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numerous times, and most acquaintances of the Karrs knew it, to a degree—within her daughter’s presence. Nor did Madeleine recount it in her earlier breathless appalled voice but now more calmly, sadly This awful thing that happened, that I witnessed, you know—the stabbing? In New York? The other day on the news there was something just like it, or almost… Or I still dream about it sometimes. My God! At least Rhonda wasn’t with me.
    It seemed now that Madeleine’s new friend Drexel Hay—“Drex”—was frequently in their house, and in their lives; soon then, when they were living with Drex in a new house on Winant Drive, on the other side of town, it began to seem to Rhonda that Drex who adored Madeleine had come to believe—almost—that he’d been in the car with her on that March morning; daring to interrupt Madeleine in a pleading voice But wait, darling!—you’ve left out the part about… or Tell them how he looked at you through your windshield, the man with the knife —or Now tell them how you’ve never gone back—never drive into the city except with me. And I drive.
    Sometime around Christmas 1984 Rhonda’s mother was at last divorced from Rhonda’s father—it was said to be an amicable parting though Rhonda was not so sure of that—and then in May 1985 Rhonda’s mother became Mrs. Hay—which made Rhonda giggle for Mrs. Hay was a comical name somehow. Strange to her, startling and disconcerting, how Drex himself began to tell the story of the stabbing to aghast listeners This terrible thing happened to my wife a few years ago—before we’d met—
    In Drex’s excited narration Madeleine had witnessed a streetmugging—a savage senseless murder—a white male pedestrian attacked by a gang of black boys with switchblades—his throat so deeply slashed he’d nearly been decapitated. (In subsequent accounts of the stabbing, gradually it happened that the victim had in fact been decapitated—even as, horribly, he’d tried to run away, staggering forward until he fell.) (But was decapitation so easy to accomplish, cutting through the spinal cord?—Rhonda couldn’t think so.) The attack had taken place in broad daylight in front of dozens of witnesses and no one intervened—somewhere downtown, below Houston —unless over by the river, in the meat-packing district —or by the entrance to the Holland Tunnel —or (maybe) by the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel, one of those wide ugly avenues like Eleventh? Twelfth?—not late but after dark. The victim had tried to fight off his assailants—valiantly, foolishly—as Drex said The kind of crazy thing I might do myself, if muggers tried to take my wallet from me —but of course he hadn’t a chance—he’d been outnumbered by his punk-assailants—before Madeleine’s horrified eyes he’d bled out on the street. Dozens of witnesses and no one wanted to get involved—not even a license plate number or a description of the killers—just they were “black”—“carried knives”—Poor Madeleine was in such shock, these savages had gotten a good look at her through her windshield—she thought they were “high on drugs”—only a few yards from Madeleine my God if they hadn’t been in a rush to escape they’d have killed her for sure—so she couldn’t identify them—who the hell would’ve stopped them? Not the New York cops—they took their good time arriving.
    Drex spoke with assurance and authority and yet—Rhonda didn’t think that the stabbing had happened quite like this. So confusing!—for it was so very hard to retain the facts of the story—if they were “facts”—from one time to the next. Each adult was so persuasive—hearing adults speak you couldn’t resist nodding your head