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York City at one tomorrow.
    I went up to the attic, found a suit, a white shirt, and a necktie and hung them on the back porch to air the mothballs. I located a pair of Aldens and buffed them to a quiet sheen and searched out some socks to go with them. I went on line to check the MetroNorth schedule. Wanting a drink, I settled for opening a bottle of rosé and re-heating the second half of last night’s osso buco.
    In bed I had scary dreams. Huge animals—bulldozer surrogates, of course—chased me in circles until I sprang awake with a pounding heart. I calmed down eventually, but stayed awake, worrying about things. First came money, which I had too much of lately. Last time that had happened I had ended up in trouble; if, as Ira suggested, money confused, huge money confused hugely. I worried about screw-ups I’d precipitated; women I had alienated. I even worried about the future, which used to spring up each morning cheerfully as the sun. Not so much mine, but the world’s, or more specifically the town’s. Newbury was changing, as was the world, shifting in a crass direction I did not like. I felt myself growing sour and I didn’t like that either. I missed seeing the future spring up each morning cheerfully as the sun.
    I thought about Billy Tiller’s killer and was surprised to feel fear.
    I’d certainly known a few killers. More than most people, having served time at Leavenworth—the penalty for a youth misspent on Wall Street—and before that serving my country in the U.S. Navy, where I’d met naturals who had managed to stay out of prison by enlisting as close-combat instructors. I had even bumped into one or two right here in Newbury. But if this guy had really meant to do what he did with the bulldozer, grinding Bill’s body to pulp, he presented a picture of a man not so much cold-blooded as no-blooded. Someone who resided in a far beyond where ordinary people were not encouraged to stay or even visit.
    But could this be the same guy who shot Billy last year?
    Tough call. On one hand, shooters are remote types. On the other, he had sprayed a lot of bullets at Billy and a crowd of innocent bystanders that day. Had he pumped the trigger as frantically as he had erased Billy’s body with the bulldozer? Or as coldly?
    I voted for cold. How “frantic” could he have been while handling the machine as skillfully as he had? If I guessed right that Billy had scrambled under the cutting edge and hid under the moving machine when it caught up with him, then the act of plunging the ripper into him was the act of a very collected, calm, cool guy. Exactly how difficult—how much skill required—was a question I should have asked Sherman Chevalley.
    And why, I wondered, was I so sure the guy was a guy? Mostly because I hadn’t met any female bulldozer operators, I supposed, which suggested certain limitations on my part. Male or female, I realized—while the sights I’d photographed in the afternoon bubbled before my eyes—I didn’t like this person one bit, feared him or her, and felt repulsed.
    I went downstairs for a drink.
    On the landing I thought, early day tomorrow. Do I want to go to New York feeling like garbage? I didn’t want to go at all. Would a hangover make it feel any better? I could sleep it off on the train. But first I had to drive to the train and I’d be lucky to sleep an hour before it pulled into Grand Central. So I turned around and climbed the stairs to my bed celebrating a small victory.
    ***
    One way to predict the weather in Newbury, some say the only way, is to schedule a trip away from town. That day is guaranteed to dawn sunny and clear-aired, with low humidity, a crisp northwest breeze, and an intense quality to the light that will thrust those who stay toward their camera, their oil paints, their gardening tools, a ball game, or their hammock. On such a morning I drove down to Purdys, New