“Where was she in the war?” Tyrus asked.

  “Sobibor,” said Franklin. “Anyway, that’s why we moved again. And that’s why my dad wanted to get me into North Shore. A cousin of ours lives at the place you dropped me off at; we’re using his address.”

  As he knelt on his den carpet, tape measure in hand, sizing up the crotch of Franklin Light, Tyrus remained silent, weighing his next move. Instinctively, he understood that what Franklin was saying was essentially true, just as what he had said during their chance encounter on the north side of Chicago had been essentially false. And although he had gotten to this point more quickly than he had expected, he knew that testing Franklin any further would be foolish. Years of experience had taught him to follow certain unwritten rules: he didn’t mess with kids with supportive, happily married parents; he didn’t mess with children of lawyers or cops. Now he had another rule to add to his list: he didn’t mess with sons of investigative reporters, particularly if their parents had survived the Nazi death camps. Inviting Franklin on the New York trip was now definitely off the table.

  The doorbell rang twice. There was a scratching and rattling against the window. Tyrus hurriedly wrote down a final measurement. “Go put your pants back on, Frank,” he said.

  Tyrus walked to the front door, opened it, and looked out. No one was there. He left the door open a crack, walked back into his house, glimpsed Franklin sitting on the ottoman, putting on his clothes. Tyrus closed the door to the den. He put on a pair of slippers, and walked around the side of the house by the den window. No one was there either, but a car was driving away fast.

  Miep Gies

  Eileen Muldoon, driving her parents’ Chrysler station wagon full of Anne Frank props, blew through a stoplight on Green Bay Road as she sped away from Tyrus Densmore’s house, trying her best to make sense of what she had just seen. She had rung Tyrus’s doorbell; no one had answered. Which was odd, since Tyrus’s Cadillac was in the driveway and a bike was propped up against the house. She had gone around to the side, peered through the den windows, and seen—well, what?

  Tyrus had seemed to be kneeling, his face close—like, super close—to the waist of a boy wearing white underwear, and not much more than that. The kid didn’t look older than fourteen or fifteen; growing up around brothers, she had a lot of familiarity with boys’ bodies, though not the bodies she wanted to be familiar with. But before she could see what was actually going on, Tyrus had turned toward the window, and Eileen had run back to her car and jammed on the gas.

  Had she actually seen what she thought she’d seen? She’d heard the rumors about “Ty-Ty”; she knew what people said happened on his New York trips. Still, she liked him too much to believe any of that was true. Could her filthy mind have once again misinterpreted something totally innocent?

  Lately, to Eileen, sex seemed to be everywhere, so much so that she couldn’t help but think that she must have been imagining things. Sex seemed to be in everything being discussed—and in everything not being discussed. It was in the totally gross but pretty hilarious porn mags that Ty-Ty kept around his office. It was in every episode of Three’s Company and Bosom Buddies she watched while she was doing her homework. Sex. Even when she didn’t expect it, there it was—in the stories she had to read for English class. It was in the rhythmic motion of “The Rocking Horse Winner,” in the dried-up cucumber vines in Ethan Frome. It was in every song she couldn’t believe they played on WLS and the Loop; it was in that Pointer Sisters song about needing “a man with a slow hand,” and it was in “Miracles” by Jefferson Starship, which, one time at breakfast, had her singing, “I had a taste of the real world when I went down on you,” until she realized what the lyrics meant, and blushed so much that her mother thought she had a fever.

  Halfway home, Eileen resolved to put the whole scene out of her mind, since she could probably never really know what had been going on in Ty-Ty’s den. She figured she would wait an hour, drive back, show Ty-Ty the props she had collected, pretend nothing had happened. But then she realized she had something she rarely ever had: an interesting story to tell people. Every rehearsal, she had to hear Trey boast about this or that sex position he’d tried with Kathy Ho (“Gotta stiffen up that Twinkie to get it in that HO-Ho!”); every night she had to watch Declan slobber over Carrie the moment she got out of rehearsal. But no one cared about the stories Eileen told about her brothers’ basketball games or the funny things her cousins said when she was babysitting them, which was why she told her stories so quickly: so no one would interrupt them or tell her to get on with it.

