“Why can’t you stay at your mother’s when they’re away?”

​

“I told you, Basil’s worried about security.”

​

Though this statement was challengeable on several levels, Matt let it pass. The marriage six years ago of Debra DeMarco, nee Rusillo, and Basil al-Hassan, a rich and handsome Syrian businessman, had marked the beginning of the end of Matt’s long and tortured fight for a place in his son’s heart. Armed with the ultimate weapon – her new husband’s money – Debra had made quick work of destroying the last vestiges of Matt’s hopes. A penthouse on Park Avenue, a beach house in Easthampton, a flat in Paris, a “cottage” in Bermuda, clothes and cars virtually on demand, Matt had no way of competing with all this, and no way of expressing his anger—-until tonight.

​

“What about Mina?” Matt asked.

​

“What about her?”

​

“Why aren’t you seeing her?”

​

“She’s studying.”

​

“Studying?”

​

“Yes, studying. You keep repeating what I say. She’s a student. Students study.”

​

This statement was delivered dismissively, not sarcastically. You’re stupid, Dad. I’m tired of you. Why am I bothering with you? are what Matt heard, and it occurred to him, with a clarity that shocked him after all these muddled and painful years of effort and rejection, effort and rejection, ad nauseum, that he could not hurt Michael, that his own son was indifferent to him, and this was a blow, and strangely a release.

​

“Well, your friends are assholes, and you are too, Michael. You’re an arrogant, shallow asshole. Where you came from, I don’t know. But not from me.”

​

“That could be. Maybe Mom had an affair – like you did – and I’m not your son. Do I care? No, I don’t. Can I go upstairs now? I’ll leave in the morning.”

​

In the kitchen, Matt poured himself another scotch. He took the pizza out of the refrigerator and sat down to eat it, surprised to find that he actually had an appetite. Until tonight, despite the bad cards he had drawn, he had never stopped trying to break through to his son. It’s over, he said to himself, over and done. He’s not your son. He’s Debra’s son, Basil’s son. You lost him a long time ago.

​

He finished the pizza and was wrapping the garbage to take out in the morning when the doorbell rang. Looking out the kitchen window he saw that it was snowing heavily. Those idiots, he thought, they’re probably stuck someplace. No choice but to let them in. But when he swung open the front door, it wasn’t Adnan and Ali, but his friends Jack McCann and Clarke Goode, homicide detectives who he had worked with for many years, standing facing him. He could see their unmarked car at the curb, and behind it, blocking his driveway, a Pound Ridge patrol car, its engine running and headlights on, two uniformed officers in the front seat. McCann, a florid Irishman whose blue eyes were usually lit by some inner secret joke, looked grim; and Goode, a gnarled black man who never failed to greet Matt with a big smile, was not smiling. Far from it.

​

“Come in. What’s up?” Matt said. Then, nodding toward the street where the patrol car sat: “What’s with the uniforms?”

​

The two detectives stepped into the foyer.

​

“Take your coats off,” Matt said. He could see they were dressed for work, sport jackets and ties on under their trench coats.

​

“Matt…,” McCann said.

​

“Talk, Jack,” Matt said. “Is somebody dead?”

​

“Is Michael home?” Goode asked. He had not taken off his coat, and neither had McCann.

​

“That’s his car out there,” Matt said. “You know that.”

​

“Where is he?”

​

“He’s upstairs.”

​

Matt looked from McCann to Goode, then back to McCann; looked in the eyes of each, and did not like what he saw. “What about Michael?” he asked.

​

“We’re here to arrest him,” McCann replied.

​

“For what?” Drugs, Matt thought, good, let the kid get a taste of the pain he’s always inflicting on others. Him and his two Arab suppliers.

​

“For murder, Matt,” Goode said.