that,” Lee laughed at the other end of the line, “I won’t. I’ll even go to sleep for an hour or so, that make you happy? OK, take care of yourself, Stevie, my friend, don’t worry. It’s like you’re having a baby, man… OK, I’m waiting for you guys…”

As always, Lee’s calm and slightly amused voice did the trick. “As a matter of fact, why am I freaking out, like a scared little girl?” I got angry with myself, “This Andersen bastard will be sorry that he every messed with me…”

Just in case I looked back, but did not see anything resembling a tail.

Hannah, as before, still wasn’t answering.

It was strange, but it already did not conjure up the hysterical panic as it had five minutes ago. Hesitating just a little, I dialed the number of Mr. Mirsky’s firm. War means war.

“Legal offices of Richard Mirsky.”

The voice of the secretary was precise and calmly energetic, as if to convey that right this minute all of the problems of the caller, no matter what they were, already were under control. If, of course, the caller had the money…

“Hello,” I was surprised myself by how sure and calm my voice sounded, just a short time ago it had been frightened and hysterical. “This is Stephen Wright.”

“How can I help you Mr. Wright?” rattled off the secretary.

“I need to speak urgently with Mr. Mirsky,” I said firmly, “and to meet with him, as soon as possible. I can come in right now.”

I had just decided to tell everything to the old shyster. Absolutely everything,

down to the last detail. And I was not worried at all that after my stories about a Scottish witch and her wonders that he would decide, once and for all, that I was completely insane. Just as long as he does his job, no matter how it turns out. But somehow, I had the feeling that I would be far from the only crazy one among the Mr. Mirsky’s clients. New York was full of rich idiots. And they all needed a lawyer. So, I’d fit in well with them…

“Unfortunately, Mr. Mirsky is in London at the moment. He has just begun a very big deal…”

“Then with Mr. Katz,” I interrupted. Today I wasn’t worried about being polite.

“Mr. Katz is with Mr. Mirsky,” the energetic voice told me, “but I can connect you immediately with his assistant Jack Savage. I am sure that he will be able to help you with any issues…”

“Thank you, I’ll think about it,” I answered and disconnected the call. “Lawyers, just like cops,” I thought bitterly, “are never around when you need one.” Telling some polished Harvard grad about what has happened to me would have not only been ridiculous, it would have been useless. I regretted not asking the secretary when Mirsky and Katz were returning from London.

Four blocks from the park we got stuck in a terrible traffic jam. And thoughts piled up in me – unbidden and disturbing. When you are stuck in traffic, or riding the subway, it is impossible not to think…

I imagined tiny thin Hannah, with her big, dark eyes, frightened and obedient, like a slave, fulfillling the whims of Andersen, adorned with his expensive

gadgets. I imagined me – helpless and so small in a world of big people, and Lee blinded in dark round glasses, wandering through a crowd on Lexington with a thin cane his hand tapping along. It was unbearable!”

I paid the taxi driver and ran the rest of the way on foot, feeling how my body and my heart were filling up with healthy young anger and confidence. “No, we will never give up!! We will hide, we will wait, and we will strike back!! We are young, rich and brave! And Hannah is mine! Mine! Not like a thing, but like a kitten or a puppy! Lee compared her to a puppy, completely not wanting to hurt anyone! Like a little sister, after all, although she is older than me by a year… Of course, for my sake she would become a servant, a slave, whatever! But I won’t ever let that happen! Do you hear me, Andersen, you son of a bitch who believes in miracles?!”

Running past the park, by habit I cast a glance at the completely empty place where the American Hero’s creaky crate usually stood, for some reason recalling, that he was first, even before Lee, to tell me that you have to pay for miracles… I’ll pay, Hero, oh I’ll pay for them alright!

