What I Loved

day after the boy disappeared, Giles had made several telephone calls to friends and acquaintances, claiming that he had just done "a real one." That same evening, he had gone out to Club USA wearing clothes that appeared to have dried blood all over them and had careened around the club announcing that the She-Monster had "committed the ultimate work of art." Not a single person had taken Giles seriously. Even after the body had been found, most people associated with Giles refused to accept the possibility that he had actually murdered someone. A seventeen-year-old boy named Junior was quoted: "He was always saying stuff like that. He must have told me fifteen different times that he had just killed somebody."
    Hasseborg was also quoted: "The danger inherent in Giles's work is that it attacks every one of our sacred cows. His work isn't limited to sculptures or photographs or even performances. His personas are also his art—a spectacle of shifting identities that includes the psychopathic killer, who is, after all, a celebrated, mythical character. Turn on your TV Go to the movies. He's everywhere. But to suggest that this persona is anything more than that is an outrage. The fact that Giles knew Rafael Hernandez hardly makes him guilty of his murder."
    On the Sunday evening after I returned from Nashville, Violet and I were having dinner upstairs when Lazlo buzzed the front door. Lazlo's expression was usually sober, but when we opened the door for him, I thought his face looked almost sad. "I found this," he said, and handed it to Violet. The article came from the gossip column in the downtown paper Bleep. Violet read it aloud: "Rumors are flying about a certain Bad Boy on the art scene and the body of his thirteen-year-old ex-toy and part-time E dealer that bobbed up in the Hudson. One of B.B.'s ex- girlfriends claims that there's a witness—yet another one of B.B.'s many AC./D.C. exes. Could the plot get any thicker? Stay tuned ..."
    Violet looked at Lazlo. "What does this mean?" she said.
    Lazlo was silent. Instèad of responding to Violet's question, he handed her a business card. "He's married to my cousin," Lazlo said. "Arthur's a real good guy—a criminal attorney. He used to work in the D.A's office." Lazlo paused. "Could be you won't need him." Lazlo didn't move. I couldn't even see him breathe. Then he said, "Pinky's waiting for me."
    Violet nodded, and we watched Lazlo walk to the door and close it very gently behind him.
    We didn't talk for several minutes. It was dark outside, and it had started to snow. I watched the white motion through the window. Lazlo knew things, and Violet and I both understood that he had left the card for a reason. When I turned from the window and looked at Violet, she was so pale that her skin looked transparent, and I noticed a rash on her neck. Beneath her lowered eyes were faint purple shadows. I knew what I was seeing: dry grief, grief grown old and familiar. It enters your bones and lives there, because it has no use for flesh, and after a while you feel that you're all bone, hard and dessicated, like a skeleton in a classroom. She fingered the little card and looked up at me.
    "I'm afraid of him," she said.
    "Of Giles?" I said in a dull voice.
    "No," she said, "I'm talking about Mark. I'm afraid of Mark."
    Violet and I were sitting together on the sofa upstairs when his key turned in the lock. Before we heard the sound, Violet had been laughing at something I'd said, something I've forgotten now, but I remember that her laugh was still in my ears when Mark stepped through the door. He looked sad, a little sheepish, and very mild, but the sight of him turned me cold.
    "I have to talk to you," he said. "It's important."
    Violet's body had gone rigid. "Then talk," she said. Her eyes never left his face.
    He walked toward us, moved around the table, and leaned down to embrace Violet.
    She pulled away from him. "No, don't. I can't," she said.
    Mark looked startled and then hurt.
    In a low, steady voice, Violet said, "You lie to me, you rob and betray me, and now you want a hug? I told you I didn't want you back."
    He stared at her in disbelief. "What am I supposed to do? The police want to talk to me." He took a breath, then stepped backward. His arms hung limply at his sides. "I know Teddy did it," he said. He narrowed his eyes. "I saw him that night." Mark sat down at the other end of the table. He let his head fall forward. "He was all bloody."
    "You saw him?"