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couldn’t help but be impressed.
    But that job ended, and he couldn’t get another date. Jazz drummers, in those days of Elvis Presley and early rock, were not in demand. He enrolled in a course on how to sell life insurance and learned a remarkable pitch in which he never uttered the word “death.” At the point in the pitch where the subject inevitably came up, he was to say, “And then, if anything should happen, God forbid …” He watched sales films and listened to a lecture by a super-salesman who flew in from California to display his style. Among other tactics, Chris learned always to have a crisp new ten-dollar bill sticking out of his jacket pocket, and when the potential customer mentioned it, Chris was to whip it out and declare, “Yes! and this money can be yours !” When he went out to sell, he liked the freedom of motion in the job, which gave him time for practicing drums and hanging out at the beach. “You have a marvelous tan,” the office manager said to him suspiciously. “Well, I have a convertible, and I drive with the top down,” Chris said. But he knew his days were numbered. He knew his father felt he was going nowhere; though they rarely saw one another, Chris could feel the weight of George’s disappointment all around him, like a sad, heavy presence in the house. When he ran out of friends to sell insurance to, he joined the army.
    When he came home on furlough, he spent his days playing drums, his nights drinking and hanging around clubs, sleeping late. He was sound asleep one morning when George came into his room and shook him awake. “Get up,” George said brusquely. Chris followed him out to the kitchen, where George poured coffee for him, cooked eggs and made him eat, then showed him the notice in the morning paper about a walk-in test for the New York Police Department being given that day. “I want you to go down and take this test,” George said.
    Chris didn’t care, one way or the other, and he was in no condition to argue. It was easier just to go down and take the test. He didn’t take it seriously. He had no intention of becoming a cop. He’d never understood his father’s fondness for cops, anyway.
    Two mounted policemen had just tethered their horses on West 45th Street when a man in a stocking mask, with his gun still in his hand, ran out of the coffee shop. When he fired at them, they shot him down on the sidewalk. Inside, the masked man had fired just one shot from his .22-caliber Beretta, hitting George in the chest.
    Chris immersed himself in police work with the fervor of a man who wanted no context for remorse, no time to ponder ironies.

2
    When he daydreamed of becoming a gold-shield detective, Chris always saw it very clearly. He was wearing a trenchcoat. He was knocking firmly on a door. When the door opened, he was saying, also firmly, “Good morning. I’m Detective Anastos. I’m here to solve the homicide for you.”
    That spiffy image didn’t survive the grittiness of the 4-oh, where he went from uniform into torn blue jeans and none-too-clean T-shirts, the better to make drug buys. So Chris always enjoyed going down to one of the police buildings in lower Manhattan, where the air of crisp efficiency and polish revived that old image. When he was recovering from hepatitis, he’d spent a few weeks on desk duty at headquarters, and although he hated the tedium of paperwork, he’d liked the feeling of the drafty old place. One day he’d ran into a chief he’d known uptown, who was then a deputy to the police commissioner. They talked, then Chief Devine said, “Come with me.” He led Chris through an outer office, past a couple of secretaries, into a huge room that reminded Chris of a magazine picture he’d seen of the Oval Office in the White House.
    â€œSee that desk?” Chief Devine said. “Know whose that is?”
    â€œYes, I