  She had no particular desire to get Ty-Ty in trouble; she probably liked him more than anyone else in the Annex did. Still, she thought as she pulled into her family’s driveway, then walked across the way to the Rubicoffs’ house, she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to tell a story that made her life seem as interesting as everyone else’s.

  No one answered the first time she knocked on the door, and she wondered if Rob was watching from a window, waiting to see if she’d leave, or if he’d open the door and pretend he hadn’t been hoping to see someone else. Here she is, she imagined herself saying. Just the gal you weren’t waiting for!

  Eileen knocked again. This time Willa Mae opened the door. “Willa Mae!” she shouted at the Rubicoffs’ cleaning woman, who stood in the doorway wearing a mint-green uniform with a white lace collar. Oh, how she loved Willa Mae. Willa Mae was the absolute best.

  “Oh my God, how long has it been since I last saw you?” Eileen asked. “Do you remember me?”

  Willa Mae gave a slow nod.

  “Do you remember when we all were little and the Rubicoffs used to invite me to their Passover dinner thingie? And that one time you told everyone there was no matzo ball soup left, but you actually set aside two extra bowls for me and Rob? Do you remember that?”

  Willa Mae regarded Eileen dubiously through a set of half-glasses that she wore on a chain. “I remember a girl who ate an awful lot of soup,” she said.

  “That’s me!” Eileen grinned. “I’m the soup girl! Is Rob home?”

  “I’ll go up and check.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to,” said Eileen. “I know the way.”

  “I’ll go; you wait right here.”

  Eileen stood in the hall, admiring how fancy the Rubicoffs’ house always seemed even when they weren’t expecting visitors—the framed Picasso, Matisse, and Monet exhibit posters; the varnished grand piano; the New York Times on the dining room table (CLEVELAND AUTOWORKER SUSPECTED OF NAZI CRIMES ASKS FOR NEW TRIAL)—so different from the clutter and squalor of the home that had been in her family for the last sixty years.

  Every so often, she would hear arguing from the Rubicoffs’ house: a gruff, raised, male voice—presumably Rob’s—yelling, “Drop dead! Fuck you!” But today all she heard was Willa Mae pounding on Rob’s door, hollering, “Robert! Robeeeeert! You got a visitor downstairs!” Then some muttering, followed by Willa Mae again: “She’s downstairs right now, uh-huh.”

  A door opened, then closed, and Rob appeared at the top of the stairs in bare feet, blue jeans, and a light-blue dress shirt open all the way to reveal his furry chest.

  “Good to see you.” He made his way downstairs, then kissed Eileen on both cheeks. “What’s goin’ on?”

  “It is so messed up, I just had to tell someone,” she said.

  Rob glanced upstairs, then back down.

  “Is this an okay time to talk?” Eileen asked.

  “Good as any. You want some coffee?”

  Eileen didn’t drink coffee. “Sure,” she said. “Maybe with some cream in it.”

  Rob turned surly. “We don’t have any cream,” he said, accenting the noun. “In fact, come to think of it, this day has been regrettably devoid of cream.”

  “Well, then maybe just with some sugar.”

  Rob opened the freezer, took out a bag of coffee beans, opened the lid to the computerized coffeemaker, and pressed some buttons on it. There was a brief grinding sound, then a thin stream of dark liquid filled the coffeepot. Rob lazily scratched his chest. “Everything all right?”

  Mr. Densmore often called Rob ugly, and Eileen supposed that was true: he had a serious case of acne; a big nose that her father and brothers consistently pointed out he had inherited from his dad; a perpetual smirk that made otherwise peaceful people say they wanted to haul off and hit him. At the same time, his arrogance, which suggested he found himself hot even though he wasn’t, sort of made him hot anyway. Looking around the kitchen, trying to focus on something aside from Rob’s chest, Eileen thought it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to expand her definition of hotness to include conventionally ugly guys, giving herself a wider range of possibilities. Objectively speaking, all but one of the guys in Journey were pretty gross looking, but she would have jumped the bones of any of them.

  Rob poured two mugs of coffee and handed one to Eileen. He didn’t tell her where the sugar was and she didn’t ask. Eileen took a sip and then, because it was so vile, pantomimed taking another. She put the mug down and warmed her hands with it as she recounted the morning’s events: how no one had answered Ty-Ty’s door, how Ty-Ty had been kneeling at a boy’s waist, how Ty-Ty had looked up appearing nervous and guilty.

