ON TUESDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 18, Harvey picked up his phone and started dialing. Through his living room window, he glanced at the Industrial National Bank building downtown in sunlight so hard and bright it looked as if it would chip. It was a stout art deco building rising in ever-smaller rectangles that were quilted with windows. On the top was a huge yellow beacon framed by a quartet of stone eagles standing guard over the city. In 1928, it had been considered the greatest thing before sliced bread, but now its elegance was oppressive. With its Stalinist sobriety, the building could have been something in downtown Moscow.

Somewhere in the bank someone was about to answer his phone call. When a woman did, Harvey asked for Central Records and devoutly hoped that whoever picked up the phone next was not a fan of the Providence Jewels or of baseball in general. If a male voice answered, he would play it safe and hang up.

“Records,” a young female voice said. “Miss Galizio.”

Harvey took a breath. “I wonder if you could help me. I’ve managed to lose a few of my monthly statements for my checking account at the bank and my accountant is hounding me for them. Any chance you could have the computer spit them out again? Would that be a lot of trouble?”

“No, just a modest amount,” she said sweetly. “Why don’t you give me your name and account number?”

“The name is Furth. Rudolph Furth. F-u-r-t-h.”

“Yes, Mr. Furth,” she said without hesitation. “And your account number?”

Harvey read it to her from Rudy’s July statement.

“One second, please.” There was silence for ten. “Here we go. Oh, I see you only opened your account with us in June. Would you like all the statements?”

“Yes, that would be fine.”

“Would you like them sent to this address, on South Main?”

“No,” Harvey said quickly. “I’ll come pick them up.”

“All right, then. They’ll be ready for you here tomorrow morning. How’s that?”

“That’s great. Thank you.”

“And thank you, sir.”

Harvey strolled down Planet Street to South Main and had cappuccino and two croissants at a new place with pyramids of Menucci pasta boxes and hanging prosciuttos in the window. As he sipped, he peered across the street at Rudy’s town house. It didn’t look as if it had yet been rented. In front of the town house next to it, a woman in furry slippers was trimming the hedge in her minuscule front yard. Rudy wouldn’t have known her very well; she was not his type. But then, Harvey never would have guessed that Frances was his type, either. He was pursuing the murderer of a man he seemed to know less and less about. Rudy had made a mistake, and he had paid for it, and it was none of Harvey’s business. What did he owe Rudy? What was he trying to prove, and who was watching him prove it? Now that he had decided Rudy was guilty, he should simply look the other way and forget it. But Harvey felt his purpose sharpened; he was like a spurned lover who was now willing to risk everything to find out exactly how he’d been wronged. He brushed the last flakes of croissant from his mouth, paid up, and went home.

Once again, Bobby Wagner didn’t have it that night. By the fifth inning, he was taking an early shower. By the sixth, with Detroit ahead 7-2, so were the fans. The clouds that had been pulling into position over the park during the game finally broke and shed a warm autumn rain. The grounds crew swarmed onto the field in their green and black windbreakers to drag the tarpaulin over the infield. The box seat customers joined the drier fans under the grandstand roof to watch Mel Allen narrate last week’s baseball highlights on the screen of the electronic scoreboard. The rain outlasted Mel Allen, and Rankle Park’s organist burst into a show tune medley. When the umps called the game after a seventy-minute delay, the Jewels were in the clubhouse and only too glad to be able to undress. Another team might have been sorry not to have the chance to come back and win the game. Harvey showered, dressed, and drove downtown to Leo’s, a roomy bar beneath the I-95 overpass.

Over the bar at Leo’s were windows cut into the wall so you could look out and watch the cars up on the overpass. For a long time, Harvey sat there looking at them wetly slide by, their headlights fanning out and then disappearing. He was on his second ale when he lowered his eyes from the expressway and saw Mickey on the screen of the television set suspended above the tiers of liquor bottles. She was saying that Toronto had beaten Cleveland and that the Jewels were once again tied for last place. She looked smooth, elegant, and untouchable in her emerald blouse and tweed jacket. Sitting in a row of solitary drinkers at the bar, Harvey felt as if he couldn’t possibly know the woman.

“Best looking cunt on television,” the man on the stool next to him said. He was in his thirties, heavy-set, with the doughy face of a former college football lineman. Three empty Narragansett bottles were lined up in front of him, and he was drinking from a fourth. Mickey gazed down at them as she editorialized about Brown University’s chances in the approaching Ivy League football season. “I’ll bet you anything she loves to ball,” he said.

Harvey tapped his glass lightly against the mahogany bar.

“Yes, sir, I’d like to have those legs wrapped around my neck one of these nights,” the man said. “Wouldn’t you, pal? Hey, pal, I’m talking to you.”