The last thing that I felt in my heart was fear. And for some reason I thought, “It’s a shame that I don’t have a gun…”

A police car on my native 86th Street, right in front of my house, and my heart skipped a beat. But the cops were lazily dealing with a wino who kept falling down awkwardly, and every now and then radioed in trying to decide where to take him – to the hospital or straight to the precinct.

Throwing them a quick glance, I feverishly punched in my code to the door and ran in up the stairs.

Hannah was not home. But there weren’t any ‘sings of a struggle’, like they write about in police reports. Although, what kind of ‘struggle’ could there have been, I thought sullenly, ing the steel hands of my kidnappers…

My apartment was immaculately tidy, but without Hannah it seemed like it had been robbed.

“Goodness, girl, where are you?”

I didn’t even manage to exhale the end of my half-prayer to God-knows whom, when a key rustled quietly in the door.

My beloved little witch looked wonderful – bright eyes, a light blush on her eternally white cheeks, her hair an autumn cloud… In her hands she was holding a bag which smelled delicious.

“Where have you been?!” I yelled, like a complete idiot.

She cringed and froze with fright.

“I went to the bakery… You said it was OK, right?”

There was something puppy-like in her submission. I was ashamed.

“Something was broken in our usual bakery, so I had to go to Dunkin’ Donuts on 78th…” she practically whispered. “Please don’t be angry, I just wanted to do something nice…”

I should have said something tender, calming to her, but it was too early to calm down.

“Get your things, quickly!” I commanded, “We’re leaving.”

“And…what should I bring?” Hannah asked confused, putting the bag with the donuts on the table.

“You can leave your evening gowns!” I barked. “Take only what you really need! Have you lost your mind?” I tore her old suitcase out of her hands. “Only what you really need, got it?! Underwear, a few of those…tampons, or whatever you use… Or, you know what, its better if you don’t bring anything! We’ll just buy whatever we need!”

Hannah, saying nothing, went into her room and came back a minute later dressed in thick jeans, a pretty white sweater, and a stylish jacket. She had pulled her hair back into a thick ponytail. On her feet she wore beautiful suede moccasins which I had never seen before. It seems that pushy Ann did have time to teach the provincial girl from Whistleroad Town to look simple, beautiful and expensive, not even knowing that she was a hereditary Scottish witch.

“OK, that’s seems like everything…” I fastened a fanny pack around my waist

full of money, cards, ID and keys, threw a short overcoat on over my suit, in which I had spent the night in jail. “Come on, quickly…”

I didn’t have a direct exit to the parking garage, we had to walk about five yard to the neighboring building.

So I immediately noticed them out of the five or six people scattered along the narrow street. They looked different, but still resembled each other – big, meatyfaced, with little vigilant eyes, like a bull-terrier’s. Of course, they didn’t follow me when I left in the cab, because they knew exactly where I was going. They were just waiting for me here…

The thought struck me that Hannah got back to the apartment by accident. They didn’t grab her, afraid of the cops, who had finally taken the wino with the busted-up forehead somewhere. Today, unlike my lawyers, the police had turned up exactly where they need to be when they were needed most of all.

“That unshaven schmuck in the Rolex wasn’t even going to give me the day to think about it,” I understood. “He just demonstrated his power, and the fact that I couldn’t go anywhere. And, also, he just couldn’t wait to get his hands on Hannah…”

I clenched my teeth with loathing. And, holding the girl by the hand, dove through the gates of the parking garage.

This time they didn’t leave it to chance. Two black Chevy Tahoes, like they had just driven off the set of some gangster film, crawled after us, not hiding and not catching up to us either.

Actually, nothing else was possible because of the traffic. We didn’t drive, but crawled, stopping every now and then. It was then, staring at straight ahead, that I told Hannah everything. Absolutely everything. She was quiet for three minutes, and when she spoke, it was very quiet, but calm.

