I Saw a Man by Owen Sheers Page A

aspired, perhaps since those early sophomore years.
    “Hey, Maddy? Maddy?”
    A woman, as tall as Tony, turned towards them. Michael had never seen her before, but he still felt he knew her, having often met women like her in Manhattan, at drinks parties on the Upper East Side, or sleek in evening dress at the Met. She was slender-necked, the crow’s feet about her eyes somehow a mark of knowledge more than age.

    “Maddy? Can you come here a moment?” Tony said to her. “Guess who Josh’s neighbour is?”
    Maddy came over, parting the bodies between them with fingertip touches on their backs. She wore many rings, mostly gold, with emeralds and amethysts inlaid in their galleries. Michael saw Samantha tracking her approach from over another man’s shoulder. She seemed alert, ready to intervene at the first sign of trouble.
    “This is my wife, Maddy,” Tony said. “And this,” he continued, laying a hand on Michael’s shoulder, “is Michael Turner. The guy who wrote BrotherHoods ?”
    “Oh,” she said, offering her hand. “Yes. What a wonderful book.” Her voice was as self-possessed as her beauty, slow and natural. “Weren’t they making a film of it?” she asked.
    As Tony and Maddy told him how much they’d enjoyed certain passages of BrotherHoods, and how Tony had once missed his subway stop while reading it, Michael became aware of the room’s interest contracting around their conversation. Tony’s voice was strong and confident, rising above the other talk. His attention to Michael began to draw the attention of others, too. In the focus of his and Maddy’s questions, and in the ripples it sent through the other guests, Michael felt a resonance once more of the success to which the lives of Nico and Raoul had led him.
    Samantha came to join them. Out of the corner of his eye Michael saw Josh turn to say something in her ear. She slipped an arm about his waist, giving him a squeeze as if to congratulate him on his discovery.
    “How did you first meet them?” Tony asked, giving a twitch of his chin in professional interest. “Was it a commission?”
    Josh had left them to get a couple of drinks. As he returned he handed Michael another glass of wine. Michael thanked him, took a sip, then began telling Tony about his trip up to Inwood Hill Park that day, about the cop on Dyckman and the story he’d told him about two brothers who’d left Arden Street glittering with smashed glass and car alarms. “I think it was the name of the street,” Michael said, when Tony pressed him on why he’d followed that particular story. “It seemed so incongruous. And yet suitable, I suppose.”

    “Why?” Maddy asked from her husband’s shoulder.
    “I don’t know. I’ve always associated Arden with the forest in As You Like It. A transgressive environment, a place to break the rules.” He laughed at himself. “A bit of a stretch, I know, but—”
    “Stories breed stories!” Tony said, turning to Maddy. “Isn’t that what I always say? Stories breed stories. Always have, always will.”
    Maddy closed her eyes and gave the slightest of nods to confirm her husband’s assertion. When she opened them again she was looking directly at Michael. He felt adolescent in her gaze.
    Soon Josh and Samantha were asking him questions too. They’d both lived in New York when they were younger. Josh had lived on the Upper West Side when he’d crossed the river from New Jersey, and Samantha had studied at Parsons downtown. Michael was surprised to learn she knew many of the streets he was talking about. How did he conduct his research? She wanted to know. Did the police ever accuse him of being implicated?
    Someone else—Janera, the young lawyer—cut in, explaining that journalists, and therefore writers, she guessed, had a right not to disclose their sources. Michael wasn’t convinced this would have applied to him and Nico and Raoul, but he stayed quiet as the conversation moved on. When Josh asked him what he