A Fatal Debt by John Gapper Page A

the past few days drop away, leaving a light-headed fascination with the colors and shapes around me. All of the emotional clamor, the buzz of discomfort, grew muted. The discordant groans of the taxi’s air conditioner congealed into a pleasing harmony. I lowered the window as we shot along Broadway and the lights streamed behind us like a vapor trail in blue sky.
    I pushed fruitlessly at the buzzer on the metal door to the building for five minutes before a couple rolled down the stairway on their way out and admitted me. It was obvious why I’d been ignored when I reached the tenth floor of the building and heard the roar of voices from inside the apartment. It was a vast multifloored loft with white-painted iron columns and a crush of guests shouting over hypnoticmusic being mixed on an Apple laptop by a DJ. Urban wealth was on display everywhere, from the canvases of rusting bridges and desolate landscapes on the walls to the black-uniformed waiters pouring Krug champagne into flutes. I walked out through the doors onto a terrace with a glittering view of nearby towers and, in the distance, City Hall. Steve was standing in a knot of people, and I walked up to him.
    “So you made it. Ben, this is Lucia,” he said.
    The young woman by him smiled. She was pretty—dark cropped hair, mascara, and gleaming eyes. She wore a silk dress, and the amphetamines made the straps over her shoulders appear to sparkle in the light.
    “Great to meet you,” I said, feeling her soft hand in mine.
    “Isn’t this apartment awesome?”
    “Amazing.”
    “It’s Gabriel’s. He’s over there with Josh.”
    She pointed to a corner of the balcony where two men were talking. The man she indicated had a ruddy face, a flat jaw, and alert eyes. He seemed amused by the whole event, as if he were a guest rather than the host.
    “I’m going to find a drink. Can I get you one?” I said.
    Later on, back at her apartment in the East Village, after she’d gone to sleep, I stood at her bedroom window overlooking a dark alley and stared at the brick wall opposite. It was two a.m. and the Adderall was wearing off, making me shaky and paranoid. I remembered my walk on the beach, Harry telling me how he’d lost everything in the crash, and shivered, my faith in him evaporating along with the drugs. He’d told me he wouldn’t harm himself.
Why should I trust him?
I thought.
    Hot water cascaded over my head and down my body on that Sunday morning as I stood in the shower at the gym, trying to absorb the news. I’d just watched it on television, the thing I’d feared. I’d left Harry in what I’d believed was a stable condition, and he had taken his own life. If I’d stuck with my instincts—the treatment in which I’dbelieved—instead of giving way to Duncan, I could have saved him. I thought of Nora and the distress she must now be in. After all she’d been through to save him, Harry had abandoned her. How could I face her again?
    After a few minutes, I turned off the faucet and stepped out of the shower to dress. The treadmill runners were still panting on their machines as I’d been half an hour before, oblivious to the outside world. Walking out of the gym, I saw the same spring scene—the chess players on the sidewalk, a couple walking a dog, an old lady talking to a doorman—but my pleasure in it had gone.
    Back home, I lay on my bed for a minute, thinking about Harry’s death and what it meant for me. I couldn’t talk to Rebecca; I didn’t want to worry my father in his convalescence; I couldn’t face calling Episcopal. Reminding myself that I advised patients not to wallow in their misery, I got up and paced my living room for a while. Then I decided that I had to find out exactly what had happened.
Felix
, I thought.
He’d know
. I looked through my jacket for my phone and scrolled through the Calls Received list to the previous week. There was the cellphone number from which he’d called me to fix the return trip on