“I can’t serve that person. He obviously wants to change the order of things and do evil things… Even if I agree, I won’t be able to do it…”

“And what about the other option? Transform him into a toad? Huh? And these guys, who are following us, how about turning them into homeless ringwormridden mutts, awaiting sterilization…”

I felt surprisingly better at the thought of that this was going to happen. Maybe, because of that, there were notes of guilt in Hannah’s voice:

“You already know that I can’t do evil… Even to bad people…”

“Turning him into a toad is also considered evil?” I wanted to ask, but I didn’t, already knowing the answer.

“But…you won’t give me to him?” Hannah gasped suddenly in a strange whimper. “Please! Tell me you won’t give me away! I’m, I’m yours! We promised each other…”

Tearing my eyes from the road, I saw that she was crying effusively.

“Aww, come on, what are you on about?” I was a bit disconcerted, even though my good witch had only said out loud the very same thoughts I had had about an hour ago. “Nobody is going to give you to anybody, got it? So there… And you don’t need to cry!”

“I’m afraid…” sobbed Hannah.

“And you don’t need to be afraid either.”

I had no choice but to be tough and courageous around her. We couldn’t afford to both come apart at the seams…

“I’m not afraid of them…” Hannah suddenly said, with a sniff, “but of that man…”

“What man?” I didn’t understand, “Andersen?”

“No… The man that he called… With the foreign name. From your words it seems like he is absolutely evil…”

Hannah said her last words in practically a whisper.

On the way into the Village the traffic jam broke up, and I drove on the familiar

road watching the two black tanks of our followers.

My cell phone rang.

“Lee,” I thought happily.

But the voice resonating from the handset was another – sweet, self-confident – powerful. The voice of Eugene Andersen.

“You decided to run, you stupid little twerp?” he sighed. “So it turns out that, you, aside from everything else, are an idiot too… However, I have decided to give you one last chance. Turn around and come here with the girl. Right now. And everything will be fine. When everything is fine, it is better than when everything is awful, is it not?

“Go fuck your mother, Eugene,” I answered calmly and hung up.

Maybe, the smartest thing would have been to stop at the first cop and tell him that I was being followed?

Instead, I handed Hannah the phone and said, “Call Lee.”

She had a little trouble with the phone, but then held it next to her ear for a long time. And then looked up at me with her big guilty eyes.

“He is not answering…”

“Oh God…” I felt a chill fill with my entire body – metallic and dead, like in a freezer.

But we were almost there.

“Quickly!” I shouted to Hannah, parking with a screech between the crimson Ferrari of the Arab who had never been to the States, and Lee’s square

Mercedes.

We scurried out of the car.

My friend was here. Smiling and carefree, he smiled down at us from his enormous balcony, sending smoke rings up into the sky. He waved a hand stained with paint.

“Are you not ready yet?” I screamed furiously. It came out pathetic and unconvincing.

“Always prepared, scoutmaster!” Lee answered with mock solemnity. “But for you, Stevie, this seems like the perfect time to settle your nerves. In the Swiss

Alps, for instance. Come on, let’s all go together! It’s so beautiful there…”

“Lee, this is serious!” I frantically looked behind me, afraid to see the two shining black cars, like hearses, and felt how awfully overwrought, frightened and fidgety I must seem.

“Come on, man…” Lee remained imperturbable. “You better look around you! What a beautiful autumn!… Unbelievable… Come on in, why did you stop there? No, better yet, I’ll come down to you…”

For a few seconds I was speechless with horror. And only then yelled:

“No, Lee! Don’t come out! Don’t do it!”

Grabbing the witch by the wrist, I dragged her into the spacious lobby and practically ran for the elevator. The Terminator raised his eyes at us, but didn’t say anything. And a good thing too – today was the day I would have told him to fuck off without a moment’s hesitation.

Just then they came in after us. I didn’t hear the sound of the brakes or the slamming of doors. The silent Terminator was not looking at Hannah and me, but somewhere over our shoulders.

