We Know

She closed the door behind us, and I locked it and threw the dead bolt. We went to the living room, and I sat cross-legged on the couch while she listened patiently. When I finished, there was a hum of silence, and then she said, "What do you need?"

I said, "Cartoons."

We found him in short order, white chest puffed out, carrot at the ready. " 'Of course, you know, dis means war."' Animated shenanigans flickered across my numb face. Cunning rabbits, French skunks, elastic mice, with their speech impediments and well-drawn plans. They were a comfort, not an amusement. They never made you consider the fragility of their hearts beating against your stomach.

How clear it all was in the land of Merrie Melodies. Pull-string cannons. Red TNT cylinders with sparkler fuses. Throw on a hat and an accent and you're a whole new rabbit. Or just put your head down and burrow until you wind up in a bullring or the South Pole or Ketchikan, Alaska. Only problem is, when you do that, you lose track of where you're going and wind up lost. Or worse, right where you started.

The credits rushed by in a syndicated flurry, and then Induma clicked a button on one of four remotes surfing the cushions and the channel blinked and we were back in the real world. In anticipation of Thursday's debate, C-SPAN was reairing the one from Harlem that I'd watched the night the Service kicked down me and my door.

Induma looked across at me, gauging my temperature, but I didn't mind watching. I wanted to see Bilton in all his banality-of-evil glory. I wanted to see Caruthers dismember him verbally and sweep the dais with his parts.

Jim Lehrer hunched over the moderator's podium, his doll eyes impartial and unblinking. "Senator, I have a two-part question for you. Early in your career, you were for the death penalty, and now you're opposed to it. My first question is this: If June Caruthers were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?"

"Ah," Caruthers said, "the old Dukakis chestnut."

"Please let me finish, Senator. And the second part is, why the change in your position?"

Caruthers's green eyes gleamed. "If my wife were raped and murdered, I'd want to hunt down her killer and gut him. But in civilized countries we don't let the victim's relatives choose the punishment. Imagine if we did. To answer your second question, before we even get to a discussion about the morality of the death penalty, we're hamstrung by the unavoidable fact that it is ineffective, biased, and incredibly expensive. This has become increasingly apparent to me. I have had some shifts in opinion over the course of my long career. And thank God for that. How many of you want a politician who refuses to learn on the job?" A wicked pause. "Well, I suppose forty-six percent of you."

A rumble of laughter, punctuated by a few hisses. The cutaway showed Bilton, the picture of mature restraint, jotting a note on the lectern.

Caruthers offered a collegial tilt of the head. "My opponent would like to exploit a reasonable evolution of thinking to paint me as wishy-washy. Or as a waffler. Or whatever deprecation has currency this go-round. But I hope that I will never hold consistency above conscience. And I will never claim not to have made mistakes. In fact, I just may have made enough mistakes in the past to avoid some in the future."

Bilton leaned toward the black bud of his slender microphone. "Senator, most of the time it seems like you've made too many to keep track of."

His constituency, bolstered by relief, applauded overenthusiastically.

Induma hit mute. "If smugness could be fitted for a suit…"

Bilton's lips moved as he continued his retort.

What did it take to order the killing of the mother of your child? His own flesh and blood, suffocated and dumped on a dirt lot?

I said, "I can't believe that bastard might win."

"This is about politics?" Induma asked.

"No," I said, "this isn't about politics at all."

I bolted awake, scrambled up in the sheets on the couch, 2:18 glowing from the darkness beneath the TV. I carried out of sleep the image of Frank's foot ticking back and forth, metering the drainage from the gut wound. As I tried to untangle my breathing, the bank of windows rocked into view, the stretch of lawn, the fence of the boxwood, and the murky canal. Induma's living room. I was in Induma's living room.

I rubbed my eyes, felt the pinch of sleep. The rucksack was at my feet. The top was loose, and I could see the red jewelry box inside. I reached in, pulled out those earrings with the sapphire chips. Held them up to the faint light and pictured them against Induma's skin.

I thought about Frank and his thousand small decisions.

The stairs creaked a little on my way up. I paused outside her door. Opened it gently.