the Third Twin (1996)

It was true. Steve had gone through a religious phase at about age thirteen. He had visited several different churches, a synagogue, and a mosque, and earnestly questioned a series of bemused clergymen about their beliefs. It had mystified his parents, who were both unconcerned agnostics.

“But you were always a little bit different,” Ricky went on. “I never knew anyone who could score so high in tests without breaking a sweat.”

That was true, too. Steve had always been a quick study, effortlessly making top of the class, except when the other kids teased him and he made deliberate mistakes just to be less conspicuous.

But there was another reason why he was curious about his own psychology. Ricky did not know about it. Nobody at law school knew. Only his parents knew.

Steve had almost killed someone.

He was fifteen at the time, already tall but thin. He was captain of the basketball team. That year, Hillsfield High made it to the city championship semifinal. They played against a team of ruthless street fighters from a Washington slum school. One particular opponent, a boy called Tip Hendricks, fouled Steve all through the match. Tip was good, but he used all his skill to cheat. And every time he did it he would grin, as if to say “Got you again, sucker!” It drove Steve wild, but he had to keep his fury inside. All the same he played badly and the team lost, missing their chance at the trophy.

By the worst of bad luck, Steve ran into Tip in the parking lot, where the buses were waiting to take the teams back to their schools. Fatally, one of the drivers was changing a wheel and had a tool kit open on the ground.

Steve ignored Tip, but Tip flicked his cigarette butt at Steve, and it landed on his jacket.

That jacket meant a lot to Steve. He had saved up his earnings from working Saturdays at McDonald’s, and he had bought the damn thing the day before. It was a beautiful tan blouson made of soft leather the color of butter, and now it had a burn mark right on the chest, where you could not help but see it. It was ruined. So Steve hit him.

Tip fought back fiercely, kicking and butting, but Steve’s rage numbed him and he hardly felt the blows. Tip’s face was covered in blood by the time his eye fell on the busdriver’s tool kit and he picked up a tire iron. He hit Steve across the face with it twice. The blows really hurt, and Steve’s rage became blind. He got the iron away from Tip—and he could remember nothing, after that, until he was standing over Tip’s body, with the bloodstained iron bar in his hand, and someone else was saying, “Jesus Christ Almighty, I think he’s dead.”

Tip was not dead, though he did die two years later, killed by a Jamaican marijuana importer to whom he owed eighty-five dollars. But Steve had wanted to kill him, had tried to kill him. He had no real excuse: he had struck the first blow, and although Tip had been the one to pick up the tire iron, Steve had used it savagely.

Steve was sentenced to six months in prison, but the sentence was suspended. After the trial he went to a different school and passed all his exams as usual. Because he had been a juvenile at the time of the fight, his criminal record could not be disclosed to anyone, so it did not prevent his getting into law school. Mom and Dad now thought of it as a nightmare that was over. But Steve had doubts. He knew it was only good luck and the resilience of the human body that had saved him from a murder trial. Tip Hendricks was a human being, and Steve had almost killed him for a jacket. As he listened to Ricky’s untroubled breathing across the room, he lay awake on the couch and thought: What am I?

MONDAY

5

“DID YOU EVER MEET A MAN YOU WANTED TO MARRY?” Lisa said.

They were sitting at the table in Lisa’s apartment, drinking instant coffee. Everything about the place was pretty, like Lisa: flowered prints, china ornaments, and a teddy bear with a spotted bow tie.

Lisa was going to take the day off, but Jeannie was dressed for work in a navy skirt and white cotton blouse. It was an important day, and she was jumpy with tension. The first of her subjects was coming to the lab for tests. Would he fit in with her theory or flout it? By the end of the afternoon she would either feel vindicated or be painfully reappraising her ideas.

However, she did not want to leave until the last possible moment. Lisa was still very fragile. Jeannie figured the best thing she could do was sit and talk to her about men and sex the way they always did, help her get on the road back to normality. She would have liked to stay here all morning, but she could not. She was really sorry lisa would not be at the lab to help her today, but it was out of the question.