Having pulled up even with him, I looked back. There were four of them – all of the same guys who were lying in wait for me outside my place on 86th. Three white guys, one black. The same swollen faces, the same little eyes like evil

buttons…

“How I can help you gentlemen?” he asked strictly.

The four of them were perplexed. But only for a second.

“Listen here, Brutus,” said one of them in a singsong voice, probably the leader. “Let’s do without the heroism, OK? For the kind of money you make, it definitely isn’t worth dying over…”

The doors of the elevator opened almost noiselessly behind our backs. Now Lee was standing next to us, watching what was happening in astonishment.

“What the hell?… What’s going on?” he asked slightly confused.

But none of us had time to answer. Probably for the sake of trying to deter them (or, maybe, following instructions, I don’t know), the Terminator put his hand on his pistol…

And the world immediately exploded. There was a deafening inhuman roar. I don’t how I ended up on the floor behind the reception desk. Hannah and Lee were lying next to me. Only the Terminator remained standing. He had two large holes in his back, from which thick black (I don’t know which literary idiot decided that it is red) blood dripped down his beige uniform into a puddle on the floor. The blood gave off an odor – nauseating and unlike anything else…

“This can’t be happening,” I thought numbly. “Not this…”

And then the powerful body of the Terminator collapsed right next to us, and the impossible became the bloody truth, happening right here in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City, State of New York…

Time once again started to play its tricks – it seemed like we were lying behind the reception for ten minutes, but only a few seconds had ed.

And then, I will what happened next for the rest of my life. Lee reached out his hand, calmly and assuredly, like he was opening a bottle of wine, pulled the pistol – it seemed enormous to me – of the dead Terminator out of its holster, and confidently cocked the hammer. He couldn’t have known how to do that! I couldn’t have done it, I’m telling you! Only quite recently, at some bohemian party, he itted that he had never even held a gun!

But the pistol fit his hand like a glove.

Lee easily got up from behind the reception and beautifully turning his body, pointed his hand with the gun forward, looking like an archer for an instant. His face looked handsome and calm. Who was he at that moment? A Russian hussar in a duel in the crunchy snow? A Sioux warrior chief pulling himself up to his full height on the fear of his enemy? The guy numb with terror, by the name of Stephen Wright, scrunched up on the expensive tiles of someone else’s vestibule didn’t know the answer. He only shuddered at the boom of two shots, the short cry of a stranger and sound of shattering glass… The tiny thin body of Hannah shook even more fiercely and pressed against me, warm and defenseless.

Lee sat down next to us – indignant and a little angry.

“Got one,” he said hoarsely.

In answer several shots rang out, blowing apart the wall next to the elevator. Now the smell of blood was mixed with the caustic smoke of gunpowder. War, probably, smells exactly like this…

Lee looked me in the eye.

“OK… There are three of them, behind the reception in the corner. I won’t let them get out of there, and you run for the car. On the count of three…”

“You are crazy!” I came to my senses out of anger. “I won’t leave you here alone! Fuck that!”

Lee did not pay any attention to my words and didn’t even look away. I was shocked that he hadn’t even turned pale having killed a man. And his grey eyes looked familiar and almost happy…

“Save the girl Stevie. Don’t worry about me. The cops will be here in a few minutes. Only not before I kill them all first, bastards… OK, that’s it! One, two…”

Before he said “three”, we were already racing through the hall littered with

broken glass, and from behind us Lee was shooting confidently and powerfully, choosing his targets from behind the semi-circular counter in the corner.

Then the retaliatory shots rang out, and I looked back – already standing on the steps outside, a few feet from the car. I couldn’t not look back. Like Lot ’s wife in the Old Testament, from whom only one thing was demanded – don’t look back…

Lee slid down the beige wall, leaving dark maroon streaks on it. His face remained composed. But instead of a chest there was just a massive bloody stain…

I don’t how I ended up behind the wheel. Hannah – pale and quiet – sat frozen beside me. The familiar asphalt of Park Way rumbled under the wheels…

The Requiem of Andy Lee

…So why did you love me, Andy Lee?

