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made $150,000 a year to live.
    He went to the kitchen and reviewed the contents of his refrigerator: Frank’s Louisiana Red Hot Sauce, calamata olives, Vitarroz green tabasco peppers, Zatarain’s New Orleans remoulade sauce, Lan Chi Brand Chili Paste with Garlic, Sanju’s South Indian Lime Pickle, Bolst’s Sweet Mango Chutney. A fondness for condiments was one of the few things that tied him to his dead restaurateur father.
    Eventually, he discovered the makings of a meal. He boiled some linguini, opened a can of minced clams, and, applying a culinary lesson he’d learned from Al Blissberg, made a clam sauce with the remains of an American chablis. He carried his lunch to the kitchen table, sat looking at it for five minutes, walked over to the sink, and dropped the meal down the disposal.

B OB LASSITER OF THE Journal-Bulletin called that afternoon to ask what Harvey thought about the murder.
    “I thought it sucked,” he said.
    Even under ordinary circumstances, Harvey was not what reporters called a “good quote.” It irritated him to be the object of grown men’s trivial speculations. His reputation had preceded him to Providence, and Lassiter had approached him at the beginning of the season to propose a truce. Harvey explained that he’d be glad to type up a long list of inoffensive remarks that Lassiter could use freely, as he wished, during the year. Lassiter was not amused.
    “You knew him, Harvey,” Lassiter was saying.
    “What kind of comment is that, Bob? Of course I knew him. You know, you guys’ve got the world’s greatest job, don’t you? Calling me up five minutes after my roommate’s been murdered.”
    “Don’t chew my head, Harvey. Just tell me if you’ve considered the possibility that someone on the team might be involved.”
    “No, I haven’t considered it,” he said, and hung up.
    The phone rang again—Doug Leboutillier of WGNT radio. Harvey was more civil to him, but no one was going to mistake it for a lesson in telephone etiquette. When the phone rang a third time, he left to pick up his Chevy at the garage. The mechanics there hadn’t heard the news. Harvey listened uncomprehendingly to the status report on his carburetor, paid the bill, and drove around the city until it was time to pick up Mickey at the television station.
    He was afraid he’d have to break the news about Rudy. She had been in New York all day for a job interview with ABC Sports. When he had called her last night after the game, and she had told him about the interview, he had replied, “Really?”
    “C’mon, Bliss,” she said, “you’re supposed to say how happy you are for me.”
    “I’m very happy. But it would mean you’d be moving away.”
    “Don’t jump the gun. They’re just sifting the sands for a woman who can do play-by-play, and my only credentials are two years of radio play-by-play in Glens Falls.”
    “You’re good. They’ll hire you. You’ll throw me over for your career.”
    “If I thought you were really serious, Bliss, I’d deliver a withering feminist tirade right now. But since you’re not—”
    “I am too being serious.”
    “As I was saying, since you’re not being serious, I’ll simply suggest you pick me up at the station tomorrow night for dinner.”
    “Only if you promise you’ll start mentioning me on the air.” She had too scrupulously avoided saying his name on the evening news—even when the game-winning hit had been his.
    “You know I feel funny about it, Bliss. This is a small town; people know we’re seeing each other.”
    Harvey could never tell whether the relationship was taking a wrong turn or whether they had never quite been on the same street to begin with. At six-thirty, he sat in his car in front of the portico of WRIP-TV’s low yellow brick building just beyond Providence train station. She emerged in a loose lavender blouse and pleated pants. She walked briskly, rolling her shoulders like an athlete. She had carotene-rich skin that