  Rob considered the story analytically, like the trial attorney and politician he was intending to become. “This kid, how old was he?” he asked.

  “Maybe fourteen or fifteen.”

  “Did you recognize him?”

  “I didn’t see his face.”

  “And what about the state of the kid’s underwear?” asked Rob. “Did his penis seem flaccid? Or was it in a visibly turgid state?”

  “What?” Eileen asked.

  Rob explained.

  “God, I wasn’t looking that closely,” said Eileen.

  “Did you have the impression that Mr. Densmore was preparing to perform fellatio?”

  “Perform what?”

  Rob explained.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Eileen.

  Rob opined that he had always suspected Mr. Densmore of being a “liberal perv” with the sexual predilections of John Wayne Gacy, but Eileen’s story didn’t provide sufficient evidence. “I’d need to know more,” he said.

  “That’s why I came here,” said Eileen. “I’m driving back to Ty-Ty’s house to deliver the props. Wanna come with?”

  “Under normal circumstances, absolutely. But I’m a little indisposed right now.”

  Eileen didn’t ask what he meant. The explanation asserted itself moments later when Amanda Wehner entered the front hallway and crept toward the Rubicoffs’ front door as if she didn’t want Rob to notice her leaving. Had she been upstairs all this while? Had she spent the night? The little tramp probably had. Although Eileen tried not to judge people, she found it hard not to judge Amanda: Amanda, with her little dancer’s body and her pert little boobs and her stupid GUARDIAN ANGELS jacket; Amanda, with her negativity and her arrogant eye rolls and her beaded change purse where she kept her dime bags, her pipes, her joints, her lighter, and—who knew?—probably her disgusting lubricated rubbers and the penicillin she needed after using them; Amanda, who had been cast as Margo Frank only because she was cute and slutty, not because she had talent; Amanda, who was so tiny that Eileen always felt enormous, buxom, and matronly around her, even though she knew she was none of those things. Still, she did wish that when people in the Annex compared one another to celebrities—Fiona Grenfall to Bo Derek; Judith Nagorsky to Faye Dunaway; Rob to James Coburn; Trey to Simon Le Bon; Calvin to Flip Wilson; Amanda to Pat Benatar—they could come up with something more flattering than to tell Eileen she looked like a young Julia Child.

  “Amanda!” Rob called out. “Care to join us in the kitchen? Eileen’s here with a good story, and there’s coffee if you want it.” He walked to the fridge and took out a carton of half-and-half, which Eileen regarded enviously. “Black or with cream?” he asked Amanda.

  Amanda gave a half wave, said, “Hey, Eileen,” then told Rob, “No, I gotta get goin’.”

  “Come on, stay awhile,” Rob said. “You and I haven’t finished our conversation.”

  “Well, yeah, actually, we kind of have,” said Amanda.

  “I don’t think so,” Rob said. “Where’ll you be later?”

  “Dance class, then maybe at a movie with my dad.”

  “And after that?”

  “Sleeping.”

  “You know”—Rob adopted a serious tone—“I meant what I said before.”

  “Yeah, I get it,” Amanda said icily. “Bye.”

  She walked out, at which point Rob chuckled philosophically and rubbed his chest. “Well,” he said, “I guess I have a little more time than I thought. Why don’t we swing by Densmore’s place? Maybe we can find him fellating someone or hiding them in his crawl space.”

  Eileen drove with the radio on—she had been listening to WLS, which was playing a totally awesome REO Speedwagon song (“Keep on Loving You”)—but after Rob asked if he had to listen to this whiny shit, she let him change the station to WXRT, where Echo & the Bunnymen were singing “Do It Clean,” which was pretty pornographic if you thought about it.

  “I was kinda surprised to see Amanda at your place on a Saturday morning,” Eileen said.

  “That’s not particularly surprising,” said Rob. “What will be surprising is if she’s there next Saturday morning.”

  Eileen adopted a concerned expression. “Are you guys having problems?” she asked.

  “I’m not, but apparently she is,” he said. “Ahh, who gives a shit: six months from now I’ll be on the campus of a ridiculous liberal arts institution, and Amanda will be in Colorado, and it’s not like I was planning to be faithful to her—not that I’ve been faithful to begin with.”

