I got to where I loved it myself, actually.”
I stared at him. In the fresh sparkle of the drug, what he was saying had begun, at last, to sink in. “Boris, what are you talking about?”
“You know.”
“No I don’t.”
“Don’t make me say it out loud.”
“Boris—”
“I tried to tell you. I begged you not to leave. I would have given it back to you if you had waited just one day.”
The beaded curtain was still clicking and undulating in the draft. Sinuous glassy wavelets. Staring at him, I was transfixed with the obscure, light sensation of one dream colliding with another: clatter of silverware in the harsh noon of the Tribeca restaurant, Lucius Reeve smirking at me across the table.
“No,” I said—pushing back in my chair in a cold prickle of sweat, putting my hands over my face. “No.”
“What, you thought your dad took it? I was kind of hoping you thought that. Because he was so in the hole. And stealing from you already.”
I dragged my hands down my face and looked at him, unable to speak.
“I switched it. Yes. It was me. I thought you knew. Look, am sorry!” he said when still I sat gaping at him. “I had it in my locker at school. Joke, you know. Well—” weakly smiling—“maybe not. Sort of joke. But—listen—” tapping the table to get my attention—“I swear, I wasn’t going to keep it. That was not my plan. How was I to know about your dad? If only you had spent the night—” he threw up his arms—“I would have given it to you, I swear I would have. But I couldn’t make you stay. Had to leave! Right that minute! Must go! Now, Boris, now! Wouldn’t wait even till morning! Must go, must go, this very second! And I was scared to say to you what I’d done.”
I stared at him. My throat was too dry and my heart had begun to pound so fast that all I could think to do was to sit very still and hope it would slow down.
“Now you are angry,” said Boris resignedly. “You want to kill me.”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“I—”
“What do you mean, switch it?”
“Look—” glancing around nervously—“I am sorry! I knew it was not a good idea for us to get wired together. I knew this would end up coming out maybe in some ugly way! But—” leaning forward to put his palms on the table—“I have felt really bad about it, honest. Would I have come to see you, if not? Shouted your name on the street? And when I say I want to pay you back? I am serious. I am going to make it up to you. Because, you see, this picture made my fortune, it made my—”
“What’s in that package I’ve got uptown then?”
“What?” he said, his eyebrows coming down, and then, pushing away in his chair and looking at me with his chin pulled back: “You’re kidding me. All this time and you never—?”
But I couldn’t answer. My lips were moving but no sound was coming out.
Boris slapped the table. “You idiot. You mean you never even opened it up? How could you not—”
When I still didn’t answer him, face in hands, he reached across the table and shook me by the shoulder.
“Really?” he said urgently, trying to look me in the eye. “You did not? Never opened it to look?”
From the back room: a weak female scream, inane and empty, followed by equally inane hoots of male laughter. Then, loud as a buzz saw, a blender started up at the bar and seemed to go on for an excessively long time.
“You didn’t know?” said Boris, when the racket finally stopped. In the back room, laughter and clapping. “How could you not—”
But I couldn’t say a word. Multilayered graffiti on the wall, sticker tags and scribbles, drunks with crosses for eyes. In the back, a hoarse chant had risen of go go go. So many things were flashing in on me at once that I could hardly get my breath.
“All these years?” said Boris, half-frowning. “And you never once—?”
“Oh, God.”
“Are you okay?”
“I—” I shook my head. “How did you know I even have it? How do you know that?” I repeated, when he didn’t answer. “You went through my room? My things?”
Boris looked at me. Then he ran both hands through his hair and said: “You’re a blackout drunk, Potter, you know that?”
“Give me a break,” I said, after an incredulous pause.
“No, am serious,”