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the uncomplicated structure of a family life without the pomp and ceremony of countless friends at countless afternoon teas or cocktail parties or late-morning brunches.
    His mother liked people, liked to be surrounded with them. His father did not. It was as simple as all that and, conversely, as complicated as all that. It added up to what the marriage counselors called incompatibility. He supposed the eventual breakup was evident even when he was younger than fourteen. He did not become fully aware of the constant friction until then, though, and he marveled that the marriage actually lasted another two years.
    They separated when Ray was sixteen. His mother went to Reno for the divorce, the way other people in her circle of friends had done. Ray spent six months out of every year with his mother and six months with his father. He fully understood what had happened, but understanding in no way lessened the burden of grief he carried.
    He attacked the piano with a new determination. He would really play, would really learn to play. And when his mother said, “Doesn’t Raymond play beautifully?” it irritated the hell out of him because he wasn’t playing to satisfy her but to satisfy a new need within him. And when his father said, “Your piano’s really coming along, son,” it irritated him as much because he knew he was coming along well, but he felt he wasn’t coming along fast enough. The city in those days became a warm romantic place to him. Somehow, he had been denied love in a loveless marriage, and he sought it everywhere around him, and found it hidden in the corners of the city. He had spun the city’s melody on his keyboard, felt its bigness in his fingers and his heart.
    And then people began noticing when Ray Stone played, just like the corny bits in Hollywood musical comedies, where the janitor stops sweeping to listen when the new star performs, just like that, except that the men who were listening weren’t sweepers. They were musicians, and good musicians, and they recognized promise in Ray’s talent—not achievement, because achievement was not yet there. He had been booked for jobs from the time he was eighteen. He had played every conceivable job offered. He had scooped them all up like a squirrel busily gathering nuts against the coming winter. He wanted his talent to grow, and he wanted experience, and so he accepted them all—the Irish weddings and the Italian weddings and the Jewish weddings, the club dates where there were big dance floors, or little dance floors, or no dance floors, the bar dates where he played piano for drunks, and the jobs outdoors on park malls; and once he borrowed an accordion and played in a marching band, anything and everything to keep his talent growing. He had met Jeannie on a job, and he had also met narcotics on a job, and that was when the promise had withered and died.
    He had once loved the city because the city was warm, and the city had helped him nurture his talent. But now the city was a place in which to hide, a place in which to plot, a place in which to seek out a pusher. Twelve years, that was all. So much had happened to the kid with the dreaming fingers. He was twenty-six now, and his talent, his promise, what had happened to—
    “Any place in particular, Mac?” the cabbie asked.
    Ray looked up and glanced through the window, trying to get his bearings. “On the corner,” he said. “That’ll be fine.”
    The cab ground to a stop and Ray opened the door. He gave the cabbie a dollar, told him to keep the change, leaving himself ten dollars and a little more, just enough for the two decks.
    Yes, he would have to get past the police, find Louie somehow. Another call should do the trick. What was Louie’s number again? He probed his memory. If only he could think straight, if only everything weren’t jumping up and down inside him. He started to think of the syringe, of the sting of the needle in his arm, the spreading warmth, the numbing