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wanted him to, even offer an opinion if asked, but his involvement in their lives usually ended the moment the recipient checked out of the hospital and the donor received his cash. Through all of this, he was discovering the moral absolution that strict professionalism offered to its most zealous adherents, a condition, he’d come to realize, second only to freely circulating cash in the essential qualities of a functional modern capitalism. That such detachment—especially justified as it was—happened to suit his own natural personality did not escape his notice either.
    â€œHis wife?”
    â€œYeah. Cheryl was still living with him at the time. She kept feeding me all kinds of bullshit. ‘He’s fishing.’ ‘He’s fixing the car.’ ‘He’s napping.’ ‘So why can’t he call me back, Cheryl?’ Finally she slips a bit and says he’s sick. She wouldn’t say how. So I drove out there to see for myself. The drinking was obvious. He didn’t try to hide it. Painkillers too. He didn’t even seem surprised that I showed up. It’s funny, because all he needed to do was get on the phone once and lie to me for a few minutes and I probably wouldn’t have thought about it twice. But he didn’t.”
    â€œShe left him?”
    â€œI wouldn’t say she left
him
. But she left, as in she moved out. She wouldn’t live with him anymore, mostly because of the drinking. Once they knew his liver was failing and he’d made it clear he wasn’t going to change a damn thing about his behavior, she refused to sit there and watch him slowly kill himself. And I guess there were other things too.”
    â€œWhat other things?”
    â€œThese headaches, man. He’d hole up in his room for days. Pull the shades, lock the door. Wouldn’t talk to anybody, wouldn’t eat anything. He said it was like his head was being crushed in a vise. Like his brain was too big for his skull. I got the idea that he lashed out at Cheryl during these things if she tried to help him.”
    â€œThe kids live with her.”
    â€œYeah. Gregory and Daniela. Six and three. Young. Like I told you before, I think they’re the only reason he agreed to this. Anyway, after Cheryl moved out, I started driving up there more often. I thought it might help. But it was hard to tell if he wanted me there or not. He didn’t seem to care one way or another.”
    The front door of Don MacLeod’s house opened, and a rectangle of light spilled out onto the steps. A large silhouette paused in the doorway, a shorter, slimmer silhouette standing by its side for a moment before disappearing back inside the house. The larger silhouette stepped forward onto the lawn, and Simon saw it was Lenny, his shoulders hunched inside a jean jacket.
    He limped over to the car as Simon and Crewes got out. “Sorry,” he said, unconvincingly. “I got the dates confused.”
    â€œIt happens,” Simon said.
    Crewes put a hand on Simon’s shoulder. “Why don’t you wait out here for a minute. We won’t be long.”
    Crewes and Lenny walked up the stone path and through the open doorway. Simon’s eyes followed them through the window as they moved across the living room and paused to talk to a wiry blond who appeared to be in her late thirties. She looked from Crewes to Lenny, and then, frowning, out the window to where Simon stood by the parked cars. He knew she couldn’t see him, looking out into darkness from a bright room, but still he felt exposed. It was outrageous that he’d been forced by Lenny’s forgetfulness into such a semipublic appearance. The fewer people in Lenny’s life who saw his face, the better; an ideal number, in fact, would be zero. The three of them turned and disappeared through a doorway in the back of the room. Simon could see a sliver of kitchen, the flicker of bodies moving across the