Grandson of Russian snows and the tomahawks of the Sioux, great artist of America, beautiful person and millionaire? Why?

No, you didn’t feel sorry for me. And it wasn’t self validation at the expense of the short untalented boy from Oklahoma, I would have felt it…

You loved me. You waited until I came over so I could be the first one to see your next masterpiece, which every gallery in the world would fight over. You plied me with the world’s greatest wines, made by masters, because you were a master. You didn’t need the miracles of a little witch – you actually saw that the world is not at all like they way people think it is…

You fell asleep in my miserable apartment like it was your home. Thank you…

You were the most beautiful. Both men and women fell in love with you, but you, as it turned out, just had sex with prostitutes only to stay faithful forever to your true love, your one and only…

So what made you love me, after all? Now I will never find out, like I won’t find out why the muscle-bound guard of your building, in his handsome beige uniform, hated me…

But know this – I will never forget you, Andy Lee. And I will always try to be like you. And, of course, I never will be…

Needless to say, I will name my son Andy – if I am destined to have a son – but the blood of fearless warriors and artists won’t flow through him, and he will live his life, like me, a small psychologically challenged Wright, who knows how to drive…

You died, Andy Lee. Died like a warrior, with a weapon in his hand. Died defending me. Come and visit me, even as a ghost, I beg you… For just such an

instance I will always have – no matter where I live – a box of your favorite cigars and an untouched bottle of the best red wine in the world.

* * *

That’s what I was thinking about, flying along the Long Island Expressway, and blowing past frightened cars which were jumping out of our way. Pale Hannah, chewing her lip, was sitting next to me so quietly, that sometimes it seemed like I was in the car alone.

The two black hearses, of course, tried to catch me, but we weren’t downtown anymore – at first they turned into small black dots, and then disappeared altogether. Besides, I tricked them – at first I seemed to be driving toward Anne’s house, but, fifteen miles before, I turned sharply onto a narrow road and headed south straight as an arrow.

“Where are we going?” Hannah asked quietly. It was the first time she had spoken the entire trip.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly, “Now the whole world is our oyster…”

It got dark. We ed about two dozen motels before I stopped. The establishment was decrepit; the asphalt in the parking lot was a spider web of cracks and potholes.

The old African-American man that came out to meet us looked at the Porsche

with something close to hatred. I wasn’t surprised – the awakened American public hated the rich.

“It’s nice, huh?” I nodded my head toward the car, speaking to the old man. “It’s a pity it’s so old. But new ones are for millionaires…”

The anger on the grey-bearded face instantly evaporated.

“How much, huh?” he asked.

“Six years ago it was thirty.”

In a minute we were in the room. I paid cash and did not even have to show any ID.

There was only one bed – an old square under a green bedspread. But it did not bother me at all.

First of all, Hannah locked herself in the bathroom, then she came out and sat on a chair, having moved it over to the window, through which, except for darkness, nothing was visible. Only occasionally did trucks come barreling past at crazy speeds, and then everything became dark and quiet again.

I knew that I had to say something to her. But I was at a loss for words. And for feelings. All that was left was to sit quietly together. Hannah spoke first. Without

tears, in a low hoarse voice.

“It’s me who is to blame…For everything. For absolutely everything… I could have helped you right there in Whistleroad Town. It’s just that I wanted to get out of that terrible place,” she snorted ironically. “I imagined that I could live a normal life, like everybody else… I dreamed up all kinds of things… And you decided that since I am a witch, that I would certainly be smart… You know, not long ago they showed a monkey on the TV who learned to drive a bus. That’s who I am – the same kind of monkey…”

“Stop it!,” I got angry.