“How’d you like to have your own legs wrapped around your neck?” Harvey said.

“What’s that, pal?” He was wearing a plaid flannel shirt with a down vest over it. “What’s that?”

“Just have a little respect for the woman,” Harvey said, not meeting the man’s eyes. “I’m sure if she likes to ball, you’re the last person she’d want to do it with.”

The man swiveled on his stool to face Harvey. “How would you know, pal? You don’t look like you’ve had any in a while.”

“I don’t want any trouble, but I think the point is that you’re a little out of line.” Harvey’s heart was pounding halfway up his esophagus and, with a long pull on his bottle of ale, he tried to wash it back down where it belonged.

“Or maybe the point is that you’re a little out of line, jocko. If I happen to think that Mickey Slavin is the biggest piece of tail in Providence, I don’t see where that’s any of your business.”

“It so happens it is.”

Nick the bartender had come down the bar and stood in front of them, cleaning an imaginary spill with his towel. “Harvey, what’s the trouble?” He looked at the other man. “C’mon, Ken. Don’t you know who he is?”

“Yeah,” Ken said. “He’s some asshole who—”

“Easy, Ken,” Nick said. “Not in my place. Anyway, you’re talking to—”

“I don’t care who I’m talking to. This asshole was telling me I can’t say what I want about Mickey Slavin.” He turned to Harvey. “What’s it to you?”

“She’s my girlfriend,” Harvey said.

Ken gave a nasal laugh. “Yeah, and I’m married to Barbara Walters.”

“Easy, you guys,” Nick was saying. “Whyn’t you just drink your beer, and we’ll all sit here peacefully and watch Johnny Carson together?”

“Your girlfriend’s probably a boy,” Ken said to Harvey.

Harvey exhaled. “You know, you’re turning out to be even dumber than you look.” He felt as if Mickey was watching.

“Pal, how’d you like me to rearrange your face?” He jabbed a finger in Harvey’s shoulder.

“Not if it’ll look like yours.” Harvey took Ken’s right arm by the wrist and pushed it away. Ken shoved it at his shoulder again. Harvey took a deep breath, rotated his body away from Ken, set his left hand against the edge of the bar, and with his right hit someone in the face for the first time since he was eleven. His punch glanced off Ken’s chin, but knocked him partly off his stool so Ken stood now with his left leg draped over it.

“Damn it, Harvey,” Nick was pleading.

“My turn,” Ken said and came at Harvey with a flurry of hands and elbows, dropping him to the floor. Harvey got up, tasting blood in his mouth, and threw his right fist at Ken’s face as Ken’s right struck his shoulder. Almost immediately, Ken’s left hand found Harvey’s forehead, and Harvey staggered back among the tables, tripped over an empty chair, and skidded to a stop on his back. He wiped two streaks of blood from his nose with his shirtsleeve and clambered to his feet. His right hand felt numb, his forehead unusually large.

Ken was threading his way uncertainly between the tables, as their occupants got up from their seats and backed off. “Let me at that fucker,” Ken was saying over and over. Harvey thought of Carlos Bonesoro decoying him at third in New York two weeks ago, and straightened up with his hands at his sides, looking less than eager to continue. It was not difficult to summon the expression.

Ken stopped a few feet in front of him and dropped his guard long enough to inquire, “Had enough, jocko?”

Harvey suddenly slammed his right fist cleanly into Ken’s nose, feeling something cartilaginous give under the impact of his knuckles. Ken danced backwards in a clumsy cha-cha, his arms swimming pathetically at his sides.

“Jesus, Harvey, this isn’t like you.” It was Nick’s voice at his side. “I’ll get you a towel. Your nose is leaking.”

“Not yet,” Harvey said. Ken was coming at him again. Harvey tried to land the first blow, but Ken blocked it with a forearm, and Harvey turned his head away from Ken’s flying right. It caught him over the ear, and he stumbled back, bouncing off the Space Invaders game near the door. He steadied himself against it. Ken was getting ready to make another run at him from ten feet away. He was dimly aware of Leo’s patrons circled about him. His legs felt thick and heavy. Ken started to rush, but had only taken a step when two arms came up under Harvey’s armpits from behind and wrenched him aside.

Ken stopped in his tracks. “Let him go,” he yelled. “I want at him.”

“No, that’s it,” a voice said easily in Harvey’s ear. “Party’s over.” The hands slipped out from Harvey’s armpits and slowly spun him around.

“You’re a little tougher than I thought you were, Professor.”

Harvey tried to focus on the face. “I didn’t know you drank here,” he said, each word costing him a breath.

“I didn’t know you boxed here,” said Bobby Wagner.