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he was Moe’s age. He remembered where he was when he was Moe’s age.
    He’d just done the first year at Auburn. And the more he thought of it, the funnier it seemed, that he was looking on a prison term as “the good old days.”
    He was going crazy.
    He flicked off the light on his desk.
    *   *   *
    D OTTIE hung up the phone before she had to talk to him, or hear his voice say her name.
    It was cowardly, she knew.
    She flicked off the television set for the first time in years and allowed the quiet of the apartment to try and soothe her as she paced back and forth. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the edge of the big armoire.
    She couldn’t stand it anymore.
    There was no reason for her not to look at it.
    She stomped into the dusty bedroom and pulled a chair over to the dark wooden thing. Tottering slightly, she grabbed on to the handle of the armoire to steady herself. That would add consummate insult to injury, if she fell getting the bloody thing, she thought to herself.
    On top of the old armoire, covered by a greasy film of dust, she took down a ragged manila envelope. She brought it out to the kitchen, placed it on the table and stared at it.
    In one sudden movement she swept the envelope up, opened it, and shook out the contents. Yellowed newspaper clippings fluttered down onto the tabletop. Torn magazine pages, folded into squares, and several letter-sized envelopes dropped down after them, sounding small whacks against the tabletop as they hit.
    She sat still, as his face, oh God, the way she remembered him, met her eyes, in mug shots—she winced—reprinted grainily in the newspapers. Terrible photos they were of him, too. She carefully unfolded several magazine pages and laid them out in order on the table.
    There was a picture of Rivington Street, the way it had been with the laundry and filth. Dottie saw the building he used to live in and found her eyes glued to a window almost dead center on the third floor. She stared and stared at it, as if, by staring at it long enough, she could see inside. Then there were other pictures of Arthur at various times during his life.
    A picture of his father appeared on the third page of the magazine layout. Her eyes looked again at the black-and-white photo of Arthur MacGregor, Sr. The fierce look on his face still made Dottie shiver. His father had scared her. He had been a lunatic.
    She let her eyes gaze back at Arthur, Jr.’s, face, her Arthur.
    She read some of the copy, snickering here and there. It made him out to be some kind of genius, as if robbing banks took any real brains.
    Her eyes glazed over for a moment, and she remembered that when she’d made her plan, the thought had crossed her mind that Arthur MacGregor, ironically, would have been the one person to ask about this …
    She began smoothing out the newspaper clippings. There were many from his last big trial. She looked at the pictures of him sitting next to his lawyer in court and frowning.
    She knew that look.
    Her eyes scanned some of the copy. She suddenly felt stupid about having kept this record of him all these years.
    Her eyes hovered over one of the envelopes. She stared for a long time at the brownish ink, and the almost shaky letters that formed her name. Her eyes looked up to the corner, at the horrible return address: Ossining Federal Correctional Facility, Ossining, New York.
    Slowly she opened it up, slipped the pages out of the envelope, and began reading.
    â€œDottie,” it began in his squiggly handwriting. She remembered at the time being furious when she read the letter, thinking that he was swaggering and boasting about being in jail, but now, as she reread it, she was struck by the language and hints of terror and the tenderness of how young he’d been. It suddenly dawned on her that she’d been wrong. This letter had been written by a very young man who was very frightened and trying desperately not