“No, I won’t stop it!” Hannah turned toward me – grown up and strong, not like herself. Her huge sherry eyes got darker and seemed black, they looked hard and full of grief. “I won’t stop it! Because I don’t know what to do next. And you don’t know… They already killed Lee, they will kill us soon…”

“Don’t you dare talk like that!” I jumped over to her, grabbed her by the shoulders, and shook her. “They won’t find us! And the ones that killed Lee, they will die, I swear it… Do you hear me? We just need a few days. Get our wits …”

Her frozen face suddenly changed subtly. As if a dark shadow ed over it.

“Oh my God, I’m such a fool…” murmured Hannah, closing her eyes. “You idiot… It’s so simple, so simple!”

I said nothing, completely thrown off track.

“Well, of course! They will just forget ! Just forget… Forget that we ever existed! Forever!”

“And you…you can do this?” I asked uncertainly.

“Of course I can! Only the absolutely evil man won’t forget, but these others… What a fool…” tears ran down Hannah’s face, her eyes brightened again. “I could have done it earlier! Then Andy… Then Andy…”

I hugged her to calm her down.

But that didn’t happen. Like a thousand bolts of lightning had pierced me, I went blind in an instant. Hannah’s body – ridiculous, childlike, the funny body of my little sister – suddenly became the only one in the world – so hot and desirable it hurt. I embraced her, feeling the firmness of her young breasts and the beating of her heart, losing my head I kissed her and moaned with pleasure… And I also felt that she also wanted me. As madly as I wanted her.

We needed to get undressed, but we couldn’t tear ourselves away from each other, rolling all over the bed of the cheap motel. Then our clothes somehow went flying onto the floor – unnecessary, hated, excessive…

We stopped for a moment just once – something metallic fell from under the collar of my suit jacket with a thud. It looked like the battery from a remote

control. How a “bug” looks like in the movies.

“They are following…” I muttered, continuing to frantically undress.

“I don’t care anymore…” Hannah whispered hotly.

She tore out the elastic holding her hair back, and the fragrant chestnut cloud fell into my face, driving me completely wild…

Time didn’t fly, and it didn’t crawl. That very different world, in which our bodies intertwined into one whole, was governed by completely different laws…

You could have thought that Hannah was working her magic, but witchcraft is not able to create one thousandth of the wonderful miracle that joyously exploded through my body. And then she lost her spells, becoming mine. Mine, mine, mine and no one else’s! No, only the Sky can cast such spells over us…

And our world suddenly exploded, flying apart into hundreds of golden shards, each one of which was more pleasure than I could stand…

… I came to my senses from the fact that I realized that I was not sleeping. And propping my head up with my elbow, I gazed at my sleeping Hannah. “Dear God!” I thought, “Don’t let me die or go blind from such beauty! I beg You, God…”

There was nothing more beautiful in the world than my Hannah.

I suddenly wanted to get up and go outside to throw my face back to the sky. For some reason I was sure that a huge shaggy red-colored star was pulsing in it.

But I was afraid to wake my beloved, so I did not dare even stir. Therefore, I just lied there, propped up on my elbow, marveling at the unearthly beauty, which had now become mine. And I didn’t even notice how I fell asleep…

…Morning was steeped in tenderness. I didn’t know that there was so much in the world…

We ate breakfast in the dining room of the motel, ordering, besides the free coffee, two enormous portions of ham and eggs.

“I love to see young people eat well!” smiled the grey-bearded proprietor, placing the plates of food down in front of us.

They, of course, didn’t have any caviar on the menu in the dining room. But there also wasn’t anyone there who wanted to kill us. But just in case, I dialed Andersen’s number, which had remained in my phone after yesterday’s call. He answered almost immediately.

“Hello?”

“Hi Eugene, this is Stephen,” I began, biting off the corner of a piece of toast.

“Stephen? Which Stephen?” the bastard’s voice sounded just as nasty, but the bewilderment was sincere.

