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of the others. I stepped onto the footstool and propped the star against the top of the tree.
    “That’s the reason,” I said, “after the Twinform made him rich, Great-Granddad started his Foundation for the Indigent. And that’s why the Foundation has an angel on its letterhead.”
    Martine said, “Oh, I always thought that angel was just a general angel!”
    “Nope, it’s a very specific angel, I’ll have you know,” I said.
    “I don’t understand,” Mrs. Alford said. “Are you talking about the Gaitlin Foundation?”
    “Right,” I said.
    “Do you mean to say you’re one of those Gaitlins?”
    “Well, when they claim me, I am.”
    “I had no idea!”
    “I’m the black sheep,” I told her.
    “Oh, now,” Mrs. Alford said, “you could never be a black sheep.”
    “Just try telling my family that,” I said. “My family would take it kindly if I changed my name to Smith.”
    “They wouldn’t!”
    The tree was finished, by now—all the ornaments in place, not counting a paper snowflake that Mrs. Alford was hanging on to in an absentminded way. She looked distressed but also pleased, and alert for further tidbits. (People always imagine that our family must be loaded, although if they put two and two together, they would realize the Foundation had siphoned off most of the loot.)
    “He’s exaggerating,” Martine said. Probably she was afraid I’d bring up my criminal past, which our clients, of course, had no notion of. “Barnaby’s very close to his family! Seems every time I talk to him, he’s just back from seeing his grandparents.”
    “Those are my Kazmerow grandparents,” I said. “Not Gaitlins.”
    “Plug in the lights, Barnaby.”
    “The Gaitlins I see only on major holidays,” I told Mrs. Alford. “Thanksgiving. Christmas. Ever notice how closely Christmas follows Thanksgiving? Seems I’ve barely digested my turkey when I’m back for the Christmas goose, sitting in the same eternal chair, telling the same eternal relatives that yes, I’m still a manual laborer; still haven’t found my true calling; still haven’t heard from my angel yet; maybe next year.”
    “You have an angel too?” Mrs. Alford asked.
    “All the Gaitlins have angels,” I said. “They’re required. My brother Jeff saw his when he was younger than I am now.”
    “What’d she tell him?” Martine wanted to know.
    “She told him to get out of the stock market, just before Black Monday.”
    “Isn’t that kind of … money-minded for an angel?”
    “Yes,” I said. “I’ve always had my doubts about her. Besides which, she was a brunette. I maintain angels are blond.”
    Mrs. Alford was giving me this dazed look. I said, “Don’t worry, Mrs. A.; I’m not serious,” and I took the snowflake from her and hung it. (It was pancake-sized, slightly crumpled, snipped from gift wrap so old that the Santas were smoking cigarettes.) “I don’t think my family’s serious, either, when you get right down to it,” I said. “Shoot, they don’t even go to church! My dad’s an outright atheist! The angels are just one of those, like, insider things that help them imagine they’re special. You know? I bet your family has some of those.”
    “Well …,” she said dubiously.
    I bent to plug in the lights, and when I straightened up, the tree was sending out this dusty, faded glow and Mrs. Alford had her hands clasped under her chin. “Oh! How pretty!” she said.
    Some of the branches were drooping—the ones where the modeling-clay animals hung. Some of the paper chains’ links had sprung open. The pine cones had lost quite a few of their scales, so that they had a snaggle-toothed look. But Mrs. Alford said, “Isn’t it perfect?”
    I said, “It certainly is.”
    By the time we got back to the truck it was dark, and a chilly drizzle was falling. Martine had to switch her windshield wipers on. While she drove, I filled in the time sheets, one for her and one for me, and I tore the carbon copy off