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edge of the table. “Good for you, honey!” he said. “I always hoped you’d take your art seriously. You’re a remarkable photographer. You’re wasting yourself with these…” He waved his fat hand over the grisly photos spread across the table. “… things , though by all means you should continue taking them. They do pay the bills. But if you’ll put together a portfolio, I’d love to help you out. I know all the wine-sippers and cheese-nibblers in this shitty town. I can make things happen for you, if you’re willing to do the work.”
    â€œI appreciate everything you do for me, Michi-san.”
    â€œOf course, you’ll have to clean yourself up first.”
    â€œI already told you, I’m not a user.”
    â€œI don’t mean that. I mean do something with you— yourself . Buy some decent clothes, get your hair done. You’re still a good-looking woman. Take advantage of that.”
    â€œI’d rather make it on talent.”
    â€œWouldn’t we all?” Michi laughed. “But that ain’t the way the world works and you know it, honey. God gave you looks, so why waste them? You got to use it while you got it. You won’t always got it, and then you’ll wish you did.” He stubbed his cigarette out and scooped up the four photographs.
    â€œI’ll think about it,” I said. I stood up, ready to get away from his vinegary smell and the screech of his voice, the nagging and the guilt trips and the fake sincerity. Michi was rich and spent his money freely, giving it away to artistic friends to whom he clung like a tick, growing fat on their creative energy, pulling them back with promises of more money whenever they tried to escape.
    Leaving was always the hardest. I hated to ask for the money, but Michi wouldn’t let it go until you pried him loose. He always wanted to hang on to you for another minute, to squeeze that last penny out of the soul you sold him. I tossed the empty beer bottle in the trash and bummed a smoke out of Michi’s pack. As I stooped to light it off the stove, a shadow passed the kitchen door. I heard footsteps hurrying up a nearby set of stairs. “Who was that?”
    â€œMy daughter’s son,” Michi said.
    Michi had a grandson named Noboyuki Endo. I had only seen him once—when he was a gangly, sullen fourteen-year-old boy with thick eyebrows that almost met over his nose. His parents were dead and he had been living with Michi since he was four. He was placed in state custody when I arrested Michi on child-pornography charges. I had always assumed he remained in foster care. “How old is he now?”
    â€œAlmost twenty-eight. His birthday is Friday. You’re invited to the party, of course.” The bitterness in Michi’s voice surprised me almost as much as the fact that he had never once mentioned Endo in all the times I’d been here.
    â€œDoes he still live with you?”
    â€œNo, thank God.” He lit another cigarette and looked out the window at the rain. “That boy is the reason I have to walk with a cane.”
    â€œI didn’t know that.”
    â€œAfter I was acquitted, the state tried to give him back to me. I told them I didn’t want the little bastard, but they insisted. He was listening around the corner, like he always does. So one evening dear Endo pours a bottle of olive oil all over the bathroom floor while I’m taking a shower. A good bottle, too, imported from Tuscany, a hundred and twenty bucks a pint. I could’ve killed the little shit.”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œOh, I laid on the floor a couple of hours until one of my house guests found me.” He sighed a cloud of cigarette smoke and shrugged. “I can’t blame Endo. I’ve never been much of a grandfather to him, but we’re the only family either one of us has got.”

 
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    S O THIS C HRIS KID WAS dead and I