“You kidnapped me yesterday in order to get your hands on Hannah, the witch from Whistleroad Town,” I explained for full disclosure. “You have a short memory, Eugene…”

He was silent for only a few seconds.

“What is this, a joke? Idiot! Don’t you dare call me again, or I will call the police, you understand?”

The unshaven pretty-boy hung up the phone. It was silly to be mad at a person who doesn’t anything…

Having had breakfast (I just couldn’t get full, my hunger was something special, animalistic), holding each other’s hand, we left the hotel. It had gotten warmer, and it was raining in a fine drizzle.

“I love you. And have for a long time. From the first minute that I saw you…” Hannah itted suddenly blushing – blushing and hiding her face.

I tried to grab her by the shoulders, but she turned away. So we saw him at the

same time.

Looking like a skinny wet crow, Henri stood on the other side of the street. Taking two steps toward us, I heard the pop. And at that instant Hannah threw herself around my neck – so fast that I didn’t even realize what was happening. And I understood only when her weightless body, which I had made love to last night, suddenly softened, and her eyes lost their rich color – of sherry in a crystal glass, turning into two miniature dead mirrors…

The second shot was louder than the first, and I understood that now I will die. But for some reason I was still alive. And it dawned on me what had happened.

The second shot wasn’t a shot. A huge, beautiful truck, not even having time to honk its horn, had hit the killer at full speed.

In flight, he resembled a crow even more – black, scrawny, and disheveled. Before he smacked onto the asphalt thirty feet away, it was clear that he was dead.

The dead Hannah was heavier than the live one. The hole in her right temple, facing me, was so tiny that it seemed that it couldn’t be the cause of her death… But under my left hand I felt something thick and warm, and the sickening crack of fractured bones. And there was also the smell – the same sweet-frightening one, already familiar to me…

Either from the rain, or from my tears, everything around me seemed hazy, like in a fog – the trucker, frozen over the dead body, several stopped cars, the greybearded owner of the motel, who was frighteningly turning the dial of an old

telephone at reception…

Some people, having come over, wanted to take Hannah’s body from me. But I just pulled her tighter, twitching and snarling like an animal, my face tilted up to the sky, from which poured a cold, biting rain, stronger and stronger…

* * *

“Well, so did you achieve, you little hillbilly piece of shit?”

With a short army haircut, in his pajamas, from which protruded a mass of medical wires, leading into a huge console, the American Hero did not look anything like himself. Only his slightly crazy light eyes and hoarse voice were the same as before.

I had found him after all. It turned out to be a lot easier than I had thought – Bob, the detective from Mirsky’s firm – a huge African-American guy, thirty five years old, and a former cop – did it all in eight days for five thousand dollars.

It was a military hospital, but they let me in. I had told him everything. And now I stood several paces away from him. There wasn’t a chair next to his ultramodern hospital bed. And if there had been he probably would not have invited me to sit.

“You murdered a great artist, didn’t let your beloved aunt die in peace, killed the girl… You happy now, asshole?” the Hero’s voice was hoarse, but loud.

“You wanted miracles? You got ‘em, you son of a bitch! And, now of course, you got a load of dough! I forgot completely! So take it, roll it into a tube and stuff it up your skinny ass, got it? Maybe you’ll feel something like happiness! Because, there is no other way, don’t even hope… And in a couple of years your fucking millions will turn into toilet paper! You’ll see!”