  “What were you two arguing about?” Eileen asked.

  “The usual predictable horseshit,” said Rob.

  “What happened?

  “ ‘What happened?’ Exactly what I said would happen when Densmore was being his usual sick, twisted, manipulative self, casting me and Amanda as dad and daughter. I told Amanda the only way to act around a manipulative asshole is to refuse to let him manipulate you. I thought she agreed, but today—what do you know?—just as I fucking predicted. I try to put the moves on her. I start taking off her belt, and she shoves my hand away. ‘That stays where it is,’ she says.”

  “Oh, wow,” said Eileen. “That’s harsh.”

  “Exactly,” said Rob. “So I try again, and she pulls the same bullshit, and when I ask her what’s up, she says she feels weird because she’s playing Margo Frank and I’m playing Mr. Frank, and maybe we should just cool it ’til the show’s over. It’s fuckin’ bogus.”

  “Totally bogus,” said Eileen.

  Rob turned to Eileen, seeking counsel and assurance. “You wouldn’t do that, would you? You wouldn’t fuck up a real relationship because of a fictional one, would you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “That’s what I thought. Because you’re cool. You wouldn’t just up and blue-ball a guy you’d been dating because of some horseshit theater thing, would you?”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “Your boyfriend’s a lucky guy. What’s his name?”

  “Uh, Tim Donovan.”

  “Where’s he at? Loyola?”

  “He is, yeah.”

  Rob laughed. “Those Catholic boys can be pretty repressed,” he said.

  Eileen rolled her eyes and feigned hard-won knowledge. “Tell me about it,” she said.

  *

  Tyrus’s Cadillac was still parked in front of the Densmore house when they arrived, but the bicycle was gone. Eileen rang the bell. Tyrus opened the door and smiled. “Ahh,” he said. “It’s the Jewish pimp and his Irish whore. Come on in.”

  Eileen giggled and lugged her duffel bags into the study, feeling as if she had already transformed into Miep Gies. She loved Miep; actually, come to think of it, she kind of was Miep. She could have just seen herself in Amsterdam, bringing food to the Franks and Van Daans. If Nazis ever came to town, it would be totally fun to hide a family or two. In fact, the whole concept of doing it—hiding, say, the Rubicoffs—would seriously liven things up and serve as proof of her all-around awesomeness; maybe, if it really happened, she could even make Rob her sex slave. Just kidding.

  Eileen displayed each prop while Tyrus made impressed or satisfied sounds and suggestive remarks. “Here’s the Hanukkah scarf,” Eileen said.

  Tyrus stroked it delicately. “My, my, pretty, pretty, pretty,” he said.

  “And here’re the potatoes you wanted,” Eileen said.

  Tyrus focused on her chest. “Those are some nice, firm taters you got there, Muldoon.”

  Eileen handed him a walking stick. “This is Mr. Frank’s cane he uses at the beginning and end of the show,” she said.

  Tyrus eyed it as if he were selecting a pool cue. “A fine, firm staff, and appropriately erect,” he said. Eileen produced a menorah and two boxes of candles; Tyrus opened a box, removed a candle, and tried inserting it into a holder. “Hmm, I believe these might require lube,” he said.

  Meanwhile, Rob studied Densmore’s notebooks, the framed posters, and the alphabetized videocassettes. He began to take down one of the notebooks.

  “Ah, ah, ah!” said Densmore. “Permission, Mr. Rubicoff. Always ask for permission.”

  “May I have permission?” Rob asked.

  “You may not,” said Densmore.

  “I’ll bring all this to the Annex on Monday,” Eileen said, stuffing the props back in her duffel bags. “And what are you doing with the rest of your Saturday?”

  “Enjoying the peace and quiet until my in-laws return and make my life a living hell,” said Densmore.

  Eileen smiled sadly. “Families are hard. I hope you can have some fun this weekend too, though.”

  “I believe I have already had the highlight of my Saturday,” Densmore said.

  “What might you be referring to?” asked Rob. “Have you been alone all morning? Or have you had some company?”

  Densmore’s nostrils flared. “Did anyone ever tell you that you have an ugly nose, Mr. Rubicoff? It suits your ugly, nosy personality.”