The Hero didn’t have to shout all of that, scaring the jumping needles on the medical devices – I came to understand in the last two weeks since Hannah’s death more than I had in my entire life up until then. We don’t become wise from the books that we’ve read or the films that we’ve seen. What makes us wise is grief…

I realized that, at the party in the Village, my good fortune was the sad-eyed Mills, not the drunken Sherman. I understood, that, in general, I wasn’t supposed to have met Hannah, I understood that I paid the most of all for the kindness -for saving of the living bundle in the diaper smelling of fire…

And of course, I understood that in this world, where everything really is not what it seems, you have to pay too much for miracles. I was told this by the Hero, looking like Robinson Caruso, that night in the park, and by Lee holding a glass, wearing his paint-stained overalls. But these were big, strong people. Their advice isn’t applicable to small losers like me…

I understood so much, that I would have died, if not for the daily bustle – the questions from the police, the never-ending discussions with lawyers and notaries… Anne had left me everything that she had – her house, one and half million dollars, and her diva cars, about which I had always dreamed, and which now I would never touch…

Lee left me all of his forty two million dollar fortune! And, also eighteen of the works which I liked most of all. He didn’t forget which ones, he ed exactly…

The firm but polite Ms. Rosenfeld offered to dispose of them for me for a very modest percentage. I refused.

And I would have probably died too, if I hadn’t gone to a psychoanalyst for the first time in my life (oh, how Annie would have made fun of me!). The psychoanalyst looked like the coach of a hockey team; he listened to me and wrote me prescriptions for some magical pills – they didn’t help me forget my grief, but actually made it seem normal and usual. And my heart already had stopped breaking into pieces, and had gone back to regularly pumping blood through my body. I am under the effect of these tablets now.

“You me when you want to buy a remnant of happiness!” the American Hero growled sarcastically. “Or are you gonna go for another miracle, huh, you little punk? For a miracle, I know… Only then just blame yourself…”

He measured me with a disdainful look and added:

“One of my comrades – he was killed – rightly said, ‘Only a little soul can fit in a little body.’ Ain’t that the truth…”

I felt a powerful hand on my shoulder. This whole time we hadn’t been alone, from the very beginning I had been escorted by a slender man in uniform. I had promised him I would leave the ward at his first request.

“Good-bye Hero,” I said in a low voice, knowing that we wouldn’t see each other again.

He unexpectedly hawked, and lifting up off the pillow a little, spat at me.

His spittle didn’t make it, leaving a disgusting stain on the clean floor…

…When we were walking along the corridor, the soldier spoke first. He held himself as straight as if he had swallowed a ruler. And he spoke so politely, like he had killed at least ten men with his own hands.

“With you permission, sir, I would advise you not pay attention to the words of the colonel. He is schizophrenic. Although, of course, no one disputes that he was a brave soldier and an outstanding commander.”

I didn’t say anything in reply, continuing to march along the never-ending sparkling clean corridor.

“And his story about miracles is well-know to everyone. I don’t know if it is true or not, but they say that once, during the war, he made a deal with a local witchdoctor. And he got a virtually doomed battalion out of the field without losing anyone. And this, with your permission, you can’t call anything but a miracle. Not one man killed in action! Not one even wounded! Can you imagine?”

I probably needed to answer in some way, but the strange tablet evoked

indifference, not only to my own grief, but to everything in general. I needed to the name of it…

“Of course, they decided to send the battalion on R amp;R,” my companion continued rattling on. “As they usually do after these kinds of difficult operations… So the plane burned up and crashed into pieces ten minutes after takeoff. Absolutely everyone was killed. The colonel himself wasn’t on the plane, he had stayed on base. Of course, they should have retired him then, but not all of the of the commission were of that opinion…”

We were already nearing the exit.

“So, if you will allow me to give you some advice, sir,” the soldier repeated, “Forget everything that you heard.”

Again, I didn’t answer. And I knew that in order to just live I would need to forget a lot more than just the words of the Hero, who was certainly not a schizophrenic. I would need to forget the grave of my parents, which I had never been to since the day of their funeral, and Annie’s booming laugh, and the taste of the wine from a glass offered by Lee, and the almost amused eyes of that cocksucker Andersen, and much, much more…

But most importantly, I had to – no matter what the cost! – forget, forever, the former Scottish witch in the reddish sweater, with the piercing happiness in her dark eyes the color of sherry – the skinny little girl Hannah from Whistleroad Town.